NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said that NASA aims to reach Mars in the 2030’s and that the space agency looks forward to working with Israel, whose “incredibly innovative people on the cutting edge of technology” can help NASA achieve this goal.

Addressing a packed auditorium at Bar-Ilan University, Bolden lectured on NASA’s Journey to Mars. The University will award an honorary doctorate to the NASA Administrator.

Mr. Bolden said that nearly 250 experiments take place during each six-month expedition on the International Space Station, and during his visit he will be talking to representatives of the Israel Space Agency about participating in those experiments. “We are excited about ongoing relations with the Israel Space Agency and what we can do together on the International Space Station,” he said.

Bolden praised the increasing number of nations who have joined the global exploration endeavor. At one time, he said, nobody spoke of the possibility of reaching Mars because it was too expensive and too risky. But in relation to the results that will be achieved, the cost of such an endeavor is actually cheap, and that it is always risky when we leave our planet, the Administrator said.

Bolden added that NASA is excited at the prospect of reaching Mars “because it puts us one step closer to finding out if we’re not alone, and Mars has shown signs of life at one time. We believe that life existed on Mars and was very similar to earth. At one time it had a magnetosphere, or a protective shell, like earth, but it has disappeared and we’re trying to discover why,” he said.

Further looking toward the future, Bolden said that the Jupiter Near-polar Orbiter (JUNO), a NASA New Frontiers mission launched in 2011 and currently enroute to the planet Jupiter will finally enter Jupiter’s orbit this July 4th. Later this year, the OSIRIS-Rex mission will travel to a near-Earth asteroid and bring a small sample back to Earth to study. In 2018 the James Webb Space Telescope will be launched. This telescope “will dwarf what we learned from the Hubble Space Telescope. Anything with heat will be detected by it,” said Bolden.

Remembering the late Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon, in the presence of his wife, Rona, who attended the lecture, Administrator Bolden recalled how Ramon searched for and found his village in Israel during his trip to space then gained a global perspective in which we are all citizens of Earth. He told the audience that they should be very proud of Ramon.

In introducing Mr. Bolden to the packed audience, University President Rabbi Prof. Daniel Hershkowitz shared that he first met the NASA Administrator was six years ago, while he served as head of the Israel Space Agency. “It is quite rare to meet someone with such a big personality. Charlie is one of the most sensitive and wonderful people I have ever met. In Yiddish, we’d call him a mensch,” said Prof. Hershkowitz. Hershkowitz added that Bolden began his 34-year career in the US Marine Corps as a pilot in the US Navy and later on became an astronaut who flew four times to space. “That’s four times more than I did,” Hershkowitz quipped. NASA, he continued, is the giant in space, and the space agency is privileged to have Bolden as its Administrator. Hershkowitz noted that Bolden will receive an honorary doctorate in the framework of the University’s 61st annual meetings of the Board of Trustees. “Charlie will receive an honorary doctorate tomorrow, but the honor is really ours,” concluded President Hershkowitz.

Administrator Bolden said he is “humbled by the thought of receiving an honorary doctorate from a fine institution” like Bar-Ilan University and was “blown away” by all the wonderful research being conducted at the University which he saw during a tour of the campus last October.

Prior to the lecture Director General Menachem Greenblum hosted a reception for Bolden in the presence of NASA and Bar-Ilan University officials, former Israel Space Agency Director Aby Har-Even, and Rona Ramon.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)