    [House Hearing, 115 Congress]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                        ADVANCES IN THE SEARCH FOR LIFE

    =======================================================================

                                     HEARING

                                   BEFORE THE

                  COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
                            HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                         ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS

                                 FIRST SESSION

                                   __________

                                 APRIL 26, 2017

                                   __________

                               Serial No. 115-11

                                   __________

     Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology

     [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

           Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov

                                  __________

                               U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
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                  COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY

                       HON. LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas, Chair
    FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma             EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
    DANA ROHRABACHER, California         ZOE LOFGREN, California
    MO BROOKS, Alabama                   DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois
    RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois             SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon
    BILL POSEY, Florida                  ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
    THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky              AMI BERA, California
    JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma            ELIZABETH H. ESTY, Connecticut
    RANDY K. WEBER, Texas                MARC A. VEASEY, Texas
    STEPHEN KNIGHT, California           DONALD S. BEYER, JR., Virginia
    BRIAN BABIN, Texas                   JACKY ROSEN, Nevada
    BARBARA COMSTOCK, Virginia           JERRY MCNERNEY, California
    GARY PALMER, Alabama                 ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado
    BARRY LOUDERMILK, Georgia            PAUL TONKO, New York
    RALPH LEE ABRAHAM, Louisiana         BILL FOSTER, Illinois
    DRAIN LaHOOD, Illinois               MARK TAKANO, California
    DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida              COLLEEN HANABUSA, Hawaii
    JIM BANKS, Indiana                   CHARLIE CRIST, Florida
    ANDY BIGGS, Arizona
    ROGER W. MARSHALL, Kansas
    NEAL P. DUNN, Florida
    CLAY HIGGINS, Louisiana
                                C O N T E N T S

                                 April 26, 2017

                                                                       Page
    Witness List.....................................................     2

    Hearing Charter..................................................     3

                               Opening Statements

    Statement by Representative Lamar S. Smith, Chairman, Committee
      on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of
      Representatives................................................     4
        Written Statement............................................     6

    Statement by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, Ranking
      Member, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House
      of Representatives.............................................     8
        Written Statement............................................    10

    Statement by Representative Brian Babin, Committee on Science,
      Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives...........    12
        Written Statement............................................    13

    Statement by Representative Ami Bera, Committee on Science,
      Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives...........    14
        Written Statement............................................    16

                                   Witnesses:

    Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen, Associate Administrator, Science Mission
      Directorate, National Aeronautics and Space Administration
      (NASA)
        Oral Statement...............................................    19
        Written Statement............................................    21

    Dr. Adam Burgasser, Professor of Physics, University of
      California, San Diego and UCSD Center for Astrophysics and
      Space Science; Fulbright Scholar
        Oral Statement...............................................    26
        Written Statement............................................    29

    Dr. James Kasting, Chair, Planning Committee, Workshop on the
      Search for Life Across Space and Time, National Academies of
      Science, Engineering, and Medicine, Evan Pugh Professor of
      Geosciences, Pennsylvania State University
        Oral Statement...............................................    43
        Written Statement............................................    45

    Dr. Seth Shostak, Senior Astronomer, SETI Institute
        Oral Statement...............................................    56
        Written Statement............................................    58

    Discussion.......................................................    64

                 Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions

    Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen, Associate Administrator, Science Mission
      Directorate, National Aeronautics and Space Administration
      (NASA).........................................................    82

    Dr. Adam Burgasser, Professor of Physics, University of
      California, San Diego and UCSD Center for Astrophysics and
      Space Science; Fulbright Scholar...............................    88

    Dr. James Kasting, Chair, Planning Committee, Workshop on the
      Search for Life Across Space and Time, National Academies of
      Science, Engineering, and Medicine, Evan Pugh Professor of
      Geosciences, Pennsylvania State University.....................    89

    Dr. Seth Shostak, Senior Astronomer, SETI Institute..............    92

                        ADVANCES IN THE SEARCH FOR LIFE

                                  ----------

                           WEDNESDAY, APRIL 26, 2017

                      House of Representatives,
                   Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
                                                       Washington, D.C.

        The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:08 a.m., in Room
    2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Lamar Smith
    [Chairman of the Committee] presiding.
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chairman Smith. The Committee on Science, Space, and
    Technology will come to order,
        Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare
    recesses of the Committee at any time.
        Welcome to today's hearing titled ``Advances in the Search
    for Life.''
        Before I recognize myself and the Ranking Member for an
    opening statement, let me explain that both Republican and
    Democratic caucuses are now meeting. For reasons you can
    imagine, those meetings are going long, and there is much
    discussion, which means that everybody here left their caucuses
    early, so I hope you will consider that to be a form of
    compliment. But we do expect more Members to come in in the
    future few minutes.
        I'll recognize myself for an opening statement.
        For centuries, humanity has wondered if life might exist
    elsewhere in the cosmos. Only in the last few decades have we
    been able to detect the existence of other worlds.
        Twenty-five years ago, we didn't know that planets existed
    beyond our solar system. Today, we have confirmed the existence
    of over 3,400 exoplanets that orbit other suns. And we continue
    to make new discoveries.
        Today we can observe planets that may harbor life. Earlier
    this month, scientists announced the first detection of an
    atmosphere around an Earth-like planet outside our solar
    system. This is a significant step towards being able to
    determine whether some form of life exists there.
        Last week, scientists announced the discovery of another
    Earth-like exoplanet in the habitable zone of a star 40 light-
    years away--close by in cosmic terms. It is a prime target for
    future investigation.
        Even within our own solar system, scientists have found
    intriguing possibilities of habitability. NASA recently
    announced the discovery of hydrogen gas in plumes shooting from
    the icy surface of Saturn's moon Enceladus.
        Organisms on Earth use hydrogen in a process to create
    nutrients. Perhaps simple organisms living near the moon's
    hydrothermal vents could use a similar process.
        Hopefully, NASA will find similar conditions when it sends
    a spacecraft to investigate Jupiter's moon Europa, where
    scientists have identified plume-like features.
        The United States pioneered the field of astrobiology and
    continues to lead the world in this type of research. Since its
    beginning, NASA has searched for life beyond Earth and has
    conducted numerous scientific investigations.
        Supported by NASA, the 2017 Astrobiology Science Conference
    is meeting this week in Mesa, Arizona. The theme of the
    conference is ``Diverse Life and its Detection on Different
    Worlds.''
        The NASA Transition Authorization Act of 2017, which
    President Trump signed into law last month, ensures continued
    American leadership in astrobiology and the search for life. It
    establishes ``the search for life's origin, evolution,
    distribution, and future in the universe'' as a fundamental
    objective for NASA. To accomplish this, the bill directs NASA
    and the National Academies to develop an exoplanet exploration
    strategy and an astrobiology strategy.
        The pursuit of evidence of life beyond our planet
    fascinates the American people. Programs like the James Webb
    Space Telescope and the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope,
    both of which the NASA Transition Authorization Act supports,
    will further advance our understanding of exoplanets and
    inspire the next generation of American explorers.
        We do not just look at places where life might be. We are
    laying the groundwork to go there. The National Academies
    highly recommended a mission to Europa. The Europa Clipper
    mission will greatly aid NASA's search for signs of life on
    Jupiter's moon.
        Private citizens, amateur astronomers, and non-government
    organizations also play an important role in our search for
    life. Private citizens and philanthropists fund organizations
    such as the SETI Institute, which searches for extraterrestrial
    intelligence. Citizen scientists conduct astronomical
    observations and analysis of vast astronomical data sets.
        Earlier this month, news came of a mechanic who used NASA
    data to help discover a new exoplanet system. This is a great
    example of citizen scientists at work. We should support more
    contributions from citizen scientists. It enhances public
    engagement and helps encourage the next generation of young
    students to pursue careers in astronomy, astrophysics and
    astrobiology.
        It is human nature to seek out the unknown and to discover
    more about the universe around us. Many Americans often gaze
    into the beauty of the night sky in awe. We rightfully wonder
    if there is life beyond our pale blue dot.
        I thank our witnesses and look forward to hearing their
    testimony on recent developments in the field of astrobiology
    and the search for life elsewhere in the universe.
        [The prepared statement of Chairman Smith follows:]
        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chairman Smith. That concludes my opening statement, and
    the Ranking Member, the gentlewoman from Texas, Eddie Bernie
    Johnson, is recognized for hers.
        Ms. Johnson. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and good
    morning, and we welcome our witnesses.
        Humanity's centuries-old quest to understand our place in
    the universe has gained significant ground in recent years.
    Geologists are uncovering evidence of the oldest life forms in
    Earth's geological record. The age of these fossils indicates
    that, as soon as conditions were right on Earth, life appeared.
    That discovery raises profound questions. Has the same thing
    occurred on other bodies within and beyond our solar system? Is
    the genesis of life a common occurrence throughout the
    universe?
        Planetary scientists continue to find new environments
    within our solar system with the potential to harbor life. A
    key requirement for life as we know it is water and the mantra
    for the search for life beyond Earth has been to ``follow the
    water.'' Recent discoveries indicate that our solar system has
    an abundance of it. NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
    discovered intermittent flows of liquid water on or just below
    the Martian surface. The Hubble Space Telescope has sent back
    images of what appear to be intermittent water plumes gushing
    from the surface of Jupiter's moon, Europa. And the NASA
    Cassini mission has revealed evidence of hydrothermal activity
    in the subsurface water ocean of Saturn's moon, Enceladus. With
    indications of water on several other solar system bodies
    including asteroids and dwarf planets, and moons of Jupiter and
    Saturn, it appears that at least one condition for habitability
    is relatively common throughout our solar system.
        How do recent discoveries of water and habitable
    environments in our own solar system inform the search for life
    on planets orbiting other stars? NASA's Kepler mission has more
    than doubled the number of known exoplanets, bringing
    astronomers closer to finding an elusive Earth twin. The
    upcoming launch of the James Webb Space Telescope and the
    Transiting Exoplanets Survey Telescope will provide more
    opportunities to study these systems and to uncover new ones.
        There appear to be many possible environments to search for
    life, both within our solar system and beyond. To narrow down
    the targets for research and exploration, scientists are
    working to understand fully how life originated here on Earth.
        The study of Earth's history, the early forms of life on
    Earth, and how the two evolved together is critical to this
    effort. And so, the search for life truly is an
    interdisciplinary endeavor that draws on expertise in core
    science disciplines like biology, geology, chemistry, physics,
    and astronomy. The strength of these core disciplines is
    central to making maximum progress in the search for life
    beyond Earth, and that's why we need to be committed to keeping
    America's research enterprise strong. We need to continue to
    invest as a Nation in research and development, not cut back.
        I feel fortunate to be serving on the Science Committee at
    a time when progress is being made so rapidly in the search for
    life beyond Earth, and I look forward to hearing about that
    progress from our witnesses.
        With that, I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Johnson follows:]
        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chairman Smith. Thank you, Ms. Johnson.
        And the Chairman of the Space Subcommittee, the gentleman
    from Texas, Mr. Babin, is recognized for his opening statement.
        Mr. Babin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Great to see everybody.
    Thanks for being here.
        The science of astronomy, astrophysics and astrobiology
    expands mankind's understanding of our universe. It seeks to
    answer fundamental questions as to the nature of our Universe,
    our place within it, and whether there is life beyond Earth.
        NASA has a long history of space-based astrophysics and
    astronomical science. Since the 1960s, NASA has operated space-
    based observatories. Among the most famous of these are the
    Hubble Space Telescope, which has produced some of the clearest
    images of the Universe to date.
        Looking to the future, the James Webb Space Telescope, or
    JWST, set to launch in 2018, will be the most powerful space-
    based observatory to date and will be used to search for
    planets outside our solar system that could harbor life.
        In my own district, at Johnson Space Center in Houston,
    NASA's historic Chamber A thermal vacuum testing chamber is
    being used for end-to-end optical testing of JWST in a
    simulated cryo-temperature and vacuum space environment. I'm
    proud to represent the hardworking men and women at Johnson
    Space Center contributing to JWST, our Nation's next great
    space-based observatory.
        Johnson Space Center is also home to NASA's Astromaterials
    and Curation Office. This office is responsible for the
    curation of extraterrestrial samples from NASA's past and
    future sample return--from future return missions. This is an
    exciting responsibility for Johnson Space Center and an
    important contribution in the search for life beyond Earth.
        We live in exciting times. The NASA Authorization Act of
    2017 provides strong direction for NASA to continue to search
    for life and advance the science of astronomy, astrophysics and
    astrobiology. It is quite possible that with continued efforts,
    humanity will finally answer the question and know definitely
    whether life exists on other worlds.
        I thank today's witnesses for joining us today and I look
    forward to hearing your testimony, and I yield back, Mr.
    Chairman.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Babin follows:]
        [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Babin.
        And the gentleman from California, Mr. Bera, the Ranking
    Member of the Space Subcommittee, is recognized for an opening
    statement.
        Mr. Bera. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
    holding this hearing on the Advances in the Search for Life.
    That is a timeless question, the question ``Are we alone?''
        Over the centuries, whether it's the child lying on the
    grass looking up at the vastness of our universe to the most
    advanced astrophysicist thinking about this question, and that
    is exactly what we ought to be doing as a species--asking those
    questions. We're curious by nature. We're explorers. And if you
    think about what we're discovering and what we have discovered
    in recent years from the deep oceans on the moons of Enceladus
    and Europa, to the surface of Mars, the rapidity of findings
    habitable planets, you know, vastly moves us forward to
    answering that question: ``Are we alone?''
        Now, what we may discover is not necessarily species that
    look like us but what we may discover are the building blocks
    of life, looking for water, looking for organic molecules,
    looking for bacteria.
        But when that happens, and inevitably that discover will
    likely happen in our lifetimes, the disruption that answers
    that question of are we alone is remarkable. I mean, if you
    think about 1997 with the Cassini space mission, we didn't know
    what we were going to discover, and yet, you know, we're seeing
    plumes of spewing material from Enceladus, let alone flying
    through those plumes and discovering what we may discover.
        So we live in this remarkable time. The Chairman of the
    Space Subcommittee talked about the advances and discoveries of
    Hubble and Hubble's sibling that will launch shortly, James
    Webb, what that's going to allow us to discover about who we
    are, where we are, and where we go from here. You know, again,
    this is a remarkable time.
        You know, the energy we saw this past weekend with
    thousands if not hundreds of thousands of folks marching around
    the country in support of science, around the world, in fact,
    these are discoveries that are not just unique to who we are as
    the United States but to who we are as humanity, and again, you
    know, I am encouraged by the Chairman and the President's
    budget of the support for NASA funding and the support for
    continuing to explore and look for that next discovery. You
    know, this is incredibly important. At the same time as we make
    those discoveries, it helps us better understand who we are as
    a planet on Earth, how we evolved and where we may go next.
        So as we move forward, as we start looking at NASA's 2018
    budget, you know, let's make sure we continue to find that
    exploration externally but we also understand NASA's multi-
    mission role here on Earth as well, that we continue to
    encourage, you know, the basic investments in basic science
    research in astrobiology and that search for life, and again,
    that we understand as we're going through the 2018 budget
    debate that we understand the impacts of cutting budgets and we
    continue to support NASA's multiple role.
        So, you know, I think this is a great time for this
    hearing. This is an exciting time in that search for an answer
    to the question ``Are we alone?''
        And with that, I yield back.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Bera follows:]
        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Mr. McNerney. Will the gentleman yield?
        Mr. Bera. Sure, I'll yield.
        Mr. McNerney. I just want to thank the Chairman for this
    hearing.
        This is an exciting hearing, but the only definitive answer
    possible is the affirmative. We can never answer definitively
    that there's no life outside of the Earth. So that's one of our
    challenges, but nothing has the ability to capture the
    imagination, the enthusiasm of people that the possibility of
    extraterrestrial life. So you all have the ability to really
    capture the American people's imagination and attention, and we
    need that now. We need people to be enthusiastic about science,
    so my hat's off to you, and I encourage you to do the best you
    can.
        With that, I yield back.
        Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Bera.
        Let me introduce our panelists, and let me just say ahead
    of time that our hearings are always this bipartisan. You're
    the happy recipients of not only great attendance but great
    interest as well.
        Our first witness today is Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen, Associate
    Administrator of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA. Dr.
    Zurbuchen previously served as a Professor of Space Science and
    Aerospace Engineering at the University of Michigan. He has
    worked on several NASA science missions including Ulysses, the
    MESSENGER spacecraft to Mercury, and the Advanced Composition
    Explorer. He earned both his master's of science degree and his
    Ph.D. in physics from the University of Bern in Switzerland.
        Our second witness today is Dr. Adam Burgasser, Professor
    of Physics at the University of California in San Diego. Dr.
    Burgasser was awarded a 2017-18 Fulbright Scholarship to
    conduct astrophysical research in works with University of
    California-San Diego Center for Astrophysics and Space Science.
    He contributed to the discovery of the TRAPPIST-1 system and
    currently conducts research in physics. He specifically
    investigates the lowest mass stars, coldest brown dwarves, and
    exoplanets. He earned his bachelor's of science in physics at
    the University of California-San Diego and his Ph.D. in physics
    from the California Institute of Technology.
        Our third witness today is Dr. James Kasting, Chair of the
    Planning Committee of the Workshop on the Search for Life
    Across Space and Time at the National Academies of Science,
    Engineering and Medicine. He also is an Evan Pugh Professor of
    Geosciences at Pennsylvania State University. He spent two
    years at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and seven
    years in the Space Science Division at the NASA Ames Research
    Center. Dr. Kasting also chaired NASA's Exoplanet Exploration
    Program Analysis Group from 2009 to 2011. He earned his
    undergraduate degree in chemistry and physics from Harvard
    University and his Ph.D. in atmospheric sciences from the
    University of Michigan.
        Our fourth witness today is Dr. Seth Shostak, Senior
    Astronomer at the SETI Institute. For ten years, Dr. Shostak
    chaired the International Academy of Astronautics SETI
    Permanent Committee. Dr. Shostak has written, edited, and
    contributed to a half-dozen books on the search for life. His
    most recent work, Confessions of an Alien Hunter, details the
    history and scientific methodology of SETI. Dr. Shostak gives
    approximately 60 presentations annually and is the regular host
    of the SETI Institute's weekly 1-hour science radio show, Big
    Picture Science. Dr. Shostak earned an undergraduate degree in
    physics from Princeton University and a doctorate in astronomy
    from the California Institute of Technology.
        We welcome you all, and Dr. Zurbuchen, if you will begin?

                   TESTIMONY OF DR. THOMAS ZURBUCHEN,

                        ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR,

                      SCIENCE MISSION DIRECTORATE,

                          NATIONAL AERONAUTICS

                    AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION (NASA)

        Dr. Zurbuchen. I'd be glad to. Mr. Chairman and Members of
    the Committee, this is an exciting time for exploration and
    discovery, and especially the search for life elsewhere, and
    I'd like to begin by expressing our gratitude for the
    Committee's long-term support of our efforts in this area. In
    particular, we are pleased by the Committee's inclusion of a
    provision in the recently passed Authorization Act that makes
    astrobiology and the search for life part of NASA's mission. We
    are not only committed but also enthusiastic about
    accomplishing the objectives that the Congress and the
    President have laid out for us. Furthermore, NASA is initiating
    work with the National Academies to develop science strategies
    for astrobiology and the study of exoplanets as requested.
        As part of our astrobiology effort, NASA supports research
    that leads to a better understanding of how life emerged and
    evolved on Earth, what conditions make any environment in our
    universe capable of harboring life, and what is the potential
    distribution of such worlds are with life beyond Earth. To
    fully engage in this pursuit, we need a convergence of many
    fields--biology, geology, astronomy, planetary sciences, Earth
    sciences, and many other disciplines. Together these
    researchers from these fields are exploring one of the greatest
    questions of our times. For example, just two weeks ago, NASA's
    Cassini Mission confirmed the presence of hydrogen from plumes
    of Saturn's moon Enceladus while our Hubble team announced the
    second observations of possible plumes on Jupiter's moon
    Europa. Both discoveries displayed a potential of life-enabling
    energy sources in oceans hidden away from our view beyond the
    icy crust and a confirmation which will be very significant for
    this science. That's because scientists believe the plumes are
    spewing from cracks of these moons icy shells with material
    that are indicative of hydrothermal activity in their ocean
    floors, and we know from Earth that those parts of our world
    are spaces with lots of life, and while we haven't found
    definitive signs of life elsewhere just yet, our search is
    making remarkable progress, and astrobiology is the focus of a
    growing number of NASA missions.
        Mars 2020, our next rover after Curiosity, will continue to
    advance this search by investigating a region of Mars where the
    ancient environment may have been favorable to microbial life.
    Science instruments on the rover will provide high-resolution
    imaging and spectroscopy in many ways for characterizing rocks
    and soil from a distance. The Mars 2020 mission will also
    search for signs of past life, and throughout its investigation
    will collect samples that we hopefully can return in the future
    back to Earth to the best labs we have.
        NASA is currently developing a Europa Clipper Mission,
    which will conduct a detailed reconnaissance of Europa and
    investigate whether the icy moon could harbor conditions
    suitable for life. The promise of Europa Clipper is increasing
    day to day. If the potential plumes are linked to the
    subsurface oceans, studying their composition would help
    scientists investigate the chemical makeup of Europa's
    potentially habitable environment while minimizing the need to
    drill through layers of ice.
        Beyond our solar system, a transformation of understanding
    is taking place regarding planets around other stars--
    exoplanets. I was in grad school when the first planet orbiting
    another star was announced. I still remember it vividly the
    day, the moment when I learned about this. It was so exciting,
    and that was just the beginning of an avalanche of discoveries.
    You mentioned we have close to three and a half thousand of
    such planets found and discovered elsewhere and billions more
    are waiting to be revealed in our galaxy alone.
        This February, NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope team
    announced the discovery of seven Earth-sized planets, the most
    ever found around a single star, TRAPPIST-1, and I'll leave up
    to you, Dr. Burgasser, to kind of fill in the details. It's
    really exciting, and discoveries are coming out by the day on
    this one.
        NASA's Spitzer, Hubble and Kepler space telescopes will
    continue to help astronomers plan for such follow-up studies
    using NASA's upcoming James Webb Telescope launching in 2018.
    With much greater sensitivity, Webb will be able to detect the
    chemical fingerprints of water, methane, organics, other
    important molecules that really are related, we believe, to
    life and the factor that help us assess whether these worlds
    have an ability to harbor life.
        With all this activity related to the search of life in so
    many different areas, we are on the verge of one of the most
    profound discoveries ever. Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Dr. Zurbuchen follows:]
        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chairman Smith. Thank you, Dr. Zurbuchen.
        And Dr. Burgasser.

                    TESTIMONY OF DR. ADAM BURGASSER,

                         PROFESSOR OF PHYSICS,

                       UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA,

                     SAN DIEGO AND UCSD CENTER FOR

                    ASTROPHYSICS AND SPACE SCIENCE;

                           FULBRIGHT SCHOLAR

        Dr. Burgasser. Thank you, Chairman Smith, Ranking Member
    Johnson, and esteemed Members of the Committee. It is an honor
    to share with you today recent discoveries and future
    opportunities in the search for potentially habitable worlds
    and life amongst the smallest stars.
        I speak today as a representative of the international team
    that discovered the seven-planet system around the star
    TRAPPIST-1, a system that harbors as many as three potentially
    habitable Earth-size worlds. This and other recent discoveries
    represent the beginning of an era of exoplanet exploration that
    in the next 5 to ten years will allow us to identify truly
    habitable worlds and possibly life beyond Earth. These
    transformative advances addressing one of humanity's most
    persistent questions--are we alone?--are fully achievable
    through a diverse portfolio of research programs led by U.S.
    scientists and supported by federal funding to NASA, NSF and
    other science agencies. Slide, please.
        [Slide.]
        Today I will focus my testimony on the opportunities
    afforded by the lowest mass stars. When we look up in a clear
    night sky, most of the stars we see are hot, massive and
    distant. This visual sample does not reflect our Milky Way
    galaxy's actual stellar population, which is dominated by cool,
    low-mass and dim stars barely perceptible, even with the
    largest telescopes. Next slide, please.
        [Slide.]
        These low-mass stars outnumber sun-like stars five to one
    and include some of our nearest stellar neighbors, many
    discovered just in the past five to ten years, thanks to
    deployment of advanced infrared detector technology and
    missions such as NASA's Wide field Infrared Survey Explorer.
        The search for potentially habitable worlds around these
    scars is a search for terrestrial planets with surfaces on
    which liquid water can persist. Such planets reside in the
    Goldilocks habitable zones around stars--not too hot, not too
    cold. For low-mass stars, this habitable zone can be up to 20
    times closer to the star than Earth is to the sun, which makes
    such planets easier to find and easier to study. Next slide,
    please.
        [Slide.]
        Thanks to public investment in technology, facilities and
    people, this search has borne fruits. In 2014, the NASA Kepler
    spacecraft team reported discovery of Kepler-185F, the first
    Earth-size world in the habitable zone of another star, work
    led by my former classmate and San Diego native, Dr. Lisa
    Quintana, now at NASA Goddard.
        Just last year, it was announced that the nearest star to
    our sun, Proxima Centauri, has a super-Earth planet orbiting
    its habitable zone. Next slide, please.
        [Slide.]
        The University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo's Planet
    Habitability Lab tabulates 12 very likely habitable worlds
    identified to date, all of which orbit stars less massive than
    the sun. Next slide, please.
        [Slide.]
        The discovery of the TRAPPIST-1 system is a capstone to
    this endeavor and an example of how partnerships between
    universities, government agencies, and international
    collaborators can produce truly transformative results.
    TRAPPIST stands for the Transiting Planets and Planeteslmals
    Small Telescope, a facility operated by the University of
    Liege, Belgium, and led my colleague, Dr. Michael Gillon. I
    should say TRAPPIST is also the name of a popular Belgian beer.
        This facility is relatively modest: a robotic telescope
    with a 2-foot-wide mirror optimized for the search of planets
    around the lowest mass stars. Even the stars are modest.
    TRAPPIST-1 is only eight percent the mass of the sun and is
    about the size of Jupiter, yet our international team, which
    includes scientists, students, and engineers from two dozen
    institutions and 11 countries on five continents including U.S.
    researchers in the states of California, Maryland,
    Massachusetts, Texas, and Washington were able to mobilize our
    shared resources to make this exciting discovery. Next slide,
    please.
        [Slide.]
        Key to our success was NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope,
    America's flagship infrared space facility, that monitored
    TRAPPIST-1 for 21 days, revealing this amazing light curve.
    Each dip you see is one or more of the planets passing between
    the star and us, dimming the starlight by less than one
    percent. We detected 92 transits associated with seven planets,
    all around the size of the Earth, with orbital periods between
    1-1/2 and 18.8 days. The planets in this compact system fit
    easily within the orbit of Mercury and are so close that they
    gravitationally tug each other, causing measurable variations
    in their transit times. Such a compact system would be cooked
    if it was in our solar system but around a cool star like
    TRAPPIST-1, three of the planets, E, F and G, orbit within the
    star's habitable zone.
        With three changes for a habitable world, the TRAPPIST-1
    system is one of the most promising to date in the search for
    life beyond the solar system, but all indications are that this
    is just the tip of the iceberg.
        Chairman Smith mentioned the discovery around--of a super
    Earth around the habitable zone of a nearby star by the NSF-
    funded MEarth project, and this will be joined by a space-based
    project TESS in the next year that we expect will discover
    hundreds of stars around other planets.
        Our generation is the first in human history to know that
    there are worlds beyond our solar system. Will the next
    generation know whether life exists on those worlds? We have
    the opportunity and responsibility to continue our Nation's
    legacy of exploration discovery so that our children and
    grandchildren can search for life in new ways.
        [The prepared statement of Dr. Burgasser follows:]
        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chairman Smith. Thank you, Dr. Burgasser.
        And Dr. Kasting.

                    TESTIMONY OF DR. JAMES KASTING,

                       CHAIR, PLANNING COMMITTEE,

                    WORKSHOP ON THE SEARCH FOR LIFE

                         ACROSS SPACE AND TIME,

                     NATIONAL ACADEMIES OF SCIENCE,

                       ENGINEERING, AND MEDICINE,

                  EVAN PUGH PROFESSOR OF GEOSCIENCES,

                     PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY

        Dr. Kasting. Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Johnson, and
    Members of the Committee, thank you for allowing me to testify
    at this hearing. I was selected for this spot because I chaired
    the Planning Committee for the recent National Academies'
    workshop on searching for life across space and time.
        In my written testimony, I've attempted to summarize key
    points made by various participants at that workshop. Here I
    will focus on two important new discoveries, one within our
    solar system and another outside of it. I should emphasize that
    I'm speaking on my own behalf as an active researcher and not
    on behalf of the National Academies.
        The new solar system measurement was made by NASA's Cassini
    spacecraft, which has been orbiting Saturn for the last 12
    years. Chairman Smith already mentioned this. One of the
    objects the Cassini has studied is Saturn's moon Enceladus,
    which is shown on the slide. Enceladus is of great interest to
    astrobiologists because, like Jupiter's moon Europa, it's
    thought to have a subsurface ocean. Part of the evidence for
    this ocean is a plume of material emanating from Enceladus'
    south pole. During its lifetime, Cassini has performed multiple
    passes through this plume, sampling the gases that make it up.
    Previous measurements had already determined that the plume
    consists mainly of water vapor with smaller amounts of carbon
    dioxide and methane.
        As many of you already know, NASA is about to bring the
    Cassini Mission to an end by plunging the spacecraft into
    Saturn sometime late this summer. With the end in sight, flight
    controllers have been taking more risks with the mission over
    the past two years. In 2015, Cassini made its deepest
    penetration yet through the plume, passing within 49 kilometers
    of the moon's surface. The mass spectrometer was also operated
    in a different mode that allowed it to measure molecular
    hydrogen. This in turn allowed researchers to estimate the
    amount of chemical energy available within Enceladus' ocean
    from the reaction between carbon dioxide and hydrogen to make
    methane. This reaction is used by methanogens here on Earth to
    power their metabolisms.
        The new results indicate there should be enough chemical
    energy available within the ocean to support methanogens. This
    of course does not mean that life is present on Enceladus,
    however, it suggests that the search for life there could be
    rewarding. Next slide, please.
        [Slide.]
        My second update concerns rocky planets that have been
    discovered orbiting within the habitable zones of nearby red
    dwarf stars, also known as M stars. Adam Burgasser just told
    you about the planets orbiting TRAPPIST-1 and about the other
    new exoplanet announced last week that orbits this M star LHS-
    1140.
        All of these planets were discovered from the ground by
    looking for transits in which the planet passes in front of its
    parent star. During transit, some of the starlight passes
    through the planet's atmosphere, allowing its composition to be
    studied spectroscopically. This has been done previously for
    giant planets using the existing Hubble and Spitzer space
    telescopes but it will be done much more accurately by NASA's
    upcoming James Webb Space Telescope, JWST, which launches late
    next year. The hope is to look for the presence of possible
    biosignature gases, especially molecular oxygen, O2, which is
    produced by photosynthetic plants and algae here on Earth.
        A third new exoplanet discovery announced late last summer,
    which you also have heard about already, is a rocky planet
    orbiting within the habitable zone of the nearest M star, in
    fact, the nearest star, Proxima Centauri. This planet was
    discovered from the ground by a team of European astronomers
    using the radial velocity method. This technique uses the
    Doppler effect to look for the back-and-forth motion of the
    star caused by planets orbiting around it. Because the Proxima
    Centauri planet probably does not transit, it is harder to
    study with JWST. The planet is close enough, however, that it
    can potentially be characterized from the ground using planned
    30- to 40-meter telescopes. By again using the Doppler effect,
    researchers can separate the absorption lines in the planet's
    atmosphere from lines formed within the Earth's atmosphere,
    allowing them to look for biomarker gases such as oxygen and
    ozone.
        Ultimately, astrobiologists would like to look for Earth-
    like planets orbiting more stars more like the sun. This will
    require large space-based direct imaging telescopes that have
    not yet been approved. The good news is that NASA is again
    studying them. Hopefully within the next 15 to 20 years, we'll
    be able to search for habitable planets and life around all the
    stars within the solar neighborhood.
        Thank you again for allowing me to testify at this hearing.
        [The prepared statement of Dr. Kasting follows:]
        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chairman Smith. Thank you, Dr. Kasting.
        And Dr. Shostak.

                     TESTIMONY OF DR. SETH SHOSTAK,

                   SENIOR ASTRONOMER, SETI INSTITUTE

        Dr. Shostak. Chairman Smith and Members of the Committee,
    thank you very much. I'm going to talk about the search for
    intelligent life, unlike what you're likely to find under the
    icy crusts of Enceladus. There may be life there. There are six
    other places in the solar system where you might find some
    biology but you'll need a microscope to see it, and it won't
    hold up its side of the conversation.
        Let me just say that in the 21st century, there are four
    things that I think are going to be very important that will be
    remembered a thousand years from now. One, we're finally
    understanding biology. That's going to lead to interesting
    questions like, you know, curing a lot of disease but also the
    issue of designer babies.
        Second, we're going to be moving into space, something that
    doesn't sound so attractive if you're going to go to the moon
    or Mars, not great places, but if you are talking about
    orbiting space colonies, great. Such colonies would serve as an
    inoculation against self-destruction of the human race here on
    Earth. If we wipe ourselves out, not to worry; there's still
    some humans in space.
        The third thing we're doing, and this is probably the most
    important, is inventing our successors: generalized artificial
    intelligence. The head of the AI operation at Stanford told me
    a couple years ago--I asked him will we have a machine that can
    write the great American novel by 2050. He looked up at me and
    said yes, then went back to sleep. Okay.
        The fourth thing that we're going to do is find life in
    space, and that's philosophically important. It might be
    important in other ways too, but at least philosophically.
        So how are we looking for life? You've heard the
    presentations here. There's a three-way horse race. One, we
    just go there and look. That's simple exploration. We go to
    places like Enceladus with spacecraft, grab some of the stuff
    being shot into space, bring it back, look at it under a
    microscope. Go to Mars, look around at Mars. That's where all
    the big money is. That's where NASA spends its money and the
    other space agencies around the world.
        The second thing to do is build space-based telescopes that
    can sniff the atmospheres of planets around other stars. Dr.
    Kasting has already alluded to that. Again, that's hundreds of
    millions of dollars. It's something we can do in the next 10
    years.
        And the third thing we can do is what's called SETI where
    we try and eavesdrop on signals being broadcast by other
    societies that at least have technology that would allow them
    to do that. There is essentially no federal money for that.
        All right. Let me talk a little bit about SETI. How do we
    go about that? What's different in the last five years.
    Certainly, the types of objects that we're pointing our
    antennas at has changed. In the old days, we would look at
    stars sort of like the sun because we know that stars like the
    sun at least have a planet where we have intelligent life, and
    I leave it to you to determine what's intelligence. In our
    field of work, if you can build a radio transmitter, you're
    intelligent. You can ask the guy next to you whether he can do
    that.
        The second thing that we are doing is improving the
    equipment. So let me just give you an idea. The TRAPPIST-1
    system has been mentioned here a couple of times. If you were
    in the TRAPPIST-1 system on one of those planets and you looked
    up in the sky, you would see, some of those other seven
    planets, and they would be big. They would be balls in the sky.
    You go out tonight, look to the east and you'll see Jupiter but
    it's just a point of light. Not true in TRAPPIST-1. You
    actually see them. Whereas it takes seven months to send a
    rocket to Mars, you could go from one TRAPPIST-1 world to the
    next during the course of a weekend.
        What all this means is that there are, to begin with, more
    planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system that could cook up life. That
    means more chances to win the lottery by cooking up life, and
    as soon as you've done that, that life will spread to the other
    worlds and it will spread because meteors will slam into one
    planet with life and carry bacteria or whatever to the next
    world in just a very short period of time. So it will infect
    all these worlds. If there's any intelligent life in the
    TRAPPIST-1 system, that will have colonized essentially all
    these worlds too. So this could be a mini-federation of
    planets, if you will. This is not just another world with life;
    this is an ecosystem if there's any life.
        We are using our Allen Telescope Array to look at the
    TRAPPIST-1 system, and we're using a situation in which we wait
    for the planets to line up and see if there's any difference in
    the amount of radio radiation coming our way because at that
    point you're looking down the communication pipeline between
    these planets.
        Finally, let me just say something about the technology.
    This experiment will only succeed if we can look at about a
    million or so star systems. That would take thousands of years
    with the current technology. Thanks to improvements mostly in
    computers, the search is speeding up by orders of magnitude.
    Over the next 20 years, we will be able to look at about a
    million other star systems, and I'd bet everyone a cup of
    coffee that we'll find something. I may have to buy a lot of
    coffee.
        Let me just conclude by saying the funding for all this is
    very limited. It's all private funding. There is no government
    money for doing this. Even though finding intelligent life
    would have the greatest impact on humanity, there's no federal
    funding, and as a consequence, the total number of people that
    work on this problem in the entire world is far fewer than the
    number of people sitting in the back row in this room.
        Thank you very much.
        [The prepared statement of Dr. Shostak follows:]
        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chairman Smith. Thank you, Dr. Shostak. Thank you all for
    your fascinating testimony, and I'll recognize myself for
    questions.
        And Dr. Shostak, let me address first a comment and then a
    question to you. The comment is this. I want to, I think for
    the first time publicly, thank you for exposing me about 2
    decades ago to SETI's methods of looking for the search for
    extraterrestrial intelligence when we spent what seemed like a
    long night at Arecibo, but that was my first real exposure, and
    it sort of set me on the track to be continually interested in
    the subject, so thank you for that.
        A couple of questions. One is, just to read from part of
    your written testimony. ``if we conjecture that there are 100
    thousand signaling societies in our galaxy, then we will have
    to scrutinize roughly one million star systems before detecting
    a transmission. This is approximately ten times the total
    sample of all SETI experiments undertaken since 1960.'' So
    we're just beginning the process. We have a long ways to go.
        You mentioned all the different ways we might search for
    extraterrestrial intelligence. What do you think is the best
    current method being used, is it radio, is it laser? What might
    it be? And what do you recommend?
        Dr. Shostak. Well, it's obviously hard to forecast what to
    do to succeed. It would be like asking Captain Jim Cook, two
    weeks out of England, what part of the Pacific is best to
    search for new islands. Obviously we don't know. But the radio
    searches are following a trajectory in terms of improvement.
    That's very easy to predict because it follows Moore's law. It
    just follows computer technology. And so we know that over the
    course of the next two decades, radio SETI will get at least
    100 times faster and maybe more.
        So I have a dog in this fight. I seem to think that that is
    a good way, but I have to say, we're also developing schemes
    for looking for flashing laser lights in the sky. If a laser--
    if some society out there is aiming a laser beam at us a
    thousandth of a second long once every two weeks. nobody on
    Earth would ever know. We wouldn't know that. And it's worth
    looking for that because indeed, except for the transmissions
    we've been broadcasting into space since the second World War,
    there's no way that the aliens could know we're here. If
    they're more than 70 light-years away, they don't know that
    Homo sapiens exist. So maybe they just ping us intermittently
    to see if anybody's home.
        Chairman Smith. Thank you, Dr. Shostak.
        Dr. Zurbuchen, let me ask you the next question, which is,
    the Authorization Act that we just signed into law last month
    directs NASA to search for life in the universe, any form, any
    kind. How will NASA implement the directive in the NASA
    Authorization bill?
        Dr. Zurbuchen. Thanks so much for the question. First of
    all, there's a number--you should know that with me at the
    leadership of the Science Mission Directorate, this is one of
    the top three priorities that we're focused on, so it's a high-
    level priority that we used to integrate research across
    disciplines. So the way we'll look at it is an
    interdisciplinary fashion, first of all. The second one is to
    recognize that we already have a series of missions that are in
    development. We've talked about them here. Trying to really
    deploy them in a strategic fashion.
        We're looking of course at the Academy's input and
    prioritization to help us with that because we think the
    Academy is exactly the right, like you directed, exactly the
    right voice for us to really exploit these assets the right
    way. Also, as we go forward and look at decadal guidance from
    other disciplines as they come forward, we expect that we'll
    also develop perhaps new technologies, new assets that will
    help in that search.
        Chairman Smith. Okay. Thank you.
        Dr. Burgasser, you mentioned that the most common type of
    star in our galaxy are the red dwarves, which you study, and
    those are fascinating slides you put up. What is the likelihood
    that we will find life near a red dwarf star?
        Dr. Burgasser. That is a very challenging question. I can
    only address that these red dwarf stars have a lot going for
    them in terms of being able to search for life on planets
    around them. They are the most numerous. They're also the
    nearest stars to our sun. It turns out that there are more
    terrestrial planets per Mdwarf than sun-like star. There're
    about terrestrial planets on average for all these low-mass
    stars. And the ability to measure their atmospheres is enhanced
    by their small sizes, the stars' small sizes.
        Now, there are things that are not going for small stars.
    These planets are very close to their stars so they are tidally
    locked, and we are still trying to understand what effect that
    could have on the climates of these planets, and they're also
    exposed to higher magnetic storms, the kind of magnetic storms
    we get from the sun but actually much more powerful because
    they are closer to their stars, and that may or may not have
    positive or negative implications for development of life on
    these planets.
        So these are active questions because we've only just
    started finding these planets. We are really approaching this
    from both theoretical and observational perspectives to
    understand what we might expect to find, but of course, the
    best thing to do is actually find this evidence and then we can
    provide an answer.
        Chairman Smith. And go from there.
        Dr. Burgasser. Yeah.
        Chairman Smith. Thank you.
        Let me squeeze in a last question maybe directed to Dr.
    Zurbuchen and also Dr. Shostak. Should NASA consider--and I
    think there's appropriate language in that authorization bill--
    should NASA consider contracting out with organizations that
    might be searching for extraterrestrial intelligence?
        Dr. Shostak. I think my answer's a foregone conclusion.
        Chairman Smith. Yes.
        Dr. Shostak. Yes. No, I think so, and for several reasons.
    One, of course it would be more interesting to find it, I
    think, than--with all deference to the astrobiologists here, I
    think it would be very interesting, particularly to the public.
    The public's very interested in life but mostly in the
    intelligent variety. I make that statement without numbers here
    but I think that's true. And the other thing is, it would be
    philosophically very consequential. There are other possible
    sequelae. You could indeed maybe understand something they're
    saying in which case you're in touch with a society far more
    advanced than ours. I don't know what the consequences of that
    might be. I don't even think that it's very likely we would
    understand anything. But simply to know you're not the only kid
    on the block I think is--that's exploration that I think is
    worth doing.
        Chairman Smith. Thank you, Dr. Shostak.
        The gentlewoman from Texas, the Ranking Member, Ms.
    Johnson, is recognized for her questions.
        Ms. Johnson. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
        I guess I will point this question to each of the panel
    members. How important do you think the sustained federal
    support for research of core science disciplines such as
    biology, geology, chemistry, physics and astronomy to the
    success of interdisciplinary fields of astrobiology, and to
    what extent would the budget cuts have on the impact of this
    research that's in progress now for search for life? What are
    the challenges to us?
        Dr. Zurbuchen. Let me answer the first part of your
    question of just how important it is, and I really do believe
    that to answer this question, is there life out there, is
    really a complex--it's not a yes-no kind of answer. The way to
    think about that is not that it's--it's really opening up a new
    areas of research with entirely new research questions that
    we've never seen. The way we do answer these questions, each
    one of those questions, whether it's hydrogen and the plumes of
    Enceladus relates to fundamental science that is underlying
    that, so how important is it to have this fundamental science
    is essential. It's the tools we use in every one of those
    questions to actually unlock the unknown.
        Dr. Burgasser. And so I will echo your comment that this is
    a fundamentally interdisciplinary nature. I'm actually teaching
    a writing course. Let me give out a shout-out to my students
    who have to watch this next week. And we bring together areas
    across the science disciplines but also beyond the science
    disciplines. Congressman Bera mentioned that this is a
    disruptive question that we're asking, are we alone, and so it
    doesn't just touch on science but it also touches on
    philosophy, legal issues, all kinds of issues. So at its core,
    we really need to have a very broad-based knowledge sort of
    system to understand both the question and also when we answer
    that question, what does it mean for humanity.
        Dr. Kasting. If I could just add that of course you need
    the support of the basic sciences at the basic level but we're
    also seeing the need for more coordination between planetary
    science and astronomy because those used to be--they are two
    separate divisions within NASA but with exoplanets, we share a
    common goal of understanding those planets, and so, you know,
    I've been happy to see that the two divisions in NASA have
    talking to each other, and I think that's very important in
    making progress in the future.
        Dr. Shostak. Well, I support what has been said here.
    Clearly, it is interdisciplinary, and it's also exciting
    science. It's also comprehensible science to Mr. and Mrs. Front
    Porch, if you will. If you ask your neighbor, hey, what do you
    think about the Europeans spending billions of dollars to find
    the Higgs Boson? Well, that's fundamentally important, but I
    doubt that they understand what it's about nor do they probably
    want to spend that kind of money. I don't know. But this is
    exploration when you talk about astrobiology. It's something
    everybody understands right away. It's also exciting science,
    and not to do it, I mean, it would be like if you're a European
    country in 1500 and somebody says do you think it's worth
    investing in some ships and some crews and send them around the
    world and see if we can map the globe? Obviously it was
    worthwhile.
        Ms. Johnson. Thanks to all of you.
        Of course, research to me is the door to the future. My
    concern is that each year we go through whether we're going to
    cut back on NASA research, and I wonder whether this will have
    an impact to focus more strongly on this. I don't want an
    either-or. But it seems that to do another is to neglect the
    other. How do you think we can continue forth with both bodies
    of research, and what is the importance?
        Dr. Burgasser. I'll take a stab at that. You know, I think
    we have to listen to our citizenry and understand that these
    are questions that excite, inspire and drive interest not just
    in astronomy but across STEM fields and keeps us competitive at
    the world stage, and so an investment in NASA is going to have
    incredible returns down the road across all fields of
    technology, of biomedical science, of new materials, and you
    know, I leave it up to your esteemed colleagues to decide where
    these budgets land.
        Ms. Johnson. It's dangerous.
        Dr. Burgasser. But it is certainly critically important to
    realize that this is investment in our future on many levels.
        Ms. Johnson. Thank you very much. We've learned so much,
    and I want to see it keep going, but I am concerned. Thank you.
        Chairman Smith. Thank you, Ms. Johnson.
        And the gentleman from Louisiana, Mr. Higgins, is
    recognized for questions.
        Mr. Higgins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Dr. Shostak, it's been stated for decades that some species
    of cetaceans--whales and dolphins--are recognized for their
    intelligence. Would you agree with that general assessment?
        Dr. Shostak. Yes, clearly they have a higher
    encephalization quotient. That's a lot of Greek, but what it
    means is their brain volume relative to their body volume is
    higher than any other critters on this planet other than our
    simian friends and ourselves. So by that measure, they are
    clever. They also can recognize themselves in a mirror. They
    know that when they look in a mirror, they're seeing
    themselves, something your dog can't do.
        Mr. Higgins. Is it generally accepted that these creatures
    have a means by which to communicate with each other?
        Dr. Shostak. There are people that think that. I'm not one
    of them. I knew John Lilly a little bit, and Gerrit Verschuur
    is another guy who thinks that the cetaceans can communicate by
    ESP. I think that there's a great experiment being run that
    disproves the notion of ESP. It's called Las Vegas.
        Mr. Higgins. I would agree with you there.
        But they do vocalize, do they not?
        Dr. Shostak. They do, and in fact, a sort of a statistical
    analysis of the sounds they make shows or at least seems to
    indicate that it's a language. It's not just barking, if you
    will. So yes, they are clever, they are quite clever, but you
    will note that their level of technology leaves something to be
    desired. That may be partly a consequence of living underwater
    where it's hard to smelt metals and so forth and so on. But I
    don't think that the cetaceans are comparable to humans.
        Mr. Higgins. I bring this up because a research scientist
    by the name of Lawrence Doyle at the SETI Institute has studied
    information theory and patterns in animal communication as a
    means of understanding how to detect signals from the noise we
    hear from space, and I'd like your comment on that. Within your
    comment is my own personal consideration that should
    intelligent life ever be discovered, whether or not that's, you
    know, a realistic perspective is subject to debate, I'm sure,
    but should intelligent life in the cosmos ever be discovered,
    if for decades we've been unable to communicate with dolphins
    and whales, how should we ever expect to communicate with
    intelligent life if it would be discovered across the cosmos,
    and how does that relate to Lawrence Doyle's research?
        Dr. Shostak. Well, I certainly agree that the fact that we
    can't communicate with any other species on this planet may
    indeed incline you to think that we would never be able to find
    it elsewhere. I think what it might show is that we might not
    understand anything being sent but, you know, the way we do
    this experiment is not by listening for patterns in any
    signals, messages, such as, ''here's the value of pi,'' or
    ''here's the Fibonacci series'' (if you're a Dan Brown fan).
    None of that. We are simply looking at the nature of the
    signal, the kind of signal that transmitters make without
    regard to the message. The message would be much, much harder
    to find in any case, the bits such things as what language they
    use if they use any language, how they've encoded their
    information, the things that separate whale communication, for
    example, from human communication, all that is sort of, if you
    will, literally below the radar. So what we are doing is just
    trying to and find the technology they use. This signal is due
    to a transmitter. What they're saying is not something we'll
    know right away, and maybe never.
        Mr. Higgins. And that would describe Lawrence Doyle's work?
        Dr. Shostak. He's interested in finding out if you have a
    big brain, do you start using language. At what point do you
    start using language? I have to say that he has found
    statistical indications that the dolphins are using language,
    also in many other species he claims, even in ants. I have to
    say I've never been impressed by ants' intelligence, but on the
    other hand, maybe they're not impressed by mine.
        Mr. Higgins. I think that's an excellent time to yield
    back, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Higgins.
        And the gentleman from California, Mr. Bera, is recognized.
        Mr. Bera. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is a great hearing,
    right? I mean, it is a seminal question, particularly again if
    we want to stimulate our next generation to really, you know,
    get interested in science. I mean, it's very easily
    understandable. You suggest that it's not Higgs Boson, it's
    ``are we alone?'', that search for life which any student can
    grasp and any individual can grasp, and it opens up philosophy,
    it opens up, you know, humanity, et cetera.
        You know, Dr. Shostak, you talked about three different
    methods: direct exploration, space-based telescopes or looking
    for signals. I don't think it's either-or, right? These are all
    complementary modalities that work off of each other and feed
    into the body of knowledge. Given the vastness of space--and my
    question would be, you know, we don't have the funding to do
    everything and look at every piece of information that's coming
    in so some of--you know, with the internet and the
    interconnectedness of the world now is that citizen scientist,
    those citizen astronomers. What are some thoughts and ideas of
    how NASA and other agencies including SETI can use that, you
    know, that mass of humanity in a strategic way to get folks to
    look for those signals or look at the vastness of space but
    then also to encourage our young people, you know, so
    classrooms of students might actually be part of this search
    for life.
        We'll start with----
        Dr. Zurbuchen. So I agree with your notion entirely and
    also that there are opportunities and that we can do that. You
    know, one of the coolest things right now when I was doing my
    Ph.D. on a different continent. My computer at night was
    working for his organization with SETI at home, right, because
    my computer was tied in, many of my colleagues basically gave
    our CPU power away for that. I think right now we have many
    opportunities. Whenever Juno flies by Jupiter, you know,
    there's thousands of people the next day taking the new
    imagery, you know, of all ages, you know, children of all ages
    taking the imagery with wonder and turning art--turning them
    into art, really analyzing them, sometimes actually finding
    exciting science in doing so. So at NASA we're really excited
    about these citizen science type of projects, and we actively
    look for collaborations in areas also we're currently
    throughout the decadal process and otherwise our funding
    emphasis is not high. You should know that last week I was in a
    meeting I think with you, Dr. Shostak. We were in a room, you
    know, where we talked about all aspects of search for life, and
    every time we come back, we want to, you know--as we make
    progress, we look at it again are we doing--putting the money
    at the right place. The reason we're so excited about search
    for life right now is we're really driving up the S curve but
    the slope is enormous right now of the progress we're making,
    and this is one of the most fruitful, really civilization-scale
    questions we can address, so that's why we're so excited.
        Mr. Bera. Dr. Burgasser?
        Dr. Burgasser. Yeah, thank you for asking that question. I
    think it is important to recognize that the decadal process in
    this is one of the ways that we as scientists, a very diverse
    group of scientists, come together and identify what are the
    main ways that we can address some of these outstanding
    questions, and that's an important process because it's a
    competitive process but it's also a consensual process and so
    we kind of come together on this.
        I wanted to touch on your engagement with community in
    terms of the science itself, and certainly the citizen science
    programs such as Planet Hunters and Exoplanet Explorers,
    Background World, SETI at Home have engaged a lot of the public
    to this work, and they have contributed to discoveries, and
    that's one of the amazing accessibility parts of this kind of
    research.
        But I should also say that the importance of this work
    being publicly funded also means that the data and the research
    that we produce is immediately available to the public, and I
    have been able to work with a diverse group of students from
    minority-serving schools, from low-funded schools in San Diego,
    and researchers across the world to actually work on the raw
    data to find these planets, and so that's one of the ways that
    we really engage the public at large is that they can actually
    really do the research because they are using data that's
    funded by the public.
        Mr. Bera. Dr. Kasting?
        Dr. Kasting. I think it's been great that the public has
    been able to get directly involved in SETI, and I think that's
    generated a lot of interest. SETI--as I said in my written
    testimony, SETI got started before the search for simple life
    because the technology is actually simpler than the search for
    simple life, and you know, it's very--it's more difficult to
    get the general public directly involved in the search for
    simple life because you need big space-based telescopes and big
    ground-based telescopes so there's a role for the public but
    there's also a role for government in the search for life.
        Mr. Bera. So it looks like I'm out of time, but Dr.
    Shostak, if you want----
        Chairman Smith. Thank you.
        Dr. Shostak. Oh, just one thing. First, I'm slightly
    embarrassed. SETI at Home is not our project. It's University
    of California-Berkeley. But here's something that hasn't been
    mentioned, and that is the National Academy of Sciences has
    recognized that a very high percentage of people who go into
    science go into science because of what they've seen on
    television and in the movies, and so they have a project, they
    have an office down in Irvine, California, near Hollywood, and
    they in fact--whenever they hear of a new film being made about
    space, they will bring in some scientists to try to get the
    science right. Personally, I don't think that makes any
    difference in the appeal, but the facts are that that sort of
    informal exposure to science has a tremendous effect.
        Mr. Bera. Thank you. I'll yield back.
        Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Bera.
        The gentleman from Florida, Mr. Posey, is recognized for
    his questions.
        Mr. Posey. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
        Dr. Zurbuchen, we often characterize investments in basic
    scientific research as paying off in technical advances that
    will eventually impact our day-to-day lives here on Earth. Can
    you point to some recent examples of breakthroughs in the
    astrobiology field that have had that type of impact?
        Dr. Zurbuchen. I am sure there are examples, and I will
    return with questions for the record. I can give you examples
    that I encountered just recently in astrophysics in general.
    For example, look at some of the mirrors that were developed
    for X-ray optics that relate to this research, mirrors that are
    of course raising incident mirrors that are done at Marshall in
    Alabama, and these mirrors are subject of tremendous interest
    from the biomedical space because of the fact that of course we
    want to focus X-rays also in medical application and spin-offs
    of a variety of, you know, characters of foci can be formed
    with that. They're in negotiations right now so there's not a
    big company right there.
        But we have ample ones of these, you know, stories that are
    forming around our research, and that's also why we're so
    excited about--you know, I've been a part of hundreds of start-
    ups in my previous job as an innovation leader at the
    university I worked before, and I really believe in it, but I
    will get back on good examples that are recent and are related
    to this.
        Mr. Posey. Thank you.
        Any of the others care to comment on what you see coming
    from research in the next three to five years?
        Dr. Kasting. Could I just take a stab at that? I don't
    actually know practical things that come out in the next three
    to five years but my colleague Sara Seiger at MIT, who's an
    astronomer, sometimes calls the search for life the second
    Copernican revolution, and so Copernicus figured out that the
    Earth goes around the sun rather than vice versa. We are
    looking to see whether we're alone in the universe and whether
    life is common, and you know, I'm not sure there were practical
    things at the time that came out of the Copernican revolution
    but nevertheless, it changed mankind, and so could this search.
        Dr. Shostak. I might also point out in 1920 if you talked
    to physicists that were worrying about quantum mechanics and
    they themselves would have said there's absolutely no practical
    application of any of this, and now everybody carries quantum
    mechanics around in their pockets.
        Mr. Posey. You know, we just had the March for Science all
    over the world, and of course, a lot of people think there's
    only one answer to all scientists and all science, and that's
    whatever they think, and I remind them that until Galileo, 100
    percent of the world's scientists swore the Earth was flat and,
    you know, you have to ask those questions. You have to question
    what some consider as fact.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Posey.
        And the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Beyer, is recognized.
        Mr. Beyer. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding
    this very bipartisan hearing. It's very exciting. And thank you
    all for being here.
        Dr. Shostak, I was reading about METI rather than SETI, the
    Messaging to Extraterrestrial Intelligence, and one of the
    things they said was, they defined--they said that we were not
    a communicative civilization because we don't practice such
    activities as purposeful and regular transmission of
    interstellar messages. Should we be a communicative
    civilization?
        Dr. Shostak. Well, that's really up to you. I mean, there
    are people who think that we ought to take the initiative, send
    signals into space and see what comes back, if anything. I
    point out that this has been done in the past, mostly as demo
    experiments. You know, even the records on the Voyager
    spacecraft and the plaques on the Pioneer spacecraft are
    designed in case any Klingons ever pick these things up, which
    they never will, but, you know, they get a greeting card from
    Earth.
        I don't agree with those who think that this would be
    dangerous. There are people who say that. Even Stephen Hawking
    has made that comment. Because you obviously tip of the aliens
    that we're here, and who knows what they really are like.
    Obviously we don't know anything about alien sociology, and
    maybe they would just come to Earth and incinerate the planet
    on a bet. I don't worry about that personally, but you might
    say that's not good enough.
        Let me simply point out that we have been transmitting into
    space willy-nilly since the war, and it's mostly TV and FM
    radio, it's mostly radar. It's mostly radar. So if you're
    paranoid and you're worried about this, if you think maybe it's
    not a good idea to let anybody who's out there know that we're
    here, then you better be prepared to shut down the radars at
    Reagan Airport, and I don't think you want to do that.
        Mr. Beyer. You mentioned the 70 light-years as sort of
    the--is that because that's when radar and----
        Dr. Shostak. Yes, and also FM radio, but yes, radar,
    television and radar are the things that go out--you know, they
    go right through the ionosphere, and radar transmitters tend to
    be very powerful. If you were looking at the Earth from one of
    these nearby planets that we've talked about here and you had a
    big antenna, you know, as big as this building, you could pick
    up our radars.
        Mr. Beyer. You mentioned a number of times the
    philosophical and theological consequences of discovering life,
    and obviously there's lots and lots in the science fiction
    literature and films and stuff about how people react,
    overreact, go crazy. Are there philosophers or theologians
    thinking about this, writing about it trying to anticipate what
    it would be like?
        Dr. Shostak. There are. There's a lot of research. And
    normally what they do is, try and look for an historical
    precedent for this. I guess it's sort of lawyerly to do that.
    And they say okay, what in history has happened that would give
    us some clue as to what the public's reaction or organized
    religion's reaction would be. But there is really no very good
    precedent for this.
        When I tell people at cocktail parties--not that I get
    invited to many--but if I tell people what I do for a living,
    they'll frequently ask well, if you found a signal, you
    wouldn't tell us, the government would shut you down, right?
    And I said the government doesn't even know what we're doing. I
    don't think they would shut us down. We've gotten false alarms
    in the past. There was no interest by the government. My mom
    didn't even call. Nobody was interested, only the New York
    Times. They were interested.
        But they think that the public couldn't handle this news. I
    think that that is totally false. If you were to pick up a
    newspaper--you won't do that--open your browser tomorrow and
    find news that we'd found a signal coming from 800 light-years
    away, I doubt that you would say I'm not going to work today,
    I'm going to riot in the streets.
        Mr. Beyer. We ran SETI at Home for years with my kids and
    all the different computers, and now we're looking for Riemann
    prime numbers, I guess, because the SETI thing has shut down,
    which----
        Dr. Shostak. We could always use more prime numbers.
        Mr. Beyer. Yeah, we haven't found any prime numbers yet
    either.
        I have talked to scientists, though, who say we've been
    looking for so long, you mentioned 100 million planets, and
    they almost argue that because we haven't heard anything that
    there must be nothing there.
        Dr. Shostak. No, that's a false argument. Look, that's like
    going to Africa, looking for big mammals with long noses that
    can pick up peanuts, and quitting after you've examined one
    city block's worth of real estate. That's equivalent to the
    fraction of our own galaxy that we've looked at. There're
    roughly a trillion planets in our galaxy. There're two trillion
    other galaxies we can see, each with a trillion planets. To say
    oh, well, it's all sterile is a bit self-centered.
        Mr. Beyer. Dr. Kasting, in looking at Enceladus's plume,
    how fast are the gases escaping? Is there any--is this
    something that will go on for millions of years?
        Dr. Kasting. My understanding is that plume will keep
    going. You know, there are four stripes on Enceladus' south
    pole called the tiger stripes, and the plume is coming out form
    there. So this plume has been there for the ten years that
    Cassini has been up. You know, what you want to do is actually
    try to encounter that plume at slower velocities. It's a
    spacecraft moving fast through it that makes it difficult to
    measure. So it would be nice to go back and go through that
    plume. I think it will be there and go through it more slowly.
        Mr. Beyer. And very quickly, I'm familiar with the binary
    stars where the one rotates around the other. When you get to
    the triple star system with Alpha Centauri, are they--what's
    the planetary motion or the star motion that goes along with
    three of them?
        Dr. Kasting. The two bright ones, Alpha and Beta Centauri,
    are close together and orbit pretty quickly. Proxima Centauri,
    the M star which has the planet around it, is far away and it's
    actually not even entirely certain that it's gravitationally
    bound.
        Mr. Beyer. Okay. Interesting. Thank you very much, Mr.
    Chairman.
        Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Beyer.
        The gentleman from Oklahoma, Mr. Lucas, is recognized.
        Mr. Lucas. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I agree with my
    colleagues. This is a fascinating topic. It's caught the
    attention of our constituents back home, and from that
    perspective, let me ask the panel: we've invested on the
    federal level, whether it was Hubble before and the first
    generation of space telescopes that caught the public's
    imagination or the money we're spending on James Webb, our
    European friends and a number of folks in Chile and a variety
    of other places spent substantial monies that can be used in
    the exoplanet search work. Visit with me for a moment about the
    technical requirements if we are successful in finding a blip,
    a squeak, a whatever, how we go forward with the next
    generation, what is required to go to the next generation. Do
    we ultimately have to tie every telescope that's on the surface
    of the planet together computer-wise to create that field to
    observe from? Where do we go in the next generation, which if
    we encounter something that's defined as a likely, the public
    will become very enthusiastic for?
        Dr. Zurbuchen. It's my belief that most of the technologies
    that we're going to deploy to answer this question have not yet
    been invented. I really believe that what's going to happen as
    we go forward and look, for example, at microbial life in the
    solar system or we look at exoplanets and look at the first
    emissions of atmospheres using James Webb and other telescopes
    we're building now, there's innovators right now that are
    developing next-generation highly sensitive spectroscopy type
    of tools that even within a few years will be proposed to one
    of our announcements of opportunity at NASA or elsewhere, and
    really will cause that kind of rapid rush forward that is
    really typical of this kind of research. So for me, that's one
    of the amazing parts of this research is that it causes so much
    innovation.
        You know, the first planet around another star was
    announced in 1995, you know. It's a little bit over 20 years.
    Look where we are today. Look at the tools we're using today.
    We never knew to look at dwarves as, you know, we didn't know
    how, right, and so this is where kind of the motherlode is of
    this. So for me, it's really that progress that makes it so
    exciting. Yes, there will be a lot of innovation.
        Dr. Kasting. Could I make a comment on that?
        Mr. Lucas. Yes.
        Dr. Kasting. We've heard about James Webb Space Telescope,
    which is this huge, wonderful telescope that's going up next
    year, but James Webb will only be able to take spectra of the
    transiting planets, which is a small fraction of the planets
    out there. Most of the nearby stars, the planets don't transit.
    So what we really need is big, direct imaging telescopes of the
    same size as JWST or maybe even a little larger but specially
    equipped with coronagraphs or star shades to block out the
    light from the stars so that you can see the planets orbiting
    around it, and so that's my own personal interest. I think
    that's where we have the best chance of finding life.
        Dr. Shostak. In the case of intelligent life, of course,
    every telescope in the world would be aimed in the direction
    from which the signal's coming. You can be sure of that. But in
    terms of what's coming down the pike for instrumentation, the
    Europeans, mostly the Europeans are building what's called the
    square kilometer array, both in South Africa and western
    Australia, and that's an instrument that's 10 times larger than
    Arecibo, which is already 10 times larger than what we're
    using. So that kind of thing would allow us to follow up and
    find other signals coming from other places. Usually in
    astronomy, if you find one of thing, that means you're going to
    find a lot more rather quickly, partially because you know what
    you're looking for.
        Mr. Lucas. Doctor?
        Dr. Burgasser. Thank you, and I want to thank you for
    asking that question. I want to tack on to the technology
    development that we can't even anticipate at this point just
    the techniques that have been developed to find these planets
    were things that were not anticipated early on. So the Spitzer
    Space Telescope, which I mentioned was central for discovery in
    the TRAPPIST planets, when it was launched, it was not designed
    to do what we did with it. It was not designed to look for
    exoplanets and measure these transits and yet it's been one of
    the most successful outcomes of that mission. And so I think
    when you give people tools, they discover new ways to use them
    and ways that we may not anticipate that could actually do more
    with the investments in these facilities than we could have
    expected.
        Mr. Lucas. Thank you very much. Your comments present
    optimism that's very vast and it's fascinating to think that we
    have our echo chamber out 70 years, so to speak, light-years.
        With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
        Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Lucas.
        And the gentleman from California, Mr. Rohrabacher, is
    recognized.
        Mr. Rohrabacher. Let me first apologize that I came in
    late. As you know, we have several hearings scheduled at the
    same time. I will be looking at your testimony, your written
    testimony, and I want to thank the Chairman. We have a Chairman
    who's a visionary, and we're lucky to have him there to be able
    to touch on things like this. I might say that other chairmen
    that I've served under were not quite as willing to go into
    these type of areas because they were afraid of ridicule. I
    mean, you can see it--``Oh, they're out searching for aliens in
    outer space,'' and we need to have a very serious discussion on
    your mission and what's going on, and let me just note that I
    have been a long-time supporter personally of developing
    telescopes of deep space missions as well as astronomy in
    general, knowing that with astronomy we can determine truths
    that are happening out there that affect our knowledge even of
    molecular structure and how it works on the land. So I will
    have to tell you that they didn't have to twist my arm in order
    to get my support for those projects.
        First of all, let me just ask this. I have a 12-year-old
    son, and he would just die if I did not ask this question. With
    what we know now and how you have now just expanded our
    understanding of how far reality goes out from our planet, with
    that in mind, here's my son now: Is time travel possible?
        Dr. Shostak. If you're willing to go to the future. That
    you can do, and you're doing it right now. Going to the past
    seems to violate some basic tenets of physics.
        There's a book out about time travel, a new one your son
    may want to read, and it's--I think it's by Glike, the same guy
    who----
        Mr. Rohrabacher. But actually some of the things you're
    doing now and you're studying will give us understanding maybe
    100 years from now on something that may be an incredible
    breakthrough for humankind like the idea that it's possible to
    have time travel.
        Dr. Shostak. Well, one should never discount the
    possibility of new physics that changes one's attitude, but at
    the moment I would bet against it.
        Dr. Kasting. If I could comment, I don't know about time
    travel but I always thought that travel to other stars was
    impossible but, you know, there's a private group out in
    California called Breakthrough that is studying Project
    Starshot. They want to send a spacecraft to Alpha Centauri and
    so that's something that I never thought was going to happen
    but, you know, it's not impossible.
        Mr. Rohrabacher. Not impossible?
        Dr. Burgasser. Now, time travel I would hedge against. I
    think I agree with Dr. Shostak. But certainly the excitement
    about space travel, that's something that is very recent, and
    honestly technologically very possible.
        Dr. Zurbuchen. The short answer is, I don't know, but the
    one thing I've learned in looking at science is never discount
    options.
        Mr. Rohrabacher. Now, again, I'm going to have a plebian
    approach to my questions, and that is, I watch the History
    channel, and I watch various things that are presented about
    things that we may have spotted on things like Mars where there
    are objects that appear to be walls. Are all of those objects,
    have you just written them off and they're not products of
    other civilizations?
        Dr. Shostak. I think it's safe to say they are not. I get
    emails and phone calls every day from people who claim they
    have good evidence of aliens visiting the solar system, and I
    wish it were true. I wish it were convincing. It would be job
    security for me, after all. But if you look at most of these
    claimed artifacts found on Mars by people who go through, for
    example, the Rover photos and so forth, I mean, they find, you
    know, little statuettes, they find critters like lizards, they
    find oceangoing creatures. They also--there's also a Nazi
    helmet. This may be news to you that the Wehrmacht actually
    went to Mars. All of this are examples of pareidolia, which is
    to say like looking up in the clouds, you can see almost
    anything you want.
        Mr. Rohrabacher. You rule out that any of these things,
    objects that we see are indicative of some lifeform?
        Dr. Shostak. There may be life on Mars but I don't think
    it's manifested in these images.
        Mr. Rohrabacher. What about you, sir?
        Dr. Kasting. I agree with what Seth said, and the images
    are not convincing. I don't see as many as Seth does, but I'm
    interested in looking for Mars in the subsurface--looking for
    life in the subsurface.
        Mr. Rohrabacher. And?
        Dr. Burgasser. Yeah, I would also say I'm not convinced. I
    mean, we do--we have evolved as a species to have incredible
    pattern recognition powers and so we find patterns in lots of
    things. Outstanding claims require outstanding evidence.
        Dr. Zurbuchen. Same here. Basically, I've been personally
    involved in more than one of these instances where something
    comes up and we attempt to deploy great scientists to go look
    at this. In some cases, it's just a camera effect. You know,
    you look at your own pictures and you see kind of weird things
    just because of how a camera works and sometimes it's like what
    he says, you know. It's the lion in the clouds, that type of
    thing.
        Mr. Rohrabacher. I know we're getting a great deal of
    understanding from your labor and your effort that you're
    putting in to this project, a great deal of better
    understanding of the nature of the universe, and we appreciate
    that and we appreciate your advice to us on how to be realistic
    about that as well. So thank you very much.
        Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Rohrabacher.
        The gentleman from California, Mr. McNerney, is recognized.
        Mr. McNerney. Well, again, I thank the Chairman for holding
    this hearing.
        Dr. Shostak, about SETI, you mentioned that SETI's getting
    better at identifying targets and improving--and the equipment
    to be used is also improving. Could you elaborate on what's
    improving in terms of the detection and the equipment that's
    used to survey?
        Dr. Shostak. Yes. To some extent, there's an improvement
    simply in raw sensitivity so that you can find weaker signals,
    but that depends on having lots of antennas. That means putting
    up lots of physical structure. Aluminum hasn't gotten a whole
    lot cheaper in the last 20 years. So that's a very slow
    improvement there.
        The big improvement is in the receiver technology where
    instead of looking at one star at a time, which is what we've
    done--when I say look at a star, of course you're assuming
    there may be planets around it that have somebody with a radio
    transmitter. Instead of looking at one at a time, you could in
    fact look at tens, hundreds, even thousands of stars at a time
    with enough computer processing capability, and of course, that
    capability is coming down the pike.
        The other thing that we're beginning to deploy is what's
    called machine learning. This is where you use massive
    computing power to search for all kinds of patterns in the
    signals. Today we have sort of a dedicated machine that looks
    for one kind of pattern. It's sort of akin to having hearing
    where you can only hear one note. You're not going to really
    get a lot out of a symphony, but if you can, you know, use
    machine learning in this case to broaden the kind of thing you
    could recognize, then that will also speed up the search.
        Mr. McNerney. Let's--and I'm not sure who to ask this
    question, but what's the risk of contaminating other planets
    with--nearby planets, Mars and so on, with Earth biology?
        Dr. Zurbuchen. For missions to places where we expect that
    could harbor life or any organism such as Mars or Europa, we
    use strict protocols referred to as planetary protection, and
    so basically what we do is go look at it in both ways. The
    first one is, we don't want to destroy an experiment so we
    actually take, you know, tremendous efforts to make sure that
    we don't bring a lot of our life there or organisms and so we
    don't destroy an experiment. The other thing, we also want to
    make sure if we found something and brought it back, and that's
    going to be important once we start bringing back samples from
    places like Mars and so forth, we want to make sure that if
    there was life in there that it's not kind of the equivalent of
    a really lethal virus. So, you know, the kind of mechanisms
    that we would use for such bacteria or viruses, we would use in
    this context so we have mechanisms that we use for every one of
    those missions, both classification and also how we actually
    build the missions and land them and so forth.
        Mr. McNerney. Dr. Kasting?
        Dr. Kasting. Could I add a comment to that? I mentioned in
    my testimony that Cassini is going to crash into Saturn at the
    end of the summer. NASA's doing that intentionally for
    planetary protection reasons because they don't want--after
    they lose control of Cassini, they don't want it to crash into
    one of Saturn's moons or the rings.
        Mr. McNerney. Another question is, I mean, with all the new
    information on exoplanets, is there a way to classify all this
    information or are we still sort of ad hoc trying to figure out
    how to put these things into some sort of order?
        Dr. Burgasser. So there are several groups in the exoplanet
    community that have gotten together to develop websites,
    databases that organizes information. I mentioned earlier in my
    testimony the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo have built a
    laboratory, and they've developed criteria to assess the
    habitability of various planets. There are a number of great
    resources that compile the data on these 3,000-plus exoplanets,
    and again, those resources are publicly available, and so I
    often have my students do research projects to explore these
    catalogs and come up with their own measures of habitability
    and potential for life.
        Mr. McNerney. So is the--I mean, for someone that's not
    immersed in this issue, is there an ability to go to that
    resource and understand what's happening or is it still pretty
    foggy?
        Dr. Burgasser. No, and what I can do is, I can put in the
    written testimony some of these resources, but they actually
    have sort of demonstrations on how to use the data. They're
    extremely well designed, and they have gotten a lot of interest
    from the public.
        Mr. McNerney. Very good.
        All right, Mr. Chairman. I'll yield back. Thank you.
        Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. McNerney.
        Oh, without objection, the Ranking Member, Ms. Johnson, is
    recognized for an additional question or two.
        Ms. Johnson. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. This really
    has been an exciting hearing, especially as we look toward the
    future, and I'm sorry Mr. Rohrabacher had to leave. Speaking of
    his 12-year-old son, it really is a thing that excites young
    men, young people when we can look to the future and start to
    explore the unknown, and in 30 years we might know a whole lot
    more than we know now, and my question really is to the panel
    here. What do we do as a Congress to make sure that in 30
    years, we're on top of what's going on in the universe? How do
    we move forward? How well equipped will we make sure that our
    young minds are stimulated and interested in this area? I'm so
    grateful for those who came before us who made it possible for
    today, and thanks to all of you, but we have a challenge, Mr.
    Chairman.
        Chairman Smith. Thank you, Ms. Johnson.
        Let me respond very quickly, and I think most members know
    that we are fortunate to have within our Committee's
    jurisdiction STEM education or many aspects of STEM education,
    and in fact, I believe the first two bills that President Trump
    signed last month were two STEM bills that were produced by
    this Committee, and I was over there for the bill signing. And
    we will continue to go in that direction.
        The other thing I think that is good news for us is that
    most agencies had their budgets cut. NASA was one of the few
    agencies that did not incur any cuts, so we have an
    Administration, I think, and a Congress who is very interested
    in space and what's out there.
        Let me thank our witnesses again today. You all have just
    been fascinating and informative, and we appreciate your taking
    the time to be here. Clearly, on the basis of the questions you
    were asked, there is interest across all members in what you're
    doing and the different things that you're doing as well. We
    heard things today we haven't heard before, and that's always
    enough to keep us going and have future hearings on the subject
    as well.
        So thank you all for being here. We stand adjourned.
        [Whereupon, at 11:36 a.m., the Committee was adjourned.]

                                   Appendix I

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                       Answers to Post-Hearing Questions

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