NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine announced Friday in Alabama that the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville will manage the next human moon lander. but there will be ample work for Houston’s Johnson Space Flight Center where Texas lawmakers lobbied him to take over the lander this week.

“That landing system is going to be led out of the Marshall Space Flight Center right here in Huntsville, Alabama,” Bridenstine told a press conference in front of a giant liquid hydrogen fuel tank being stress-tested at Marshall. “This is not a decision that was made lightly. A lot of work has been done here in Huntsville over, well over, 10 years now regarding landing systems.”

As an example, he said Marshall designed a key landing system years ago to take the Resource Prospector probe to the lunar surface. “The Resource Prospector. Why is that important?" Bridenstine asked. “What is it going to be prospecting for? In 2008 and 2009 we discovered hundreds of millions of tons of water ice on the South Pole of the moon. Water ice represents air to breath, water to drink. It is in fact rocket fuel.”

Bridenstine also praised Dr. Lisa Watson-Morgan, the North Alabama native and NASA engineer tapped to lead the new lander program. He called her “one of NASA’s best engineers, right here, and she just happens to be a woman. What a great American story for NASA.”

Lisa Watson-Morgan, center left, program manager of NASA’s Human Landing System Program at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, shows NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine equipment used to test seismic sensors on a lunar lander platform on a simulated lunar surface at the center Aug. 16, 2019.

Bridenstine was accompanied by U.S. Reps. Mo Brooks and Robert Aderholt of Alabama and Scott DesJarlais of Tennessee. U.S. Rep. of Brian Babin of Texas was supposed to come, but dropped out after Texas lawmakers wrote Bridenstine asking him to put the program at Johnson.

“What’s important is that we have the funding to make this happen,” Aderholt said. He added that he is the ranking minority party member on the House committee that will fund it.

“It’s very important to southern middle Tennessee,” DesJarlais said, “and I’d say my colleagues across Tennessee in our delegation and our Senate are very supportive and will be in lock step with this program." He said 6,000 people travel from middle Tennessee every day to work on Redstone Arsenal for the Army and NASA. “Just know Tennessee’s got your back,” he said. “We’ll be there for you.”

“Why Marshall for the program lead?” Watson-Morgan herself asked in remarks. “We’ve partnered extensively with all the other NASA centers through the years, and we intend to keep doing that. That’s how we bring out the best.”

“I understand some of their concerns,” Bridenstine said of Johnson center. “It’s also important to note - and I think Rep. Brooks said it well - this is about 363 total jobs, 140 of which will be here in Huntsville, 87 would be out of the Johnson Space Center, which is why we invited them. We want them to be here to celebrate in this."

“NASA has a very different look today than it did in the 1960s,” Bridenstine said. “In the 1960s, if a center led a mission, that center led the mission. Today we have telecommunications and the ability to work remotely and networks where we can share data and information. ... This is going to require the very best minds from all across NASA and all across industry.”

“There’s going to be lots of opportunity for them in this program,” he said, noting that Johnson is leading development of the Gateway program that will build a base or small space station that orbits the moon for 15 years.

The landing system will consist of three parts: a transfer vehicle getting astronauts from their Orion capsule to the Gateway and a descent vehicle to put them on the moon, both managed by Marshall, and an ascent vehicle to get them off managed by Johnson.

Reaction to the decision was quick and positive from Alabama lawmakers and leaders.

“Once again, Alabama has found itself leading the charge in aerospace technology," said U.S. Rep. Bradley Byrne, a candidate for U.S. Senate from Mobile. 'With today’s news, Huntsville and their outstanding workforce will be at the forefront of taking man back to the moon!”

“Today, we are proud to hear Huntsville’s Marshall Space Flight Center has been selected as the project manager in the development of the lander for the Artemis lunar exploration program,” Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle said in a statement. “Thank you to NASA Administrator Bridenstine for the vote of confidence in Huntsville and North Alabama’s exceptional workforce.

Bridenstine’s visit to Alabama comes a day after he visited NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility near New Orleans to inspect progress on the Space Launch System rocket that will lift the moon mission off the ground. The Marshall center also manages the Michoud facility dubbed “America’s rocket factory.”

Bridenstine said Michoud is making progress toward completing the rocket by the end of this year. Next will come a so-called “Green Run Test,” where the rocket is set up on a stand at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi and its engines fired at full throttle. NASA wants that test to happen in 2020, but engineers say privately that “anything can happen” and cause delays when setting up such a complex and monitored test.