Vice President Harris Swears in NASA Administrator Sen. Bill Nelson

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#1 Vice President Harris Swears in NASA Administrator Sen. Bill Nelson

Post by bernomatic »

May 03, 2021
RELEASE 21-055
Vice President Harris Swears in NASA Administrator Sen. Bill Nelson
Bill Nelson Swearing In, May 3, 2021<br />From left to right, Pam Melroy, current nominee for NASA deputy administrator, former NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, Bill Nelson Jr., son of Bill Nelson, Nan Ellen Nelson, daughter of Nelson, former Senator Bill Nelson, his wife, Grace Nelson, and Vice President Kamala Harris pose for a photo after Nelson was ceremonially sworn in as the 14th NASA administrator, Monday, May 3, 2021, at the Ceremonial Office in the Old Executive Office Building in Washington. A Moon rock collected by astronaut John Young during the Apollo 16 mission was also on display.<br />Credits: NASA/Aubrey Gemignani
Bill Nelson Swearing In, May 3, 2021
From left to right, Pam Melroy, current nominee for NASA deputy administrator, former NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, Bill Nelson Jr., son of Bill Nelson, Nan Ellen Nelson, daughter of Nelson, former Senator Bill Nelson, his wife, Grace Nelson, and Vice President Kamala Harris pose for a photo after Nelson was ceremonially sworn in as the 14th NASA administrator, Monday, May 3, 2021, at the Ceremonial Office in the Old Executive Office Building in Washington. A Moon rock collected by astronaut John Young during the Apollo 16 mission was also on display.
Credits: NASA/Aubrey Gemignani
21-055.jpg (174.9 KiB) Viewed 4938 times
Sen. Bill Nelson took office as the 14th administrator of NASA Monday, after he was given the oath of office by Vice President Kamala Harris during a ceremony at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington.

In his new role at NASA, Nelson will lead the nation’s space program as it carries out critical missions, including landing the first woman and first person of color on the Moon with the Artemis program, expanding climate change research, fostering innovation and enhancing the U.S. economy and STEM workforce.

“It’s an honor to be sworn in by Vice President Harris to serve as NASA administrator, and I look forward to a continued, strong relationship with her as chair of the National Space Council,” Nelson said after the ceremony. “I want to thank Steve Jurczyk for his leadership as Acting Administrator over the past few months, helping to carry out the Biden-Harris Administration’s priorities and ensure the success of NASA’s goals and missions. You’ve seen the incredible accomplishments at NASA over the past 100 or so days – the proof is in the pudding.”

As part of the swearing-in ceremony, Vice President Harris and Nelson were joined via video conference by Jim Bridenstine, who preceded Nelson as administrator, and in-person by Charles F. Bolden, who served as administrator from 2009 to 2017. Nelson’s family and Pam Melroy, nominee for NASA deputy administrator, were guests at the ceremony.

“I was glad to be joined today by my rock, my wife, Grace, my children, deputy administrator nominee Col. Pam Melroy, and former NASA Administrators Charlie Bolden and Jim Bridenstine, whose standing with me symbolizes the continuity of purpose and bipartisanship,” Nelson said. “It’s an incredible time for the aerospace sector, and I’m excited to lead NASA’s workforce into an exciting future!”

“Congratulations, Mr. Administrator, for all the work you’ve done and all you’ve dedicated to our country,” Vice President Harris said. “I couldn’t agree more that this has to be about our nation and what is best for our nation, unencumbered by partisan politics, but based on what we know is the right thing to do.”

The U.S. Senate confirmed Nelson to serve as the NASA administrator April 29.

Nelson has an extensive history of working with NASA and has been integral to the agency’s current successes. Prior to his nomination, was a member-at-large on NASA’s advisory council. From 2001 to 2019, Nelson represented Florida in the U.S. Senate, where he served as ranking member of the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation and led its Subcommittee on Science and Space.

Previously, Nelson represented Florida’s 9th and 11th districts in the U.S. House of Representatives. While chair of the House space subcommittee, Nelson flew aboard the space shuttle Columbia as a payload specialist on the STS-61C mission in 1986, where he conducted 12 medical experiments including the first American stress test in space and a cancer research experiment sponsored by university researchers. The mission also included Bolden, as pilot.

Read Nelson’s official biography at:

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-admin ... ll-nelson/

For information about NASA’s research, missions, and activities, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov

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#2 Re: Vice President Harris Swears in NASA Administrator Sen. Bill Nelson

Post by bernomatic »

The only thing really worthy of note in this notice, is that Nan, the lady holding the laptop in the middle in the picture, is wearing white fishnet stockings. :o ;)

You may have to go to the NASA.gov site and get the hi-def photo to be really able to tell.
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#3 Re: Vice President Harris Swears in NASA Administrator Sen. Bill Nelson

Post by bernomatic »

Boy, there is a lot to unpack here, not least of which is why does Kamala Harris always have that "damn, I really got away with it" smirk on her face?
-How did "Congressman Ballast" weasel his way further into NASA?
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#4 Re: Vice President Harris Swears in NASA Administrator Sen. Bill Nelson

Post by Joe Wooten »

bernomatic wrote: Thu, 06 May 21, 01:57 am Boy, there is a lot to unpack here, not least of which is why does Kamala Harris always have that "damn, I really got away with it" smirk on her face?
-How did "Congressman Ballast" weasel his way further into NASA?
Because that is the only expression she knows
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#5 Re: Vice President Harris Swears in NASA Administrator Sen. Bill Nelson

Post by luke strawwalker »

Great... more "Shuttle Mafia" crew still in charge... joy.

I read a story the other day about Blue Origin siccing the Senator they bought on NASA for the SpaceX "lunar lander" contract. Blue Origin had the shittiest design in the entire competition-- even Dynetics lander could "eventually" become reusable, if they figured out how to ship new fueled drop tanks to the Moon and attach them to the lander in orbit. Of course lunar Starship is fully reusable (though it'll have to fly back to Earth orbit to refuel, or send a tanker Starship to lunar orbit to refuel it). Blue Origin's hobgoblin of a plan is TOTALLY non-reusable, since it's dropping parts all the down and back up... hard to reuse crasher stages LOL:) Can't even "evolve" into reusability (which the original contract isn't for a reusable system anyway, but WHY fund development of a system that CANNOT by its very nature lead to something reusable in the future??)

Congress created the problem when they "approved" funding TWO competing commercial lunar landers once the competition determined who would get the contracts, and then of course they only funded it with $2 billion bucks, which would be just enough to waste BOTH teams time since there's no way they could develop the thing splitting that money between them. NASA needs the thing so they decided the best thing to do was simply drop to one contractor, and SpaceX had the best lander design, so that's what they went with. Blue Origin don't like that (got 'em a taste of that sweet gubmint money developing BE-4 engines for the Air Force and the want MORE) and since they don't have an orbital rocket capable of launching anything and getting gubmint launch contracts, they decide to make a stink about it. Evidently they got Dynetics on board with their protest and then contacted the Senator they own and now they're adding it all into amendments that NASA *CANNOT* not fund both, even if Congress's lack of funding will stall both projects. From what I read, NASA was planning on designing their own "backup" lander in case the commercial contractors fail to deliver, so basically they'd have to fund THREE separate lunar lander developments... how wasteful is that? Course in reality there'd never be enough funding for NASA to develop their own, and at the rate they work now it'd take them another 10-15 damn years before they'd have anything even in the testing phase anyway and by then it'd be an antiquated overpriced joke anyway. The Senators also just MANDATED NASA spend $5 billion and 5 years developing the in-space propulsion stage, which at this point they've basically decided they may not even need-- the interim upper propulsion stage can push Orion to the weird elliptical lunar orbit "kludge" they've designed the Orion lunar missions around, (just barely) and with no lander, or it having to propel itself to the cislunar space, let alone not *really* having the target for it yet (is it going to low lunar orbit, or the weird highly elliptical Orion lunar orbit, or to the Gateway whenever and ifever that gets built at lunar L2?) But Boeing is contracted for that stage, and well, we all know what a GREAT JOB they've been doing on Starliner CST-100 (LOL which is a complete joke in itself-- apparently nobody on their astronaut team wants to ride on it-- heard that two of them have quit or "stepped down" or whatever LOL:) That inspires confidence!) Uggh... what a clusterfvck... Same Congress *oops you said word #1, different day LOL:) Course all the amendments may be stripped out anyway and just because it's "law" if it's passed, doesn't mean they'll appropriate any funding for it anyway.

As it is, SLS/Orion is basically becoming a bad, overpriced joke. With NASA left with only one pad (39B) capable of launching SLS and their own intentional "slow roll" design of SLS/Orion launch capabilities (they designed the system for only one launch every 2-3 years), and citing their own DRM mission design for Mars requiring a minimum of 6 launches of SLS to assemble a Mars-bound spacecraft stack in orbit, that means it'll take a minimum of 12 years just to assemble a Mars-bound stack in LEO using SLS anyway-- so SLS is basically USELESS for a Mars rocket. It can barely shoot an Orion and interim propulsion stage and cobbled together European service module (made from bits off their old ISS resupply vehicle) and deliver it into a weird lopsided highly elliptical lunar orbit that loops around out there, but gets far enough away from the Moon that they can still get back to Earth despite their obvious lack of propulsive capability (which makes you wonder-- if anything goes wrong, will the be trapped in lunar orbit or miss Earth entirely-- Apollo had a ROBUST amount of propulsion for the lunar mission, which is why it could go directly to low lunar orbit, and then blast back out of it on course for Earth, and could even do a direct abort back to Earth (which was nearly done on Apollo 13, but they chose the free return trajectory instead because of damage to the service module from the explosion). Orion is just barely capable of doing ANYTHING at the Moon using a weird loop around the Moon to slow them down and then a burn to drop them into a highly elliptical orbit of the Moon that will loop back out FAR into space at apolune before dropping back down close to the Moon at perilune... it's crazy. BUT being just *barely* in lunar orbit, a short burn will put them back above the lunar escape velocity when it's time to go back to Earth. Just hope and pray that everything is done right because basically at that point they're out of gas... LOL:)

EVEN IF everything "works as advertised" "as it stands right now" the whole Artemis thing is a joke... SpaceX will launch a (by then completed and flying) Starship to loft a lunar starship into LEO, followed by a Starship tanker (IIRC) to refuel the lunar Starship in LEO. The tanker version will bellyflop back into the atmosphere to land for reuse, and the lunar Starship will do its TLI burn to send it unmanned to the Moon. Arriving in cislunar space, it will perform a deceleration burn to drop into the desired orbit (wherever the h3ll that ends up being) so that Orion can rendezvous with it when it arrives. Then it just sits and waits in standby. The SLS will lift off with the crew in Orion, dump their shuttle boosters onto the ocean floor in a million pieces followed shortly thereafter by the core stage and its four SSME's which burn up and fall into the ocean. It's interim propulsion stage pushes crew Orion out of LEO through TLI en route to cislunar space. They do their weird loop and a short burn to brake into their looping lunar orbit (or if Gateway is available, fly past the Moon to EML-2 and do a tiny braking burn and rendezvous with Gateway, but there won't be any Gateway at first so I'll assume everything is going to be done in highly elliptical lunar orbit (HELO), since Orion doesn't have enough fuel to get to low lunar orbit (LLO) and back out again). They'll rendezvous with Lunar Starship and link up (however??) and transfer the crew to lunar Starship and then burn LS's engines to drop down and land on the Moon. Do the surface mission (whatever that is supposed to be; haven't heard ANYTHING about the actual PLANS or PURPOSE for going to the Moon other than the whole "first woman" and "first non-white" thing, which is a hell of a reason for going to the Moon anyway.... Kinda hope the Chinese get their first just to steal their thunder since I doubt China will land a white guy on the Moon and with the almost obligatory two-man crew one is almost certain to be a woman... at least it'd put all that bullshit to rest once and for all!) SO, they do "whatever" on the Moon, lift off in lunar starship (LS) and burn back into the weird HELO to rendezvous with Orion, transfer back to Orion, and then at the proper time do another short burn to accelerate them just enough that their orbit rises out of the lunar gravity influence and crosses over into Earth's gravitational influence, at which point they start falling back to Earth instead of falling into orbit around the Moon. They ditch the European SM and reenter and splash down, hail the heroes huge parade for the woman and black non-white "whatever" yeah, joy, joy, hurrah and all that BS. LS does a short burn and follows the same basic trajectory back, at some point, and I'm assuming either propulsively brakes or does an aerobraking maneuver so it can achieve LEO, or maybe an elliptical Earth orbit, if the tanker Starship can achieve it and rendezvous with it... at any rate, then it can be refueled by the tanker and fly back to the Moon, ready to wash, rinse, repeat.

In the MEANTIME, lunar Starship is 100% dependent on STARSHIP being up and running to get it into space in the FIRST PLACE, and for STARSHIP TANKERS to bring up the fuel it needs to get to the Moon and have enough to brake into HELO and then brake down to land on the Moon, and ascend back to HELO (assuming at first it's NOT reused and just burns out into a solar disposal orbit for the first few missions, rather than returning to Earth for refueling and reuse, since this INITIAL commercial lunar lander contract is NOT for a 'reusable lander' system). If Starship is up and running, which is necessary to launch lunar Starship in the first place, then basically IT could perform the SAME JOB as SLS/Orion could for a TINY FRACTION of the cost, and be REUSABLE to boot! "But Starship can't reenter and land on Earth from lunar reentry velocities" which is true, but okay, you could STILL *LAUNCH* the Orion on a fully reusable Starship for a TINY FRACTION of what SLS launches will cost, and still have a fully reusable launch vehicle, versus the SLS which is TOTALLY EXPENDABLE and *THE* most expensive rocket ever conceived... SLS could then transfer the crew to HELO and the LS and do the lunar landing, then return from cislunar space at the higher lunar reentry speeds and using its tiled heat shield, reenter and parachute down into the ocean. With some careful engineering and mission design/thermal engineering, it may well be possible for a manned Starship to do a "skip entry" or multiple aerobraking passes through the exosphere to lose velocity down to speeds low enough to perform the "bellyflop" reentry planned for regular LEO Starships... Then you don't even need Orion for the mission AT ALL, let alone SLS. By the time that ANY of these "Artemis" manned missions are contemplating doing anything more than high looping orbit versions of the Apollo 8 mission, Starship will be up and flying, and by necessity if lunar starship is the lander...

Oh well... I don't expect Artemis to ever come off "as planned" anyway. It'll be like JWST, delayed for years and billions overbudget and basically "open ended" so who knows when or IF *ANY* of it will actually happen...

Later! OL J R :)
My MUNIFICENCE is BOUNDLESS, Mr. Bond...
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