[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 38 (Thursday, March 30, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H1624-H1625]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            THE IMPORTANCE OF SPACE RESEARCH TO OUR COUNTRY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Weldon) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I would like this afternoon to 
talk about NASA and the recent report regarding the Mars program, as 
well as a

[[Page H1625]]

recent poll taken by the Zogby Organization.
  As most Americans know, NASA and its efforts to put a man on the moon 
and our space shuttle from become an integral part of America's 
history, and as well American culture. Furthermore, it is common 
knowledge that NASA and its exploits in space is a tremendous 
motivating factor for young people to study math and science. Indeed, 
there is an entire generation of Americans who now work in areas of 
high technology, science and mathematics who were originally naturally 
motivated to get involved in that arena because of the space race and 
the tremendous attraction of space.
  Indeed, when I travel around the United States and talk to teachers, 
one of the things I hear over and over again when I tell them where I 
am from, which is an area of Florida that includes Kennedy Space Center 
and Cape Canaveral, when I tell them that, they invariably tell me that 
one of the things that helps them in motivating their kids to take an 
interest in the study of math and science is the space program and 
talking to them about the applications of our space program to the 
future.
  Indeed, a recent poll that was released by the Zogby Organization 
bears up a lot of what I am talking about. This chart I have to my left 
here gets into this. They asked the following questions, and they had 
other questions, but I want to focus on these two statements. The first 
statement is: NASA and space exploration in general is a total waste of 
taxpayer dollars. The second statement is: the exploration of space is 
vital to the future of the United States and the world no matter what 
the cost.
  I was very surprised, because amongst young people ages 18 to 29, by 
a ratio of almost 5 to 1, they supported the second statement rather 
than the first statement, which contends that space exploration is not 
important.
  When we look at people ages 30 to 39, almost the same ratio, 5 to 1, 
support NASA. Even amongst the older generation, people over the age of 
50, it is about a 2 to 1 ratio.

                              {time}  1500

  It averages out, as I show here, to about three to one actually 
support the ongoing investment in space.
  I know that NASA had a tough year last year in some of its areas. 
Certainly they had tremendous success, as well. There was the recent x-
ray mapping mission involving the shuttle, which was a huge success. 
The Hubble repair mission, as well done by the shuttle, was a huge 
success. But as everybody knows, they had some failures on two probes 
that were supposed to go to Mars. I think what we need to do is 
certainly reassess and reevaluate our whole Mars program and how we are 
going about that.
  It was originally proposed that this new approach would be called 
faster, better, cheaper. The idea in mind is that you do not build a 
probe to Mars that takes 7 years to build, that costs $1.5 billion, you 
build several smaller probes. This way, in case you lose one, the 
mission of exploring Mars can still move ahead.
  I would assert that the fundamentals behind that philosophy were 
very, very good. It makes a lot of sense to have several smaller probes 
rather than one big one, because, indeed, in the past we have lost some 
of these big probes, which are very, very costly.
  I would assert that the goal or the mission of faster, better, 
cheaper needs to be redefined to what it was originally intended to be, 
maybe something like smaller, swifter, and smarter. I believe that the 
intent was a good one to send multiple smaller probes, rather than one 
large probe.
  I believe that the reassessment that is going on in the Mars program 
will ultimately end up yielding better value to the American taxpayer. 
If we are ever going to send people to Mars so that we can explore that 
planet, or indeed, even some day colonize Mars, it is critical that we 
send unmanned probes first to learn more about Mars.
  Clearly, this poll shows us that the American people are still behind 
a strong effort to explore space. We are a Nation of pioneers. That is 
in our spirit. It should always remain in our spirit. I believe we need 
to reassess what we are doing with Mars and move ahead with the same 
kind of focus, indeed, where we are trying to get better value for the 
American taxpayer and gain knowledge of outer space.

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