[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 58 (Thursday, April 22, 2010)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E628-E629]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION'S QUESTIONABLE NASA PLAN

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. FRANK R. WOLF

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, April 22, 2010

  Mr. WOLF. Madam Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to the FY2011 
budget proposed by President Obama for the National Aeronautics and 
Space Administration, NASA. I believe the administration plan would 
abdicate U.S. leadership in space. Nearly every astronaut, including 
Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, has spoken out 
against this misguided budget proposal.
  I submit articles from The Wall Street Journal and the Orlando 
Sentinel which further call into question the administration's judgment 
with regard to NASA.

             [From the Wall Street Journal, Apr. 17, 2010]

              NASA Whipsaw: Prop Re-Do for Obama's Speech

       When President Barack Obama gave his long-awaited speech 
     Thursday laying out a vision for NASA, the backdrop featured 
     an immaculate mockup of the Orion space capsule.
       But only a few days before, workers at the Kennedy Space 
     Center in Florida had frantically removed all vestiges of the 
     Orion program from the same building.
       What prompted the prop swap?
       The reasons behind the abrupt scene change--and Obama's 
     positive words about Orion in his address--reflect the sudden 
     shifts and last-minute policy decisions that continue to 
     buffet the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. For 
     more on that, read this WSJ article.)
       In February, the White House shocked many in industry and 
     Congress by seeking to kill NASA's Constellation manned 
     exploration program, designed to replace the retiring space 
     shuttle fleet and eventually take astronauts back to the moon 
     and on to Mars. The multi-billion dollar Orion capsule, 
     reminiscent of the Apollo era, is part of that program.
       In the following months, the Obama administration resisted 
     entreaties by Lockheed Martin, the capsule contractor, and 
     its champions on Capitol Hill to save Orion. The company 
     repeatedly tried but failed to interest NASA and the White 
     House in pursuing a less-expensive, stripped-down version of 
     the capsule, ``Orion light.'' For the White House, all of 
     Constellation was too expensive and would take too long to 
     complete.
       On Mondays as the space center was preparing for the high-
     profile presidential policy speech, Lockheed had forklifts 
     and other equipment hurriedly removing everything related to 
     Orion from the building where Obama would speak, according to 
     people familiar with the details. Administration officials 
     bluntly told company executives that the president didn't 
     want to be associated with Orion.
       That quickly changed. On Tuesday afternoon, chief White 
     House science adviser John Holdren called Joanne Maguire, 
     head of Lockheed Martin's space programs, to inform her that 
     a revised version of the Orion capsule would be reinstated in 
     the president's plans. Now, NASA wants to use the capsule, at 
     the very least, as an emergency escape system for U.S. 
     astronauts when they are on the international space station.
       That still left NASA, however, with the dilemma of what to 
     do about the mockup. Between Tuesday night and Thursday 
     morning, the White House, NASA managers and local center 
     officials managed to restore the Orion mockup to its earlier 
     prominence in the building. ``Things were really changing 
     pretty quickly there, at the end,'' said one administration 
     official.
       As photographers and reporters swarmed around Obama, 
     pictures of the capsule were beamed around the world.
       Lockheed didn't have any comment. The White House had no 
     immediate comment.
       During his speech, Obama had only nice things to say about 
     the Lockheed Martin program, though he initially 
     mispronounced its name. NASA, he said, ``will build on the 
     good work already done'' on the Orion crew capsule, and it 
     will become ``part of the technological foundation for 
     advanced spacecraft to be used in future deep-space 
     missions.''

               [From OrlandoSentinel.com, Apr. 18, 2010]

                Obama's Space Plan Adds Insult to Injury

                         (By Douglas MacKinnon)

       With all due respect to President Obama, regarding his 
     speech in Florida on ``Space Exploration in the 21st 
     Century,'' I simply have to ask, ``Are you kidding me?''
       As one who has consulted on and written extensively about 
     our space program, worked in the White House and drafted a 
     speech or two, I know shameless pandering filler when I read 
     it.
       The president's speech had more useless and suspect filler 
     than a New York City street hot dog--part of that filler 
     being when the president recognized his chief science 
     adviser, John Holdren. This is the same man who just told 
     students the United States couldn't be No. 1 in science 
     forever.
       When the nation and the program most needed honesty, true 
     direction and an unwavering belief in the promise of space, 
     the president chose to add insult to the injury that is the 
     dismantling of our human spaceflight program. To quote Neil 
     Armstrong, James Lovell and Eugene Cernan, the president's 
     decision to ``. . . cancel the Constellation program, its 
     Ares 1 and Ares V rockets, and the Orion spacecraft, is 
     devastating.''
       Three heroic and history-making astronauts take the unusual 
     step of writing an open letter to warn of this 
     ``devastating'' action, and the president responds with a 
     pedestrian speech that makes a mockery of a dire situation. 
     Worse, for purely political reasons, he decided to pit the 
     Apollo 11 moonwalkers against each other.
       To try and blunt the criticism of him by the first man to 
     step on the surface of the moon, Obama not only flew Buzz 
     Aldrin with him on Air Force One for the event at Kennedy 
     Space Center, but led his remarks by referring to Aldrin as a 
     legend. Aldrin may be the only one not aware of his role as a 
     prop of the White House political operation.
       It's not a stretch to imagine Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel 
     turning to David Axelrod and saying, ``If the first man on 
     the moon is going to strongly and publicly criticize us, then 
     let's use the second man to walk on the moon as validation 
     for our `promise them anything but deliver nothing' new 
     vision.''
       In a speech void of detail, the president said, ``By the 
     mid-2030s, I believe we can send humans to orbit Mars and 
     return them safely to Earth.'' Where have I heard something 
     like that before? That would be President George H. W. Bush 
     in July 1989 when he spoke of landing Americans on Mars. 
     Twenty-one years later, Obama gives us a watered-down version 
     of that speech.
       In 1989, much of the media rightfully took President Bush 
     to task for an open-ended goal that lacked specifics and 
     would have carried a price tag in the hundreds of billions of 
     dollars. Say what you will about Bush's half-hearted effort, 
     at least his astronauts would have landed on the Red Planet. 
     Under Obama's fictional plan, for our investment of more than 
     $100 billion, our astronauts would only get to wave at Mars 
     as they zipped around it, with a landing saved for a future 
     mission. Can't we just wave at it for free from here on 
     Earth?
       The president betrayed both his lack of interest in human 
     spaceflight as well as his ignorance of the subject when he 
     said, ``Now, I understand that some believe that we should 
     attempt a return to the surface of the moon first, as 
     previously planned. But I just have to say pretty bluntly 
     here. We've been there before. Buzz has been there . . .''
       By that thinking, European explorers should have abandoned 
     the New World and President Jefferson should have ignored the 
     explorations and discoveries of great natural wealth made by 
     Lewis and Clark.
       For reasons of cost, commercial enterprise, science and 
     national security, it makes sense for us to establish bases, 
     observatories, mines and potentially even military operations 
     on the moon. If we don't, others--particularly the People's 
     Republic of China with its military-controlled space 
     program--most assuredly will.
       President Obama has played the space community for fools, 
     and he's hoping he will get away with it. Unfortunately for 
     us all, China, Russia and others share his hope.

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