[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
ADVANCING SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY:
ASSESSING THE STATUS OF NASA'S
SCIENCE MISSION DIRECTORATE
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON SPACE AND AERONAUTICS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE,
AND TECHNOLOGY
OF THE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MARCH 21, 2024
__________
Serial No. 118-38
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
55-093PDF WASHINGTON : 2025
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HON. FRANK LUCAS, Oklahoma, Chairman
BILL POSEY, Florida ZOE LOFGREN, California, Ranking
RANDY WEBER, Texas Member
BRIAN BABIN, Texas SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon
JIM BAIRD, Indiana HALEY STEVENS, Michigan
DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida JAMAAL BOWMAN, New York
MIKE GARCIA, California DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina
STEPHANIE BICE, Oklahoma ERIC SORENSEN, Illinois
JAY OBERNOLTE, California ANDREA SALINAS, Oregon
CHUCK FLEISCHMANN, Tennessee VALERIE FOUSHEE, North Carolina
DARRELL ISSA, California KEVIN MULLIN, California
RICK CRAWFORD, Arkansas JEFF JACKSON, North Carolina
CLAUDIA TENNEY, New York EMILIA SYKES, Ohio
RYAN ZINKE, Montana MAXWELL FROST, Florida
SCOTT FRANKLIN, Florida YADIRA CARAVEO, Colorado
DALE STRONG, Alabama SUMMER LEE, Pennsylvania
MAX MILLER, Ohio JENNIFER McCLELLAN, Virginia
RICH McCORMICK, Georgia GABE AMO, Rhode Island
MIKE COLLINS, Georgia SEAN CASTEN, Illinois,
BRANDON WILLIAMS, New York Vice Ranking Member
TOM KEAN, New Jersey PAUL TONKO, New York
VACANCY
------
Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics
HON. BRIAN BABIN, Texas, Chairman
BILL POSEY, Florida ERIC SORENSEN, Illinois,
DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida Ranking Member
MIKE GARCIA, California JEFF JACKSON, North Carolina
DARRELL ISSA, California YADIRA CARAVEO, Colorado
DALE STRONG, Alabama JAMAAL BOWMAN, New York
RICH McCORMICK, Georgia JENNIFER McCLELLAN, Virginia
C O N T E N T S
March 21, 2024
Page
Hearing Charter.................................................. 2
Opening Statements
Statement by Representative Brian Babin, Chairman, Subcommittee
on Space and Aeronautics, Committee on Science, Space, and
Technology, U.S. House of Representatives...................... 15
Written Statement............................................ 16
Statement by Representative Eric Sorensen, Ranking Member,
Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics, Committee on Science,
Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives........... 17
Written Statement............................................ 18
Written statement by Representative Zoe Lofgren, Ranking Member,
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of
Representatives................................................ 19
Witnesses:
Dr. Nicola Fox, Associate Administrator, Science Mission
Directorate, National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Oral Statement............................................... 21
Written Statement............................................ 23
Mr. George A. Scott, Acting Inspector General, National
Aeronautics and Space Administration
Oral Statement............................................... 28
Written Statement............................................ 30
Dr. Jonathan I. Lunine, The David C. Duncan Professor in the
Physical Sciences, Cornell University
Oral Statement............................................... 48
Written Statement............................................ 50
Mr. A. Thomas Young, Former Director, Goddard Space Flight Center
and Former President and COO, Martin Marietta Corp.
Oral Statement............................................... 56
Written Statement............................................ 58
Discussion....................................................... 64
Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Dr. Nicola Fox, Associate Administrator, Science Mission
Directorate, National Aeronautics and Space Administration..... 84
Mr. George A. Scott, Acting Inspector General, National
Aeronautics and Space Administration........................... 98
Mr. A. Thomas Young, Former Director, Goddard Space Flight Center
and Former President and COO, Martin Marietta Corp............. 99
Appendix II: Additional Material for the Record
Report submitted by Representative Bill Posey, Subcommittee on
Space and Aeronautics, Committee on Science, Space, and
Technology, U.S. House of Representatives
``Audit of NASA's High-End Computing Capabilities,'' NASA
Office of Inspector General................................ 104
ADVANCING SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY:
ASSESSING THE STATUS OF NASA'S
SCIENCE MISSION DIRECTORATE
----------
THURSDAY, MARCH 21, 2024
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics,
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
Washington, D.C.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:03 a.m., in
room 2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Brian
Babin [Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Babin. Good morning. The Subcommittee on Space and
Aeronautics will now come to order. Without objection, the
Chair is authorized to declare recesses of the Subcommittee at
any time.
And welcome to today's hearing titled ``Advancing
Scientific Discovery: Assessing the Status of NASA's Science
Mission Directorate.'' I'd like to recognize myself for 5
minutes for an opening statement.
Today's Subcommittee hearing will review the activities of
NASA's (National Aeronautics and Space Administration's)
Science Mission Directorate, or SMD, and discuss the challenges
and opportunities for ensuring success in these activities.
Scientific research has been a core function of NASA since the
agency's creation. NASA's science missions have helped us to
learn more about our planet, discover secrets of the Sun,
explore our solar system, and better understand our place in
the universe.
SMD has had many recent successes. The Perseverance and
Curiosity rovers are adding to our understanding of Mars and
enabling us to someday send humans to the Martian surface. The
Parker Solar Probe continues to deliver unprecedented
observations of the Sun. Just 6 months ago, OSIRIS-REx
(Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification,
Security--Regolith Explorer) returned asteroid samples to Earth
to be studied at the Johnson Space Center. SMD also carries out
some of NASA's most important work by cataloguing and defending
our planet from Near-Earth Objects (NEOs).
However, we cannot celebrate these successes without
acknowledging the challenges that NASA has faced on missions of
all sizes. Just 3 weeks ago, NASA's Office of Inspector General
(OIG) released an audit of the Mars Sample Return mission,
commonly known as MSR, that NASA hopes to launch in partnership
with the European Space Agency before the end of this decade.
Anyone who has read prior reports on NASA's science missions
from the Inspector General, GAO (Government Accountability
Office), or other independent review bodies will see familiar
themes in this audit. Project management challenges, including
overoptimism on technology development, evolving architectural
requirements, and underestimating costs are just a few of the
challenges identified by the Inspector General.
This Committee recognizes the immense value of the MSR
mission. We continue to hope that these issues will be resolved
and that the MSR mission will be successful. However, we cannot
ignore this now-familiar pattern of schedule and cost overrun
for many NASA programs. When missions are delayed, costs
increase as a result. Ripple effects are felt throughout NASA
as timelines shift and unrelated programs are delayed or
canceled to accommodate the troubled project.
Members of this Committee undoubtedly recall the years of
delays and billions of dollars in cost overruns before the
James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) was launched. Another
mission, the Psyche mission, spacecraft, finally launched in
2023 after more than a year delay, which incurred significant
costs, impacted other missions such as the VERITAS (Venus
Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy)
mission, and we want NASA to engage in bold, daring missions.
But Congress must direct NASA to take on these missions
with a clear understanding of the associated costs and risks.
Consistent cost overruns and delays can result in other worthy
missions being postponed or canceled and can create a
reluctance for Congress to provide additional funding or even
approve such missions in the future.
Congress has a responsibility to weigh the cost of a
mission with its scientific value and cannot simply rationalize
cost overruns and schedule delays by stating the end result of
these missions will be worthwhile. That is unacceptable to our
constituents and should be unacceptable to us all. This
Committee has long supported a balanced approach to NASA's
scientific missions across discipline and mission type. I
expect that that will continue in the future.
At Congress' direction, NASA relies on the decadal process
carried out by the National Academy of Science to prioritize
its scientific activities. This process seeks a broad range of
community input to reach a consensus position on priority
missions for the following decade. Recent decadal surveys
across disciplines have recommended ambitious missions and
optimistic budgets. This Committee recognizes the importance of
the decadal process, but must also recognize the current fiscal
environment and plan accordingly.
The focus of today's hearing is not to chide NASA, folks,
but rather to understand the challenges that NASA faces when
fulfilling decadal priorities. We also want to be sure that
both Congress and NASA are applying lessons learned from
previous missions to facilitate future mission successes.
I thank our distinguished panel of guests this morning and
witnesses for joining with us today, and I look forward to a
productive discussion.
[The prepared statement of Chairman Babin follows:]
Today's subcommittee hearing will review the activities of
NASA's Science Mission Directorate--or SMD--and discuss
challenges and opportunities for ensuring success of these
activities.
Scientific research has been a core function of NASA since
the agency's creation. NASA's science missions have helped us
learn more about our planet, discover secrets of the sun,
explore our solar system, and better understand our place in
the universe.
SMD has had many recent successes. The Perseverance and
Curiosity rovers are adding to our understanding of Mars and
enabling us to someday send humans to the Martian surface. The
Parker Solar Probe continues to deliver unprecedented
observations of our sun, and just six months ago OSIRIS-Rex
returned asteroid samples to Earth to be studied at the Johnson
Space Center.
SMD also carries out some of NASA's most important work by
cataloguing and defending our planet from Near-Earth objects.
However, we cannot celebrate these successes without
acknowledging the challenges NASA has faced on missions of all
sizes.
Just three weeks ago, NASA's Office of Inspector General
released an audit of the Mars Sample Return mission--commonly
known as MSR--that NASA hopes to launch in partnership with the
European Space Agency before the end of the decade.
Anyone who has read prior reports on NASA's science
missions from the Inspector General, GAO, or other independent
review bodies will see familiar themes in this audit. Project
management challenges, including over-optimism on technology
development, evolving architectural requirements, and
underestimating costs, are but a few of the challenges
identified by the Inspector General.
This Committee recognizes the immense value of the MSR
mission. We continue to hope that these issues will be resolved
and that the MSR mission will be successful.
However, we cannot ignore this now-familiar pattern of
schedule and cost overruns for many NASA programs. When
missions are delayed, costs increase as a result. Ripple
effects are felt throughout NASA as timelines shift and
unrelated programs are delayed or canceled to accommodate the
troubled project.
Members of this Committee undoubtedly recall the years of
delays and the billions of dollars in cost overruns before the
James Webb Space Telescope was launched. Another mission, the
Psyche spacecraft, finally launched in 2023 after more than a
year delay, which incurred significant costs and impacted other
missions, such as the VERITAS mission.
We want NASA to engage in bold, daring missions. But
Congress must direct NASA to take on these missions with a
clear understanding of the associated costs and risks.
Consistent cost overruns and delays can result in other worthy
missions being postponed or canceled and can create a
reluctance for Congress to provide additional funding, or even
approve such missions in the future.
Congress has a responsibility to weigh the cost of a
mission with its scientific value and cannot simply rationalize
cost overruns and schedule delays by stating the end result of
these missions will be worthwhile. That is unacceptable to our
constituents and should be unacceptable to us all.
This Committee has long supported a balanced approach to
NASA's scientific missions across discipline and mission type.
I expect that will continue in the future. At Congress's
direction, NASA relies on the decadal process carried out by
the National Academy of Science to prioritize its scientific
activities. This process seeks a broad range of community input
to reach a consensus position on priority missions for the
following decade.
Recent decadal surveys across disciplines have recommended
ambitious missions and optimistic budgets.
This Committee recognizes the importance of the decadal
process. But it must also recognize the current fiscal
environment and plan accordingly.
The focus of today's hearing is not to chide NASA, but
rather to understand the challenges that NASA faces when
fulfilling decadal priorities. We also want to be sure that
both Congress and NASA are applying lessons learned from
previous missions to facilitate future mission successes.
I thank our distinguished panel of witnesses for joining us
today and I look forward to a productive discussion.
Chairman Babin. And I would like to now recognize the
Ranking Member for his statement for 5 minutes.
Mr. Sorensen. Thank you, Chairman. And I join the Chairman
in welcoming everyone to today's hearing. We also thank our
exceptional panel today of witnesses for being here to share
your expertise.
Thanks to the Science Mission Directorate, NASA is
conducting reconnaissance of every planet in our solar system,
studying the Sun and near-Earth environment, better
understanding Earth systems, and probing the evolution of
stars, galaxies, and the early universe. As a scientist myself,
the only meteorologist in Congress, I'm eager to highlight the
importance of NASA's work to our Nation and to my constituents
back home in western and northwestern Illinois.
Take, for example, the study of Earth science, a field
which NASA's first-of-its-kind Earth observation investigations
are helping improve something near and dear to my heart, our
Nation's operational weather services. These services inform
the study of trends of severe weather and tornadoes, flooding,
droughts, which lead to how we use our land. This data can then
be used by farmers across the Midwest and around the country,
as an example, NASA's heliophysics programs to study the Sun,
which help us predict solar storms that can disrupt vital
satellite communications and GPS (Global Positioning System)
signals.
Speaking of NASA's scientific study of the Sun, communities
around the country will soon have an opportunity to learn
firsthand about our closest star. On April 8, a total solar
eclipse where the Moon passes between the Sun and the Earth,
turning day into night for a few short minutes, will be visible
in several States, including the southern portion of Illinois.
Most of the country, including communities in central and
northwestern Illinois, will witness a partial eclipse. And so I
would remind everyone, the scientists in Congress, that we
advocate you only use one of these when you're taking part in
the solar eclipse.
But also, I'd be remiss to say it was one of the greatest
parts of my life driving from Illinois to Wyoming to see the
last eclipse and the profound impact that it had on me
personally.
The opportunities for pursuing important science are vast.
However, our fiscal resources are not. The Science Mission
Directorate has many projects ongoing, but we do not have
unlimited funds. That poses a problem because we need the
balance between and among the projects under the Science
Mission Directorate to maintain a healthy distribution of funds
to small, medium, and large missions. Large high-priority
missions with significant resource demands have the potential
to upset the balance within and across NASA's science programs.
Today's hearing provides an important opportunity to
examine the nature of this balance and how we can pursue
ambitious and large missions while maintaining the overall
health of the Science Mission Directorate portfolio. I'm eager
to find solutions because leaving high-priority science on the
chopping block is not the future that I want to see for the
next generation and for our country.
I'm proud and excited about what the future holds for
NASA's science programs. Answers to so many important
challenging and inspiring questions await us. I look forward to
working with the Chairman, NASA, and the Administration, as
well as stakeholders to ensure a bright and bold future for the
space and Earth science programs undertaken by NASA.
And I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Sorensen follows:]
Good morning.
I join the Chairman in welcoming everyone to today's
hearing, ``Advancing Scientific Discovery: Assessing the Status
of NASAs Science Mission Directorate.'' We also thank our
exceptional panel of witnesses for being here today to share
their expertise.
Thanks to the Science Mission Directorate, NASA is
conducting reconnaissance of every planet in our solar system,
studying the Sun and near-Earth environment, better
understanding Earth systems, and probing the evolution of
stars, galaxies, and the early Universe.
As a scientist and the only meteorologist in Congress, I'm
eager to highlight the importance of NASA's work to our nation
and to my constituents in Illinois' 17th District.
Take, for example, the study of Earth science, a field in
which NASA's first-of-its-kind Earth observation investigations
are helping improve something near and dear to my heart--our
nation's operational weather services. These services inform
the study of trends in flooding, droughts, and land use. This
data can then be used by farmers in Central and Northwestern
Illinois and around the country.
Speaking of NASA's scientific study of the Sun, communities
around the country will soon have an opportunity to learn
first-hand about our closest star. On April 8th, a total solar
eclipse- where the Moon passes between the Sun and the Earth,
turning day into night for a few short minutes-will be visible
in several states, including the southern portion of Illinois,
while most of the rest of the country, including communities in
central and western Illinois will witness a partial eclipse.
I urge everyone to take advantage of this exciting
educational moment and find a community or State event across
the U.S. to join and experience a total solar eclipse.
The opportunities for pursuing important science, are vast.
However, our fiscal resources are not. The Science Mission
Directorate has many projects ongoing but does not have
unlimited funds.
That poses a problem, because we need balance between and
among the projects under the Science Mission Directorate to
maintain a healthy distribution of funds to small, medium, and
large missions. Large, high-priority missions with significant
resource demands have the potential to upset the balance within
and across NASA's science programs.
Today's hearing provides an important opportunity to
examine the nature of this balance, and how we can pursue
ambitious and large missions while maintaining the overall
health of the Science Mission Directorate portfolio. I am eager
to find solutions, because leaving high- priority science on
the chopping block is not the future I want for the next
generation and for our country.
I am proud and excited about what the future holds for
NASA's science programs. Answers to so many important,
challenging, and inspiring questions await us
I look forward to working with the Chairman, NASA, and--the
Administration, as well as stakeholders, to ensure a bright and
bold future for the space and earth science programs undertaken
by NASA.
Thank you, and I yield back.
Chairman Babin. Thank you, Mr. Sorensen. I really
appreciate it.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Lofgren follows:]
Good morning, and thank you, Chairman Babin and Ranking
Member Sorensen, for holding today's hearing. I also want to
welcome our witnesses. We have an incredibly distinguished
panel who are very familiar to this Committee and have been the
source of much excellent advice in the past, and I am sure
today will be no different.
While NASA's science portfolio and budget have enjoyed
increases in the recent past, NASA's science programs are
facing a perfect storm. The recently enacted appropriations cut
NASA's budget, and NASA's science portfolio took an outsized
share of the decrease. The guidelines set under the debt
ceiling agreement limit further funding growth. Cost and
schedule growth on existing projects exacerbate the
constraints. The building pressures on the portfolio leave less
and less flexibility to accommodate the unexpected and no room
for new decadal survey science to get underway. NASA has
already had to take the difficult step to delay important
missions under development, even ones that are performing well.
The FY2025 budget request that Congress just received proposes
more delays, descopes, and cancellations, and not just to new
missions under development, but to active missions, including
to a high-performing Great Observatory.
These decisions are hard, and they have real consequences.
NASA's science missions and programs also support an entire
ecosystem of scientists, engineers, technicians, professors,
students, science communicators, and more. Skilled talent, once
lost, may not be easily regained. We must consider the value of
ensuring continuity of critical skills and talent.
In addition, we mustn't forget that NASA science is much
more than the probes we send into space. It's also the advanced
technology, the innovative scientific ideas generated under the
research and analysis programs, the theoretical research, the
analysis programs that turn mission data into scientific
results, and the supporting infrastructure necessary to enable
the inspiring and ambitious work that NASA Science Mission
Directorate carries out.
We in Congress, and particularly in this Committee, have an
important oversight responsibility here. We need to ask hard
questions about cost, management, credibility, and scientific
return on investment. And NASA needs to give us substantive
answers.
But I hope today that we can also talk about how to keep
NASA Science whole as we navigate these issues.
Because we need to ensure that we do not lose sight of the
big picture. We, as a nation, make the investment in
fundamental space and Earth science at NASA because we know the
inherent value in doing so. The missions and programs of NASA's
Science Mission Directorate are based on the highest-priority
science questions identified in the consensus-based decadal
survey processes. They help us learn about the fundamental
nature, origins, and evolution of the Earth, Sun, solar system,
and universe, and how humanity fits into all of it.
We must preserve and bolster NASA's ability to keep
developing the ambitious missions, sustain supporting research
capabilities, and pursuing the highest-priority decadal survey
science while also finding ways to improve cost and schedule
performance and transparency, particularly of the largest
missions. It is critical that we get this right.
Thank you, and I yield back.
Chairman Babin. And now I would like to introduce our
distinguished panel of witnesses today. Our first witness today
is Dr. Nicky Fox. Dr. Fox serves as the Associate--is the
Associate Administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate
where she oversees the directorate's portfolio of over 100
individual missions. Previously, she served as the Director of
the Science Directorate's Heliophysics Division. Prior to
joining NASA, Dr. Fox worked as the Chief Scientist for
Heliophysics at Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics
Laboratory. During her time at the Applied Physics Lab, Dr. Fox
also served as the Project Scientist for NASA's Parker Solar
Probe. We're looking forward to hearing from you this morning.
Our next witness is Mr. George Scott, who I'd like to
welcome back to the Committee. You did a great job with Patton
a few years ago, too. I just wanted to let you know. I guess
that shows my age. Nobody's seen the movie about George Patton.
Mr. Scott serves as the Acting Director General for NASA. He
assumed the role in January of this year, having previously
served as the Deputy Inspector General. Prior to joining NASA,
Mr. Scott spent over three decades at GAO, which included
serving as the Managing Director of GAO's Homeland Security and
Justice Team. Thank you for being here, sir.
Our third witness is Dr. Jonathan Lunine, who serves as the
David C. Duncan Professor in the physical sciences and Chair of
the Department of Astronomy at Cornell University. He is also a
member of the National Academy of Sciences and has chaired or
co-chaired numerous advisory and strategic planning committees
at the Academy and also at NASA. This includes chairing the
Giant Planet Systems Panel for the 2023 Planetary Science and
Astrobiology Decadal Survey. Dr. Lunine is also a co-
investigator on NASA's Juno mission and previously served on
the Science Working Group of the James Webb Space Telescope.
And our final witness today, no stranger in here, is Mr.
Thomas Young, the former Director of NASA's Goddard Space
Flight Center. Is also the former COO (Chief Operating Officer)
of Martin Marietta and Chairman of SAIC. Mr. Young began his
career at NASA's Langley Research Center. Throughout his 20-
plus years of service to NASA, Mr. Young has held various
roles, including the Deputy Director for NASA Ames Research
Center prior to his time at Goddard. He is a member of the
National Academy of Engineering and a former member of the NASA
Advisory Council.
So I would like to now recognize Dr. Fox for 5 minutes for
your opening statement, your testimony. Thank you.
TESTIMONY OF DR. NICOLA FOX,
ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR,
SCIENCE MISSION DIRECTORATE,
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
Dr. Fox. Thank you so much. Chairman Babin, Ranking Member
Sorensen, and distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, thank
you so much for the opportunity to appear here today. It is
always great to have a chance to talk about NASA's science
program.
NASA's efforts to address fundamental questions about the
universe and humanity's place continue to advance the United
States' role as a global science leader. As you know, NASA
released our Fiscal Year 2025 budget request, which includes
$7.565 billion for the Science Mission Directorate. This
request supports over 125 space science missions, including 54
that are preparing to launch in the next few years, and over 70
that are in operation. The request funds U.S. scientists and
universities, industry and government labs through more than
4,000 openly competed research awards.
The missions and the science undertaken by NASA are
informed by the priorities laid out by the National Academies,
but funded by you, of course, the Congress on behalf of the
American people. We're grateful for the Congress' continued
support of space science, which has produced some stirring
successes, and I'm just going to highlight a few because I only
have 5 minutes.
As we enter its second year of operation, the James Webb
Telescope continues to provide breathtaking results, with each
captivating new image leading us closer to unlocking the great
secrets of our cosmos. The OSIRIS-REx, as you noted, delivered
samples from the asteroid Bennu to the Johnson Space Center,
and these pristine samples are more than twice the requirement
that was returned are effectively time capsules from the
earliest days of our solar system from like 4.5 billion years
ago.
NASA is also adding two missions to its Earth science fleet
this year. Our first, the PACE (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean
Ecosystem) mission, to study our atmosphere and oceans and the
ecosystem, was successfully launched from Kennedy Space Center
on February--in February of this year. And then the second one
is NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar) that is our first
joint mission, first joint mission for Earth science with the
Indian Space Research Organization. And the--that's going to
scan the Earth in kind of minute detail down to about a
centimeter resolution with our first-of-a-kind dual band radar.
Our investments in Commercial Lunar Payload Services, or
CLPS, are beginning to bear fruit, the first company in the
world to make a successful soft landing on the Moon was
American. We're very proud of them. And it carried NASA and
commercial payloads to the Moon's South Pole region.
This has also been a big year for the Heliophysics
Division. We noted two major solar eclipses, the first one very
unusual, an annular solar eclipse that occurred in October when
you would have needed those glasses for the whole thing. In--
coming up from Texas all the way up to Maine, as you noted on
April 8, we hope you find a way to join us. Now we've given you
glasses, so you're all set to go. Eyes will be well-protected.
And if you cannot get yourself to totality, fear not. NASA
science will bring totality to you.
Our Biological and Physical Sciences Division just
presented their initial decadal response to the Academy as we
drive forward with more and more discoveries about living and
thriving in deep space.
Later this year, as you noted, Parker Solar Probe, the
coolest, hottest mission under the Sun, will make its closest
approach to the Sun. It will do its seventh Venus flyby, and it
will go closer to the Sun than any spacecraft has ever come to
a star. And we're also approaching solar maximum, which offers
science opportunities related to the space weather hazards.
We look forward very much to the launch of Europa Clipper
later this year in October. Clipper will search one of
Jupiter's moons, the Europa moon, for what we believe is a vast
ocean that may hold evidence of life.
We continue our work to protect the planet from asteroids
with our NEO Surveyor, which is expected to launch in 2028, and
both Clipper and Surveyor are a joint NASA Center and JPL (Jet
Propulsion Laboratory) efforts.
Work continues on the Roman Space Telescope, which is a
NASA observatory designed to settle essential questions in the
areas of dark energy, exoplanets, and infrared astrophysics.
And we look forward to maturing the technologies that will be
necessary to someday see planets that may harbor life.
There are also challenges to overcome, as you've
highlighted, our mission to return samples from the surface of
Mars has proven to be more costly than initially expected. In
September, an independent review of the Mars Sample Return
program provided sobering analysis of the costs and challenges
associated with this mission. This spring, NASA will complete
an internal assessment of the mission architecture options and
will inform the path forward and allow us to provide final
details for this--for the planetary science budget.
NASA takes very seriously our responsibility to manage a
very diverse portfolio within cost and schedule commitments. We
continue to learn from our experiences, and we have instituted
new policies to ensure we're constantly improving our ability
to manage cost and schedule. It's our willingness to
acknowledge these challenges and overcome them to conduct
science in ways that have barely been imagined that makes us
NASA.
So thank you once again for inviting me to appear before
you today, and I'm really looking forward to answering your
questions.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Fox follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Babin. Yes, ma'am. Thank you very much, Dr. Fox.
And now I'd like to recognize Mr. Scott for 5 minutes for
his testimony.
TESTIMONY OF MR. GEORGE A. SCOTT,
ACTING INSPECTOR GENERAL,
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
Mr. Scott. Chairman Babin, Ranking Member Sorensen, and
Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for inviting me here
today to discuss NASA's Science Mission Directorate. My
testimony focuses on key challenges the agency faces in
managing its science portfolio, including developing accurate
and timely estimates, funding and stability, and workforce
capacity issues.
Throughout its history, NASA has been at the forefront of
incredible scientific discovery, and the agency continues to do
the unexpected. For example, the Mars Ingenuity helicopter, the
first aircraft to fly under its own power on another planet,
surpassed 2 years of operations and completed 72 flights.
Despite its long history of success, some of NASA's most
impressive scientific missions, the Hubble telescope, the
Curiosity rover, and the James Webb telescope, all experienced
significant cost increases and schedule delays. The extra
funding and time needed not only impacted these missions, but
also created cascading effects across the agency's science
portfolio.
As we have frequently reported, NASA struggles to establish
complete, credible, and transparent estimates. This is
particularly true when it comes to large, complex missions.
NASA's history of setting unrealistic costs and schedule
baselines is due in part to the agency's culture of optimism.
As we said over a decade ago, a culture of optimism and can-do
spirit are essential for realizing groundbreaking scientific
achievements and overcoming extraordinary technical challenges.
That said, the same optimism may prevent leaders from
critically assessing costs, risks, and schedules to determine
what can realistically be accomplished within a set budget and
timeframe.
To its credit, NASA has taken some actions to address its
cost and schedule challenges. For example, in 2020 SMD
completed its Large Mission Study that examined how the agency
makes critical decisions that impact mission and program
success. However, NASA has yet to incorporate the
recommendations from the study into its practices and guidance
for flagship missions. Also in 2020, the agency established the
Chief Program Management Officer position to strengthen
oversight and implementation of program management policies and
best practices.
Funding instability remains a concern. Unstable funding,
whether in terms of the total amount of funds allocated to a
project or the timing of when those funds become available, can
contribute to poor outcomes. For example, inadequate funding
early in a project can decrease management's ability to
identify and address key risks early on. In other cases, moving
tasks to later in the project may require managers to keep a
larger workforce than originally planned, also resulting in
increased costs. There's also the instability resulting from
appropriations that lock the agency's funding at the previous
year's level for extended periods. These uncertainties further
compound the difficulties in effectively managing projects.
Workforce capacity remains an issue for NASA. We have
identified attracting and retaining a highly skilled and
diverse workforce as a top management challenge for the agency.
As early as 2018, we highlighted workforce capacity issues at
the Jet Propulsion Lab. We are similarly concerned that other
centers face the same challenge. For example, the Goddard Space
Flight Center faces a heavy workload with large projects that
are competing for a limited number of technical workers, even
as these missions plan to launch in the next 3 to 5 years.
NASA has repeatedly demonstrated its ability to overcome
significant hurdles to accomplish amazing things. However,
these achievements have often taken longer and cost much more
than planned. Many of the agency's science missions are
ambitious endeavors, and they need to be grounded in more
realistic assumptions and estimates. Without this, it will be
difficult for Congress to make informed decisions about NASA's
long-term funding needs. Likewise, the agency will lack
information needed to make difficult decisions on how best to
allocate limited funds and prioritize future missions.
We will continue to support NASA in achieving its
scientific goals, while ensuring transparency and
accountability for these efforts. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Scott follows:]
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Chairman Babin. Thank you, Mr. Scott. And I'd now like to
recognize Dr. Lunine for 5 minutes to present his testimony.
TESTIMONY OF DR. JONATHAN I. LUNINE,
THE DAVID C. DUNCAN PROFESSOR
IN THE PHYSICAL SCIENCES, CORNELL UNIVERSITY
Dr. Lunine. Thank you very much. Chairman Babin, Ranking
Member Sorensen, and distinguished Members of the Subcommittee,
thank you for the opportunity to present my views on the status
of NASA's Science Mission Directorate.
It is difficult not to feel passionately patriotic and
proud of what our Nation has accomplished in space science. As
a scientist and academic whose entire career has been spent
working on NASA programs, I am grateful to have participated in
the development and execution of some of the greatest space
science odysseys ever undertaken: the Voyager flyby of distant
Neptune, the Cassini exploration of Saturn, the ongoing Juno
mission of Jupiter, the Europa Clipper mission set to launch
this October, and the James Webb Space Telescope.
The accomplishments of our Nation's space science program
over the past quarter century are too numerous to recount, but
we've all tried to list a few of them at least, and I'll try my
hand at this as well: the discovery of an ocean capable of
sustaining life in two moons in the outer solar system, at
least Europa, Jupiter and Enceladus at Saturn; the first
exploration of the Sun from inside its atmosphere; the probing
of evermore ancient epochs of the universe with Hubble and
Webb, and much, much more.
And the investment in space science that the United States
has made over the decades is paying off in unexpected ways. For
example, the Webb telescope is teaming up with other space
telescopes like the Chandra X-ray Observatory to give us
unprecedented views of cosmic processes over a vast range of
the electromagnetic spectrum from X-rays to the infrared.
I want to turn now to Mars where the Nation's prowess in
space technology will be most on display in the coming decade.
Two incredibly capable rovers designed and built with American
technology by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory have been
roaming the Martian surface over the past decade in search of
the clues to how Mars went from being a very Earthlike world to
one that today is inhospitable. This is a profound question
because its answer may well tell us how fragile the
habitability of our own planet might be. How did Mars dry up?
Exactly when? Did life begin on Mars and then die off?
As articulated by NASA advisory groups in two successive
decadal surveys of the National Academy of Sciences, answering
these questions will require bringing samples back to Earth.
Both planetary science decadal surveys identified Mars Sample
Return as their highest priority. Why so? As we learn more
about Mars and ask more detailed questions, instruments of
increasing sensitivity, resolution, and sophistication are
required, eventually exceeding what can be plausibly carried in
a spacecraft. In laboratories on Earth, powerful analytic
techniques can detect faint clues to the earliest history of
Mars and to the possible presence of traces of ancient life.
It is not enough to have these sophisticated geochemical
tools in the laboratory. The samples must come from a place on
Mars that was once Earthlike. NASA's Perseverance rover is in
such a place right now, Jezero Crater. At the crater's western
end is a dried-up river channel and an enormous delta-shaped
fan of sediments deposited at the time that that river ran.
This one complex region holds the potential for answering a
host of questions about the geologic and climate evolution of
Mars, and Perseverance is collecting samples carefully selected
to provide those answers. But to realize that potential
requires getting those samples back to Earth.
Mars Sample Return is the most ambitious robotic program
ever attempted, bar none. Much of the technology is new and
challenging. Having served as a member of the second MSR
Independent Review Board (IRB), I am supremely confident that
it can and will be done. It can be done because American
engineering prowess is up to the task. It will be done because,
as a Nation, we surely will not simply walk away from a daring,
highly visible, and scientifically important challenge.
In closing, let me point out that more than a half century
after the first Moon rocks were returned by the Apollo
astronauts, science is still being done on them today by
instruments far more capable than those available in 1969 when
I was 10 years old. The samples returned from Mars in the
coming decade will be analyzed not only by scientists alive
today, but by scientists who are not yet born using laboratory
techniques that are not yet invented. These precious records of
early Mars will be a lasting scientific treasure and the legacy
of American technological prowess.
Thank you very much for having me here today.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Lunine follows:]
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Chairman Babin. Thank you very much for your testimony.
I would now like to recognize Mr. Young for 5 minutes.
Thank you.
TESTIMONY OF MR. A. THOMAS YOUNG, FORMER DIRECTOR,
GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER AND FORMER PRESIDENT
AND COO, MARTIN MARIETTA CORP.
Mr. Young. Chairman Babin, Ranking Member Sorensen,
Committee Members, I'm pleased to have the opportunity to
present my views on NASA's Science Mission Directorate.
Great organizations achieve great accomplishments. NASA's
Science Mission Directorate has a legacy of great
accomplishments. My examples of great accomplishments by SMD
are Viking, Hubble, James Webb Space Telescope, and hopefully,
Mars Sample Return. Others might select a different set with
equal merit. It would also be a mistake not to recognize the
incredible contribution of projects from the sounding rocket
and balloon program to projects such as Parker Solar Probe and
weather satellites.
What are the characteristics of projects that result in
great accomplishments? Today, projects such as JWST and MSR
originated from decadal surveys. The National Academies'
decadal surveys are comprehensive surveys of a scientific
discipline such as astronomy and astrophysics to identify the
No. 1 priority project for development by NASA. The surveys
provide a mechanism for the scientific community to speak with
one voice in identifying the best of the best.
Projects that result in great accomplishments travel
extremely difficult development paths. Projects in this
category push the boundaries of what is possible. This
aggressive approach is necessary to obtain extraordinary
scientific results such as JWST results that are being
experienced today.
The difficult developmental path these projects follow are
populated with incredible engineering, cost, and management
challenges. Most, if not all, are threatened by cancellation.
So what are the keys to the success of these projects that
must test the limits of what is possible? Clearly, the
exceptional people that make up the project organizations in
NASA, academia, and industry are key. Superior leaders are
required to provide bold and visionary leadership, leadership
that recognizes corrective action and not cancellation is
necessary to achieve great accomplishments.
The scientists, engineers, and leaders do not simply walk
in off the street. They're a result of rigorous hands-on
development and being trusted with significant early career
responsibilities. NASA has a history of exceptional employee
development. This development effort will be even more
important as SMD pursues more challenging projects in the
future.
Next, I would like to discuss MSR. Today, MSR is in the
balance as to whether it will be allowed to follow the path
necessary to become an SMD great accomplishment, or will it
become a monument to a missed opportunity? I do not want to
minimize the technical cost and management problems identified
by the Independent Review Board. The problems are significant,
as are NASA's and our country's budget challenges.
MSR is identified as the No. 1 priority in the past two
planetary decadal surveys. The expectation is clear, that when
the samples are analyzed in the highly capable Earth-based
laboratories, MSR will join the SMD legacy great
accomplishments. Today, the future of MSR is in the hands of
NASA, congressional, and Administration leaders. Bold,
visionary leadership is needed to put MSR on a path to success.
The future of SMD is populated with incredible
opportunities. Many are focused upon civilization's great
question: Are we alone? We must continue to improve our project
management capabilities to realize the potential that the
future holds. My thoughts on some of the required improvements
are cost estimating. Better cost estimating of most probable
cost and not relying upon lowest credible costs for early
decisionmaking is required.
Systems engineering: Improved systems engineering is needed
to develop architecture and interfaces that are the simplest
possible to achieve project objectives.
Employee development: Developing scientists, engineers, and
leaders will continue to grow in importance. Contracts with
industries that focus upon buying services as opposed to
hardware, systems integration, operations, et cetera, minimize
development opportunities.
SMD strategy: A balanced SMD strategy is a worthy
objective. However, implementing projects such as Viking,
Hubble, JWST, and MSR will likely not be possible without
accepting some impact on other activities. This should be
acceptable to accomplish great accomplishments.
Project management: Future projects will require the full
capabilities of NASA. This includes NASA senior management, the
Science Mission Directorate, and the NASA centers, including
center directors, project managers, and their respective
organizations.
The hallmark of a great organization is the willingness to
accept difficult challenges to achieve great accomplishments. I
believe SMD is such an organization and that the future of SMD
will be bold, exciting, scientifically rewarding, and a source
of great national pride.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Young follows:]
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Chairman Babin. Thank you. I appreciate all of you
witnesses for your testimony.
And now I would like to recognize myself for questions for
5 minutes.
Dr. Fox, NASA stood up an internal group to develop a
response to the second independent review team's assessment of
the Mars Sample Return program. When will NASA be prepared to
share the results of this internal review with Congress? We
want it to be successful.
Dr. Fox. Thank you so much for the question. We are
wrapping up the--putting together the results. They will be
available in the spring. And so--but literally, as soon as we
can get them to you, we will.
Chairman Babin. Good. Today, I think, is the first day of
spring. You don't have it ready yet, huh?
Dr. Fox. Spring's a lovely term.
Chairman Babin. All right. All right. Well, thank you.
Congress--also for you, Dr. Fox, Congress directed NASA to
discover and characterize at least 90 percent of the Near-Earth
Objects, or NEOs, that could cause significant damage if they
collide with Earth. NASA is years behind the deadline that
Congress set to complete this survey, which is one of really
the only--one of the few tasks that NASA is directed by law to
complete. The NEO Surveyor mission is an important part of
completing this survey. And what is the status of the NEO
Surveyor mission?
Dr. Fox. Happy to say that NEO Surveyor is on track. It
will launch in 2028, and we really do appreciate the support
that we've had to keep that mission funded through even this
challenging year. So NEO Surveyor is looking good.
Chairman Babin. Good deal. Thank you.
Mr. Young, in September 2020, NASA's Office of Inspector
General, the OIG, released a report on NASA's planetary science
portfolio. The report highlighted NASA's challenges in adhering
to Discovery-class mission cost caps. In particular, the report
stated that even when excluding launch vehicle and operations
costs, none of the Discovery missions are under the $500
million cost cap. What are the consequences of breaching a cost
cap? Does a tolerance for cost-cap breaches have an impact on
program discipline for future Discovery-class missions? And how
are other non-Discovery-class missions in the pipeline going to
be impacted when these cost caps are breached?
Mr. Young. Well, I think you summarized it pretty well.
That will happen. It's important to look back as to why the
cost breaches. And one of the items is that we continually, for
good scientific reasons, select more and more challenging
opportunities. And as we do push technological limits, we are
in a circumstance where a priori understanding of the precision
of the cost is just not there. So I think that, you know, if we
wanted to have less testing of the cost or the schedule limits,
it really says select projects that are less challenging. The
problem with that is they're also less rewarding, and so it's a
difficult circumstance, and it's one that that Nicky and her
organization have to really balance. But what you described is
true. If they're all increasing in cost, they're going to push
something else out that's not going to----
Chairman Babin. That's right.
Mr. Young [continuing]. Be able to fit into the project--
into the budget. But----
Chairman Babin. OK.
Mr. Young [continuing]. On the other hand, testing where
you get the best return for the amount of money that is
expended is something that deserves an awful lot of scientific
analysis and systems engineering analysis before projects are
implemented.
Chairman Babin. Thank you. Mr. Scott, in February 2024
NASA's Office of Inspector General issued a report on the Mars
Sample Return, or the MSR program, as we've heard several times
today. The report noted that characteristics intrinsic to big
and complex missions like the MSR program are hard to quantify
in estimates but can drive project costs upwards throughout
development. The report stressed that NASA must consider these
intrinsic characteristics and cannot attribute past cost growth
to inflation, the COVID-19 pandemic, or to supply chain issues.
Can you describe these intrinsic characteristics of large
missions and their effects on the cost program?
Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Babin. Or the program costs rather.
Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, as we've discussed
already in the statements, just a number of factors continue to
drive the cost increases in large programs like the Mars Sample
Return, whether it's the initial baseline estimates either
provided by the decadal, which are early on and often lack the
complete picture of what some of these missions will cost. You
know, there's also workforce issues that can end up driving the
cost--increased cost for these missions. The lack of maturity
of some of the technology is also a key driver in some of these
large, complex missions. That's why we think it's important for
NASA to start to implement some of the recommendations from the
Large Mission Study to better inform going forward where you
put the attention early on in these large projects.
Chairman Babin. OK. Thank you. And it looks like I'm out of
time, so I'd like to recognize the Ranking Member, Mr.
Sorensen.
Mr. Sorensen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'll begin with Dr. Lunine. Last year, I was able to
welcome NASA Astronaut Dr. Kate Rubins to my district. And over
the course of 2 days' time, we visited numerous schools. And it
was really great to hear her explain the importance of what we
are learning from the Apollo mission and what we were able to
bring back from the lunar surface. Could you please expand on
what scientists will be able to learn with the samples that we
hope to get back from the Mars surface?
Dr. Lunine. Sure, thank you very much for the question.
The--to answer that question, I will go into my hourlong
lecture, but since I don't have that time----
Mr. Sorensen. Four minutes and 10 seconds.
Dr. Lunine. Yes, I'll give you four points. So, first of
all, we do not have a chronology of the early history of Mars
that's on an absolute timetable. That is, we know the relative
times that events happened but not the absolute times. And for
the Earth and the Moon, the Apollo samples gave us that for the
Earth-Moon system. That was one of the most profound scientific
accomplishments of Apollo, to know the dates that things
happened. And so we'll learn that for Mars from those samples
from what's called radiometric dating. And that can be done--
really needs to be done in terrestrial laboratories because you
have to be able to look at what are called multiple isotopic
systems to do that, so I'll leave it at that.
Second, we will learn about the question of whether organic
molecules were present with the water and what the nature of
those organic molecules were. You can detect some organic
molecules on Mars itself, but it's a very faint signature, and
to be able to detect molecules that are not well-preserved
requires instruments that can detect abundances that are well
below what you can bring to Mars.
No. 3, of course, question of life and whether there are--
is fossil evidence of life. The experience of geologists on the
Earth with very ancient life is that it requires laboratory
instruments to find the chemical and physical clues because
those clues over billions of years have become very, very
faint, and the same for Mars.
And the third is that because the crater that Perseverance
is in is formed by an impact, it excavates material from deeper
under the crust. And so to be able to sample that material and
bring it back to Earth and determine the mineralogy of that
material is an outstanding opportunity to know what's
underneath the dusty surface of Mars. And I'll leave it at
that.
Mr. Sorensen. Yes. Thank you for sharing. You could
probably talk for a long time on this subject.
Dr. Lunine. I could, yes, that's true. Yes.
Mr. Sorensen. I do want to go to Dr. Fox. Let's bring this
back to our planet. The Landsat satellite system has provided
continuous land imagery of our globe for 50 years, not just as
a meteorologist have I use this data, but the University of
Illinois has utilized this in agriculture. And then also I'd be
remiss if--most of us on Capitol Hill are a little bit raspy
today because of the fires out in western Virginia or the fires
in the western part of the Chairman's State of Texas. How will
NASA's development of the next generation of Landsat
satellites, Landsat Next, be important for districts like ours?
Dr. Fox. That's a wonderful question. And I, like Jonathan,
could give you an hour lecture. But, I mean, Landsat is a
critical part of, I mean, our complete Earth monitoring system.
And, as you note, you know, wildfires do not follow boundaries.
They don't follow State boundaries. We all breathe the same
air, as we found last year from the Canadian wildfires.
So a lot of our new missions, Landsat clearly, you know,
set to take that next step, next step for Landsat Next. It's
really a different generation of Landsat. It--also, I would be
remiss if I didn't mention our Surface Biology and Geology
Mission that will also just give us these unprecedented views
of what--you know what we are doing. We just launched PACE, and
that is not only telling us about ocean health, but also about
the health of the air that we breathe. So Landsat, clearly a
very key part, but it really is in this sort of strength of
bringing all of these diverse measurements together to really
allow us to do a great job of characterizing our planet.
Mr. Sorensen. I want to be cognizant of time, so really
quickly, Mr. Young, you stated that there are difficult
development paths. The projects that result in great
accomplishments travel extremely difficult development paths.
What do you think we in Congress need to do to consider when we
are looking at these projects at?
Mr. Young. Well, I have a quick summary. I would say that
we need to look at the difficulties that have occurred and
apply lessons learned to the next series that exist. And that
is, I think we know that we've got issues in cost estimating.
We've got issues in systems engineering. We've got issues in
developing the required talent to implement these programs. And
we need to very clearly specify them and have a coordinated
effort to improve significantly in order to be able to do the
challenging things that are in front of us in SMD.
Mr. Sorensen. Thank you. Learn from the past to make good
decisions for the future.
Mr. Young. Absolutely.
Mr. Sorensen. Thank you, Chairman.
Chairman Babin. Thank you.
I'd like to recognize the gentleman from Florida, Mr.
Posey.
Mr. Posey. Thank you very much, Chairman Babin. And I want
to thank the witnesses for your illuminating testimony today,
very, very much appreciated.
Mr. Scott, has the way NASA managed its high-end computer
capabilities hampered at all in any way that you know its
ability to properly monitor the foreign national accreditation
access process?
Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Posey. As we recently reported,
we did raise issues about the 700-plus foreign nationals that
today have been identified accessing the high-end computing
capabilities. Again, the issues that came to light were one of
the ability to better understand the number of high-end
computing--high-end computing systems NASA has running, it's
diffuse, spread out across the various centers, and being able
to better understand and track and monitor who's actually on
the system and ensuring that these diffuse systems have the
adequate cybersecurity controls.
Mr. Posey. Thank you. Do you think the use of NASA's high-
end computing by external and foreign national parties is as
persuasive as the Inspector General's report might have
indicated?
Mr. Scott. Again, we've asked NASA to set up a tiger team
to look and better understand the number of external users and
foreign nationals accessing the system, right? It's a both/and,
right? It's important for scientific reasons that folks have
access to the high-end computing, and it's equally important
that we understand who these folks are, what they're accessing,
and being able to track and monitor their use of the systems.
Mr. Posey. Thank you. Of the more than 700 foreign
nationals the IG report says have accessed this system, are you
aware of any from any country of concern such as China or the
cities of Macao or Hong Kong?
Mr. Scott. I'm not aware of any foreign national--from any
countries of concern. NASA does have a foreign national
accreditation process, and so my understanding is the folks on
the system have gone through that process. What we're asking
NASA to do is ensuring--to better ensure that the folks
responsible for the high-end computing capabilities are part of
the accreditation process and, again, making sure these systems
are up-to-date in terms of their cybersecurity controls and
we're able to monitor the activity of those on the system.
Mr. Posey. That's great.
Has NASA expeditiously implemented the recommendations in
the Inspector General's report?
Mr. Scott. We're awaiting their responses. We believe that
their initial responses will address the recommendations we
made, but again, we're waiting to see exactly when they're
implementing the various recommendations.
Mr. Posey. OK. Dr. Fox, is NASA working to fully implement
the Inspector General's recommendations concerning high-end
computer capabilities to restrict access by external and
foreign national parties?
Dr. Fox. NASA really appreciates the receipt of the report
from the Inspector General's Office, extremely helpful report.
We are in the process of implement--of responding to each of
the recommendations and putting together the team as requested
to actually do this deep-dive study.
Mr. Posey. OK. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to
include in the record the March 2024 NASA's Office of Inspector
General report.
Chairman Babin. Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. Posey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Chairman Babin. Yes, sir. Thank you.
And now I'd like to recognize the gentlewoman from
Virginia, Ms. McClellan.
Ms. McClellan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
As the only Member of the Committee from Virginia, I'm
particularly proud of the work being done at Langley Research
Center, which I've had the opportunity to visit, their work to
advance science not only in the Commonwealth, but around the
country.
And I have to say that, as a mother to a son who wants to
be an astronomer, he's a keen fan of the work that you all do
in the Planetary Science and Helioscience Divisions. He has
used images from the Hubble and James Webb Space Telescope for
school presentations and is a junior volunteer at the Science
Museum of Virginia. And those images have sparked an interest
in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics)
more than anything that his father and I have ever put in front
of him. And I am very hopeful that he will one day be one of
those scientists that Dr. Lunine talked about who will be
studying samples brought back from Mars.
And thank you very much for the glasses because he told me
the other day that we needed special glasses because he's very
much looking forward to the eclipse. So you have definitely
gotten me some cool points today.
We know that funding stability is essential to maintaining
a highly skilled workforce, which enables our continued
national leadership in research, innovation, and exploration.
And Dr. Fox and Mr. Scott, could you tell us if the President's
Fiscal Year '25 budget request sufficiently funds the Science
Mission Directorate to prevent future workforce reductions or
some of the challenges you've discussed today?
Dr. Fox. Thank you very much. I'll be happy to yield an
extra pair of glasses for your son----
Ms. McClellan. Thank you.
Dr. Fox [continuing]. To be sure that he's protected, too.
We're very grateful for the President's budget request, the
Fiscal Year 2025 President's budget request that does fund NASA
at $7.565 billion for science. That is below the enacted 2023,
so it does provide challenges in the portfolio. The bulk of
those challenges are in the Planetary Science Division, as you
noted, and we are working very closely with our centers, with
our teams to try and limit the impact of those reductions.
Ms. McClellan. And can you tell me what strategies NASA is
implementing to prevent attrition and ensure the stability of
your workforce?
Dr. Fox. Again, we're working extremely closely with the
centers to understand any impacts of the various challenges,
obviously, with Mars Sample Return, with the--following the
recommendations from the IRB. We did do--we have paused the
development of some of the aspects of Mars Sample Return while
we look at all of the architecture, the different architecture
studies. And so as I know everybody is aware, that did cause
some workforce losses at the Jet Propulsion Lab, which, of
course, our hearts go out to anyone who has to do that. But
that was done as a result of budget limitations there. But we
are working extremely closely with all of our centers and, of
course, with JPL to try and minimize and, more importantly, to
actually sustain the critical workforce that we need to be able
to do these amazingly daring missions that we want to succeed
with.
Ms. McClellan. And could you discuss any potential impacts
to the Science Mission Directorate projects at Langley
specifically if NASA's top-line fund either remains flat or
these cuts take place?
Dr. Fox. I don't have a full--so we--let me start again. So
for Langley, the biggest impact will be in the Earth Science
Division because of some of the delays and the change and the
way that we will be implementing some of the Earth science
missions, so there will be some impact to Langley there. They
also do have critical work with us in Mars Sample Return, and--
but they do--also have worked with Dragonfly, which is well-
funded, and so we're hoping to be able to balance between some
of the missions that have--that are more robustly supported and
some that may be a little skinny down in the Fiscal Year 2025
plan.
Ms. McClellan. OK. And in my remaining time, you may not be
able to answer this here, so I'll submit this for the record,
but your Bridge Program that develops partnerships between your
centers and institutions that are historically under-resourced
like minority-serving institutions, community colleges, and
tribal colleges, I wonder if you could, for the record, provide
an update on the status of the Bridge Program and some of its
outcomes?
Dr. Fox. We'd be very happy to provide that for the record.
I know the time's done, but I will say we are really, really
excited about our Bridge Program for all the reasons that you--
it's always nice to be able to offer people opportunities, but
to be able to actually support them to be able to take
advantage of those opportunities is what we're doing with our
Bridge Program, so thank you for the question.
Ms. McClellan. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Babin. Yes, ma'am. Thank you very much.
I'd like to recognize the gentleman from California, Mr.
Garcia.
Mr. Garcia. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you all for
being here, to all the witnesses, and your contributions to the
country and to science and to our Nation's security.
You won't find a bigger fan on the Hill of NASA and the
private-public partnerships that we're enjoying. This is a true
space renaissance. And I should say that with all deference,
Mr. Chairman, you probably are just as big a fan of NASA and
the private partnership as I.
And so, you know, this is not coming from a place of being
combative, but trying to be cooperative in the spirit of being
successful for these missions, especially the science and
national security implications that a lot of these missions
carry with them. And while I appreciate the eclipse sunglasses,
I would have preferred a set of glasses that would have
prevented me from being blindsided by the actions that the
Administration has taken over the last few months when it comes
to the Mars Sample Recovery program.
Mr. Young said that the fate of MSR is in the hands of
NASA, as well as Congress, and I disagree with that. It
certainly doesn't feel that way. I think we have a better
relationship than what I think you assumed. And you left us in
the dark, frankly, with some reprogramming that took place
under loopholes during the CR (continuing resolution).
As the authorizer on this Committee and as the appropriator
on CJS (Commerce, Justice, Science), I would have really
appreciated a heads-up that we were going to lay off close to
600 employees at JPL before that decision was made. I was aware
of before it was executed, but not before that decision was
made. And we have caused irreparable damage in those decisions.
And I understand that the Senate mark was at $300 million and
ours was $975 million, and we were in the midst of a CR, and
there's a lot of uncertainty and ambiguity there. And as a
former, you know, program director myself of $100 million
programs, I understand that that uncertainty is not good.
But we could have cooperated, we could have communicated,
and we could have landed on a place where maybe we should have
preserved those jobs. And what's happening now is those folks
that were at JPL aren't just leaving JPL, they're leaving the
industry. In many cases, they're leaving the State, and we're
losing a cumulative of anywhere between 3,000 years and 5,000
years of corporate knowledge of engineering and design and
early development design work expertise that ain't coming back.
And so I don't know how we're going to address the workforce
issues.
It was a premature decision. It was prior to the IRB
Response Team recommendations that we're expecting here in the
spring. And I understand you can drive a truck between the $300
million and the $975 million or so that the House marked, too,
and that's uncertainty. And I definitely have received your
message that CR's are bad, but I think you exploited that. I
think you exploited loopholes in the C.R. language to fund a
level that is well below congressional intent and certainly
well below executability level.
So I've submitted a letter to the Administration, to
Administrator Nelson with 20 colleagues. By the way, I'm the
only Republican on this letter, so this is a bipartisan thing
from California, requesting that you fund MSR at $650 for the
remaining part of Fiscal Year 2024. I understand that's going
to require some reprogramming and different profiles on your
cost expenditures. We'd like to see a response to that. But I
think we are also asking to not have any other reductions in
forces, riffs, or layoffs as a result of the decisions already
made so that we can try to salvage what workforce talent we
have there as well.
So I guess, Dr. Fox, my question is, will you comply with
the direction in the Fiscal Year 2024 spending bill, which
hopefully will be executed here shortly, to not further reduce
staff on the Mars Sample Return program?
Dr. Fox. So thank you for the question. And as you--really,
thank you for your unwavering support of the Mars Sample
Return. I really genuinely mean that, and I really do
appreciate your support on that.
We did brief Congress a number of times, the
appropriations, on the plans for Mars Sample Return. I think I
actually had the pleasure of speaking to you myself.
Mr. Garcia. I appreciate that.
Dr. Fox. And, you know, with the uncertainty, if we had
allowed the spending on Mars Sample Return to continue at--or
to continue at the 2023 level, we would have reached the Anti--
--
Mr. Scott. Deficiency.
Dr. Fox [continuing]. Antideficiency, thank you,
Antideficiency Act before February. And of course, we did not
want to in any way do that. So we took the measures to limit
and to actually follow the recommendations of the Independent
Review Board.
Mr. Garcia. I'm running out of time. I want to ask a
question looking forward. Looking forward for the rest of the
fiscal year, are you committed to not reducing additional
staff? And will you commit to allocating sufficient funding in
Fiscal Year 2024 and 2025 to ensure the timely retrieval of
samples of Mars? And I want to be very clear. I support you. I
support NASA and this program, but it's not unwavering. If we
continue to show premature and, in my opinion, reckless
behavior patterns at our reprogramming, I will want to do
deeper dives into the program and ask even more questions. But
if you can answer the questions for the record, you commit to
retaining the current staff levels as they are for the rest of
year moving forward, and in Fiscal Year 2025, continuing to
follow our congressional intent with funding levels to execute
the program sufficiently.
Dr. Fox. So we look forward to the results of the
Independent Review Team that will be coming out in the spring,
and we certainly commit to work closely with JPL to continue to
maintain the critical workforce that will be necessary to do
these missions.
Mr. Garcia. OK. I thank you. I'm out of time. I yield back.
Chairman Babin. Thank you, Mr. Garcia, good questions.
I'd like to call on Mr. Strong, my friend from Alabama.
Mr. Strong. Thank you, Chairman Babin, Ranking Member
Sorensen, and our witnesses for their testimony today.
I understand two proposals from Marshall Space Flight
Center were not selected in a recent Science Mission
Directorate call. These proposals were for concepts called
MoonBEAM (Moon Burst Energetics All-sky Monitor) and LEAP
(Large Area Burst Polarimeter). MoonBEAM was the highest-rated
astrophysics proposal and the only proposal to receive a
category one rating, the highest rating possible.
Dr. Fox, Mr. Scott, what is holding NASA back from making
these competitive awards?
Dr. Fox. Thank you for the question. There are many factors
that go into why a mission--why things are selected and not
selected. And for this particular one, we did not have the
resources available to be able to support a mission of
opportunity.
Mr. Strong. OK. The Mars Ascent Vehicle also just
successfully finished its performance development review and
successfully completed wind-tunnel testing at Marshall Space
Flight Center. The Mars Ascent Vehicle, a crucial element of
Mars Sample Return program, is a top priority within the
decadal--I think that's the program they call it--the survey.
Dr. Fox, Mr. Scott, what is NASA doing to meet its commitment
to the survey's priorities?
Dr. Fox. Yes, as you note, it was the highest priority not
only of the current decadal but of the previous decadal to
bring our samples back from Mars, as Jonathan also talked
about. We are--at the moment, we are reassessing. We had that
Independent Review Board that released their findings last
October. We are--we have an independent team at NASA that is
going through each of those findings.
And so while we're looking at the restructuring that was
recommended by that Independent Review Board, we do have some
elements of our Sample Return paused because we are being good
stewards of taxpayer money, and we don't want to go forward and
spend money that would then not be realized. So that is the
plan, but stay tuned. In spring, we will roll out the results
of that--of the--or the findings of that team and hopefully get
Mars Sample Return back on a path to be able to bring those
extremely precious samples back from the red planet.
Mr. Strong. Thank you. We're anxiously awaiting.
Marshall Space Flight Center also hosted ISS (International
Space Station) Payload Mission Control Center, which manages
many research payloads aboard the ISS. Dr. Fox, how does NASA's
plan to ensure that researchers can seamlessly transition their
experiments from the ISS to the commercial LEO (low-Earth
orbit) destinations as they become available?
Dr. Fox. That's a great question. I could talk for hours
about the great stuff that we do on ISS, trust me. But we
have--we are investing. We're working with our partner
agencies, with NIH (National Institutes of Health), with the
FDA (Food and Drug Administration), with the Human Research
Program, of course, and with BARDA (Biomedical Advanced
Research and Development Authority), our Biological and
Physical Sciences Division. I think they have about an $18
million investment right now in things like tissue chips, so
growing organs and sending up--I mean, you could actually
envisage sending up a mini-you on a chip and then looking at
how you respond to different medications.
And so being--basically being--planning to do this sort of
rapid development and working hand-in-hand with our commercial
partners to look at exactly what it would take to transition
from this critical science that we do on the ISS and get it
ready to enact on whichever of the commercial LEO destinations
that we go with. Obviously, they--when they go up--when they
put these in space, they want to use them, and so biological
and physical sciences is a great customer, and we are ready to
do amazing things, whether it's growing plants, looking at
yeast and seeds and how they adapt.
Also, I'll just note, you know, already taking advantage of
Artemis with flying on Artemis I, flying a biological physical
payload there, and getting ready to roll out the science that
we're going to do on Artemis II as well, so just excited about
the whole thing.
Mr. Strong. I can tell the excitement in your voice. And I
thank each of you for being here today and the role that you
play.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Babin. Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Strong.
And I'd like to call now on our Full Committee Chair, Mr.
Lucas.
Chairman Lucas. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And to Mr. Young, when I joined this Committee more than 20
years ago, the James Webb telescope was in the early stages of
formulation. And over that period, this Committee engaged in
extensive oversight of the development of the program. You led
the Independent Review Board that assessed the status of the
telescope and testified this--to this Committee about the
results. From your vantage point, is NASA integrating lessons
learned from the development challenges of James Webb? And it
was a challenge.
Mr. Young. And there were challenges, that's no question.
In fact, you brought back a lot of interesting memories.
Chairman Lucas. Oh, absolutely.
Mr. Young. I would say the answer is yes. You know, NASA
has put together--and somebody can remind me the name of it--
but a group of people that really went about and talked to a
lot of people. I was one that spent some time with the group
and trying to put together lessons learned. And so, yes, I
think there is an effort, you know, to do that.
I think the other thing, though, if I could hitchhike on
your question that I need to really emphasize, and you would
appreciate this, these missions, the flagship missions that
we're talking about that are pushing the boundaries of
capability, they are never going to be easy, and they're never
going to be free of challenges and difficulties. And I think
that we've--you know, the results of James Webb, in my view,
maybe doesn't justify all of the issues that you had an
opportunity to have a front row seat to, but they really did
show with--that the perseverance of trying to get all of the
issues under control, particularly those that were technical
issues, many of which we found in the IRB that I chaired, came
together and really have a system that got--that launched that
had 300-and-some single-point failures, any one of which would
have been mission-catastrophic. And for all of them to have
worked is a credit to NASA and to the engineering capability of
a project.
So I'm bouncing around. You're right. I might say, yes, we
are learning from it, but I do want to point out that these
missions are never going to be easy and free of some of the
challenges that exist. We should just get as many of them out
of the way as we can in the process.
Chairman Lucas. And I will remember, Mr. Young, that point
in one of the hearings, the discussion that the complexity of
the instrument, the complications of the launch, and the fact
that we would put it out where we could never go----
Mr. Young. Yes.
Chairman Babin [continuing]. Put a pair of sunglasses on
it, perhaps, the way we'd done Hubble, was very unnerving.
Mr. Scott, your testimony highlights that an issue for many
NASA missions is the culture of optimism that results in
unrealistic cost and schedule assumptions. Our Committee
encourages NASA to pursue bold missions, but how can we
encourage NASA to establish more realistic cost and schedule
projections for the agency's science missions?
Mr. Scott. Thank you, Chairman Lucas. A can-do spirit is
helpful and necessary for the things NASA does. That's without
question. What we're asking the agency do--to do, though, is
continuing to make critical assessments, particularly of these
large flagship missions, in terms of costs, schedule, and
requirements. And that means asking the hard questions about
these missions even if the answers aren't favorable to your
project. It's important to balance the sense of optimism and
can-do spirit with realism, particularly as it relates to the
lack of maturity in some of these technologies, the
scientific--balancing that with the scientific value of these
missions, but really being able to more fully understand the
challenges ahead and try to better balance these cost and
schedule issues.
The other issue is the decadal. I'm sort of somewhat
sympathetic to NASA. The decadal survey puts out estimates on
these projects, but those are early estimates. Those are
immature estimates. And yet those become the yardstick by which
eventually we start to judge NASA. So I think it's also making
sure we better understand what those decadal estimates mean and
then holding the agency more accountable as it fully matures
and develops these additional estimates.
Chairman Lucas. Dr. Lunine and Mr. Young, this Committee is
working on a NASA authorization bill, and our bill sets NASA
policy but does not provide funding for the agency. Recognizing
the fiscal environment in which we are operating, how do we set
policy for NASA's Science Mission Directorate without creating
unrealistic expectations for the agency, which will be
difficult to fund? How do we temper our optimism so they can be
practical?
Dr. Lunine. Well, I'm a scientist and not a policy person,
Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Lucas. You're a lucky person.
Dr. Lunine. Yes, thank you. I know that. I recognize that
every day. You know, I would just say that--and this isn't
really answering your question, but I feel that the Nation's
portfolio of space science projects represents something that,
you know, looking back to this time in the future will be seen
as one of the remarkable accomplishments of this Nation in
terms of what we've done in exploring the universe and
exploring our own Earth, the planets, the Sun. And, you know,
being mindful of that, those decisions are very difficult to
make. And I--you know, I recognize that, and I hope that those
can be made with as much knowledge and perspective as possible.
Mr. Young. If I could add to that, I think one of the
things that has to be recognized with the task that you have is
that there's a collection of activities that NASA does in the
science arena that are probably better understood than
something like James Webb Space Telescope is. So I think it's
important to have a foundation of programs that advance the
scientific understanding but that are not challenging the
limits of possibility.
But on the other hand, I think if we look back a decade or
two decades from now and we have not been bold in including
within the baseline of programs I'm talking about, programs
like James Webb, like Mars Sample Return, I think we will
collectively be disappointed that we did not pursue the
opportunities that were there. And I think, again, what I was
saying is pursuing those opportunities is really going to--is
what's going to make the road difficult.
I recall, going back to James Webb if I could spend just a
minute--and I spent a lot of time up here interacting with--
when it was kind of also in the balance. But fundamentally,
the--a question I got asked regularly was, was James Webb a
step too far? And after I thought about it, bear with me as I
answer it, I think the answer is yes. But if we had not taken a
step too far, we would not have the incredible results that we
have today.
Now, you can't do that with everything, but there are
special things like Hubble, like James Webb. And I happen to
agree with Jonathan--and like Mars Sample Return, that taking a
step a little bit too far is in the best interest of justifying
the potential results we come back because it's the flagship
missions that are going to kind of provide the James Webb kind
of results. And I don't want to minimize the other, but
everything can't be done that way. But a program that's absence
of those kinds of programs would not be a program that we would
be proud of.
Chairman Lucas. Well put, Mr. Young, and thank you, Mr.
Chairman, for indulging me. I yield back.
Chairman Babin. Yes, sir, good questions. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
I'd like to call on Mr. McCormick from Georgia for 5
minutes.
Mr. McCormick. Thank you, Dr. Chair. I appreciate you and
appreciate the witnesses being here, exciting topic. I will say
as a naval aviator, ER doc, and soon-to-be payload specialist,
I'm very interested in this topic, especially with NASA and its
future activities. I'm worried about some of the things that we
need to do to sustain a budget for NASA as we go forward and to
be applicable but also accountable simultaneously.
I would be remiss if I did not mention that the Science
Mission Directorate seems to be plagued by the same issues as
many of NASA's other departments, which constant deadline
extensions, flawed cost estimating processes, and poor
financial management at times. I hope that today's conversation
can lead us to identify key issues and find ways to mitigate
these resource constraints.
I'm excited about NASA's successful test of the Double
Asteroid Redirection Test, which is DART for most of us others.
That program demonstrates the method for deconflicting an
asteroid through kinetic impact and the implication it could
have as a key to our goal for planetary defense, which I think
is kind of cool. We've seen movies on this. I think Bruce
Willis had a great depiction of--or maybe it was a documentary,
I'm not sure--of how we mitigate that risk in the future
because it is a real concern. I mean, we don't know when it's
going to be, but we might as well have that capability in the
future.
Dr. Fox, now that we have successfully demonstrated the
DART program, what's next for this program, and will we create
multiple DARTs on standby for possible Near-Earth Objects?
Dr. Fox. What a fabulous question. So the next thing in the
planetary defense is the NEO Surveyor, which of course will be
critical in characterizing and cataloguing anything that could
need us to have sort of DART part 2 if you like. We don't have
plans at the moment to have DART in--sort of little DARTs in
storage. We don't have the resources in the planetary defense.
We are, however, sort of, I think probably recycling maybe is
the good way, sustaining, but we are reusing the OSIRIS-REx
spacecraft. So after that gave us those precious samples from
Bennu, it dropped the capsule and then did a nice maneuver. And
eventually, we'll actually rendezvous with Apophis, which is a
small asteroid that will come fairly close to the planet, not
too close, but fairly close. And so we're using that to go and
study close up another asteroid.
Of course, we have our Lucy mission doing flybys of all the
Trojan asteroids. We have Psyche on the way to a heavy metal
asteroid, giving us all different views. And I just want to
paraphrase something that Deputy Melroy said the other day,
which was, you know, when she was studying--in her planetary
days, she was studying asteroids. We had no idea what they
looked like, you know, and now we've had these incredible
close-up views. So we're doing such a great job, I think, of
categorizing, understanding, and cataloging asteroids that
could become problematic, so a very, very vibrant field for us,
having survived asteroid autumn last year.
Mr. McCormick. It sounds like you've done your homework,
and it sounds like you have a lot of organization. It sounds
suspiciously like a heavy metal band.
But with that said, how much do we spend in time
coordinating with other nations in these efforts, in sharing
information and our like mindedness to survive something like
that?
Dr. Fox. Yes, I'm going to actually take that one for the
record because I want to get you an accurate response with the
actual organizations because I don't remember them now. But we
work closely with worldwide--I mean, there are these sort of
asteroid watch networks. And again, we will get you all that
information.
Mr. McCormick. OK. Yes. More to the point, I think we're
all watching space. The question is, how much are we
coordinating our efforts to defend against something that could
be catastrophic? And then how do we protect our own
technologies while at the same time being able to share the
information we need in order to protect ourselves? That's the
next step, I think, in the evolution of what we're trying to
achieve here with DART or whatever----
Dr. Fox. Right.
Mr. McCormick [continuing]. The next program is going to
be. That's just something I wanted to point out.
Dr. Fox. Yes.
Mr. McCormick. Mr. Scott, I'm almost out of time. I got
about 1 minute. What is the most concerning issue that you have
written a report that has not been addressed by NASA?
Mr. Scott. Thank you for that question. I think it's not
one issue. Annually, we issue top management challenges for the
agency, which really points to the longstanding challenges,
whether it's getting humans back to the Moon, addressing the
cybersecurity issues. So from what--while NASA is making
progress addressing each of those key challenges, I would point
you to our top management challenges report, which really
summarizes at a high level, we believe, the top issues and
challenges NASA is facing across its programs and missions.
Mr. McCormick. No. 1, what is it?
Mr. Scott. They're all my favorite. I think there's like
seven or eight of them, so I don't have a No. 1.
Mr. McCormick. You're treating them like kids, huh? You
don't want to have a favorite. I get it. OK. Well, I'd say in
order for us to be accountable to people, just make sure that
we're spending wisely. We budget--and that budget process has
to be streamlined a little bit better. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Chairman Babin. Absolutely. Thank you. And I think
everybody's asked questions, and so we're going to go back
through with a second series if that's OK with everyone. And
I'm going to call on the Ranking Member, Mr. Sorensen, first.
Mr. Sorensen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you,
again, to our witnesses.
You know, as Congress is tasked here in the wee hours of
the morning of a spending package that we will be voting on
very--hopefully, very, very shortly, all eyes are on spending.
And so I do want to go back to something that--Mr. Young, that
you said in your testimony. NASA should look at the most
probable cost instead of the lowest credible cost. And so I do
want to open this up to a more broader discussion because in
2020, NASA's preliminary estimate, it would cost $2-3 billion
to bring the samples being collected by the Perseverance rover
on Mars back to Earth, $2-3 billion was the estimate.
Last summer, just 3 years later, the Independent Review
Board said that a more realistic estimate is $8-11 billion. And
that's still preliminary. How can we, as Members of the
Science, Space, and Technology Committee or, more broadly,
Members of Congress, continue to justify that this is worth it
in the long run? I think, as the Chairman and I are scientists
at heart, we understand the value of being bold, Mr. Young, as
you had said? How do we continue to do that if the cost
overruns keep going up?
Mr. Young. I notice there are no other volunteers. I'm
trying to figure out how to do this within reasonable time.
When projects are being put together and being--going through
various approval processes within NASA, within the Congress,
within the OMB (Office of Management and Budget), the thing
that is--whether we like it or not, the thing that is
encouraged is lowest credible cost. As Mr. Scott said, in that
era, everybody is an optimist. And the difference between
lowest credit--there are a lot of data that would support this
between a lowest credible cost on a statistical basis I would
say is like a 20/80. A most probable cost, there's like an 80/
20. Those numbers are at least a factor of two different.
So what I'm really getting around to is that there's got to
be some offsetting rule that everybody can't be in the cap--
camp of lowest credible cost because we're going to end up with
ridiculous numbers as it turned out like $3 billion.
Now, in a corporation where you're kind of betting a
corporation, what do you do, OK? If I go back to my previous
life, what we did was we had project people who developed
costs, and they were optimists, and we knew they were
optimists, and we wanted them to be optimists in--to lead the
kind of projects we were talking about. But we did not want to
bet the company on their numbers. So we had independent cost
estimating capability, people whose job it was to develop the
most probable estimate.
So my argument would be in the front end of projects, we
need to recognize that many of the numbers we're getting are
lowest credible costs, and we need to have an independent
capability to work on the objective of being, I'll call it,
junkyard dogs, you know, people who are really looking at what
this is really going to cost. And then the decisionmakers have
got to recognize that these programs are difficult, and--you
know, and it's going to take most probable cost. So then we can
make judgments against the--more validity in the cost.
So I believe we have capabilities to estimate cost. I think
much of the Sample Return problem is not overruns in
performance, it's overruns in estimating, and--that we had, you
know. That's why I used the terms lowest credible versus most
probable.
Mr. Sorensen. And I look back at what the--what we were
doing with respect to space and what it meant for us to get a
computer in our hands that is this size and this weight. What
is the value of the investment that we made back then? And we
can't calculate what that is here today. And that's what I
worry here in Congress as we're struggling to meet the needs of
what it means to be bold in space. And so I hope that we are
able to do the right thing and fund the right parts. Thank you,
Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Babin. Yes, sir. Thank you.
I just had a couple of follow up questions. For Mr. Young,
you chaired the Independent Review Board for NASA's Psyche
mission. Similarly to the OIG's report, the Review Board report
noted that delays attributed to COVID-19 may actually be rooted
in deeper program issues. I'd like to provide you with an
opportunity to discuss the characteristics of large missions
that contribute to delays and cost increases if you don't mind.
Mr. Young. Psyche is an interesting example, and it was
done during the COVID time period. So there's no question but
what COVID had an adverse impact on Psyche and projects because
project management is a team sport. And what I mean by that is
people really need to be face-to-face and--to work it out. But
it would be wrong to blame even a majority of Psyche's problems
on COVID. It was certainly a factor.
But Psyche clearly had some--started as some software
development problems in the guidance and control of software
that were poorly communicated throughout the organization, were
not recognized until it was too late to have corrective action
that would have allowed the project to go on schedule.
The other thing I would say with that is to JPL's credit,
when we interacted with them from the IRB standpoint, we really
push hard on this issue of hybrid work vis-a-vis in-person
work. And they put together a concept that recognized
employees' maybe cultural differences but necessary to make the
project work.
I guess the other thing I would say was that the IRB really
stayed with JPL hand-in-hand all the way through the process,
and they developed a path forward, that when we first reviewed
it, we said you need to go back and there's some other things
you need to do. And they did. So, I mean, JPL and NASA's
response to that, they accepted every recommendation we had.
They responded to them. And Nicky probably remembers, but she
came out to get a preliminary assessment of what we were doing,
and my comment was at that time, which is true, that we had
high expectations for what they were going to do, and they
exceeded them. And so I think that really is--in my view, that
is a textbook way to when you have a problem like that, you
know, that you go about solving it. And what NASA and JPL did
in responding to our recommendations was--we applauded quite
significantly.
And it's always rewarding--back to James Webb where I
chaired the IRB there--and I don't want to make this sound like
taking credit, but it's always pretty nice, and you can then
sit back and watch like Psyche. It then launched on the revised
schedule, and it's on the way to the asteroid Psyche and is
performing extraordinarily well.
Chairman Babin. OK. Thank you. And then also to follow up,
Science Mission Directorate periodically conducts reviews of
its operating missions known as senior reviews. The reviews
provide a valuable opportunity for NASA to leverage its
investments by extending the operations of spacecraft that
continue to provide useful data beyond their planned lifetime.
And while a useful tool, I'm interested in ensuring that NASA
allocates its funding in the most efficient manner possible. In
particular, recent senior reviews across SMD's divisions have
recommended extending the majority of programs being
considered. Does the senior review process assess how continued
operations of a mission would impact NASA's budget? And how
does NASA weigh whether extension of an existing mission is
worth potentially diverting funds from a future mission? Mr.
Young?
Mr. Young. Yes, I'm not the person really to----
Chairman Babin. OK.
Mr. Young [continuing]. Comment on the--on that process.
Chairman Babin. Then I bet it's Dr. Fox.
Dr. Fox. Yes, happy to talk about that.
Chairman Babin. OK.
Dr. Fox. So--and we really value the senior review process
because if we do have to make tough decisions, it does give us
that ranking. Of course, nobody ever wants their mission turned
off, and why would you? I wouldn't want mine turned off. So--
but it is challenging because we--as--when we talk about the
balanced portfolio across the Science Mission Directorate, we
really do mean in terms of our legacy missions with the new,
exciting missions.
I will--I do want to sort of highlight how the Earth
Science Division has recently used their senior review. You
know, they got a recommendation to maintain all of their
operating missions. They did not have the resources to do it,
so what they actually did was give a very challenging budget
scenario to each of those operating missions, and, boy, did
they deliver. So they are cutting those--the actual budget to--
you know, finding creative, efficient ways to keep operating
the missions. Maybe you can't do it in the way you've always
done it before in prime mission, but there are efficiencies you
can make to extend the missions, and we've seen that across the
portfolio where, you know--so we find that the senior review
process is very, very valuable. We do like it when they give us
the ranking of the missions because it does make it easier when
we have to make those hard decisions.
Chairman Babin. OK. Thank you very much. And I'm out of
time.
I'd like to call on gentleman from California once again.
Mr. Garcia. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Babin. Yes, sir.
Mr. Garcia. I want to follow up on the Mars Sample Return
discussion that we were having. I'm a dog with a bone on this
one because it's so important to us, and the damage here is
tremendous, not to just my district, but to all of southern
California, to all of, frankly, the NASA workforce industrial
base and the implications of this bad behavior are far-
reaching.
This was premature, pre-decisional based on pre-decisional
conversations in Congress that were happening real-time between
both the House and the Senate, very shortsighted, and has
caused irreparable damage. I describe this as nothing short of
a bag job against the good folks at JPL, people who are now
unemployed, looking for other industries, looking for other
jobs, almost 600 folks as a result of this bad decision. It's a
slap in the face to Congress, both the authorizers and the
appropriators.
So you mentioned, Dr. Fox, the Antideficiency Act. The
Antideficiency Act is meant to be a way to ensure that agencies
aren't spending more than what they are appropriated to. Your
Fiscal Year 2023 appropriations number was $818 million,
$818.8--I believe, to be exact--million. OK? You made the
decision for the layoffs on February 6, which is about roughly
35 percent through the fiscal year, so 35 percent of $818
million is about $286 million. So you were either--this
program--and I don't want to say you. This program was either
burning hot at a rate of 3X and you were therefore looking at
an Antideficiency Act to breach, or the remaining money, the
delta between $818 million, which is what you were last
appropriated, and $286 million, which would have been your sort
of SPI (schedule performance index) for a 35 percent profile
through the Fiscal Year 2023, was reprogrammed to another
program.
So this argument that you made these decisions based on an
Antideficiency Act actually is technically and legally not true
unless you were burning at a 3X rate or you did reprogram money
to another program from MSR to something else that we weren't
notified for. And I would actually submit that the appearance
of what has been done here is not an Antideficiency Act
violation or an attempt to prevent an Antideficiency Act
violation, but it looks more like an Impoundment Act violation
to me, which is where you don't execute the money that has been
allocated to you with a specific purpose through congressional
appropriations process.
So I don't--out of deference to you, I don't want you to
answer that question here, right now, but I would like a deeper
dive into why you are asserting and your staff is asserting
that the rationale for these layoffs was an Antideficiency Act
because it, frankly, technically, legally, numerically,
programmatically, it cannot hold water unless you were burning
at 3X, which I don't think you were. I understand you're in the
midst of an IRB. There was confusion about the technical
solutions moving forward. I understand there was confusion
about the timelines and schedules that would be derived from
those technical solutions. And I also understand Congress was
doing you a disservice with a CR But to baseline against a $300
million number that came out of the Senate markups is not what
you anchor to when you start talking about Antideficiency Act
conversations. OK? You anchor to your previously appropriated
number, which was $818 million.
So happy to let you comment on that right now if you want
to. If you would prefer to answer for the record later with the
actual numbers and your SPI and your actual burn rates and show
us where money was being reallocated before February 6 to
substantiate the layoffs, you can also do that, but I'll defer
to you.
I want to make sure--a lot of these jobs are already lost.
A lot of these people are already gone, so I don't know how we
do MSR correctly without that workforce. We're already
challenged, and there's already--you know, there's an
unprecedented level of competition right now between primes to
go hire these people when they're getting scooped up. But I'll
defer to you, Ms.--Dr. Fox, if you want to respond.
Dr. Fox. I'm happy to take it for the record so we can get
you all--I mean, you are asking some--for some very deep
numbers that, of course, I don't have at the tip of my tongue,
so we're happy to take it for the record. Obviously, again, we
have--you know, we do not direct JPL on their workforce. We did
provide them financial guidance that was based on what we
thought was going to be available and having been given the
information--or, you know, with the Fiscal Responsibility Act
coming out at the--no higher than the 2023 and a cut below
that.
I will just note that the cut to Planetary is nearly half a
billion dollars against the 2023 enacted, and it is $666
million against the President's budget request for 2024, so it
is a very big cut to Planetary.
Mr. Garcia. Yes, but from an Antideficiency Act--and I'm
out of time--that is not what you should have been anchoring
to. We were allowed and we were able to continue to fight for
the higher dollar levels. And so we can continue this
conversation, but I just--I'm scared. I'm scared. I'm worried
about the workforce. And it's not my district, it's southern
California, and we'll be looking for responses to the letters
from the delegates from the area.
Thank you. I yield back.
Chairman Babin. Thank you, Mr. Garcia, appreciate it.
Well, this concludes our hearing today, but I want to thank
each one of you witnesses for being here and your valuable
testimony for us to be able to have proper oversight and know
what's going on with our programs.
The record will remain open for 10 days for additional
comments and also for written questions from Members.
This hearing is now adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:40 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
Appendix I
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Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Responses by Dr. Nicola Fox
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Responses by Mr. George A. Scott
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Responses by Mr. A. Thomas Young
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Appendix II
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Additional Material for the Record
Report submitted by Representative Bill Posey
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