HUTCHINSON, Kan. — NASA Administrator Bill Nelson was in Hutchinson Friday to visit the Cosmosphere. The museum elicited a wow from him, but he's also seeing a lot of what's happening in space now as wow-worthy, too.
"Look what all is happening right in front of us," Nelson said. "The telescope, what it's teaching us. We're going to move an asteroid out of its trajectory. We're going back to the moon after 50 years. We are doing all kinds of science on the International Space Station. We've got major cancer research and pharmaceutical research that is going on, using 0G."
He's positive about the relationship that the two space programs of Russia and the U.S. can have, even as the conflict with Ukraine makes things more difficult on Earth.
"The civilian space program, in this case, the operation of the International Space Station that was done with Russia and the United States building it, and therefore necessary to operate it, continues in a very professional manner," Nelson said. "The astronauts and the cosmonauts are getting along."
The next big thing for NASA is the Artemis I test launch August 29.
"We're going to stress it, before we put humans on it," Nelson said. "We are going back to the moon and then that is just the beginning of going back to learn, to live, to work, to create the systems and the technology so that we can send humans to Mars."
The launch countdown for Artemis I will begin Saturday, Aug. 27, at 10:23 a.m.