[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 116 (Tuesday, July 18, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1450-E1452]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


     INTRODUCTION OF H.R. 2043, THE NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE 
                    ADMINISTRATION AUTHORIZATION ACT

                                 ______


                         HON. ROBERT S. WALKER

                            of pennsylvania

                    in the house of representatives

                          Monday, July 17, 1995
  Mr. WALKER. Mr. Speaker, today I am introducing H.R. 2043, the 
National Aeronautics and Space Administration Authorization Act, fiscal 
year 1996. Mr. Speaker, the Committee on Science has devised a 
visionary, yet prudent alternative to the two very different approaches 
we have seen thus far this budget year.
  The first approach was contained in the President's Budget Request 
for NASA. It said, ``don't worry, trust us, we'll cut NASA's budget by 
$5 billion over the next 5 years.'' At the time, the President didn't 
say how the budget would be cut by $5 billion, but he said it could be 
cut without closing NASA field centers or cancelling programs.
  To some of my colleagues, that promise sounded incredible--so much so 
that the Appropriations Subcommittee that pays NASA's bills, the 
Subcommittee on Veterans Affairs, Housing and Urban Development and 
Independent Agencies, took the exact opposite approach: it proposed 
closing NASA field centers and cancelling major science programs.
  The role of the Science Committee is to provide guidance to the 
Nation's civil space program. We are operating under the fiscal 
imperatives that weigh upon all Members of the House. Our job is to 
propose a new direction for NASA that meets both the needs of the 
nation's space program and the budget of the nation's taxpayer. H.R. 
2043 does just that.


                         the path of the future

  Our bill lays the groundwork for a direct path to the future by 
focussing NASA's energies on basic research and development. The 
International Space Station, which is fully authorized to completion in 
H.R. 1601, should be seen as the foundation on which this bill rests. 
H.R. 2043, builds on the commitment made to human space exploration by 
fully funding the Space Shuttle program and takes the first steps 
toward privatizing the Shuttle while maintaining safe and productive 
operations.
  But that's not enough. H.R. 2043 also fully funds the Reusable Launch 
Vehicle initiative aimed at low-cost, simple, reliable space 
transportation systems whose operational vehicles will be entirely 
developed by the private sector. This basic research is fundamental to 
industry's being able to privately finance and profitably operate the 
next generation of space vehicles. With this program, Mr. Speaker, we 
will begin a new era in space, led not by large engineering 
bureaucracies, but by skillful space entrepreneurs.
  We are fully funding the President's proposal to fund two reusable X-
type vehicles, the X-33 and the X-34. The X-33 is intended to be the 
development ``footprint'' for a single-stage-to-orbit fully reusable 
launch vehicle; the actual step of capitalizing and developing this 
system will be the private sector's responsibility. The program is 
designed to make that next step technologically feasible. The X-34 is 
already changing the way NASA does business because it reverses the 
contracting relationship; reverse contracting means that industry can 
decide how NASA will contribute its expertise to the program, and not 
the other way around.


                        pioneering basic science

  We are committed in H.R. 2043 to complete development of the highest 
priority basic science missions in NASA. These programs, Gravity Probe-
B, Cassini, the Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility [AXAF], the Mars 
Surveyor, the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy [SOFIA], 
represent the core science mission that NASA should be focussing on as 
it returns to its original mission as the Nation's leader in basic 
scientific, air and space research. Originally NASA had proposed 
terminating Gravity Probe-B, if possible, to make room for two new 
programs in infrared astronomy, SOFIA and the Space Infrared Telescope 
Facility [SIRTF]. Our bill makes the difficult choice to fund Gravity 
Probe-B and SOFIA, but not SIRTF.

[[Page E 1451]]

  Originally, the Appropriations Subcommittee had proposed terminating 
Cassini, NASA's high reward science mission to Saturn. Cassini is an 
extremely valuable basic science mission, as evidenced by the fact that 
our European partners have devoted the equivalent of an entire year's 
science funding to develop the Cassini Huygens probe, which is
 their contribution to the program. If terminated now, with less than 
25 percent of its development cost remaining, Italy's bilateral 
contribution to the Cassini mission would also be wasted. As America 
seeks to do more in space with less money, Mr. Speaker, we cannot 
afford to abandon international agreements where other nations have 
pledged their national treasure to work with the United States. H.R. 
2043 funds the complete development and launch of Cassini.

  Similarly, it would be a mistake to summarily terminate the Gravity 
Probe-B mission, which was first conceived of by Stanford University in 
1967, to empirically prove Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity. Less 
than 30 percent of the spacecraft, launch, and operations cost to 
complete this singularly important research remains. Rather than throw 
away nearly 30 years of dedicated research and development aimed at 
testing, at last, the most fundamental of physics assumption of our 
century, H.R. 2043 funds Gravity Probe-B.


                       Setting fiscal priorities

  Mr. Speaker, some of our colleagues will wonder at hearing this news, 
how come NASA is not cutting its budget? Well, in fact, we are cutting 
NASA's budget by a total of $598 million--or 4% in real terms--below 
the President's request. H.R. 2043 authorizes NASA at $741 million--or 
5% in real terms--below the current spending level.
  How did we do it, Mr. Speaker? We decided to put our eggs in the 
basic science and research basket, and back away from applied research 
and applications. While spending more than $1 billion in fiscal year 
1996, it is hard to suggest we have abandoned the Mission to Planet 
Earth. We will scale if back and restructure it in order for basic 
science to obtain priority once again. When the Earth Observing System 
was started in 1989, NASA was given the job of developing spacecraft 
sensors and satellites for each science researchers to use. As a 
result, as long as the funding for this service to others continued to 
be provided in Presidential budget requests, NASA enjoyed a growing 
budget and its outreach to the earth science community.
  Mr. Speaker, those days are over. The government added Mission to 
Planet Earth to NASA's programs at a time when NASA expected its budget 
to grow by some 10 percent a year to accommodate this new application 
of the agency's technical capabilities. If those expectations were ever 
realistic, they certainly are not now. This does not mean that we need 
to cancel Mission to Planet Earth at this time, however. Instead, two 
things must now happen for NASA to continue applying its capabilities 
to earth data collection in a fiscally sound manner.
  First, we must consider the size and scope of the Earth Observing 
Satellite [EOS] system and its data distribution system, EOSDIS. The 
Mission to Planet Earth program will extend to the year 2022 and in the 
year 2000 the budget for this program will grow to $1.6 billion. NASA 
has been reticent to provide detailed cost data beyond the year 2000. 
The General Accounting Office estimates that the EOS will cost some $33 
billion through its completion.
  Mr. Speaker, we must ask ourselves if this $33 billion dollar 
expenditure to collect earth environmental data is efficient, 
especially for the user community it will directly serve. For example, 
NASA estimates that EOSDIS will receive some 2,100 gigabytes of new 
data every day, or 766,550 gigabytes of data every year. NASA estimates 
that the entire earth science community has some 10,000 potential 
users, including graduate and undergraduate students. Mr. Speaker, that 
means that each user will have to analyze 76.6 gigabytes of data every 
year just to process the data. For comparison, a new personal computer 
with a Pentium processor is capable of holding .008 gigabytes of data 
in its RAM memory, and perhaps 0.9 gigabytes on its hard-drive. Our 
fear, Mr. Speaker, is that NASA is buying a present for earth watchers 
that is too big to fit under their tree.
  Second, we must recognize that the government no longer has a 
monopoly on the production of earth images and scientific data sets. 
Several companies are in the process of selling earth-remote sensing 
data commercially. More are preparing to launch their own satellites to 
gather data. Proceeding without regard to the cost savings that will be 
made possible by the emergency of this industry is foolhardy. EOS could 
also become a competitor of this new commercial enterprise, throwing 
people who build satellites, and analyze and collect data for the 
private sector out of work.
  Mr. Speaker, our bill does not end Mission to Plant Earth. It cuts 
the President's request by some $324 million, or 24%, but still 
authorizes NASA to spend over $1 billion dollars for this activity in 
fiscal year 1996. H.R. 2043 simply directs NASA to rescope the program
 for maximum efficiency and in the context of the private sector's 
growing capability to meet NASA's data requirements.

  In Aeronautical research we make some hard choices, again favoring 
the more basic, more fundamental, and less applied research over those 
things that already bear communical value and in which the private 
sector already has sufficient incentive to pursue.
  Mr. Speaker, Subcommittee Chairman Jim Sensenbrenner and I are proud 
of the bill we are introducing today, not only for what it does to 
solve the problems facing NASA this year, but because our bill takes 
NASA on the high road to the future.


                           nasa underfunding

  Looking back, my colleagues should recognize that NASA's reductions 
to help achieve a balanced federal budget are nothing new. Since 1992, 
NASA's budget has been declining each year. In all NASA has reduced 
it's total budget by 35 percent since 1991. Using the current year as 
an example, NASA had planned programs in its budget for fiscal year 
1991 that today would require a NASA budget of nearly $21 billion. 
Instead of $20.9 billion, NASA got $14.4 for fiscal year 1995. The 
problem is not only that NASA's budget has been reduced, but the way in 
which it has been reduced.
  Like no other, NASA is an agency that has consistently asked for less 
money than it needed to do the job. Since 1992, NASA's budget has been 
declining against looming programmatic requirements. The result has 
been devastating to agency morale and missions. The failure to produce 
realistic budget estimates to carry out the programs underway led to 
the cancellation of programs that had already consumed billions of 
taxpayer dollars. The Comet Rendezvous Asteroid Fly-by, the original 
Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility, the Advanced Solid Rocket Motor, 
and Space Station Freedom are among the casualties of this reckless 
budget strategy.
  The fiscal year 1996 Request once again underfunds what is needed to 
do the job, based on the programs approved by Congress last year. Yet, 
the underfunding of $140 million in the fiscal 1996 budget request came 
the closest of all years in matching program requirements with the 
budget requested.
  Beginning in fiscal 1997, the President's budget proposes to widen 
the gap again, based on arbitrary budget reductions of 3 percent in 
1997, 5 percent in 1998, 7 percent in 1999 and 9 percent in 2000. We 
believe this will lead only to repeating the mistakes of the past and 
the summary cancellation of important missions into which taxpayers 
have already invested significant amounts. The only reasonable way to 
reduce NASA's budget is to address program requirements, including the 
size the scope of missions undertaken.


                   nasa in a balanced federal budget

  Breaking the pattern of underfunding mission requirements is 
especially challenging in the fiscal environment demanded by a balanced 
federal budget. We believe NASA must adhere to basic research as its 
principal mission in order to set a strategic direction for itself in a 
future of declining budgets.
  Therefore, the reductions in mission content proposed by this bill 
are aimed not only at the current year budget resolution target, but 
are also chosen to reduce future years' funding requirements. Every 
effort is made to prevent cancellation of programs in which large 
investments have already been made.
  The priority is given to roles and missions of NASA aimed at basic 
research and discovery, as opposed to applications work. The long-term 
goal implied by the bill is to achieve a balance among NASA's strategic 
enterprises that allows basic space science--astronomy, astrophysics, 
life and microgravity science, and planetary science--to become a full 
20 percent of the NASA budget as recommended by the Augustine Committee 
in 1990.
  In order to ultimately reduce the overhead launch cost of performing 
any space activities, the development of the next generation of 
reusable launch vehicles, is an essential investment that NASA must 
make to survive. Basic research in cutting-edge technologies like 
single stage to orbit systems will enable yet greater science and 
discovery at lower costs.
  Other enterprises of the agency will compete for the remaining 
resources provided in a declining budget. The opportunity for funding 
of these enterprises, including the earth science applications, applied 
technology programs for aircraft, and various outreach and academic 
program efforts, will depend on the ability of NASA to right-size its 
base of assets to the sharper focus of its missions henceforth.
                           restructuring nasa

  Our bill recognizes the real necessity for NASA to restructure itself 
in order to meet the challenges facing space in the next century. The 
Administrator of NASA has worked hard to produce a zero-base review 
which will help him reorganize NASA's activities into lead 

[[Page E 1452]]
centers and specialized institutes. We applaud this effort, and will 
work with NASA to carry out the reforms of the zero-base review, 
including privatization of the Space Shuttle.
  At the same time, we recognize the Administrator had two constraints 
placed on him that prevent a permanent solution to the underfunding 
problem. The zero-base review was not allowed to cancel NASA programs 
and was not allowed to result in the closing of any of NASA's field 
center installations. Those constraints were self-imposed, but as a 
result, the promised savings from this effort ring hollow.
  In H.R. 2043, we propose the only credible, reasonable way to achieve 
a radical restructuring of NASA. That is, by a complete review of all 
NASA's capital assets: every piece of equipment, every building, every 
truck, every test facility, every everything. By looking at assets, we 
can see two costs: people who support the asset, and the mission 
supported by the asset. This kind of review is needed since NASA now 
owns more things--and has more people to use those things--than for 
which there is a purpose.
  Up until our proposal, the conventional budget cutters would look 
only at the number of people or the missions. Decisions were being made 
on whether to cut raw numbers of people, close whole research centers, 
or cancel missions. These decisions can be terribly flawed and costly 
since missions require specialized skills and equipment that are, in 
fact, well distributed across the NASA system.
  Our asset base review will turn the system on its head and look at 
the building blocks of the modern NASA budget: the maintenance and 
operations of capital assets. We propose to go to each such asset and 
ask, ``What does this piece of equipment do for a mission? Who uses it? 
Why do they need it?'' This approach will avoid the political and 
scientific pitfalls that have destroyed NASA's previous efforts to 
reform itself.
  Our approach will not be vague. You won't hear us say, ``Let's cut 
the fat.'' If it's not being used to perform a mission, it's fat. If 
it's not being used enough, or alternatives exist elsewhere in 
Government or through the private sector, NASA will go elsewhere, and 
not retain an underutilized asset. At the same time, if assets are 
needed, but are too old or too inefficient to do the job they are 
assigned, we will work to upgrade or replace essential assets on a 
cost-benefit basis.
  Once the asset base review is completed, the President will propose 
to Congress, no later than September 30, 1996, legislation to implement 
the Administrator's recommendations based on the asset base review. In 
the meantime, we prohibit the Administrator from closing any of NASA's 
field centers. The Administrator may only close a field center if it is 
rendered obsolete as a result of the Administrator's recommendations, 
after enactment of the implementing legislation submitted by the 
President.
  Mr. Speaker, H.R. 2043 is a real alternative. We navigate between the 
constraints NASA imposed on itself to bring fundamental change to the 
Nation's space agency. We navigate between the pressures facing our 
colleagues on the Appropriations Committee and suggest a way to set 
NASA's priorities on basic research. In conclusion, I urge all of my 
colleagues to read the bill and consider the direction H.R. 2043 takes 
NASA and the Nation toward. We are moving forward, building great 
science, and appropriately right-sizing the NASA infrastructure. We 
commend our approach to our colleagues, and look forward to working 
with the Senate to enact the kind of reform-oriented NASA authorization 
proposed here today.


                          ____________________