Clayton Anderson, Nebraska’s only astronaut, spoke at the Pachyderm Luncheon on Monday, detailing his 30-year career at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, where he served as an engineer and later as an astronaut. He talked to the group about his selection as an astronaut in 1998, his five-month mission aboard the International Space Station in 2007, and his return to Earth aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery in November of that year.
Throughout his career, Anderson felt the hand of God on his shoulder the entire time. “Every launch I had was on exact time. We never were late. Every vehicle that visited me when I was in outer space was never late,” Anderson said. “There’s a power up there who put His hand on Clay’s shoulder back when he was a little six-year-old kid and said, ‘Son, you’re destined to become a United States astronaut, and I’m going to be with you the whole way,'”
Although Anderson was one of the few non-political speakers at the regular Republican luncheon, he shared a few thoughts on the Trump administration and its establishment of the Space Force.
“A lot of my colleagues were on the Democratic side and they have TDS [Trump Derangement Syndrome], so they would tell the press that it was a stupid idea was to create the Space Force,” Anderson said. “Then people would ask me, ‘Do you think it’s stupid?’ Well no, it’s not stupid, if you do it right … We have satellites 33,000 miles above the earth Earth to protect men and women in the military every single day. So we need to protect that.”
Anderson also discussed how funding for space exploration has declined since the moon landings, dropping from two cents per tax dollar to about half a penny. When asked about private enterprises like Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, he viewed their involvement in space travel positively.
“Commercial spaceflight is huge. Look at what Elon’s accomplished in such a short time,” Anderson said. “Blue Origin and others are pushing NASA down the road to do things that would take years to do.”
Regarding Elon Musk’s goal of colonizing Mars, Anderson emphasized the need to colonize the moon first. “We should go to the moon first before we try to go to Mars. The moon’s three days away, and we’ve been there before — with older technology. If something bad happens, we can bring [the astronauts] home, and we can work it out. … We have to figure out how to live on these other bodies until we go to Mars, because that’s a six to nine month trip.”
A native of Omaha, Anderson now lives in Ashland with his wife, Susan, where his uncle, Jim Anderson, serves as mayor. He has two children and one grandchild. Though retired from spaceflight, Anderson continues to share stories from his time beyond Earth’s atmosphere.
“I believe in God. I saw a lot of Godly work from outer space. I don’t believe any of it’s random. I believe there’s order to everything I saw. I will go to my grave unafraid to talk about it.”
