Climate change dominates talk between AMLO and NASA

As part of their visit to Mexico, Bill Nelson, the administrator of NASA (United States Aeronautics and Space Administration), and Pam Melroy, deputy administrator, held a meeting with the media at the residence of the United States ambassador. At the round table, Nelson highlighted that he had a two-hour meeting with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who was enthusiastic about the issues they addressed, among which those on climate change dominated.

“We spoke with the President about things that can be done from space. For example, the second carbon sink in the world is in southern Mexico, next to the Guatemala border. One wants to maintain that forest that absorbs carbon dioxide, the problem is that people are going to disappear the forest. With instruments in space we can see that people are setting fire to the forest,” Nelson highlighted.

Melroy said that traveling and observing from space gives an advantageous perspective for studying the Earth and explained that:

“Water is a growing problem around the world. I had a meeting with the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Alicia Bárcena, last year and she talked to me about the importance of water on the border, so NASA proactively let the government know that we created two studies to study water on the border. We talked about other specific topics, I think preparing for (natural) disasters is something we all think we can work on more.”

Another point that, according to the US official, interested the President was the launch of the Starlink communication satellites, from SpaceX, Elon Musk’s aerospace company. He also mentioned that Blue Origin, Amazon owner Jeff Bezos’ company, is working to launch its new Internet satellites – called Project Kuiper -, as is an English company.

“It will allow 5G connection. (…) The President’s dream is for people to have connectivity. There are many populations in Mexico that do not have it and now that, thanks to space, is becoming a reality,” declared the NASA administrator.

Nelson pointed out that before meeting with López Obrador he spoke with María Elena Álvarez-Buylla, director of the National Council of Humanities, Sciences and Technologies (Conahcyt), about the medical research being carried out in space, particularly on cancer: “ I had a long conversation, we talked about medical research that is being done in space on cancer, stem cells, improvement of medications that can be used more efficiently against cancer, because they are injected,” he explained.

NASA representatives also met yesterday with senators and deputies, to whom they suggested “having a Mexican astronaut” and remembered Rodolfo Neri, who went to space 39 years ago.

On the academic front, they indicated that NASA hopes not only to continue collaborating with UNAM, but also to expand with other universities and research centers.