[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 61 (Friday, April 24, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4708-S4709]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                  NASA

  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, there are so many things I 
would like to talk about, not the least of which--which I will not 
confine my remarks to--is our space program, which is adrift.
  The White House continues to deliberate on who should be the 
administrator of NASA. The previous administration starved NASA to 
death by asking it to do too much with too little. The result of that 
is that now NASA is coming to the end of the life of the space shuttle, 
as we complete the construction of the International Space Station. 
With the remaining nine flights--and those nine flights NASA thinks it 
can get in during the next year and a half, but they can't--we are 
going to have to fly the space shuttle into 2011, and we ought to do 
that deliberately and slowly to make sure we don't sacrifice safety.
  At the end of that time, upon the completion of the space station--
the International Space Station, with components from a number of 
countries around the world and something that is larger than two 
football fields long, 200 miles into the cosmos, circling the globe at 
17,500 miles an hour, with research laboratories, with habitation 
modules for the astronauts and cosmonauts on board--the United States, 
when we shut down the space shuttle, will not have a manned vehicle 
because we didn't have enough money for the development of the new 
vehicle--the new rocket, the Aries--and so we are going to have a gap 
and we will have to rely on the Russians. We will have to buy a ride on 
their spacecraft in order to get to our space station, which is a $100 
billion investment.
  Now, that is the sad state of affairs, and that is where NASA finds 
itself. NASA is adrift because it doesn't have a vigorous leader, 
appointed by the Obama administration, to take charge; someone who 
understands space flight, who understands management, who understands 
aeronautics. By the way, aeronautics is the first ``A'' in NASA--the 
National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA does not have a 
leader as yet who understands how to motivate people and capture the 
spirit of the American people, which is that we are explorers and 
adventurers by nature. There is not a heart in America that does not 
beat more quickly when they think of the potential we have in the 
cosmos and the exploration of new worlds.

  Look at what the Hubbell space telescope has done for us. How do you 
think we have been able to have the revelations from the Hubbell space 
telescope? It is because we have been able to send astronauts out there 
when it could not even see because it had an incorrectly ground lens 
when we launched it, over a decade and a half ago. We sent astronauts 
there to repair it in orbit.
  Lo and behold, in 2 weeks another flight with astronauts will go to 
the Hubbell space station, will repair it, will give it new 
instruments, and for the next 2 decades it will continue to peer into 
the universe and unlock those secrets about where did we come from and 
when did it happen and how are we positioned in this universe that is 
so vast, so infinite that our human minds cannot even grasp. That is 
the excitement of the future.
  Yet NASA is adrift. I call on the White House to please put in an 
administrator of NASA who is a leader, who understands space, who 
understands how to motivate people and who can capture the American 
spirit and help inspire, standing by our President who wants it, a 
vigorous space program.
  I did not come here to speak about that, but I get pretty exercised 
because I have been the beneficiary of being a part of this space 
program. I do not like what I see now and I do not like what I have 
seen in the last 5 years. I have said so on the floor of this Senate, 
over and over. The more we try to get additional funding in the budget 
to develop this new rocket--and we were successful in the Senate--the 
more we would have our legs cut out from under us by the previous White 
House budget office because they kept starving NASA of funds. That has 
led us to where we are today.
  I personally know our President is a space aficionado. We have talked 
about it hours on end. I know he wants us to have a vigorous space 
program. I know President Obama understands how to accomplish the very 
thing he wants to do with young people, in getting them educated and 
particularly educated in math and science and engineering. Look to 
history. Look at what happened in the Apollo program when young people 
by the thousands starting going into math and science and engineering 
because they were challenged by what we were doing in the cosmos. We 
can do that again if the President will give the full support to the 
space program and if he will put the right leader in NASA.
  I came today to speak about another subject, but I do not think there 
is a much more important subject at this time. With all the problems 
facing this country--the economy, the national security situation--you 
have to tend to your knitting. America's space program and America's 
preeminence in space--that we do not lose the high ground--is a highly 
important issue, high among the items on the agenda to which this 
country must attend.

[[Page S4709]]



                          ____________________