Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Saturday said NASA's selection of next month for the first crewed mission in nearly a decade is critical, though he cautioned that crowds might be impacted due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

"I think that NASA's mission is absolutely essential to this county and to our state," DeSantis said of May 27, the date selected by NASA to fly American astronauts from American soil for the first time since the end of the space shuttle program in 2011. "The reports I've been getting were that even though this has been a real major shock to the economy, a lot on the Space Coast has been going very well."

If schedules hold, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch a Crew Dragon capsule with astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the International Space Station some 250 miles in low-Earth orbit. Historically, crewed launches have attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors to the Space Coast, offering an economic boon to countless businesses.

But the coronavirus pandemic and social distancing guidelines have complicated things.

"They can do it without people congregating," DeSantis said during the briefing in Tallahassee. "We'll see what we're looking like then."

As the state moves into slowly reopening, however, he cautioned that huge crowds aren't going to just be permitted overnight.

"As we get into the next phase, you're not going to go right into having huge crowds right away of course. So that may be impacted there," he said. "But I think by and large if you let people know what the expectations are, I think most people have been pretty respectful of that.

NASA's selection of May 27 to fly astronauts comes at a complicated time for the country, but also Brevard County. A spokesperson said not only is the county dealing with the pandemic, but also preparations for hurricane season – and now how to handle what could potentially be thousands of launch spectators.

Some local business owners and space policy experts, though, have said NASA's mission is to put people in orbit and en route to the $150 billion space station. If the pandemic continues for several more months or even a year, the agency will just have to work around it to make sure the outpost is crewed and operating properly.

Contact Emre Kelly at aekelly@floridatoday.com or 321-242-3715. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at @EmreKelly. Support his space journalism by subscribing at floridatoday.com/specialoffer/.