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The space industry is booming in Florida and NASA’s Chief administrator says it’s only going to grow in the coming years.

Former US Senator Bill Nelson talked moon landings, Mars and commercial space development at a meeting of the Florida Economics Club Friday afternoon.

Floridians in the North Eastern part of the state were startled Thursday night by a sonic boom produced as a Space X capsule returned to Earth.

Nelson told us it’s probably going to become a more common occurrence.

“All of those old abandoned launch pads from way back in the early space days, they’re all coming to life,” said Nelson.

Nelson said Florida’s space industry is booming as a whole, and it’s not slowing anytime soon.

“If you add it all up it’s about $4 billion a year of dollar impact in the State of Florida just from the space business,” said Nelson.

As recently as this week, plans were announced to build a new $300 million satellite manufacturing plant in Florida.

Nelson said to expect more where that came from.

“Because it’s economical for them to do the manufacturing of satellites, that they are then going to put up in space, right from the launch center,” said Nelson.

Nelson said in the not-so-distant future humans will be landing on the moon once a year and we’ll see a manned mission to Mars within the next 20-years.

“We are in a whole new era of space activity. We are going back to the moon. We’re going to learn on the moon what we need to know and within your lifetime we’re going to the planet Mars,” said Nelson.

Nelson said NASA plans to launch an unmanned mission to the moon early next year.

The agency has set a goal of sending the first woman and astronaut-of-color to the lunar surface by 2024.

One thing is certain, no matter what the future of space exploration holds, expect Florida to be at the center of it all.