Bill Nelson was a fine congressman and an even better senator. He’s a decent man, and he lives right here in Orlando. We’re proud of him and what he’s done. But following President Biden’s nomination of his former Senate colleague to be the next NASA administrator, we have to conclude Nelson was not the best choice.

The agency needs an innovator in charge. Someone like Elon Musk. Like him or not, Musk has made space fun, exciting and accessible again. He’s landed rockets on seaborne, robotic landing pads with names like “Of Course I Still Love you.” To test a heavy launch rocket, Musk’s payload was his red Tesla roadster with a mannequin astronaut behind the wheel.

Sure, Musk is a showman, but he’s also finding new ways to save money and re-engage the public.

We are not advocating for Musk as NASA’s administrator. But we are wondering why President Biden went back to this traditional well of nominees when he had the opportunity to choose a person better suited to shaking up an agency that’s at times wasteful and plodding.

Just look at the Space Launch System, which Nelson pushed while in Congress as a way to return humans to the moon. It’s behind schedule and, according to an inspector general report last year, billions over budget.

Nelson is intimately familiar with how NASA works. Few members of Congress have been more closely involved with overseeing the agency, and he knows many of the players.

We also do not think it’s disqualifying that he’s been a politician, in the same way that we did not think it was disqualifying for the administrator who served under Donald Trump, former Oklahoma Rep. Jim Bridenstine. (“The head of NASA ought to be a space professional, not a politician,” Nelson said at the time, and later voted against Bridenstine’s nomination, along with every other Democrat in the Senate.)

Biden didn’t just miss the opportunity to nominate an innovator. He also passed on the chance to nominate a woman and break the six-decade-old glass ceiling for NASA administrators.

Still, there’s a distinction between arguing whether someone is the best choice for a job and whether they should be confirmed.

We want Nelson to prove us wrong. We hope he’ll shake up a sometimes languid agency and impose more financial discipline. We also hope he’ll stand up to members of Congress who view NASA primarily as an opportunity to serve up some political pork in their districts.

That could happen. But for now, we think that while Nelson wasn’t a bad pick, he certainly wasn’t the best one.

Editorials are the opinion of the Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board and are written by one of its members or a designee. The editorial board consists of Mike Lafferty, Jennifer A. Marcial Ocasio, Jay Reddick and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson.