[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 52 (Wednesday, April 14, 2010)]
[House]
[Pages H2508-H2509]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1015
                  CANCELING THE CONSTELLATION PROGRAM

  (Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas asked and was given permission to address 
the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong 
opposition to the President's budget proposal to cancel our human space 
flight program. It's under the Constellation Program, which was 
authorized both by

[[Page H2509]]

Democrat and Republican Congresses respectively, that NASA is currently 
developing new launch vehicles capable of traveling to the moon, Mars, 
and other destinations.
  Not only does canceling the Constellation Program jeopardize 
America's leadership role in human space exploration, but it will have 
a detrimental effect on our economy, projecting job losses of 30,000 
nationally.
  Given our current economic downturn, we can't take the possibility of 
losing these jobs lightly. Our government has already invested 
literally years and billions of dollars in this program. We should 
build on these investments and not abandon them, especially considering 
the private sector will not be able to build a better, faster, cheaper 
rocket before the Constellation Program is slated to be finished 
because the technologies NASA proposed to use do not exist yet, nor has 
any destination been chosen.
  Constellation is our only hope to close the current 5-year gap in 
U.S. access to space, and I encourage my colleagues to join me in 
opposition to the proposal to close Constellation.

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