Political Quotes

“Mr. President, on December 23, 2016, the world lost a true hero. Dr. Piers Sellers was a scientist and an astronaut, having flown three times on the space shuttle. On his first mission, he flew aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis to the International Space Station, where he completed nearly 20 hours of space walks outfitting and assembling the orbiting outpost. Several years later, following the tragic loss of the Space Shuttle Columbia, Piers returned to space and to the International Space Station aboard Discovery, carrying out the second of two test flights NASA needed to test critical on-orbit inspection and repair procedures resulting from the Columbia accident investigation. On his third and final mission, he once more flew aboard Atlantis to the ISS. On this mission, he served as the robotics officer, again playing a key role in assembling and outfitting the space station. His career as an astronaut exploring the frontier of space is by itself sufficient to justify Piers' status as a national hero; yet his service as an astronaut and explorer is a small subset of the contributions Piers made to our country and to our entire civilization. Piers was a renowned climate scientist, specializing in using computer modeling and space-based observations to understand and predict the dynamics of our changing planet.…”