NASA Administrator Bill Nelson visits NSU

By Bryce Johnson •

Fred Lippman, chancellor of the Health Professions Division, has known Bill Nelson, the 14th administrator of NASA, since the 1970s. At the time, Nelson served in the Florida House of Representatives.

“I just want to let you know what an incredible servant to the United States of America this gentleman is,” Lippman said of Nelson. “What he has always dominated his thoughts on is to care for education and make sure that you all receive truth and knowledge.”

Nelson, who was one of Florida’s U.S. senator from 2001 to 2019, visited NSU on Oct. 19. As NASA celebrates its 65th anniversary this year, Nelson talked about what it’s doing in terms of space exploration, including the recent spacecraft launched on Oct. 13

PHOTO BY INDAYA BYER President George L. Hanbury II and Bill Nelson watch a video during the presentation.

from the Kennedy Space Center.

“This was a $10-billion spacecraft that is going almost as far as Jupiter and is going to encounter a metallic asteroid,” Nelson said.

Nelson also discussed an infrared telescope that was launched a million miles from Earth, which is able to see through the universe’s space dust and gas.

“We have captured the light from the formation of the first galaxy 13- and-a-half billion years ago,” Nelson said. “Now think about how big that is, how far that is. Light travels at 186,000 miles per second. That light has been traveling for 13-and-a-half billion years. That’s a long distance.”

Nelson shared that NASA plans to go back to the moon in hopes of learning how humans can eventually live and thrive there, with the goal being to live on Mars and beyond.

“The moon is only three or four days from Earth by space travel. Mars under conventional technology will take seven to nine months. We can’t stay alive that long under existing technology,” Nelson said. “What we are doing is going back to the moon in order to develop the processes, technology, equipment and the knowhow in order to be able to go way out in space.”

NSU President George L. Hanbury II was curious about what galactic relations would look like.

“We’re going to take our hatred and our racial prejudice and our political divide to the moon as bad as we’ve done here?” Hanbury asked. “Hopefully, if we haven’t learned how to live on Earth, maybe we will learn how to live on the moon.”

For students hoping to get involved with space one day, Nelson said that everyone is welcome at NASA, regardless of race, sex or background.

“NASA is a big team that needs a lot of expertise, and a lot of that expertise can be in so many different things,” Nelson said. “Your generation of astronauts and space team members are going to be star sailors sailing on a cosmic sea to far off cosmic shoulders. And that’s the excitement that your generation is going to have.”