The President received Bill Nelson, director of NASA, at the National Palace, along with the United States Ambassador to Mexico, Ken Salazar.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador asked Bill Nelson, director of the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), that the Mexican engineer Katya Echazarreta could return to the stratosphere.
Echazarreta, who became in 2022, at the age of 26, the first Mexican to travel to space, after the success of the NS-21 mission, on the New Shepard ship, of the aerospace company Blue Origin, owned by American magnate Jeff Bezos, and of which he was a part.
Currently, the astronaut promotes the Katya Echazarreta AC Space Foundation which, together with the Mexican Space Agency, seeks to bring her experience to more Mexicans interested in this sector.
“The heads of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Bill Nelson and Pamela Melroy, visited us [administradora adjunta], one of only two women to have commanded a space shuttle. We are trying, among other issues, to ensure that Katya Echazarreta, a young Mexican astronaut, can go to space again. There will be cooperation in fire control, water supply and use of nearby satellites for communication throughout the territory,” López Obrador wrote on social networks.
In addition, he attached a video of the meeting with the US officials and which shows the moment that Nelson gives the President a painting with the image of Mexico from space.
This painting also shows a photograph of the Mexican nanosatellite “AztechSat-1”, which was successfully launched from the International Space Station.
”Thank you very much, congratulations, it is something extraordinary, exceptional. Thank you very much,” said López Obrador.
“The visit of the @NASA administrator, @SenBillNelson, allows Mexico and the United States to dream big about our planet and the universe #NASAinMexico,” said Ken Salazar, Ambassador of Mexico to the United States.
“The visit to Mexico by the administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Bill Nelson, and the deputy administrator, Pamela Melroy, served to reaffirm our space and environmental cooperation. NASA is a space agency, but also an environmental agency that contributes to deepening our joint efforts to make water management more efficient, protect the planet and be prepared to face the consequences of climate change in a more resilient way. Thanks to NASA technology, it is possible to measure aquifers, prevent deforestation, or allow farmers to plan better in the face of climate change,” the US Embassy emphasized in a statement.
“Through meetings with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Chancellor Alicia Bárcena and members of the cabinet, we discussed space cooperation, which covers different topics, such as the Artemisa Agreements for space exploration and for the first woman in the humanity steps on the Moon, as well as points such as AzTechSat, a satellite launched in collaboration between NASA and the Mexican Space Agency to demonstrate communications between satellites that are already in space, to provide new data on this transmission strategy to developers of small satellites called CubeSats,” he explained.
“Among other aspects, cooperation points were addressed such as: Tools to measure pollution and air quality to make better decisions in the face of forest fires and greenhouse gas emissions. Through TEMPO, NASA monitors North American air quality for real-time parameters. To make better use of water, NASA selected two projects in collaboration with the International Boundary Water Commission. The first, focused on improving hydrological forecasting in the Río Grande basin and, the second, to use remote sensing to estimate the interaction between surface and groundwater,” he listed.
During their two-hour talk, the NASA director told President López Obrador that Mexico should have another astronaut to better supervise and solve problems on Earth.
”We think that they should have another Mexican astronaut, not only to go and return from this suborbit, but to enter the space station as well, to be able to see and experiment with more science and to be able to help us all to be better supervisors of what we have in mind. this planet Earth,” said Nelson.
The director of NASA explained to the President that NASA had an instrument in space that can see through the jungle and detect fires, so this tool was essential for the preservation of green areas.
On behalf of the Government of Mexico, President López Obrador was accompanied, in addition to the Chancellor, by the general director of the National Council of Humanities, Sciences and Technologies, María Elena Álvarez-Buylla Roces; the general director of the National Polytechnic Institute, Arturo Reyes Sandoval; and the general director of the Mexican Space Agency, Salvador Landeros Ayala.
While the NASA delegation was accompanied by the associate administrator of International and Interagency Relations, Karen Feldstein. The United States Ambassador to Mexico and the Science Affairs Officer of the US Embassy, Derek Mills, also attended.
