MEXICO CITY (AP) — To iron out rough edges in a relationship as important as that between the United States and Mexico, full of thorny issues, there is nothing better than a little ‘space diplomacy’ seasoned with a lot of enthusiasm and promises of cooperation.
To do this, NASA administrator Bill Nelson and his deputy, Pamela Melroy – both former astronauts – arrived in Mexico City this week. They spent two hours talking with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador on Tuesday and took selfies with legislators. and they tried to serve as inspiration to an auditorium full of students and professors from several Mexican universities.
“It’s a human thing to want to explore and understand, so we go to space because it offers us a unique vantage point that allows us to look down and study the Earth as a planet,” Melroy said as he concluded his two-day visit to the country.
From that privileged place “not only do we not see borders, but we see North America as a whole”, a necessary perspective to address global problems such as climate change.
“Space is something that unites us,” he said. And he gave a recent example: the contemplation of the solar eclipse at the beginning of the month. “Millions of people, just a few weeks ago, from Mazatlán to Maine, looked at the sky together.”
Bill Nelson said that in the long audience with López Obrador, the president was especially interested in space communications technology such as the thousands of Starlink satellites that are bringing high-speed Internet to the most remote corners of the planet.
“The president’s dream is for people to have connectivity that much of the population in Mexico does not have,” said the head of NASA.
“There will be cooperation in fire control, water supply and use of nearby satellites for communication throughout the territory,” López Obrador confirmed on his social networks.
We were visited by the heads of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Bill Nelson and Pamela Melroy, one of the only two women who has commanded a space shuttle. We discuss, among other matters, that Katya Echazarreta, a young Mexican astronaut… pic.twitter.com/UKPrR6toOb
— Andrés Manuel (@lopezobrador_) April 24, 2024
The Americans agreed with Mexican officials to begin talks on the cooperative use of satellite data for the management and prevention of emergencies and disasters, the Mexican government said in a statement.
On Monday, during their meeting with university students, the Americans recalled that space research not only needs astronauts, but also doctors, sociologists, all kinds of scientists. The space program, Melroy emphasized, needs diversity above all because different groups of people think differently.
The NASA administrator took advantage of his meeting with the press to remember another proposal launched during the trip. “I suggested they should have a Mexican astronaut.”
The president already has a candidate. “We are trying, among other issues, for Katya Echazarreta, a young Mexican astronaut, to be able to go to space again,” López Obrador added in his X account.
The first Mexican to go to space was Rodolfo Neri in 1985 and NASA has a lot to thank him for, the deputy administrator told the students.
“Tortillas are the only type of bread you can eat in space,” he said.
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2024-04-26 08:01:08