[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                    WHAT DO SCIENTISTS HOPE TO LEARN
                  WITH NASA'S MARS PERSEVERANCE ROVER?

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

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                 SUBCOMMITTEE ON SPACE AND AERONAUTICS

                                 OF THE

                      COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE,
                             AND TECHNOLOGY
                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                             APRIL 29, 2021

                               __________

                           Serial No. 117-11

                               __________

 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                    
44-364 PDF                 WASHINGTON : 2022                     
          
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------   
          

              COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY

             HON. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas, Chairwoman
ZOE LOFGREN, California              FRANK LUCAS, Oklahoma, 
SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon                 Ranking Member
AMI BERA, California                 MO BROOKS, Alabama
HALEY STEVENS, Michigan,             BILL POSEY, Florida
    Vice Chair                       RANDY WEBER, Texas
MIKIE SHERRILL, New Jersey           BRIAN BABIN, Texas
JAMAAL BOWMAN, New York              ANTHONY GONZALEZ, Ohio
BRAD SHERMAN, California             MICHAEL WALTZ, Florida
ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado              JAMES R. BAIRD, Indiana
JERRY McNERNEY, California           PETE SESSIONS, Texas
PAUL TONKO, New York                 DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida
BILL FOSTER, Illinois                MIKE GARCIA, California
DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey          STEPHANIE I. BICE, Oklahoma
DON BEYER, Virginia                  YOUNG KIM, California
CHARLIE CRIST, Florida               RANDY FEENSTRA, Iowa
SEAN CASTEN, Illinois                JAKE LaTURNER, Kansas
CONOR LAMB, Pennsylvania             CARLOS A. GIMENEZ, Florida
DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina         JAY OBERNOLTE, California
GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin                PETER MEIJER, Michigan
DAN KILDEE, Michigan                 VACANCY
SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania
LIZZIE FLETCHER, Texas
VACANCY
                                 ------                                

                 Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics

                   HON. DON BEYER, Virginia, Chairman
ZOE LOFGREN, California              BRIAN BABIN, Texas, 
AMI BERA, California                     Ranking Member
BRAD SHERMAN, California             MO BROOKS, Alabama
ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado              BILL POSEY, Florida
CHARLIE CRIST, Florida               DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida
DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey          YOUNG KIM, California
                        
                        
                        C  O  N  T  E  N  T  S

                             April 29, 2021

                                                                   Page

Hearing Charter..................................................     2

                           Opening Statements

Statement by Representative Don Beyer, Chairman, Subcommittee on 
  Space and Aeronautics, Committee on Science, Space, and 
  Technology, U.S. House of Representatives......................     9
    Written Statement............................................    10

Statement by Representative Brian Babin, Ranking Member, 
  Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics, Committee on Science, 
  Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives...........    11
    Written Statement............................................    12

Statement by Representative Frank Lucas, Ranking Member, 
  Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of 
  Representatives................................................    13
    Written Statement............................................    14

Written statement by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, 
  Chairwoman, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. 
  House of Representatives.......................................    15

                               Witnesses:

Dr. Michael A. Meyer, Lead Scientist, Mars Exploration Program, 
  National Aeronautics and Space Administration
    Oral Statement...............................................    17
    Written Statement............................................    19

Dr. Bethany L. Ehlmann, Professor of Planetary Science and 
  Associate Director of the Keck Institute for Space Studies, 
  California Institute of Technology; President, The Planetary 
  Society; Co-Investigator, Mars 2020 Perseverance mission
    Oral Statement...............................................    29
    Written Statement............................................    31

Dr. Luther Beegle, Principal Investigator of the Mars 
  Perseverance Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & 
  Luminescence for Organics & Chemicals (SHERLOC) Instrument, Jet 
  Propulsion Laboratory
    Oral Statement...............................................    38
    Written Statement............................................    40

Dr. Tanja Bosak, Returned Sample Science Co-Lead, Mars 2020 
  Perseverance Rover; Professor and Lead of the Option in 
  Geology, Geochemistry, and Geobiology, Department of Earth, 
  Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of 
  Technology
    Oral Statement...............................................    49
    Written Statement............................................    51

Discussion.......................................................    55

              Appendix: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions

Dr. Michael A. Meyer, Lead Scientist, Mars Exploration Program, 
  National Aeronautics and Space Administration..................    72

Dr. Bethany L. Ehlmann, Professor of Planetary Science and 
  Associate Director of the Keck Institute for Space Studies, 
  California Institute of Technology; President, The Planetary 
  Society; Co-Investigator, Mars 2020 Perseverance mission.......    74

Dr. Luther Beegle, Principal Investigator of the Mars 
  Perseverance Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & 
  Luminescence for Organics & Chemicals (SHERLOC) Instrument, Jet 
  Propulsion Laboratory..........................................    78

Dr. Tanja Bosak, Returned Sample Science Co-Lead, Mars 2020 
  Perseverance Rover; Professor and Lead of the Option in 
  Geology, Geochemistry, and Geobiology, Department of Earth, 
  Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of 
  Technology.....................................................    81

 
                    WHAT DO SCIENTISTS HOPE TO LEARN
                  WITH NASA'S MARS PERSEVERANCE ROVER?

                              ----------                              


                        THURSDAY, APRIL 29, 2021

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

     The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 11:01 a.m., 
via Zoom, Hon. Don Beyer [Chairman of the Subcommittee] 
presiding.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

     Chairman Beyer. It's 11:01, this hearing will come to 
order. Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare 
recess at any time. And before I deliver my opening remarks, I 
want to note that today the Committee is meeting virtually, and 
therefore I want to announce a couple of reminders to the 
Members about the conduct of this hearing. First, please keep 
your video feed on as long as you are present in the hearing, 
even if you need to go get a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. 
Just leave the video on and come back. Members are responsible 
for their own microphones. Also, please keep your mike muted 
unless you are speaking. Finally, if Members have documents 
that they wish to submit for the record, please e-mail them to 
the Committee Clerk, whose e-mailing address was circulated 
prior to the hearing.
     So, good morning. Welcome to our witnesses. Thank you for 
being here. On February 18, just a few months ago, millions of 
people waited as the Mars Perseverance rover dove through the 
Martian atmosphere at speeds of 12,000 miles per hour. It 
implemented a complex sequence of operations, leading to the 
rover's safe landing in Jezero Crater. The cheers upon 
confirmation of the rover's successful arrival lifted us as a 
nation after a year that had tried us like no other. I just 
want to take a minute to celebrate and thank the people who got 
us to this point. Completing development, assembly, launch, and 
then landing, all while navigating the challenges of the COVID-
19 pandemic, is a shining example of the tireless dedication of 
the NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), Jet 
Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and partner teams, so I want to 
thank them all for embracing the spirit of perseverance. And 
speaking of the name Perseverance, I want to give a plug to 
Alexander Mather, a middle student from Burke, Virginia who won 
the naming contest for the Mars 2020 rover with the very 
apropos name Perseverance.
     Today we pivot our attention from launch and landing to 
science and discovery. Joining us here today are a group of 
experts who, no doubt, will whet our appetites for science as 
Perseverance prepares to explore the remains of an ancient lake 
and delta in Jezero Crater and search for signs of past life. 
Perseverance's work isn't the beginning of a scientific 
journey, it's a continuation of NASA's systematic robotic 
exploring--exploration of the red planet that started over 50 
years ago with the Mariner flybys in the 1960's and the Viking 
landers in the 1970's. And I still remember so clearly those 
photos. Perseverance is now the fifth U.S. rover and the ninth 
U.S. landing craft--spacecraft to carry out science operations 
on Mars-achievements that, to date, only the United States can 
claim.
     But next month China will attempt its first landing of a 
spacecraft that will descend from the Tianwen-1 spacecraft 
orbiting Mars. NASA spacecraft and others from the United Arab 
Emirates, India, and Europe are also in orbit around Mars, but 
make no mistake, Perseverance is a first. It's seeking what 
some might consider the holy grail of Mars science, samples 
that will be collected, stored, and returned by a future 
mission to Earth for scientific analysis. A 2007 National 
Academies report recommended that the highest-priority science 
objective for Mars exploration must be the analysis of a 
diverse suite of appropriate samples returned from carefully 
selected regions on Mars. And in 2011, the National Academies 
recommended the first step in a Mars sample return campaign as 
the highest priority large-scale planetary science mission. 
Perseverance's instruments and the samples it will collect will 
allow scientists to trace the evolution of Martian climate, 
geography, and the nature and complexity of any detected 
organic material. Martian samples could also tell us more about 
our own place in the Universe and our own very being.
     Scientists tell us that when stars exploded in death, they 
dispersed new elements throughout the universe, elements 
including carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, which happen to comprise 
our own makeup, and that explains that we're made of this very 
stardust. Will Perseverance give us the opportunity to see 
images of our elemental selves in Martian dirt? Armed with 
multiple cameras and seven sophisticated science instruments, 
Perseverance is about to begin the return on the years of hard 
work and investment in the Nation's most advanced Mars rover to 
date. That return is sure to bring scientific discoveries about 
Mars, its habitability for past life, insights and knowledge to 
help us prepare for sending humans there, and the inspiration 
that propels our Nation to dream big, and our scientists, 
engineers, mathematicians, and future explorers to embrace 
ambitious challenges.
     I have to confess that one of my favorite books is the Red 
Mars, Blue Mars, Green Mars series from Kim Stanley Robertson, 
and would recommend anybody watching in the hearing or on C-
SPAN-3 to go buy it and read it right away. And I hope that our 
witnesses will continue to give us hope about the future of the 
human beings on Mars.
     [The prepared statement of Chairman Beyer follows:]

    Good morning, and welcome to our witnesses. Thank you for 
being here.
    On February 18th, just a few months ago, millions of people 
waited as the Mars Perseverance rover dove through the Martian 
atmosphere at speeds of 12,000 miles per hour and implemented a 
complex sequence of operations leading to the rover's safe 
landing in Jezero Crater.
    The cheers upon confirmation of the rover's successful 
arrival lifted us as a nation after a year that tried us like 
no other.
    I want to take a minute to celebrate the people who got us 
to this point.
    Completing development, assembly, launch, and then landing 
all while navigating the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic is 
a shining example of the tireless dedication of the NASA, Jet 
Propulsion Laboratory, and partner teams.
    I want to thank them all for embracing the spirit of 
``Perseverance''
    And speaking of the name, ``Perseverance'', I want to give 
a plug to Alexander Mather, a middle school student from Burke, 
Virginia, who won the naming contest for the Mars 2020 rover 
with the very apropos name, ``Perseverance.''
    Today, we pivot our attention from launch and landing to 
science and discovery.
    Joining us here today are a group of experts who, no doubt, 
will whet our appetites for science as Perseverance prepares to 
explore the remains of an ancient lake and delta in Jezero 
Crater and search for signs of past life.
    Perseverance's work isn't the beginning of a scientific 
journey, it's a continuation of NASA's systematic robotic 
exploration of the red planet that started over 50 years ago 
with the Mariner flybys in the 1960s and the Viking landers in 
the 1970s.
    Perseverance is now the fifth U.S. rover and the ninth U.S. 
landed spacecraft to carry out science operations on Mars-
achievements that, to date, only the United States can claim.
    Next month, China will attempt its first landing of a 
spacecraft that will descend from the Tianwen-1 spacecraft 
orbiting Mars.
    NASA spacecraft and others from the United Arab Emirates, 
India, and Europe are also in orbit around Mars.
    But make no mistake, Perseverance is a first.
    It's seeking what some might consider the ``holy grail'' of 
Mars science-samples that will be collected, stored, and 
returned by a future mission to Earth for scientific analysis.
    A 2007 National Academies report recommended that ``The 
highest-priority science objective for Mars exploration must be 
the analysis of a diverse suite of appropriate samples returned 
from carefully selected regions on Mars.''
    And in 2011, the National Academies recommended the first 
step in a Mars sample return campaign as the highest priority 
large-scale planetary science mission.
    Perseverance's instruments and the samples it will collect 
will allow scientists to trace the evolution of Martian 
climate, geography, and the nature and complexity of any 
detected organic material.
    Martian samples could also tell us more about our own place 
in the Universe and our very being. Scientists tell us that 
when stars exploded in death, they dispersed new elements 
throughout the Universe, elements including carbon, oxygen, and 
nitrogen, which happen to comprise our own makeup.
    They explain that we're made of this very stardust.Will 
Perseverance give us the opportunity to see images of our 
elemental selves in Martian dirt?
    Armed with multiple cameras and 7 sophisticated science 
instruments, Perseverance is about to begin the return on the 
years of hard work and investment in the nation's most advanced 
Mars rover to date.
    That return is sure to bring scientific discoveries about 
Mars and its habitability for past life, insights and knowledge 
to help us prepare for sending humans there, and the 
inspiration that propels our nation to dream big and our 
scientists, engineers, and future explorers to embrace 
ambitious challenges.
    I look forward to our witness' testimony.

     Chairman Beyer. So I look forward to our witness' 
testimony, and I now recognize my friend, and the Ranking 
Member of the Space Subcommittee, Dr. Brian Babin of Texas. Dr. 
Babin?
     Mr. Babin. Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank 
you to all these great witnesses that we're about to hear. 
NASA's planetary science missions exemplify the American spirit 
of exploration. They continue our very long tradition of our 
Nation of discovery and scientific inquiry. Missions like 
Perseverance expand humanity's reach throughout the solar 
system, inspire the next generation of explorers, and maintain 
technological expertise that is so important to our Nation's 
economic and national security.
     Our Nation once again experienced a collective 7 minutes 
of terror as the Perseverance rover descended to the Martian 
surface 2 months ago. It will continue our long history of 
searching for evidence of past life, produce oxygen on the 
Martian surface, and has also demonstrated the very first 
controlled flight on another planet with our helicopter 
Ingenuity. Perseverance builds on the success of the Curiosity 
rover that landed on Mars nearly a decade ago, and the Spirit 
and Opportunity original landings in 2004, not to mention the 
1976 Viking landing, the 1997 Pathfinder landing, and the 
Sojourner rover, and the more recent Phoenix and Insight 
landing. The landers were also enabled by spacecraft like 
Mariner, Mars Global Surveyor, Mars Odyssey, Mars 
Reconnaissance Orbiter, and the Maven spacecraft.
     So far the United States is the only Nation to 
successfully land and operate on the red planet. To be more 
specific, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory is the only entity to 
do so successfully. Other nations have tried, and the Soviet 
Union has even landed, but no other nation has landed and 
operated for more than a few seconds. But even we have 
experienced failures. With all of our success, it is easy to 
forget that landing on Mars is a very hard task. We were 
reminded of this in the 1990's with the loss of the Mars 
Observer, the Mars Climate Orbiter, and the Mars Polar Lander. 
Despite these losses, we remained undeterred.
     Going forward, other nations continue to explore Mars. 
Europe and Russia still operate the Trace Gas Orbiter around 
Mars. India's Mars Orbiter Mission entered Mars orbit in 2014, 
and the United Arab Emirates Hope mission, and China's orbiter 
and rover entered Mars orbit in February. We also expect 
another Russian and European ExoMars mission, and a Japanese 
Mars/Moon exploration mission in a couple of years. Mars is 
getting busy, and crowded, and for lots of reasons. Other 
nations see the benefit of planetary exploration, and Mars 
exploration in particular. Aside from the technological 
advantages of Mars exploration, some nations, particularly 
China, see this as a way to legitimize the Communist Party's 
leadership. Debates about prohibitions on cooperation with 
China are also coming to light as China prepares to land its 
own rover on Mars. Cooperation is always a tricky subject when 
it comes to space, and Mars is no different.
     The Obama Administration canceled the ExoMars partnership 
with Europe because of cost overruns with the James Webb Space 
Telescope. That pushed Europe to partner up with Russia for 
that mission. As Mars exploration becomes increasingly 
international, Congress and the administration will have to 
carefully weigh the pros and cons of partnerships, and the 
impact of those partnerships on technology transfer and theft, 
national security, human rights, and Communist Party 
legitimacy. It is a privilege to partner with the world leader 
in exploration, and they might have more to gain from 
partnering with us than we do with them.
     I look forward to many more exciting discoveries as we 
embark on a future planetary mission to Mars, like the bold 
sample return mission. NASA's Planetary Science Program 
balances a vast portfolio of missions from large, medium, and 
small sizes, and explores all of our solar system, including 
the outer planets, asteroids, and hopefully even a return to 
Venus in the future. I also look very much forward to 
understanding how big ticket items like the Mars Sample Return 
mission, the Europa Clipper mission, reconstituting the Nancy 
Grace Roman Telescope under the Astronomy Division, as 
significantly expanding the Earth Science Division, and how it 
will impact the agency and other programs.
     Thank you very much for our witnesses for appearing today, 
and I look forward to your fascinating testimony. So, with 
that, I'll yield back, Mr. Chairman.
     [The prepared statement of Mr. Babin follows:]

    NASA's planetary science missions exemplify the American 
spirit of exploration. They continue our long national 
tradition of discovery and scientific inquiry. Missions like 
Perseverance expand humanity's reach throughout the solar 
system, inspire the next generation of explorers, and maintain 
technological expertise that is so important to our nation's 
economic and national security.
    Our nation once again experienced a collective ``7 minutes 
of terror'' as the Perseverance rover descended to the Martian 
surface two months ago. It will continue our long history of 
searching for evidence of past life, produce oxygen on the Mars 
surface, and has already demonstrated the first controlled 
flight on another planet with Ingenuity.
    Perseverance builds on the success of the Curiosity rover 
which landed on Mars nearly a decade ago, as well as the Spirit 
and Opportunity rovers landings in 2004, not to mention the 
1976 Viking landing, the 1997 Pathfinder landing and Sojourner 
rover, and the more recent Phoenix and Insight landing. The 
landers were also enabled by spacecraft like Mariner, Mars 
Global Surveyor, Mars Odyssey, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and 
the MAVEN spacecraft
    So far, the United States is the only nation to 
successfully land and operate on the red planet. To be more 
specific, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, is the only entity to 
do so successfully. Other nations have tried, and the Soviet 
Union even landed, but no other nation has landed and operated 
for more than a few seconds. But even we have experienced 
failures. With all of our success it is easy to forget that 
landing on Mars is hard. We were reminded of this in the 1990s 
with the loss of the Mars Observer, the Mars Climate Orbiter, 
and the Mars Polar Lander. Despite these losses, we remained 
undeterred.
    Going forward, other nations continue to explore Mars. 
Europe and Russia still operate the Trace Gas Orbiter around 
Mars, India's Mars Orbiter Mission entered Mars orbit in 2014, 
and the United Arab Emirates' Hope mission and China's orbiter 
and rover entered Mars orbit in February. We also expect 
another European and Russian ExoMars mission and a Japanese 
Mars Moon Exploration mission in a couple years.
    Mars is getting busy, and for lots of reasons. Other 
nations see the benefit of planetary exploration, and Mars 
exploration in particular. Aside from the technological 
benefits of Mars exploration, some nations, particularly China, 
see it as a way to legitimize the Communist Party's leadership. 
Debates about prohibitions on cooperation with China are also 
coming to light as China prepares to land its rover on Mars. 
Cooperation is always a tricky subject when it comes to space, 
and Mars is no different. The Obama Administration cancelled 
the ExoMars partnership with Europe because of cost overruns 
with the James Webb Space Telescope, which pushed Europe to 
partner with Russia for the mission. As Mars exploration 
becomes increasingly international, Congress and the 
Administration will have to carefully weigh the pros and cons 
of partnerships, and the impact of those partnerships on 
technology transfer and theft, national security, human rights, 
and communist party legitimacy. It is a privilege to partner 
with the world-leader in exploration, and they might have more 
to gain from partnering than we do.
    I look forward to many more exciting discoveries as we 
embark on future planetary missions to Mars like the bold 
Sample Return Mission. NASA's planetary science program 
balances a vast portfolio of missions, from large, medium, and 
small sizes, and explores all of our solar system, including 
the outer planets, asteroids, and hopefully even a return to 
Venus in the future. I also look forward to understanding how 
big ticket items like the Mars Sample Return Mission, the 
Europa Clipper Mission, reconstituting the Nancy Grace Roman 
Telescope under the astronomy division, and significantly 
expanding the Earth science division, will impact the agency 
and other programs.
    Thank you to our witnesses for appearing today, I look 
forward to your fascinating testimony.

     Chairman Beyer. Mr. Babin, thank you very much. And with 
that, I'm going to recognize the Ranking Member of the Full 
Committee, Mr. Lucas, for an opening statement.
     Mr. Lucas. Thank you for holding this hearing, Mr. 
Chairman. When NASA's Perseverance rover landed on Mars in 
February, and became the eighth craft to successfully land on 
the Martian surface in a little over 40 years, every one of 
these vehicles were American made, and each of these explorers 
built on the technology and scientific knowledge gained from 
the craft which came before it.
     Dr. Meyer. I can't hear anything.
     Mr. Lucas. Perseverance----
     Dr. Meyer. Can anybody hear me?
     Mr. Lucas [continuing]. An ambitious mission, continues 
this legacy of innovation. The vehicle is searching for signs 
of ancient life as we speak, and it's helping us gain a better 
scientific understanding of the red planet. In addition to its 
scientific mission, Perseverance is helping us demonstrate new 
technologies, which will help aid future exploration of other 
planetary bodies, both through robotic and human missions.
     A few weeks ago we saw the launch of a small helicopter 
named Ingenuity, which made the first powered flight on another 
planetary body, which has now made three more flights, each 
lasting longer, and traveling greater distances. In addition, 
Perseverance includes a technology demonstration called MOXIE. 
The instrument's purpose is to take the Martian atmosphere, 
which is mostly carbon dioxide, and create breathable air. The 
first demonstration was successful, producing more than 10 
minutes of breathable air for an astronaut. Later, Perseverance 
will collect several samples of Martian soil, which will be 
left on the Martian surface. These samples will eventually be 
retrieved by a future mission and return to Earth for research. 
There are many other cutting edge and inspiring facets to 
Perseverance, each of which are laying the groundwork for 
future crewed exploration of Mars.
     Though the U.S. has demonstrated unique leadership in 
Martian exploration, we're not the only ones interested in 
exploring the solar system. In the weeks leading up to 
Perseverance's landing a craft managed by the United Arab 
Emirates entered orbit. Additionally, another craft made by 
China entered orbit, the first vehicle from that country to do 
so. In the coming months China will attempt to be the second 
country to join the U.S.
     Dr. Meyer. Would you like me to----
     Mr. Lucas [continuing]. In successfully landing a rover on 
Mars. This comes little more than 2 years after China first 
successfully landed a craft on the far side of the Moon, and 
only months after China became the second country to 
successfully return samples of lunar surface to the Earth. Less 
than 12 hours ago China launched the first module of a new 
space station, which it hopes to have completed by the end of 
next year. With these recent moves, the Chinese Communist Party 
has all but declared its intent to challenge U.S. leadership in 
space. These recent examples serve as stark reminders of why we 
need to avoid complacency in our space program. We must be 
mindful of this as our Committee considers how best to increase 
investments in basic research and develop a new generation of 
STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) 
participants.
     We have seen repeatedly the power of NASA's missions to 
inspire future generations. I was pleased by the Biden 
Administration's public support for the continuation of the 
Artemis Program, which will return American astronauts to the 
lunar surface this decade and lay the groundwork for future 
human exploration of Mars. Now Congress must do our part and 
ensure that NASA has the resources and the direction it needs 
to execute this mission. I want to thank our witnesses for 
being here today and sharing their experiences working on this 
inspiring mission. I look forward to hearing ways this 
Committee could then continue to inspire future generations. 
Thank you, and I yield back my time, Mr. Chairman.
     [The prepared statement of Mr. Lucas follows:]

    Thank you for holding this hearing, Mr. Chairman.
    When NASA's Perseverance rover landed on Mars in February, 
it became the eighth craft to successfully land on the Martian 
surface in a little over 40 years. Every one of these vehicles 
were American made and each of these explorers built on the 
technology and scientific knowledge gained from the craft which 
came before it.
    Perseverance's ambitious mission continues this legacy of 
innovation. The vehicle is searching for signs of ancient life 
as we speak, and it's helping us gain a better scientific 
understanding of the Red Planet.
    In addition to its scientific mission, Perseverance is 
helping us demonstrate new technologies which will help aid 
future exploration of other planetary bodies, both through 
robotic and human missions. A few weeks ago, we saw the launch 
of a small helicopter named Ingenuity, which made the first 
powered flight on another planetary body. Ingenuity has now 
made three flights, each lasting longer and traveling greater 
distances.
    Additionally, Perseverance includes a technology 
demonstration called MOXIE. This instrument's purpose is to 
take the Martian atmosphere, which is mostly carbon dioxide, 
and create breathable air. The first demonstration was 
successful, producing about ten minutes of breathable air for 
an astronaut.
    Later, Perseverance will collect several samples of Martian 
soil, which will be left on the Martian surface. These samples 
will eventually be retrieved by a future mission and returned 
to Earth for research. There are many other cutting-edge and 
inspiring facets to Perseverance, each of which are laying the 
groundwork for future crewed exploration of Mars.
    Though the U.S. has demonstrated unique leadership in 
Martian exploration, we are not the only ones interested in 
exploring the solar system. In the weeks leading up to 
Perseverance's landing, a craft managed by the United Arab 
Emirates entered orbit. Additionally, another spacecraft made 
by China entered orbit, the first vehicle from that country to 
do so.
    In the coming months, China will attempt to become the 
second country to join the U.S. in successfully landing a rover 
on Mars. This comes little more than two years after China 
first successfully landed a craft on the far side of the Moon, 
and only months after China became the second country to 
successfully return samples of the Lunar surface to Earth. Less 
than 12 hours ago, China launched the first module of a new 
space station which it hopes to have completed by the end of 
next year.
    With these recent moves, the Chinese Communist Party has 
all but declared its intent to challenge U.S. leadership in 
space. These recent examples serve as stark reminders of why we 
need to avoid complacency in our space program. We must be 
mindful of this as our Committee considers how best to increase 
investments in basic research and develop a new generation of 
STEM participants.
    We have seen repeatedly the power of NASA's missions to 
inspire future generations. I was pleased by the Biden 
Administration's public support for the continuation of the 
Artemis program, which will return American astronauts to the 
Lunar surface this decade and lay the groundwork for future 
human exploration of Mars. Now, Congress must do our part and 
ensure that NASA has the resources and direction it needs to 
execute this mission.
    I want to thank our witnesses for being here today and 
sharing their experiences working on this inspiring mission. I 
look forward to hearing ways this Committee can continue to 
inspire future generations. Thank you, and I yield back my 
time.

     Chairman Beyer. Thank you, Mr. Lucas, very much. If there 
are other Members who wish to submit additional opening 
statements, your statements will be added to the record at this 
point.
     [The prepared statement of Chairwoman Johnson follows:]

    Good morning. Thank you, Chairman Beyer, for holding this 
hearing and giving us the opportunity to hear about the 
exciting science to be gained from NASA's newest rover on Mars.
    I would also like welcome our witnesses and thank you for 
testifying. I expect that you are all working very hard 
supporting the early surface operations of the rover. Some of 
you may even be operating on ``Martian time'' to carry out your 
tasks, and I sincerely appreciate you taking the time to share 
your expertise with us today.
    I have often repeated my belief that NASA is a crown jewel 
of the Nation's research and development enterprise. That is 
clearly evident in the Mars Exploration Program's deliberate, 
strategic approach to studying Mars, with new missions 
successively building on past successes and knowledge gained 
over time.
    Those past missions made significant discoveries. 
Scientists have learned that liquid water probably flowed in 
many places on the surface of Mars, and that many of the 
conditions required to support life as we know it likely 
existed along with liquid water, at least in some places.
    The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission, which addresses the 
consensus top priority of the National Academies' planetary 
science decadal survey for a large flagship mission, is poised 
to continue that record of achievement, and I am looking 
forward to exciting new scientific advances coming from that 
mission.
    Perseverance's science mission will take the important leap 
from the question of ``was it habitable?'' to ``was it 
inhabited?'' as it investigates Mars and collects samples that 
will eventually be returned to Earth for detailed study.
    I look forward to hearing more from our witnesses about the 
fundamental science they hope to conduct with Perseverance in 
geology, astrobiology, atmospheric science, volcanology, and 
minerology in addition to the applied science investigations 
that will provide critical measurements in support of eventual 
human astronaut-scientists on the surface of Mars.
    Let me close by recognizing Perseverance as a testament to 
the incredible achievements that our scientific and engineering 
workforce can accomplish, even under the most trying of 
circumstances. In addition, I am proud of the tremendous public 
engagement I have witnessed with the NASA Mars program and the 
Perseverance mission. It proves once again the important role 
NASA's missions play in inspiring children and learners of all 
ages.
    Thank you, and I yield back.

     Chairman Beyer. Let me now move to our witness 
introductions. Our first witness is Dr. Michael Meyer, and Dr. 
Meyer is a Senior Scientist at NASA Headquarters in the Science 
Mission Directorate, and is the lead scientist for NASA's Mars 
Exploration, and for the Mars Sample Return programs. He also 
serves as the program scientist for the Mars Science Laboratory 
Curiosity mission. During his career at NASA Dr. Meyer's held 
many roles, focused on the study of life in the universe, 
including as a Senior Scientist for Astrobiology. His primary 
research interest is the microorganisms living in extreme 
environments, particularly the physical factors controlling 
microbial growth and survival. Dr. Meyer received his Bachelor 
of Science degree in Biology from Rensselaer Polytechnic 
Institute, and a Master of Science and a doctorate in 
Oceanography from Texas A&M University. Welcome, Dr. Meyer, and 
we will switch back to you----
     Dr. Meyer. Can you----
     Chairman Beyer [continuing]. In just a minute. I'm going 
to introduce the others, and then we'll start with you, Dr. 
Meyer.
     Our second witness is Dr. Bethany Ehlmann, Professor of 
Planetary Science and Associate Director of the Keck Institute 
for Space Studies at Caltech. Dr. Ehlmann is co-investigator 
(Co-I) on the Mastcam-Z and the SHERLOC (Scanning Habitable 
Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics & 
Chemicals) instrument teams in the Mars 2020 Perseverance 
rover. She's also a member of the science team for the Spirit 
and Opportunity Mars Exploration Rovers, and an affiliate of 
the Dawn orbiter team during its exploration of the largest 
asteroid and dwarf planet Ceres. Dr. Ehlmann's research focuses 
on the minerology and chemistry of planetary surfaces, remote 
sensing techniques and instruments, astrobiology, and science 
policy and outreach. Her primary focus is unraveling Mars's 
environmental history and understanding water in the solar 
system. Dr. Ehlmann received her undergraduate degree from 
Washington University in St. Louis, a Master of Science and a 
doctorate in Geological Sciences as a National Science 
Foundation graduate fellow at Brown University. So welcome, Dr. 
Ehlmann.
     Our third witness is Dr. Luther Beegle, Principal 
Investigator (PI) of the Mars Perseverance Scanning Habitable 
Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and 
Chemicals, SHERLOC, Instrument at the Jet Propulsion 
Laboratory. As a principal scientist the Jet Propulsion 
Laboratory, Dr. Beegle is responsible for conducting NASA 
funded research as a PI and Co-I in planetary science, focusing 
on detection and characterization of organic molecules for the 
identification of potential biosignatures. Dr. Beegle received 
a Bachelor of Science in Physics and Astronomy from the 
University of Delaware, and a Master of Science and Physics, 
and a doctorate in Astrophysics, from the University of Alabama 
at Birmingham. So welcome, Dr. Beegle, and I'm sure our 
president will be pleased to know we have a University of 
Delaware graduate here.
     And our final witness is Dr. Tanja Bosak, a Professor of 
Geobiology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and 
Returned Sample Science Co-Lead of the Mars 2020 Perseverance 
Rover. Dr. Bosak's research focuses on how microbial processes 
leave chemical, mineral, and morphological signals in 
sedimentary rock. Her lab uses research approach to explore to 
explore modern geochemical and sedimentological processes, 
interpret to the co-evolution of life in the environment during 
the first 80 percent of Earth's history, and look for signs of 
past life on Mars. Dr. Bosak received her undergraduate degree 
in Geophysics from the Zagreb University, and a doctorate in 
Geobiology from the California Institute of Technology. So 
welcome, Dr. Bosak.
     So we will start with Dr. Meyer, and you each have 5 
minutes. Dr. Meyer, floor is yours.

               TESTIMONY OF DR. MICHAEL A. MEYER,

           LEAD SCIENTIST, MARS EXPLORATION PROGRAM,

         NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION

     Dr. Meyer. Thank you. Chairman Beyer, Ranking Member 
Babin, and Members of the Subcommittee, I am honored to appear 
before the Subcommittee to discuss Mars science, and the role 
the Perseverance rover plays in NASA's broader Mars exploration 
program. Mars has captured the public's imagination as the 
planet in our solar system most similar to Earth. Both planets 
formed 4.5 billion years ago, and are the only planets to have 
known to be able to support life. Nevertheless, this 
transformation over time to the present has followed 
dramatically different paths. By studying Mars, we can learn 
about our history as well.
     NASA's Mars Exploration Program studies Mars as a 
planetary system in order to understand its extreme climate 
variation on different timescales, its history of geological 
processes that have shaped Mars through time, its potential to 
have hosted life, and its future exploration by humans. As we 
learned about Mars, the strategy has evolved from follow the 
water, to explore habitability, to seek signs of life, and has 
brought us to the threshold of sample return with the 
Perseverance mission.
     Perseverance is the most sophisticated rover ever to have 
been sent to the red planet, with a name that embodies NASA's 
passion, and our Nation's capability to take on and overcome 
challenges. As such, Perseverance will contribute to all four 
of NASA's high level goals of Mars during this exploration. In 
addition, Perseverance will collect and carefully select rock 
and regular samples for a future return to Earth.
     Perseverance has already achieved at least five firsts. 
Terrain relative navigation enabled the descending spacecraft 
to avoid hazards. Perseverance landed in a place too dangerous 
for previous missions to land, but with terrain relative 
navigation, we could, and we did. The helicopter Ingenuity was 
the first aircraft in history to make a powered and controlled 
flight on another planet, a true Wright Brothers moment. 
SuperCam captured the sounds of Martian wind, and the first 
audio of laser zaps on another planet. The Mars Oxygen In-Situ 
Resource Utilization Experiment has extracted 99 percent pure 
oxygen out of the Martian atmosphere, a resource for future 
rockets and humans. And Perseverance is the first leg of a 
round trip to Mars by caching samples on the surface.
     All of us get to ride with Perseverance. The Perseverance 
mission carries more cameras than any interplanetary mission in 
history. This has allowed NASA to watch its own mission land on 
another world, and for the public to share in the experience. 
We have accomplished much, and will continue to do so because 
of the Mars exploration program. NASA's Insight mission will 
spend its extended mission listening for Mars earthquakes. 
NASA's other rover, Curiosity, continues to make exciting 
discoveries during the climb up Mount Sharp, just now entering 
the sulfate unit, which is a window into the Mars history when 
the planet became cold and dry.
     NASA is also studying Mars from orbit, with the Mars 
Reconnaissance Orbiter, MAVEN, Odyssey, with ESA's (European 
Space Agency's) Mars Express missions, expanding our 
understanding of the dynamic planet we see today. For example, 
the science community has been able to piece together the 
anatomy of the 2018 global dust storm, the storm that ended 
NASA's Opportunity mission. We now understand the probability 
and the progression of global dust storms and their effects, 
thereby reducing the risks of future missions.
     As the program has brought us to the sample return, this 
will be the first time samples will be brought back from 
another planet. It involves three missions, and a close 
collaboration with the European Space Agency. Once back on 
Earth we can analyze the samples in ways we can't on Mars. We 
can use instruments too large and too complex to send to Mars, 
and we can save material for future generations. Using 
instruments that have not yet been invented, and addressing 
questions that no one has yet thought of. NASA's Mars 
Exploration Program continues to lead the world in learning 
about Mars, and developing the technology that allows us to 
delve deeper into the secrets of the red planet, making 
significant progress in its goals of searching for life, 
understanding Mars climate, understanding Mars geology, and 
preparing for human exploration.
     I want to thank Congress for their steady and generous 
support of Mars science, and I would be happy to any 
questions--answer any questions that you may have. Thank you.
     [The prepared statement of Dr. Meyer follows:]
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     Chairman Beyer. Thank you, Dr. Meyer, very much. I promise 
you, we're all very excited about Mars science. Now let me 
introduce Dr. Bethany Ehlmann for her testimony.

              TESTIMONY OF DR. BETHANY L. EHLMANN,

                 PROFESSOR OF PLANETARY SCIENCE

                     AND ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR

            OF THE KECK INSTITUTE FOR SPACE STUDIES,

              CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY;

               PRESIDENT, THE PLANETARY SOCIETY;

        CO-INVESTIGATOR, MARS 2020 PERSEVERANCE MISSION

     Dr. Ehlmann. Thank you. Chairman Beyer, Ranking Member 
Babin, Members of Subcommittee, I appreciate all of your work 
to support science and exploration, and thank you for the 
opportunity to appear today. Our team was thrilled February 18 
when JPL delivered our one-ton rover to the surface of Mars. 
I'm going to focus on the big picture science questions 
answerable at Mars, and how we conduct our exploration, while 
my colleagues will discuss the instruments and sample return 
portion.
     For me, and I think for many of us, there is just a DNA of 
exploration in us as humans. We're drawn to ask profound 
questions. Are planets like our Earth rare, or are they common? 
Is there life elsewhere in the universe? One of the reasons I 
study Mars among all solar system planets is that Mars is a 
linchpin to answering these questions.
     The different fates of Earth-like worlds in our solar 
system are recorded on Earth, Venus, and Mars. But what's 
special about Mars is that there's a vast rock record that 
spans the interactions of the interior of the planet, the 
atmosphere, the climate that record what makes a planet 
habitable over its first billion years. I draw the 
Subcommittee's attention to the Mars Architecture Strategy 
Working Group Report from November that goes far more deeply 
than I can in 5 minutes on these questions, reviewing the 
findings of our program, reaffirming the priority of sample 
return, and identifying how to move forward in the next decade 
about the interaction between science--scientific exploration, 
human exploration, and the growing commercial space sector, 
because, as was mentioned, it's an exciting time right now at 
Mars, 11 operating spacecraft from five different agencies.
     So what does Perseverance do? Perseverance is both a 
science mission, like past rovers, and it's the first step in 
an ambitious three mission sequence to return samples to Earth. 
We've already accomplished a number of our technology goals, so 
what remains is to study the region's history, climate, look 
for signs of life. We act as a robot geologist, but I now want 
to move to my slides that I have, because we have a wealth of 
data from the Mars Exploration Program, and if we go ahead and 
move on to the first time step, I can talk about why this is 
important, and what we have learned, and what we will learn.
     What I'm showing here is a hill-shaped topography map of 
Mars, because Mars today is a cold, dry desert, like the 
Antarctic dry valleys. Two decades of exploration, though, have 
discovered thousands of outcrops of rock across the surface. 
Everywhere you see a colored dot on this image, it's a mineral 
that formed in the presence of water. Some clay minerals, like 
you form in soils, some from aquifers underground, some salts. 
Now, there are thousands of places to explore, but we have 
gotten to a handful of them so far. You can see the 
Perseverance rover site is in a concentration of these exciting 
rock outcrops west of the Isidis Basin.
     If we zoom in to where we have chosen to go with this Mars 
2020 rover on the next slide, what we see here is beautiful, 45 
kilometer, Jezero Crater. I hope, if you look to the--
particularly to the left of Jezero Crater, what's exciting is 
that there is a landscape of 4-billion-year-old rocks. 
Particularly in the lower left you can see a series of rock 
mesas and outcrops, erosion planing off the historical record 
of Mars conveniently for us to drive through. And indeed the 
white dot is where we are right now on Mars. The white line is 
a notional traverse that we hope to undertake over the next 2 
years.
     In Jezero Crater, you can see it's a bit special. Over to 
the east there's an outflow channel. That's where water once 
drained out. To the north and to the west, there's an inflow 
channel that once drained in, and this is where Jezero Crater 
once had a lake. If we zoom in to the west, you can see this 
beautiful delta landform. Here I'm showing false color infrared 
data from one of the orbiters, the Mars Reconnaissance orbiter 
in our Exploration Program. The yellows and the purples are 
volcanic formed minerals. The greens are clay and carbonate. 
Clay and carbonate rocks are water formed. If you were on 
Earth, you would go to them to find the fossils.
     If we go to the next slide it highlights, you know, just 
the amazing Mars coordinated Exploration Program, snapping our 
descent to the surface, with the HiRISE (High Resolution 
Imaging Experiment) instrument seeing Perseverance land at this 
landform that we worked for 20 years to find as the target of 
our exploration. I'll end with the final graphic, which is hot 
off the presses from the Mastcam-Z instrument, and really, I 
hope, reveals the tantalizing detail of what's to come. You can 
see the sands and the rocks of our landing site, the distant 
crater rim 10 kilometers away that we will eventually climb out 
on, but not before exploring these sediments and deposits ahead 
of us, so it's a rubbly landscape, and we've got to just make 
the first decisions about how to drive through it.
     But as we finish off here, you see the mesas of the delta 
coming into view, those rocks that record the history of the 
lake. We're going to drive up to them with our instruments, 
sample them to select the best ones to bring back to Earth. So 
I look forward to reporting on our findings in the years to 
come.
     [The prepared statement of Dr. Ehlmann follows:]
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     Chairman Beyer. Dr. Ehlmann, thank you very much. Those 
look like mountains I would like to climb. Dr. Beegle, the 
floor is yours.

                TESTIMONY OF DR. LUTHER BEEGLE,

        PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR OF THE MARS PERSEVERANCE

                SCANNING HABITABLE ENVIRONMENTS

             WITH RAMAN & LUMINESCENCE FOR ORGANICS

               & CHEMICALS (SHERLOC) INSTRUMENT,

                   JET PROPULSION LABORATORY

     Dr. Beegle. Chairman Beyer, Ranking Member Babin, and 
Members of the Subcommittee, I'm honored to appear before this 
Subcommittee on behalf of the California Institute of 
Technology to discuss the Mars Perseverance mission. On 
February 18, 2021 the Perseverance touched down in Mars' Jezero 
Crater. As we just saw, roughly about 3.5 billion years ago, 
Jezero Crater was the site of an ancient lake. Orbital images 
show that Perseverance has landed, in fact, right in front of 
what was once a river delta. Places like this can concentrate 
biologic activity, and are known to be excellent sources of 
preservation of organic molecules. We have high hopes for this 
location--what this location may hold for science.
     All evidence points to Mars being more Earth-like in its 
early history, with rivers, lakes, and a large ocean 
potentially filling the southern hemisphere. At roughly the 
same time that life was starting on the Earth, water also 
flowed across the surface of Mars. We believe that many of the 
same conditions we think would be required for life on Earth 
were present on Mars at this time, including chemical energy 
sources and access to organic carbon.
     On Earth many things have changed since life began a 
billion years ago. Key clues to the origin of life on our 
planet have largely been erased by weathering, erosion, and 
plate tectonics. On Mars, by contrast, there's little evidence 
of plate tectonics, and the surface has been less affected by 
these other processes, thus Mars is a much better preserved 
ancient rock record. Rocks on Mars could preserve key evidence 
of planetary formation, clues to its habitability, and 
potentially signs of macroscopic life.
     Perseverance's payload has seven instruments that will 
analyze samples for future return to Earth. I am the principal 
investigator for an instrument called SHERLOC, which stands for 
Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for 
Organics and Chemicals. SHERLOC was developed to search for 
clues with an astrobiology relevant mission and relevant 
environment on Mars. Starting soon, SHERLOC will identify--work 
to identify habitable environments, and see what we can do 
regarding Mars's history.
     SHERLOC enables sensitive detection characterization and 
spatially resolved correlation of trace organic minerals and 
material within the Martian--within Martian outcrops. SHERLOC 
can identify potential biosignatures in the Martian surface and 
near subsurface. It does this by combining microscopic imaging 
and Raman and fluorescence spectroscopy to map a postage sized 
stamp of the Martian sample. Two microscopic cameras, the 
Autofocus and Confection Imager, or ACI, and the Wide Angle 
Topographic Sensor for Operations and Engineering, or WATSON, 
obtain high resolution images of the surface to identify 
textures and features smaller than 30 microns.
     The Martian surface is an inhospitable for most organic 
molecules due to high ultraviolet radiation and oxidizing 
conditions. Perseverance has an abrasion tool to get to the 
protected interior of rocks, where organic molecules have been 
shown by NASA's Mars Science Laboratory, or Curiosity, to 
exist. Organic molecules that SHERLOC can identify are found in 
life as we know it, but a number of these have also been found 
in meteorites, or known to be created through abiotic chemical 
processes on the Earth. This is why we call any findings by 
SHERLOC potential biosignatures, rather than to claim--rather 
than claiming to have an instrument capable of unambiguous life 
detection.
     Minerals can also be a form of biosignature. Biology can 
create distinctive signatures that can be observed in 
assemblages of astrobiology relevant materials. The presence of 
such assemblages in minerals in association with organics can 
be an important component in evaluating whether something may 
have been produced or brought about through biologic processes. 
SHERLOC will be looking for these types of features. The Mars 
2020 mission is designed to collect well-characterized samples 
that have high scientific value. When these samples are 
eventually returned to Earth, they will be analyzed by state-
of-the-art instruments, some of which cannot be flown to Mars 
for a variety of reasons. Some of these instruments have not 
even yet been invented. The combination of knowing where a 
sample came from, and multiple lines of evidence within that 
sample, should be able to get us closer to answering the 
tantalizing question of whether life existed, or ever--or 
exists on the next planet out from the Sun.
     Finally, I have given many talks at schools focusing on 
the Mars 2020 mission, and SHERLOC in particular. I usually end 
those talks by reminding the students the samples we are 
collecting will be arriving back on Earth in the 2030's, that 
by pursuing a career in science and engineering, they can help 
answer the questions that we are currently waiting to answer. 
As we inspire the next generation of researchers, I imagine all 
the wonderful things that we will be able to accomplish, and 
all the big questions we will be able to answer from these 
samples. I would be happy to answer any questions you have.
     [The prepared statement of Dr. Beegle follows:]
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     Chairman Beyer. Dr. Beegle, thank you very much. And our 
grand finale, Dr. Bosak, floor is yours.

                   TESTIMONY DR. TANJA BOSAK,

                RETURNED SAMPLE SCIENCE CO-LEAD,

                 MARS 2020 PERSEVERANCE ROVER;

          PROFESSOR AND LEAD OF THE OPTION IN GEOLOGY,

       GEOCHEMISTRY, AND GEOBIOLOGY, DEPARTMENT OF EARTH,

              ATMOSPHERIC, AND PLANETARY SCIENCES,

             MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

     Dr. Bosak. Chairman Beyer, Ranking Member Babin, and 
Members of the Subcommittee, thank you so much for inviting us 
to share our delight with this mission so far. And it's 
really--it is great just to see you all excited about 
tomorrow's science.
     Because--I think we are all excited because we are, just 
at the beginning of a truly exciting time with the landing of 
the Perseverance rover in Jezaro Crater that Bethany showed. 
We'll be able to identify and collect samples of rocks, soils, 
and minerals from this known location on Mars, and the return 
of the samples to Earth is likely to transform our views of 
planetary evolution, climate, habitability, and even the origin 
of life. And this is an ambitious endeavor, and one that will 
inspire the children of today to learn more about science and 
technology.
     Why it's ambitious? Well, we are bringing samples back 
from Mars. But--not only that, but for the first time we really 
will dare to ask the question of whether these samples contain 
something that may have been life. We are looking for life on 
other planets, and this is a very old question. For millennia, 
in fact, people have wondered whether there is life outside of 
Earth, and how--and when life began, what conditions are 
necessary to get life started. And so far Earth is the only 
known planet with life. Scientists like myself find the early 
signs of life in some of the oldest sedimentary rocks in the 
Earth that are 3.5 billion years old. However, if you ask us 
how life began, we'll start hemming and hawing, and that's 
simply because we don't have the answer to that. We--nobody 
knows.
     So to answer this, some scientists are trying to 
synthesize organic molecules that are presence in all living 
cells, and even make proto-cells in test tubes. Other 
scientists look at old rocks in the Earth, but there are few 
preserved rocks on Earth that are old enough to tell us what 
our planet even looked like more than 3.5 billion years ago, 
and this is where Mars comes in. It has this amazing history.
     The Mars 2020 mission will collect more than 30 pencil 
sized samples of rocks and soils in and outside of Jezaro 
Crater, and many of these rocks are older than 3.5 billion 
years. They attest to a warmer Mars that contained liquid water 
at the surface. If those conditions lasted long enough, they 
may have supported microbial life. So, if--sample these rocks, 
and analyze them on Earth, we really can open the window into a 
time that we currently know little about.
     So the samples from Mars have to be returned to Earth to 
be analyzed. We heard that already from Michael and Luther. The 
analysis to look for life in rocks, one has to cut them, one 
has to make thin slices of them to look through them, one needs 
the best microscopes because we are looking for microbial life. 
Everything that old has to be microbial. We also need other 
types of instruments to characterize the organic molecules that 
may be present, and all sorts of other chemicals, even to tell 
exactly how old those rocks are. We need different types of 
instruments. We simply cannot miniaturize all that and fit that 
many instruments in a single room.
     So once the samples come back, scientists will analyze 
them for decades, just like they're still doing with the rocks 
brought back from the Moon by Apollo, and this was more than 50 
years ago. The analysis of Martian samples would determine how 
and when different rocks formed over--altered by water, how and 
when did the climate on Mars change, and how to best prepare 
for human exploration of Mars. Some of the rocks might even 
contain organic matter, or remains of former microbial cells. 
So, all in all, the samples brought back from Mars have the 
potential to revolutionize our understanding of whether life 
was ever present on Mars.
     And, even if you don't find life--I get this question a 
lot, ``So what if you don't find life?'' By looking at samples 
from early Mars, we can always learn a lot more about organic 
molecules and processes that preceded life on Earth because of 
all this great age on these samples. And some of the findings 
that arise from the samples may even challenge our current 
interpretations of wife--what life is, or how to detect it. A 
lot of the findings, if not all of the findings, you'll also 
motivate future missions to Mars.
     All this is great, but it's much greater than science. 
Since Perseverance landed, I've talked to hundreds of people, 
or to radio shows, and to schools, and I received dozens of e-
mails from just random people from all over the world and from 
all walks of life. And what these e-mails and this personal 
communication has shown me is that Mars exploration inspires 
people to engage with science and technology because it 
resonates with people's innate curiosity about themselves, and 
our own place in the universe, and that curiosity in turn 
inspires us to do more. So I will be happy to answer any of the 
questions you may have.
     [The prepared statement of Dr. Bosak follows:]
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     Chairman Beyer. Thank you, Dr. Bosak, very much. 
Fascinating opening comments. I'll recognize myself now for 5 
minutes for questions, and Dr. Bosak, I'm going to come right 
back to you. So you're our geowhatever.
     Dr. Bosak. Geowhatever.
     Chairman Beyer. Geowhatever. Is the geology on Mars as 
varied as it is on Earth, in terms of the elements themselves, 
and the potassium, and carbon, and zinc, and--you know, 
basically are the building blocks there as they would be on 
Earth?
     Dr. Bosak. Mars is a rocky planet, and this is one of the 
reasons why we are so fascinated by it. It is so close to 
Earth. It is really the closest planet to Earth, and it does 
consist--because it's rocky, these rocks are the source of all 
the elements we need--well, a lot of the elements, such as iron 
and calcium, all of the stuff that goes into bones and so on. 
So Mars has all of that.
     Now, the question of organics is a very interesting one, 
so carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, because rocky planets get these 
elements probably--and water as well--later in their history. 
Still really, really early in the big scheme of things, but 
later in the history, and we think a lot of that material came 
from asteroids and comets, so from elsewhere in the solar 
system. And so by looking at these old rocks from Mars, this is 
one of the--actually aspects of the mission, and the return 
sample that is most exciting to me--we could start asking how 
much delivery was taking place. What is this background 
delivery of these compounds that are needed for life to rocky 
planets?
     Chairman Beyer. Thank you very much. Dr. Meyer, you've 
been a specialist in astrobiology. Dr. Bosak earlier talked 
about, you know, life evolving, you know, trying to understand. 
Was the organic soup ever there, the lightning? You know, our 
limited understanding of how life evolved on Earth, could those 
conditions have been on Mars also?
     Dr. Meyer. Well--so that's actually one of the big 
questions. We think so, and that's half the reason why we're 
looking, but, in all honesty, there's three major theories 
about how life got started on this planet, and we don't have 
very good evidence to point one way or the other. And, as Tanja 
talked about, rocks on Mars--over 50 percent of the rocks on 
the surface are ancient, and here on Earth they're few and far 
between, and they've been worked over. So evidence of exactly 
what was going on in the first billion years of terrestrial 
planet history, we don't have a very good record on Earth, and 
we think the record is on Mars. So whether or not we had the 
organic soup, and lightning that caused life, or whether or not 
it was a hydrothermal vent, these are things that going to Mars 
can help us sort out.
     Chairman Beyer. Thank you very much. And, Dr. Ehlmann, as 
our planetary scientist, we saw Elon Musk last week, the week 
before, talk about terraforming Mars. Is there enough water 
there to justify that? Can you see transforming the Mars 
environment sufficient for human life?
     Dr. Ehlmann. Well, I will say that the premise is correct 
in that Mars is the closest potentially habitable world, right? 
It is really the only one that has an atmosphere today, as well 
as abundant water resources. We know right now, you know, the 
water is in solid ice, so the question is can--does the ice 
melt now naturally, right? That's a question Perseverance won't 
answer. Is there modern life that could be associated with this 
ice? I think I'd actually like to answer that before we send 
humans.
     But regardless, terraforming Mars would be hard, so--I'm a 
planetary scientist, but I'm also a geologist by training, and 
I know that to make a planetary atmosphere thick for humans to 
breathe, you have to figure out some way to produce oxygen, you 
have to figure out some way to thicken the atmosphere so that 
it's warm enough, and on Mars lots of the water and the carbon 
dioxide are actually trapped in rocks, so hard to release. I 
would love to send humans to Mars to explore. Changing the 
whole planetary climate, maybe not so much.
     Chairman Beyer. Yeah. I love the optimism, in any case. Is 
there enough gravity there to hold an atmosphere?
     Dr. Ehlmann. There is, and Mars has an atmosphere today. 
It's a little less than 1 percent of the thickness of Earth's 
atmosphere. It's 96 percent carbon dioxide, but very, very, 
very thin.
     Chairman Beyer. That's great. Thank you. Dr. Beegle, very 
quickly, do we have enough talent in the pipeline? You know, we 
worry so much about STEM education----
     Dr. Beegle. We do. We have some very--I look at the 
postdocs and graduate students that are working on 
Perseverance, and had worked on the development of 
Perseverance, and there's some outstanding talent coming up, 
and even more on the way as we continue to push people in a--
well, not push people, but inspire people to go into science 
and technology. We have a great pool to draw from.
     Chairman Beyer. That's very encouraging to hear. Let me 
now recognize my friend Dr. Babin for his 5 minutes of 
questions.
     Mr. Babin. Absolutely fascinating. I just want to thank 
all four of you for being here, giving us your testimony, and, 
Mr. Chairman, thank you for having this. I guess my first 
question would be for Dr. Bosak. I proudly represent the 
Johnson Space Center (JSC) here in Houston, where many 
brilliant, hardworking government employees and contractors 
also work here. JSC is at the center--or presently charged with 
curation of extraterrestrial samples, and is home to the Astral 
Materials Acquisition and Curation Office. JSC has experience 
curating samples from the Apollo Moon landings, meteorites, 
cosmic dust, and the Genesis, Stardust, and Hayabusa missions, 
and will process samples from the Osiris Rex mission. The Mars 
Perseverance mission is gathering and storing samples for an 
eventual Mars sample return mission--fascinating--which is 
still in the planning phase.
     From your perspective as the co-lead on returned sample 
science for the Perseverance rover mission, does NASA plan to 
store and curate Mars sample returns at Johnson? And what 
impediments are there to using JSC's Astral Materials 
Acquisition and Curation Office, and the unique capabilities 
that JSC possesses? Because I would like to do everything that 
I possibly can to eliminate whatever impediments those might 
be.
     Dr. Bosak. Unfortunately, I'm not--well, not 
unfortunately. We are really responsible--the team of Mars 2020 
mission, the Perseverance rover mission, is responsible to--for 
recognizing, identifying, and collecting the best samples, and 
the plans for curation, storage, later allocation, are all 
under development by the Mars Sample Return Program. So I think 
the plans are being developed not by necessarily the members--
the teams members of Mars 2020. I think Michael can speak more 
to that.
     Mr. Babin. OK. Dr. Meyer, can you speak to that?
     Dr. Meyer. Yeah. I mean, Johnson is long recognized for 
their expertise in astral materials, and I think they do a 
fantastic job, and we are targeting Johnson to be the 
implementation lead for the samples that come back from Mars. 
Where the facility is actually located hasn't been determined 
yet, and part of that is just whatever other factors are coming 
into play. And, as an example, we're right now on an 
international group, competitively selected, trying to work out 
what the requirements are for the facility because, as you 
know, the Mars samples are unique, and they have some 
challenges of not only keeping them pristine and doing the best 
science that you can on them, but also keeping them contained 
while you're trying to do the science, at least initially.
     And--so we're going to--you know, we would like to open 
that up and have--when we figure out, really, what the 
requirements are, and what our capabilities are, in terms of--
facility that we can do, Johnson will lead that effort, in 
terms of determining where the actual facility is.
     Mr. Babin. OK. Thank you. And I guess your testimony also 
highlights how Perseverance is paving the way for future crewed 
missions to Mars by demonstrating oxygen production with a 
MOXIE instrument, and the use of terrain relative navigation 
that you had mentioned. Can you speak to how terrain relative 
navigation will also assist future Artemis missions to the 
Moon, and how it could be incorporated into human landings?
     Dr. Meyer. Yeah. Well, certainly the issue with--
particularly with Mars, and in the--and the Moon is that 
there's a time delay between when something happens and when 
people on Earth actually get to see it. So when you're trying 
to pick precise landing, you know, you want to land next to the 
equipment you left, you know, that you put there for your 
humans to go to, or resources that are available, you need 
precision landing. And terrain relative navigation has shown us 
that we can do it autonomously. And so for that we know that we 
can put things on the surface of another planetary body, and 
put humans right next to them so they can use them.
     Mr. Babin. Thank you very much. And now, for Dr. Beegle, 
is the Perseverance rover looking for signs of life or signs of 
ancient life? If NASA is only searching for signs of ancient 
life, is this because the instruments are too complex, or 
perhaps too costly, to search for extant life, or because NASA 
doesn't believe that Mars is capable of harboring life more. 
Understanding that you may be a little biased as a Mars 
researcher, how should this information play into 
considerations of whether to continue exploring Mars, or to 
focus more on Venus, Europa, Ganymede, Titan, or other 
celestial bodies?
     Dr. Beegle. So we're looking for signs of ancient life 
because we simply don't believe that Mars is habitable, at 
least to the upper few centimeters, today. But as Dr. Ehlmann 
has pointed out, that Mars is the most Earth-like planet, and 
if life started there, we would assume that life would--if we 
find that--signs of ancient life, we could tie it back to what 
started life on the Earth, and Europa and Ganymede may have had 
different origins of life, if it started there at all. So while 
we could find it if it was there, I--we don't expect any extant 
life to be present.
     Mr. Babin. OK.
     Dr. Ehlmann. If I----
     Mr. Babin. Did somebody want to say something?
     Dr. Ehlmann. If I could just briefly add, I think--wanted 
to emphasize--Luther noted--Dr. Beegle noted that it's the 
upper centimeters that we don't think are habitable, but once 
you get down a meter, or maybe a few, it gets a lot better. 
You're out of the radiation, you might be near some ice or 
water. So that's the place to look on Mars.
     Mr. Babin. Well, you know what, I didn't get a chance to 
ask you a question, Dr. Ehlmann, but thank you very much for 
that answer. And I could go on for the next 1 hour at least, 
but I'll have to yield back, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
     Chairman Beyer. And, Dr. Babin, I think we're going to do 
at least a second round, because our curiosity is large. And--
--
     Mr. Babin. Absolutely.
     Chairman Beyer. And with that, I'd love to introduce 
perhaps the greatest enthusiast for Mars exploration in the 
U.S. Congress, the author of the Mars 2033 bumper sticker that 
many of us have, Congressman Perlmutter.
     Mr. Perlmutter. And I'm sorry I don't have that today, 
because I'm in California, but I've got to tell a story. So, 
Dr. Bosak, your question--or your comment about the enthusiasm 
of people, you know, reaching out to you--so I chair a 
different--Committee on Financial Services, the Banking 
Subcommittee, and I was getting interviewed by the Wall Street 
Journal just as Perseverance was landing a month or two ago, 
whenever it was, and I couldn't talk about banking. All I could 
talk about with this guy from the Wall Street Journal was the 
Perseverance landing, and it's because I was so excited about 
it. And I am excited about the efforts and the successes that 
you've had so far.
     And Dr. Babin, you know, I mean--a lot of times you can't 
have success without, you know, a few trials and errors, and 
we've had those too. But this one seems to be--you know, each 
time you try something--Ingenuity it took you, you know, 
reprogramming it a little bit before it could take off. You 
know, the cameras, Dr. Beegle, seem to be working fantastic. We 
haven't quite tried the drilling yet, I don't think, but, you 
know, you're taking these one step at a time. So I want to talk 
about MOXIE, and I want to talk about Ingenuity, if I could.
     And so explain to me the process--what's going on with 
MOXIE as we're figuring out how to create oxygen on this 
planet, which will benefit us, you know, in many different 
ways? And I just open all of these questions to all the 
panelists, so jump in as you choose. Dr. Beegle?
     Dr. Beegle. So I can explain what's going on with MOXIE. 
And MOXIE had--did a run the other night where they take 
CO2 out of the atmosphere, and they turn that 
CO2 into breathable oxygen, or oxygen that could be 
used for rocket fuel. They run overnight. It's a wonderful 
instrument, and they created enough that you could breathe on 
Mars for 10 minutes, which doesn't sound like a lot, but really 
is. It's the start of that whole process, and it's a 
fascinating instrument.
     Mr. Perlmutter. Anybody else want to talk about MOXIE? And 
then we'll get to Ingenuity. OK.
     Dr. Meyer [continuing]. It's OK, what I would like to 
mention is that the way it does it is it splits the molecule, 
so it strips the two oxygens off of the carbon, and that's how 
it's generating oxygen. So it's kind of a neat process. It 
takes a catalytic converter, but it's a test. And the volume 
depends on how big of a thing you want to use.
     Mr. Perlmutter. Great, the old catalytic converter. That's 
amazing. So, Dr. Meyer, do you see this as sort of a precursor 
of some kind of bigger system that would then, you know, enable 
our--if--so I am a big proponent of human space exploration, 
and hope to see our astronauts on Mars by 2033, and I wish I 
had my bumper sticker for you, but I don't. Do you see this as 
something that will--we could put together to really provide 
oxygen for our astronauts, or for fuel? I mean, in it--so, you 
know, a massive kind of approach to this?
     Dr. Meyer. So how I see the real advantage is is that you 
can put a system for--like MOXIE onto the surface of Mars, and 
have it operating for years, and then send humans, or then send 
your return spacecraft, and you can make use of that oxygen 
that has been generated.
     You know, one of the things to keep in mind is that rocket 
fuel is an oxidant and a reductant, so, like--something like 
methane or ethanol, and then the oxygen. Well, the oxygen is 
actually the heavier part, so this goes a long way in making--
getting to the surface of Mars with something you can return--
if you make most of the mass of your fuel on the planet itself, 
it's a huge advantage.
     Mr. Perlmutter. Great. To the geologists, how are you 
going to use Ingenuity to help you explore a little bit of the 
geology up there?
     Dr. Ehlmann. I guess I'll start, and then hand it over to 
Professor Bosak. So, you know, Ingenuity is a technology 
demonstration. You know, it wasn't even originally part of the 
mission, but I think that is part of the reason that we 
explore, and that is part of the reason the U.S. Space Program 
is so outstanding is that we dare to do audacious things, like 
fly a helicopter on another planet. Like, wow. And you know 
what? We figured out how to do it. It worked.
     And so Ingenuity is going to, you know, on its final 
flight, scout out some of the terrain around us, we hope 
getting a closer view than what we have from orbit, but what I 
think's super important is how it paves the way for future 
exploration technology. There are already folks at JPL who are 
talking about, ``Well, you know, what if, instead of carrying a 
tiny little 500 gram cell phone camera, could we put 5 
kilograms of science payload on there so we could fly down the 
canyons of Mars from spot to spot, taking images, making 
chemical measurements?'' So I think what's important about 
Ingenuity is it's paving the path for future exploration.
     Mr. Perlmutter. Thank you very much. My time is expired. 
Mr. Chairman, I love this stuff. I yield back.
     Chairman Beyer. That is obvious, Congressman Perlmutter, 
and we're all so fortunate. Let me now recognize the Ranking 
Member of the Full Committee, the past Chairman of the Science 
Committee, Congressman Frank Lucas.
     Mr. Lucas. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I address my 
questions to the panel in general. This Committee's always 
promoted a balanced portfolio at NASA, and we worked very hard 
to--by the informed nature of the National Academies Decadal 
Studies. Our Committee's always been very supportive of 
planetary science missions throughout the solar system. Given 
the number of Mars missions during the last decade, how would 
you recommend we balance the planetary science portfolio in 
future years? Anyone that's willing to touch the wire, I'm 
happy to listen.
     Dr. Ehlmann. Well, sure, I'll touch the hot wire. So 
what's most important is that, you know, scientists, we need to 
get together and prioritize our science, and then communicate 
those messages to Congress, to the President, and so we're in 
the process of doing that right now through the National 
Academies Planetary Decadal Survey process. So over the last, 
you know, year, year and a half, we've been trying to hash out 
that question, arguing amongst ourselves, ``Well, what is the 
right balance between outer solar system, inner solar system, 
small missions, big missions?''
     You know, I think the answer is we need a Mars exploration 
program because Mars is unique. Mars is special. Mars sample 
return is an enormous investment, but it pays it back. It pays 
it back in terms of proving how we can come, and then go, and 
then bring back. We would want to do that before humans, and 
the science return, as Professor Bosak said, will be amazing. 
So we need to have that balance, and we--I can say the 
Planetary Decadal Survey looks forward to communicating to 
Congress its relative prioritization.
     Mr. Lucas. Absolutely. Perseverance has----
     Dr. Beegle. And I'll also----
     Mr. Lucas [continuing]. Already demonstrated--please.
     Dr. Beegle. Sorry. I'll also add that we do the other 
missions as well, so there is a balance for working on the 
Europa--the orbiter mission right--on Europa flyby mission 
right now, Europa Clipper, and there is the--I think there is 
the balance--I think most people in the community think there 
is a decent balance.
     Dr. Meyer. And I would just like to add one thought, if 
that's OK. It's balancing the science of planetary sciences, 
not necessarily equal number of targets, in terms of missions. 
And in some ways Mars has an advantage because of the amount of 
information that we can learn from exploring Mars, and the 
short--let's say the not so long time to get there and get the 
information back. So it has a little bit of an advantage, so I 
don't feel so bad that we've had so many missions to Mars, 
because they have really returned--fantastic amount of data. 
And I don't envy Bethany's job on the decadal to--helping sort 
out what those priorities are.
     Mr. Lucas. Absolutely. Perseverance has already 
demonstrated multiple technologies that'll assist in the future 
human exploration of the Moon and Mars. And to help Mr. 
Perlmutter achieve all those goals, what are some of the 
examples of technology demonstrations on future planetary 
missions which will further assist human exploration throughout 
the entire solar system? Again, I'm trying to help Mr. 
Perlmutter.
     Dr. Meyer. I'll take a quick crack at that, and hopefully 
my other--fellow witnesses will chime in. But there are things 
that will really help human exploration that we actually 
haven't demonstrated yet, and that is, for instance, 
rendezvousing in space with your spacecraft, testing out 
operations--so one of the challenges are--I used to do field 
work, and there's a world of difference between doing something 
where you're 3 days away from help, like a hospital or food 
sources, compared to multiple years. And so I think one of the 
key parts of Gateway, and the Artemis Program, is, in fact, 
testing out your operations and your housing for the astronauts 
to be reliable on the long term.
     Dr. Beegle. I would also add that there's an aspect of 
autonomy that we don't talk enough about. There's a couple 
versions of autonomy. One is the rover drives itself, but 
there's also the idea that the rover can figure out how it's 
working, and how it's functioning, and what its basic 
mechanical state is. As we develop more and more autonomy to--
for the rover to figure out what's going on, that helps in 
human spacecraft because you will have the human rovers, and 
equipment, and things like that, really be able to understand 
how well it's functioning, whether or not it's about to break 
down, which is something that would be very valuable for human 
missions.
     Mr. Lucas. My time's expired. I wish to thank the panel 
for those insights, and yield back to the Chairman.
     Chairman Beyer. Thank you, Congressman Lucas. I now 
recognize the Congressman from greater New Jersey, leaders on 
education and labor, Congressman Norcross.
     Mr. Norcross. Thank you, Chairman, appreciate it. And the 
people who are on this call, you can just see the smiles 
because it's things that we believe passionately about. As a 
young man, you know, the Mercury, Gemini, I was one of those 
kids that got NASA tech briefs when they used to be put out on 
paper. I had no idea what I was looking at, but it's that sort 
of driving force that keeps me and so many involved because 
it's about what we're learning.
     I want to talk about private investment. If you Google 
private space, you'll get 25 different companies, so I sort of 
split those into two categories, those who are facilitating 
different components, whether it's the rocket or the 
instruments. The other side of that is private investment into 
space. What do you think drives the private investment for the 
future, and I'm assuming this is way in the future, to either 
Mars, to an asteroid, or others. What would drive them that 
there is a payback, and when do you think that would happen? I 
know it's a wide open question, but at some point you do all 
the work, and somebody comes in and takes the profit out of it, 
but where do think that--and where do you think it would be? 
And that's for all three. Love to hear that.
     Dr. Ehlmann. Guess I'll start us off. So there's, you 
know, private industry has been--has always played a huge part. 
You know, so many of the procurements for our rovers and 
instruments are from private companies, so big role. I think 
what you're poking at, though, is that that role seems to be 
changing a little bit, and I think it's driven by the 
increasing access to space, driven by lower launch costs, and a 
number of companies are competing in that arena, just lowering 
the cost of access.
     The other thing that's happening is with small sats, and 
with commercial technology in orbit, there are many more 
entrants into this field, many more private companies, small 
private companies, building components, so I think the 
motivation is largely profit, that we see a market in space. 
And I think one of us--the challenges for us as planetary 
scientists is to think about how to extend that market to 
enable more exploration and more activity. It's happening at 
the Moon, with the Commercial Lunar Space Flight Program. I 
want to highlight the lunar CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload 
Services) program, which I think can be extended to Mars if we, 
like, for example, regularize the delivery, or set up, you 
know, comm infrastructure contracts to provide communications 
from rovers and landers back, these are things industry could 
do, so we have to think about what's the right role--what's the 
right contracting vehicle to have, you know, shared risk, for 
example, in some of the development, and how do we incentivize 
that? Some people want to go anyway, right, just to go. Like, 
Elon Musk is an example, right? Others, they see the market, 
and so we need to think about how to incentivize that to enable 
more exploration.
     Mr. Norcross. If I could, just to sort of narrow the 
focus, I--plenty of investment to getting things out there, the 
Rocket Lab, SpaceX, the list goes on. Moving beyond what we 
already know as commercial space around our planet, the Moon, 
Mars, or others, what's going to drive them into that next 
spot? You know, how long did it take to really get private 
investment around our own planet from when we started this 
game, right? 40 years. Where do we think this is going, and 
what would drive them to go to, like, Moon, or back to Mars? 
What do you see as a reason for them to go there?
     Dr. Beegle. I will----
     Dr. Meyer. I'll----
     Dr. Beegle [continuing]. Say that there's--well, there's--
I'll just say real quick that there is a cadre of companies 
that are looking into asteroid mining, and that is something 
that is--it seems to be picking up speed, so that would be the 
first commercial aspect of return on investment that 
potentially would be made 1 day. But, beyond that, that's--I 
will defer to Mike Meyer--Dr. Meyer.
     Dr. Meyer. Well, I am certainly not the expert, and this 
is highly speculative, but I remember----
     Mr. Norcross. Absolutely.
     Dr. Meyer [continuing]. Talk about 15 years ago at a 
Committee on Space Research assembly, and it's actually--the 
person said, ``We will be at Mars with humans sustainably when 
it becomes''--``when you're able to do it for tourism.'' And 
when I heard that I thought the person was nuts. But then the 
more I thought about it, and the more I had to answer my cell 
phone, the more I thought, ``What a great pleasure it'd be 
where you get someplace where you're so far away that you can't 
have regular conversations with everybody else who wants to 
talk to you, but you could actually take a vacation, and you 
would be someplace entirely exotic for an extended period of 
time.'' And it makes more sense to me now.
     Mr. Norcross. Can I suggest a CODEL (congressional 
delegation)? Maybe to Mars, Mr. Chairman? Thank you, I yield 
back.
     Chairman Beyer. We'll request--we'll ask the Full Chairman 
and the Ranking Member for permission to schedule that CODEL. 
Thank you Mr. Norcross. I now recognize a Congressman known for 
many reasons, but best known as the Congressman from Cape 
Canaveral, Mr. Posey.
     Mr. Posey. Thank you, Chairman Beyer, and Vice Chairman 
Babin, for holding this very, very interesting hearing.
     Dr. Meyer, you mentioned that just getting a spacecraft to 
launch during the pandemic was no easy feat, and I assume 
especially considering the 2-year window. Can you describe some 
of the challenges that COVID-19 posed to launching on time, and 
how NASA and ULA (United Launch Alliance) were able to work 
together to overcome those challenges?
     Dr. Meyer. Yeah. I mean, this is something that, with only 
being able to talk for 5 minutes in the beginning, is something 
that I wasn't able to delve into, so thank you very much for 
the question. I think it is a tremendous heroic effort. And, as 
you mentioned, just getting a spacecraft to a launch pad on 
time to meet the planetary window, that's a huge challenge. 
And, as we know, in the past, we don't always make it, and this 
time, having COVID show up, you know, basically in the middle 
of what's called ATLO, Assembly, Testing, and Launch 
Operations, it was tremendous.
     And--so one of the things that really struck me was the 
whole operation team down in Florida had to basically form 
their own COVID bubble. So they had to be with each other all 
the time, which is maybe not necessarily a bad thing, but, you 
know, they had to self-isolate in preparation to going to 
Florida, and then while they're at Florida, and then how did 
you do summer rotation? It was an extreme challenge because 
that was the only way that you could actually get together and 
work on the equipment that you have to send to another planet. 
Otherwise--you can't do it all by Zoom.
     Mr. Posey. Well, thanks, that's a great answer. In your 
conclusion you state NASA's Mars Declaration program continues 
to lead the world in learning about Mars and developing 
technology that allows us to delve even deeper into 
[inaudible]. I was just wondering, with this being the ninth 
mission to have a U.S. spacecraft successfully land on Mars, 
what are some of the secrets that might be----
     Dr. Meyer. Well, this is a public meeting. Do you want me 
to reveal those secrets?
     Mr. Posey. Well----
     Dr. Meyer. Yeah.
     Mr. Posey. What do some people hope we will find? On the 
best view of things what could we discover?
     Dr. Meyer. You mean what we may find on Mars? Or are you 
talking about what the challenge--the--sort of the--how do we--
how have we been successful? I'm----
     Mr. Posey. No, just----
     Dr. Meyer. I'm kind of----
     Mr. Posey. Yeah, I think you mentioned that as we delve 
deeper into the secrets of the red planet with each mission, 
what might we be looking forward to finding out about Mars?
     Dr. Meyer. So--yeah. So--OK. Well, as been mentioned, Mars 
is very similar to Earth, and--some aspects to it that I think 
are absolutely fascinating. One of them is it's gone through 
huge transformations in its climate, and this happens on 
multiple time scales. And--but the record is--what the planet 
actually did is there. And so, in some ways, we can look at 
those rocks and determine, well, what happens when you increase 
the atmospheric pressure by twice as much, or 10 times as much, 
or, you know, even as much as Earth? You can look at how very--
how the tilt of the planet has varied the climate. It really 
helps you to test your climate models on another planet where 
they--the planet itself has done the testing for you. It's done 
the experiments. And so then you get a much better idea of how 
a planet behaves with its atmosphere when conditions change.
     And it's kind of simple in terms of--for instance, on 
Earth, while we're increasing the CO2 in our 
atmosphere, and we have models that kind of tell us what we 
think is going to happen, Mars has some great examples of 
extreme variability that will tell us--and give us a much 
better idea of how that's gone back and forth. And, real quick, 
I think this has already been mentioned, but certainly should 
never be forgotten, if life got started on Mars, there are 
still places where we think that life could be there today, and 
that's going to be a real challenge. And let's say the last--
that we can think of as scientists is in the deep subsurface 
in--where we think that there are potential aquifers. So that's 
one of those--almost a horizon goal, in terms of looking for 
life on Mars.
     Mr. Posey. Well, that's super interesting, and I thank you 
for explaining that to us. And I see my time has expired, so I 
yield back, Mr. Chairman.
     Chairman Beyer. Thank you, Mr. Posey, very much. Now 
recognize the gentleman from Florida, Governor Crist.
     Mr. Crist. Hello, Mr. Chairman. How are you today?
     Chairman Beyer. Excellent.
     Mr. Crist. Great, great. Is it my turn? I'm sorry, I 
couldn't hear you for a minute.
     Chairman Beyer. Yes, it is your turn.
     Mr. Crist. Thank you. Thank you so much, and I want to 
thank the witnesses for being with us today. Dr. Bosak, can you 
discuss what you are trying to find on Mars that would indicate 
microbial life, and how you will know definitively if life does 
exist on Mars, please?
     Dr. Bosak. Yes. So we are looking for past life. We are 
looking for life as it may have looked like 3.5 billion years 
ago, or even earlier, so we are not looking for current life. 
And basically----
     Mr. Crist. You're looking for dead life, is that what 
you're saying?
     Dr. Bosak. Dead life, exactly. So what we are looking for 
are fossils----
     Mr. Crist. OK.
     Dr. Bosak [continuing]. Fingerprints of some fossil life. 
And I can actually show you some examples of rocks that would 
tell me, just based on their shapes, that there must have been 
some life there. And that's probably the holy grail of we--what 
we can hope for by this mission, just to see something in the 
field. But, because we are looking for life that--really, from 
everything we know about life--microbial, we will have to bring 
samples back, and we will have to analyze these samples with--
it won't be one person who looks at one sample with one 
instrument and says, ``I think I see an outline of a cell, some 
former microbial cell'', and--so we are talking something that 
is microscopic. But there will be another team that has to look 
at that outline and say, ``Yes, I see organic carbon in 
there.'' And then there will be another team looking at the 
same outline and saying ``Yes, we see some concentration of 
elements that usually go with carbon in living organisms.'' And 
then someone else will have to measure the shapes and sizes of 
all these features, and say, ``Yeah, they really are 
consistent, and we cannot think of any processes that can 
create that.'' It can't be just oil bubbles, or something--you 
know, some asteroid delivered some material. So there will be a 
lot of different tests that'll have to go--because it's an 
extraordinary claim. And before we make those kinds of 
announcements, we will have to really make--as certain, based 
on the knowledge of the time, that this could be life. We'll--
everything else.
     Mr. Crist. Wonderful. Thank you. Dr. Ehlmann, you note in 
your testimony that the rock record on Mars extends much 
further back in time than what is preserved here on Earth. 
Based on what we know of Mars right now, do you think it's 
possible that we could find signs of life on Mars that are 
older than the first signs of life on Earth?
     Dr. Ehlmann. That's actually a great question. The oldest 
life that people sort of agree upon on Earth in the fossil 
record is about 3.5 billion years old. There are hints of 
earlier life, you know, maybe as far as 3.8, but the problem 
with our Earth is that, one, we have tectonic plates that 
deform the rocks, that heat them, that mess up the textures. 
And also, frankly, new Earth life eats organics from old life, 
so our life itself is destroying the record of past life on 
Earth. So, yes, I do think it is possible--it looks like all 
the conditions existed on Mars 3.5 billion years ago to create 
habitable environments. The record is much more pristine, 
though, because it's sort of captured frozen in time over 50 
percent of the surface. So we have lakes, rivers, aquifers, 
like underground in Florida, and hydrothermal systems, all of 
which are different types of environments to look for life.
     Mr. Crist. Wonderful. Dr. Meyer, when talking about the 
possibility of life on other planets we hear a lot about liquid 
water, and looking for signs that conditions are right for 
water to exist. What are some other known requirements for life 
as we know it to exist on other planets?
     Dr. Meyer. Yeah, it is broader than water, because, you 
know, with water at least we find that consistent, and we don't 
have to argue about it with life here on Earth, and what we 
think life is--you know, what the potential for life is in our 
solar system. But yeah, there are certain major things that 
should also be there. One of them is, of course, the right 
elements, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, phosphorous, and sulfur. 
Those are the things that we're all made out of. That's what 
everything that's alive on Earth is made out of, so you would 
hope you have those. You probably want certain compounds. You 
may want some trace elements, because they're important for 
enzymes to work, and that sort of thing.
     The other is, in fact, energy, and this may be a more 
challenging one to look for for extraterrestrial life because, 
if you don't have enough you can't do anything, if you have too 
much, the energy is too much, and it destroys what complexity 
is liable to evolve. So those other things are sort of other 
things you would look for. And, in fact, one of the great 
things that Curiosity did within the first year of its mission 
is, in fact, it found everything that we can think of that are 
required for life, and that's why we can now say, yes, barely, 
at least early Mars could have supported life, if it ever got 
started there, because it has all the right ingredients.
     Mr. Crist. Great. Thank you, Doctor, and, Mr. Chairman, 
I'll yield back. My time has expired. Thank you.
     Chairman Beyer. Thank you, Governor, very much. And we can 
move to a second round for anyone who's brave enough to hang in 
there. But I completely understand, as busy as our schedules 
are right now, if Members have to go off to other things. So 
let me begin, and, by the way, thank you, Dr. Babin, for co-
chairing this with me.
     First I want to apologize to our panelists for having Andy 
Weir appear before the Space Subcommittee before you, you know, 
and we actually packed the room with press. But, anyway, that's 
just--on sample return, and maybe this is a question for Dr. 
Beegle, are we dependent on the human space flight to Mars to 
retrieve it, or can it be retrieved in the meantime?
     Dr. Beegle. That's a great question, and the answer is 
that we can retrieve it in the meantime. There is a series of 
missions that are proposed that Dr. Meyer could talk more about 
that will go pick up the samples that we're collecting, and 
eventually bring them back in the 2030 timeframe. And all that 
can be done robotically.
     Chairman Beyer. So 2030, so a couple years ahead of the 
Perlmutter schedule for human space flight to Mars?
     Dr. Beegle. Yes.
     Chairman Beyer. OK, excellent. Great. Let me ask a deep, 
existential question for you guys. Of the four of you--and I 
rarely ask for--the whole panel a question, but I'd love to 
know where each of you are on your belief that there is other 
life in the universe, that life seems to be so unique, and 
consciousness itself so unique. Dr. Bosak, can I start with 
you?
     Dr. Bosak. Certainly. I will tell you this, one of my 
favorite, if not my favorite science fiction book is ``His 
Master's Voice'' by Stanislaw Lem. He was brilliant. And it is 
not so much about whether there's life, but about the people's 
need to look for signs of life, and interpret signals, and keep 
interpreting signals. The whole book is about this whole field 
of science, and people being fascinated by a tiny signal they 
captured from some star, and arguing about whether it's a 
signal at all. So I think part of the excitement--and I 
wouldn't--I think this--consciousness that makes us unique. I 
think the search makes us unique. It----
     Chairman Beyer. Could----
     Dr. Bosak [continuing]. Really makes us something bigger 
than just, you know, microbes converting energy to live. But 
then again, if I start thinking about life, I think mostly--I'm 
a microbiologist, really, so I think of life mostly as 
microbes, and that probably doesn't have too much 
consciousness, yet it can be really easily spread. And, in 
fact, even the ancient Greeks talked about seeds that could 
travel from stars and planets to other planets. And this is the 
really cool thing about this mission, and the sample return, 
because we can actually test some of that. There is a strong 
idea that maybe life even started on Mars, and then it was 
transferred to Earth early on. And we can start playing with 
these ideas. We can look at these samples and see how similar--
if anything we find, how similar it is----
     Chairman Beyer. Well, thank you----
     Dr. Bosak [continuing]. Like----
     Chairman Beyer [continuing]. For the book recommendation--
--
     Dr. Bosak. It's great.
     Chairman Beyer [continuing]. Just--begin with. Dr. 
Ehlmann, is there other life in the universe? I mean----
     Dr. Ehlmann. I----
     Chairman Beyer [continuing]. Your leap. I know--you know, 
just--what do you think?
     Dr. Ehlmann. Yeah. I--this is one of the reasons we 
explore. I think there is, and I think many people think it 
would be strange that in the vastness of the universe, with--
and billions of stars, each of which have many planets, that we 
are the only ones. But if--I agree with Professor Bosak that 
it's the search that matters. It's the search that's inspiring. 
And, you know, just even thinking about our own solar system, 
the question was asked earlier about the portfolio of 
exploration and balance, we now have the technical capability 
to look for life on Mars, on Europa, on Enceladus, on Venus. We 
should do it, because this is an inspiring journey that really 
will inspire the whole country to do hard things. And let's 
start the questions with the life questions in our own solar 
system, where we can access the planets, while we keep using 
telescopes to look beyond.
     Chairman Beyer. Thank you very much. Dr. Meyer, I guess, 
since you call yourself an astrobiologist, that that may be 
implicit in your title, but what do you think?
     Dr. Meyer. Yeah. I--that's a big yes. I mean, as Bethany 
says, there's, like, 100 billion stars in the galaxy, and 
there's 100 billion galaxies. It would be absolutely, 
spectacularly amazing and hard to believe if there wasn't life 
out in the universe. The real question is how common is it? You 
know, because if it's on the other side of the universe, how 
likely it is that you'd ever find it, or notice it. And so the 
real question is commonality.
     And, as Bethany says, you know, in our own solar system, 
we see multiple places that are--have real potential, and we 
are the first generation of people on this planet that can 
actually do experiments, can actually go and look, and answer 
the question how common life is in the universe.
     Chairman Beyer. That's very cool. I'm going to use my 
extraordinary power as Chair and let myself go over because I 
want to hear Dr. Beegle's ideas also.
     Dr. Beegle. So I agree with Dr. Meyer, Dr. Ehlmann, and 
Dr. Bosak that life is--the odds of life not existing elsewhere 
in the universe are very slim, that--the questions we ask 
ourselves a lot is the--how--is there more than just single-
celled organisms? It took a long time on Earth before life 
revolved from the single-celled organism to multi-celled 
organisms, and that's the question we continue to ask and 
ponder, which is a much more difficult question, because it 
involves understanding the evolution of life on different 
planets, and you have no idea what the conditions are like, and 
that's the question that we really are trying to sink our teeth 
into.
     Chairman Beyer. Thank you very much for--and I ask this 
because--well my favorite recent book is Max Tegmark's ``The 
Mathematical Universe'', who finishes with a strong argument 
against there being other life. And he says in any room full of 
scientists he'll ask who believes in life elsewhere in the 
universe, and every hand would go up, and then he argues 
against. But I'm not going to try to recreate the argument, but 
it is interesting. However, I will like to recreate the 
Congressman from Denver, Mr. Perlmutter, for his questions.
     Mr. Perlmutter. Thanks, Mr. Chair. And he sent me that 
book, and I'm trying to wade through it. It's a pretty heavy 
math book, but--he's trying to educate us as part of this 
Subcommittee.
     So, Dr. Meyer, let me start with you. When I was talking 
to Dr. Ehlmann about Ingenuity, she said it was an audacious 
addition to the project. So how--and for the others, how do you 
get your experiments--you know, once you've decided we're going 
to send another rover up to Mars, I mean, how does Dr. Bosak 
get her experiment on your--on the trip? So let me start with 
you, and then I'd like to hear from their side how they manage 
to get their experiments as part of the whole process.
     Dr. Meyer. Yeah, it--well, I'll put it this way. It's 
quite a gauntlet, in terms of what's needed, but as we've done 
for Curiosity, and we also did for Perseverance, we put a call 
out that says we're going to send a mission to Mars, this is 
what the goal is, send us your proposal for an instrument, and 
we'll see how it all fits together. And so it very much is open 
competition for people to propose whatever they think is 
applicable to the goal, right? And--very rigorous competition. 
It is--it's actually very hard to go through the whole process, 
and then you have to choose--you have to narrow it down to 
those things that will fit on the mission from all the 
excellent proposals that you receive. And then there's a little 
bit of a give and take where you don't want to send two of the 
same instrument, you want to make sure they complement each 
other. You want to make sure one instrument doesn't use all the 
resources on the mission. So there's a little bit of making 
sure they fit well together.
     But the real process is individuals, obviously experienced 
in having a whole team behind them, proposing what they think 
would be the best instrument, and then the whole review process 
to select that, and that's been extremely successful so far.
     Mr. Perlmutter. Great. Dr. Bosak, how did you get involved 
with this project?
     Dr. Bosak. I answered one of these proposal calls. When 
all the instruments already had been selected, and really 
advanced in the works to get on the rover, there was a proposal 
call by the Mars program to select participating sample 
scientists, and they were looking for people who actually work 
on samples in laboratories, because they wanted to ensure that 
people who--that people think about how to collect a sample, 
how to orient a sample. And there is a diverse team of us who 
were selected, so we wrote proposals about what we could do 
with these samples, and how we would take notes to document and 
tell people why we selected certain samples.
     Mr. Perlmutter. Great. Dr. Beegle, how did SHERLOC become 
part of this?
     Dr. Beegle. It's a pretty simple process. Back in the mid 
1990's we started thinking about ideas on how to send something 
to Mars to look for life. You write a proposal, you write more 
proposal, you write another proposal. You have to go in and do 
the scientific rationale behind what measurement you're going 
to do at the same time you're doing the engineering to show 
that you can actually do it. There's a lot of instruments that 
fail on one of those two things because it's a very complex 
environment, scientifically, to make a measurement, and it's a 
very complex environment from a--temperature, pressure, 
radiation, and everything else, that--you have to show--
vibrations--you have to get your technology to work.
     You write a bunch of proposals, you write a bunch of 
papers, you get scientific buy-in, and then in 2012 we knew 
that there was going to be an announcement of opportunity. We 
spent a year writing the proposal, we submitted the proposal, 
proposal got accepted. There were 58 different concepts that 
went into that call, and we were one of seven that got 
selected. And then the fun really begins, where you actually 
have to build your instrument that's the size of a room down to 
a size of a shoebox, and show that it works. It's a fun 
process.
     Mr. Perlmutter. Well, it sounds--starting in the 1990's, 
it sounds like you were able to perfect it over a period of 
time, so thank you. Dr. Ehlmann, what about you?
     Dr. Ehlmann. I guess I'll talk bout something that people 
don't always talk about, which is kind of the failure aspect of 
instrument proposals--or not failures, but lack of selection. 
So, you know, I'm privileged to be part of two extraordinary 
instruments, one led by Dr. Beegle, I'm part of his team, and 
then Dr. Jim Bell at Arizona State, part of his team. I also 
led a team that proposed an instrument, one of the 50 or so to 
the rover. We ranked Category One, which is as high as you can 
possibly rank, but in the end we weren't selected. Reasons of 
balance, reasons of--but this is where, as scientists, we 
compete, and then we collaborate, and we do both 
simultaneously, and that's what brings the best ideas to the 
forefront.
     I've gone through this process again, a different mission, 
different competition, different call, one of NASA's small sat 
competitions, and I'm the Principal Investigator of Lunar 
Trailblazer, a small satellite going to the Moon that will map 
its water. So it's a process. Sometimes you win, sometimes you 
don't, but you keep going forward to do the best science, and 
bring the best instruments and missions to light.
     Mr. Perlmutter. Thank you very much. I yield back, Mr. 
Chair.
     Chairman Beyer. Congressman Perlmutter, thank you so much. 
It's--I love serving on this Committee with you. And this 
brings our hearing to a close, but I do have one final 
question, is--after Mars, Europa? What do you think?
     Dr. Ehlmann. Europa for sure, Europa Clipper mission.
     Chairman Beyer. OK.
     Dr. Ehlmann. Enceladus would be great too. Venus, all 
sorts of good things.
     Chairman Beyer. But Europa we could actually land on, 
right? And water, and----
     Dr. Beegle. One of the missions--I think the next mission 
to actually look for extant life, what--as Bethany--Dr. Ehlmann 
pointed out earlier was--is drilling, is getting underneath the 
surface of Mars, and/or Europa, and/or Enceladus to--that 
protected environment, where there's liquid water on Europa and 
Enceladus, and where there might be aquifers on Mars. That 
would be the one thing I would advocate for.
     Chairman Beyer. Well, thank you all very much. This is 
definitely the most fun Science Committee hearing we've had 
since the folks who discovered gravitational waves came and 
spoke to us. And much more fun than Andy Weir, actually, so--so 
we hope we'll have you back. We look forward to all the 
progress you're going to make, not just on Perseverance or Mars 
Sample Return, but for humanity, because you really do inspire 
everything else that we do, so we're very, very grateful.
     And let me finish with the official closing. Before we 
bring this hearing to a close, I want to thank our witnesses, 
of course. The record will remain open for 2 weeks for 
additional statements from the Members, and for any additional 
questions the Committee may ask of the witnesses. So, with 
that, you are excused, lunchtime, the hearing is now adjourned, 
and thank you very much.
     [Whereupon, at 12:35 p.m., the Subcommittee was 
adjourned.]

                                Appendix

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                   Answers to Post-Hearing Questions

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