Huntsville celebrated having America's best rocket engineer Wednesday by proclaiming July 27 Dr. William Emrich Day. That is the day Emrich, an engineer at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, will receive the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics 2015 Engineer of the Year award at a national meeting in Orlando.

Emrich was honored for his work in nuclear thermal rocket propulsion. He has built and runs a simulator at Marshall where engineers can perform non-nuclear tests on elements of potential nuclear rocket fuel. Experts including Emrich believe some type of high-thrust nuclear engine will be required to explore the vast distances of solar system.

Reach more about Emrich's honor here

"This is a day we get to celebrate somebody who's done something great for the world, the nation and for Huntsville," Mayor Tommy Battle said at the proclamation ceremony. The city thinks of itself as "a smart place," Battle said, and Emrich is an example of that.