[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 98 (Monday, June 28, 2010)]
[House]
[Pages H4896-H4902]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
FUTURE OF AMERICAN SPACE EXPLORATION
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Bishop) is recognized for
60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I appreciate the opportunity of being here this
morning on one of the days when obviously our time management skills
are not perhaps the greatest, but it still is nonetheless an
opportunity to speak on this floor before you, Mr. Speaker, on a couple
of issues that are significant. I appreciate also that I will be joined
by my good friend from Texas, who just spoke so eloquently about one of
those who has given his all for all of us and how grateful we are for
this family and this particular individual.
I think we're going to be hitting several different themes this
evening as we talk about the future of this country, especially as it
deals with space. And here, once again, I'm grateful the gentleman from
Texas is here because Mr. Olson has indeed been a leader in this
particular issue in charting the future of America as far as space
policy will be.
It is very easy in this environment to try and focus, first of all,
on jobs. I think we will. Because, indeed, as this particular
administration is going to begin their summer of recovery tour in which
they will be touting the kinds of jobs that will be created to try and
change the economic future this country is currently in, it seems
almost ironic that administrative policies, especially with NASA, are
going to create a vast amount of unemployed individuals--up to 30,000
individuals who will receive their pink slips and be unemployed
specifically because of policies initiated by this administration and
the current leadership in NASA. It's at least ironic, but we will be
talking about that. However, we want to go beyond that because if
you're dealing with simply jobs, that can be a very parochial issue.
We're also dealing with the future of space and the importance of
space. And, clearly, if indeed this administration and the leaders of
NASA today seem to be de-emphasizing the role of space in our future,
other nations are not. The Russians, the Chinese, even the Indian
government and the Japanese government have a unique interest in taking
our position in the leadership role of space exploration. That's
another issue I think we will be talking about.
I also want to make sure that we illustrate how sometimes there are
unintended consequences in our actions. This administration and, once
again, NASA's leadership did not take into effect the consequences of
their program changes and the consequences that would have specifically
related to our military preparedness, for indeed one of the things we
have to realize is that the component pieces that go into the missiles
that shoot somebody to the Moon are the same component pieces that go
into missiles that shoot down rockets from our adversaries Iran or
North Korea, and that if you harm the industrial base that creates one
program, you harm the industrial base that creates the other program,
and that gives us some pause to think what we're doing on the defense
side of this country, which is clearly one of the few roles
specifically given to Congress in the Constitution. Finally, I think
I'd like to talk some about a communique that came out from the
administration today as to their future in space, and say that some of
the platitudes that are very nicely written in this communique are
contradictory to the actions that indeed take place.
So with that, Mr. Speaker, I think if the gentleman from Texas is
prepared to lead off, I would like to turn over as much time to Mr.
Olson from Texas, who, as I said, has for quite a while been the
organizer and the leader of this effort to try and explore what this
administration is doing, and maybe make some corrections, as is the
role and responsibility of Congress dealing with space. Then I will be
happy to make some remarks after the gentleman from Texas has
completed.
Mr. OLSON. I want to thank my colleague from Utah for allowing me to
speak a little bit on an incredibly important issue to our Nation's
future. Five months ago, the Obama administration proposed NASA's
budget for fiscal year 2011. The proposal included surprisingly drastic
decisions just out of the blue to cancel the Constellation program,
NASA's follow-on to the space shuttle. Constellation will provide a
means and a service to utilize the International Space Station for as
long as it needs to--plus, to go beyond low Earth orbit, go to the Moon
and beyond. I believed at the time that such a dramatic reversal risks
ceding American leadership in human space flight for the future. A lot
has transpired since those 5 months, but I still believe canceling the
Constellation presents more risks than rewards, creates more challenges
than solutions, and raises more questions than it provides answers.
[[Page H4897]]
The fact that NASA and the administration cannot or will not provide
cogent, comprehensive details related to such a radical policy change
should alarm every Member of Congress. My colleagues and I are mainly
concerned about our ability to maintain and utilize the international
space station; the impact on the aerospace industrial base and our
highly skilled workforce, as my colleague from Utah alluded to; and the
financial, programmatic, and crew-safety risk of reliance on
unidentified commercial crew vehicles. These concerns have not been
adequately addressed by the administration. And I've long supported a
balanced program that combines Constellation with an increasing role
for the commercial sector, beginning with cargo flights to the space
station and, over time, evolving to crewed missions. And I will
continue to do so.
I'm not alone in advocating this balanced approach. As the heralded
Augustine Commission report, when it was released, said that over time,
within the aerospace community--even they, even the Augustine report,
did not advocate canceling the Constellation. I still believe that this
balance exists between government and commercial space. It can exist.
And within the budget that's been proposed. Both of these sectors have
experienced tremendous successes over the past months--notably the
Orion pad abort test in May and the Falcon 9 launch just last month.
Yet, rather than focus on the vital elements to maintain American
leadership in space, the administration and NASA are distracted with
programs that seem to spend money on anything but space.
Many of us are astonished by the misplaced priorities within NASA's
budget. Instead of building and testing flight hardware, NASA proposes
spending $1.9 billion to cancel Constellation contracts. Even now,
NASA's selective enforcement of a termination liability provision for
Constellation contracts is prematurely triggering layoffs across the
country. It's been determined that somewhere between 20,000 and 30,000
jobs could be lost nationwide as a result. And we're not just losing
jobs. We're losing American know-how. We're losing capabilities and
expertise that will be difficult and costly to get back if and when our
Nation decides that it wants to explore again. Our space program does
not employ people; it invests in them. And, by doing so, we strengthen
our Nation's security and our economic well-being.
As if to add insult to injury, last Friday the administration came
forward with a request to transfer $100 million of NASA's already
limited resources to the Labor and Commerce Departments to funds an
interagency task force to spur ``regional economic growth and job
creation.'' Our Nation's best and brightest engineers and technicians
don't want or need an interagency task force. They'd much rather be
retained and put to use with the critical skills building and flying
American-built spacecraft. The administration claims to have focused on
jobs, jobs, jobs. Yet it fails to recognize the destructive impact of
canceling Constellation and shifting $100 million to the Labor and
Commerce Departments.
So as we look forward to the next 6 critical months, there are some
things we must do. We must get answers from the administration. We in
Congress must recognize the impacts on our workforce and our
infrastructure. We must pass an authorization bill. And, perhaps most
importantly, we must ensure that the final flights of the space shuttle
and the continuous operation of the space station are done safely and
successfully.
{time} 1830
I am both humbled and inspired that while men and women in our human
space flight programs watch us debate and question whether jobs will
exist, they continue to excel and drive our Nation towards new
achievements in space. Their focus, their sacrifice, their dedication
and that of the men and women who came before them have enabled the
United States to be the global leader in human space flight. Let us
work to keep it that way.
If my colleague from Utah would let me, I would like to read this
just to show you how important it is to the American people and some of
the people that are opposed to the administration's plan. This is the
letter that ran in the Orlando Sentinel prior to the President's speech
in Florida on April 15. And I think it's worth reading because our
Nation's experts and heroes in human space flight, this is how they
feel about this administration's budget proposal:
``Dear President Obama, America is faced with the near simultaneous
ending of the shuttle program and your recent budget proposal to cancel
the Constellation program. This is wrong for our country for many
reasons. We are very concerned about America ceding its hard-earned
global leadership in space technology to other nations. We are stunned
that, in a time of economic crisis, this move will force as many as
30,000 irreplaceable engineers and managers out of the space industry.
We see our human exploration program, one of the most inspirational
tools to promote science, technology, engineering and math to our young
people, being reduced to mediocrity. NASA's human space program has
inspired awe and wonder in all ages by pursuing the American tradition
of exploring the unknown.
``We strongly urge you to drop this misguided proposal that forces
NASA out of human space operations for the foreseeable future. For
those of us who have accepted the risk and dedicated a portion of our
lives to the exploration of outer space, this is a terrible decision.
Our experiences were made possible by the efforts of thousands who were
similarly dedicated to the exploration of the last frontier. Success in
this great national adventure was predicated on well-defined programs,
an unwavering national commitment, and an ambitious challenge. We
understand there are risks involved in space flight, but they are
calculated risks for worthy goals whose benefits greatly exceed those
risks.
``America's greatness lies in her people. She will always have men
and women willing to ride rockets into the heavens. America's challenge
is to match their bravery and acceptance of risk with specific plans
and goals worthy of their commitment. NASA must continue at the
frontiers of human space exploration in order to develop the technology
and set the standards of excellence that will enable commercial space
ventures to eventually succeed. Canceling NASA's human space operations
after 50 years of unparalleled achievement makes that objective
impossible.
``One of the greatest fears of any generation is not leaving things
better for the young people of the next. In the area of human space
flight, we are about to realize that fear. Your NASA budget proposal
raises more questions about our future in space than it answers. Too
many men and women have worked too hard and sacrificed too much to
achieve America's preeminence in space, only to see that effort
needlessly thrown away. We urge you to demonstrate the vision and
determination necessary to keep our Nation at the forefront of human
space exploration with ambitious goals and the proper resources to see
them through. This is not the time to abandon the promise of the space
frontier for a lack of will or an unwillingness to pay the price.
``Sincerely, in the hopes of continued American leadership in human
space exploration.'' The letter was signed by approximately 37
astronauts who span all of our main human space flight programs, from
Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab, Apollo-Soyuz, shuttle station. This is
a powerful argument, my friend, as to what we're doing, and what we're
doing here is wrong for our country's future. We need to develop the
Constellation. We need to get beyond low Earth orbit; and we need to
explore, explore like Americans have been doing ever since our
forefathers left their homes to come to this country.
Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I appreciate the gentleman from Texas, the points
that he made and especially the poignant letter that came out and
illustrating how the overwhelming majority--in fact, I would say almost
all but one--of our retired astronaut core feels very strongly that
Constellation was the right approach for this country to do and that we
should continue on with that particular approach.
I would like to go back to a couple of points. I hope I am not
redundant, but I think they are significant enough that even if we say
them a second time,
[[Page H4898]]
it's important. And I would hope the gentleman from Texas would stay
here and try to fill in the blanks where I miss those, if we could.
There was quick mention, once again, as I said, on the jobs that we
are talking about here. The Vice President recently sent out a press
release, announcing that he was going on his summer tour to tout the
``Summer of Recovery.'' Now, amongst the bullet points that they put in
that press release was that this administration would be proposing
programs to build up to 30,000 miles of new roads, up to 2,000 new
water programs, up to 80,000 homes that might be weatherized, 800 jobs
here, some there, asking this country to add a nongermane issue to the
military supplemental to try to protect government worker jobs.
And I just find that so ironic, as was mentioned, that at the same
time we were doing that, the policies of this administration with
regard to NASA contract jobs would take between 20,000 and 30,000
people who are part of the private sector, who are doing these jobs
well--many of them being scientists and engineers--and they're
basically giving them the pink slip at the same time we talk about how
we're trying to build jobs in some other way. It simply does not
compute that that is the way we're doing it.
I readily admit, some of these jobs that have been threatened and
have been lost are personal friends and neighbors of mine. I shared a
picture with General Bolden, who is the head of NASA, at one of our
committee hearings of a personal friend who has spent 26 years dealing
with procurement issues at one of the companies, who is just in his
mid-fifties and was just released simply because this is the policy of
this particular administration. And I would love to be able to go to
him and say, Ray, the reason that your job was terminated was because
the government decided to try to save money. The problem is, none of
these jobs that are going to be eliminated save the government a dime.
In fact, it is true that this administration is asking for a $6
billion increase in the NASA budget even though they are going to be
stopping the manned space program and throwing up to 30,000 high-paying
jobs, employees who have proven their worth for years and years,
throwing them out. There are some people who said, Well, the new
programs would create new jobs within the NASA-private sector
relationship. Yet the most they're talking about there is maybe up to
10,000 jobs to be offset by the 30,000 that we're losing? That's a
three-to-one loss in the process that is there.
For a fraction of that $6 billion of new additional money above and
beyond what we're already spending to be focused directly on
Constellation, we could continue this program to a successful
conclusion. And once again, jobs, I recognize, are parochial. I am part
of that situation. But it seems ironic that in an era in which we're
talking about jobs and job creation and more jobs and job creation and
realizing that we're never going to get out of these economic doldrums
that we're in until we actually do have jobs, we, as a government, are
having a policy to try to throw out 30,000 workers who have proven
their net, who have proven their worth and are moving this country
forward. It just flat out does not make sense.
Mr. OLSON. If my colleague would yield, you're right: it absolutely
doesn't make sense. And these just aren't some engineers who have just
been doing it for a passing amount of time. These are the best in the
world at what they do. These are the rocket scientists of America who
led our dominance in human space flight. They have been the best for 50
years. Having been a naval officer, one thing I can tell you, in
government agencies like NASA, like the military, you depend on your
people to pass down their information to the young people coming up,
the new generations who take that information, take that knowledge and
exploit it and develop even better vehicles, better space exploration.
We're going to lose that. These people are going to walk out the door
and take that expertise with them.
If we try to decide as a Nation that we want to rebuild that at some
point in the future, we're not going to be able to do it. Those people
are going to be gone, and we are going to have to start over from
scratch and teach a new generation of young Americans the lessons we
learned from going to the Moon and spending 6 months in orbit at the
space station. We've learned those things.
And I agree with you on the terms of the priority of the budget. This
is the second largest cut in the entire budget, the Constellation
program. I mean, that is the largest cut. So you figure, okay, if we're
going to cut this money out of the budget, we're cutting the funding to
the agency. No, as my colleague alluded to, we're actually giving $6
billion over a 5-year period to develop global warming research, to
transition to these commercial launch vehicles. And I think our
priorities are just wrong here. They're wrong for, certainly, our
workforce; but they're wrong for America.
One thing I would like to mention too that's hard to put a dollar
value on, but the ability of human space flight to inspire youth, to
get these jobs, to become astronauts and to pursue the American Dream.
I mean, I can tell you as a kid who grew up about a mile and a half
from the Johnson Space Center, whose Little League football coach was
Joe Engle, the pilot of the second space shuttle, and just growing up
in that environment, how much those men and women inspired us, my
schoolmates, to want to be astronauts, to want to be part of that. And
that still exists today. I see it all around my district.
The administration doesn't seem to realize all the implications of
killing this budget. We're killing 30,000 jobs, the best in the world
at what they do. We're going to cede U.S. dominance in human space
flight, give up some national security possibly, and we are going to
lose the ability to inspire our youth. And I also must add, we don't
give NASA enough credit for all the things they've developed for us
back here on Earth. I mean, everybody here in this gallery has somehow
benefited from NASA and their research up there.
If you've got a cell phone, if you've got a satellite GPS, if you've
got a pacemaker or some sort of medical device, that's come from NASA.
That research has come from NASA, and we're going to throw that away
with this budget. That's why we're working very hard to stop it. And I
wish the administration would just sit down and talk with us because,
Mr. President, you have a voice, but you don't have the final word. The
United States Congress, under the United States Constitution, has the
final word.
Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I appreciate the gentleman from Texas, if I could
reclaim the time briefly. Changing from just the concept of jobs and,
indeed, the future of space and especially to put the emphasis on the
fact that, what are we going to do to inspire people to go into science
and math and become the engineers of the future. Let's face it, if you
only build one new plane for our military once every 40 years or if
we're only doing one new adventure into space once every 30 years, that
doesn't inspire somebody. In fact, supposedly one of NASA's new goals
is to try to encourage education into space. And I think, as the
gentleman from Texas clearly cited, kids are not dumb; and they're
realizing, if you are at a whim firing 30,000 engineers and scientists,
that doesn't give you a whole lot of encouragement to try to move into
that particular area.
One of the issues especially is because Constellation is the cutting
edge of science. It was granted last year by Time magazine as one of
the 50 best inventions of the year. In fact, it was number one of the
50 best inventions of last year, and it shows that what we are doing is
right. This is the right approach, and this is the approach that is
being threatened by the policies of this administration and the current
NASA leadership.
The space shuttle had a couple of very sad disasters. In the last
one, there was a study made on how to avoid that in the future, and
they said, The most important thing we can do--and I think every
astronaut understands this, which is maybe why so many of them signed
that particular letter from which the gentleman from Texas read--is two
goals: NASA will never be effective if, number one, the safety of our
astronauts isn't in the most primary and utmost position;
[[Page H4899]]
and, number two, you have a clear, understandable and stated goal--what
we are going to accomplish.
It is true that during the Bush administration, we decided to halt
the space shuttle program. It had run its course. We have been very
successful in going to the space station and back, but there were some
issues that we needed to go beyond simply space shuttle. So the effort
was made to try to put our best minds together and see where we could
go into the future that would meet those two goals: a clear statement
of purpose and safety. And the reality of that was Constellation. This
is the safety concept. This Constellation program is designed to be
safer than the space shuttle by a factor of 10.
{time} 1845
It was recognized that if you want to try and stop some of the
catastrophes we've had today, you separate the cargo from the
passengers. That's what Orion does in that process, allows a safety
valve for the safety of the passengers, in this case, the astronauts.
And in addition, we clearly realized that we needed to go with solid
rocket propellants because it is much safer than liquid propellant,
perhaps not as powerful, but certainly much more controllable. And,
once again, the concept of safety is important. This is the future, if
you really care about astronauts.
And the second one was the goal is very clear. The design was for a
specific goal. The intent was for a specific goal. And I don't want to
be disparaging to this administration, but the apparent goal of this
administration with spaceflight is some day, maybe perhaps at some
time, we might land on some asteroid somewhere. That's not a specific
goal. That's not even a dream. That's not even a reality that we can
deal with. That may be almost cartoonish in the approaches to deal with
it.
And unfortunately, if we start scaling back, other countries are not.
The Russians are still involved. The Chinese are stepping up their
involvement in space exploration. As I said earlier, even the Indian
Government and the Japanese Government have stated that they have a
plan in mind to try and become involved in this concept.
What becomes so bizarre is the United States, that won the space
race, is now forfeiting the space future to other countries. We had a
plan between the actual startup of Constellation, which is both the
Aries rocket and the Orion space capsule, and the end of the space
shuttle in which the Russians would have to do some of the taxi service
for us. They would charge us somewhere in the neighborhood of $30 to
$35 million per ride. That's a large amount of money. But, however, our
good friends in Russia, after they left communism, have found
capitalism to their liking, and they realize what a monopoly gives them
the power to do.
In the 2011 budget, NASA wants to budget $75 million per astronaut
ride from Earth up to the space station and back. Now, that's the kind
of cost that's coming to the taxpayers of the United States. And I
would, once again, maybe be willing to accept it if that was moving
America forward. But simply subsidizing the Russian space program
instead of building our own program is not what I call smart use of
moving us into the future.
In fact, we simply have said that this summer of recovery should be
the summer of the Russian and Chinese recovery. We will be subsidizing
their missile program, their space exploration program, at the tune of
$75 million every time we send an American astronaut into space on
Russian technology to help their program out, to keep their jobs going.
And, well, I'm sorry. That just does not make sense as to where our
future should be.
Mr. OLSON. Will my colleague yield?
Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I would be happy to yield.
Mr. OLSON. Thank you.
I wanted to get back to your point about needing a goal, having some
sort of focus. I'm a Rice University graduate, and we had the honor of
President Kennedy coming to our school in the early sixties to make his
famous speech where he said, you know, we're going to go to the moon,
take a man to the moon and return by the end of this decade. That was a
clear goal. Here's our goal. Here's when we're going to do it in. We're
going to give you the resources to do it.
When I go home, when I go back to my district, the one thing I hear
from both the government employees and the contractors at NASA are,
What's our goal? I mean, what are we doing? What's our target? We're
going to go to Mars sometime by 2035 or somewhere in that window. We're
going to take 5 years to develop a design and make development designs
for heavy-lift vehicles, and then we're going to build that 5 years
from now.
That's not what makes NASA great. You give these people a goal, give
them a time frame and give them the resources they need to do it, they
will do it. Every time in our history, they've made some of the
greatest technological advancements that mankind will ever know. And
again, this administration's budget priorities have nothing to do with
that. And again, the ability it has to inspire our kids.
The thing we've gotten into with the Russians now, where we're going
to have to depend on them to take our astronauts up to and from the
space station--and as my colleague alluded to, you can say what you
want about our former communist friends, but they have figured out
capitalism in a very short time. And, you know, we were paying about,
somewhere over, just over $20 million per seat last year. That price
has gone up now to just a little over 50. We signed a contract, I
believe, through 2014, and it's doubtful, certainly with the
administration's budget proposal, that we'll have an American vehicle
that can transport us to the space station. We're going to renegotiate
that contract. And as my colleague from Utah alluded to, that thing's
probably going to double again. This is just a terrible position we've
gotten ourselves into.
The Constellation is the program of record, been endorsed by a
Republican Congress in 2005, a Democrat Congress in 2008. We need to
develop Constellation and stay the course and let our engineers and let
our space experts and let our astronauts do what they do to inspire our
youth.
Mr. BISHOP of Utah. If I could reclaim the time, and I appreciate
that comment. And once again, the fact we're throwing out different
numbers of what it will cost to send Americans up there is simply
because NASA doesn't know what it will cost, and that's why they're
budgeting very high. Who knows if that is the actual number. Because
once again the Russians realize, when they have a monopoly, they can
charge what they want to charge.
Let's deal with another phrase that we often hear from this
administration. They are about to commercialize space. I want to try
and put that one to rest, if we could. There is no such thing as
privatizing or commercializing what we are doing in space.
The Constellation program is being built by private enterprise. There
were contracts let by this government that were done on a competitive
bid process and won by private sectors, by the private sector, by
commercial companies, which means when we cut Constellation, we're not
cutting a government program. We're cutting 30,000 jobs in the private
sector to build a contract that comes from here.
What the President and the NASA leaders were talking about when they
say, well, we're going to commercialize the future of space is not
really changing the philosophy of what we're doing. All they're doing
is they're going to take the contracts from those who have them now,
building Constellation, fire those people, and then we will give some
of that extra NASA money that we are going to be appropriating to other
companies in the private sector who are going to be winners in the
values that this administration places on those particular companies.
In fact, the companies that are talking about the so-called
commercialization of space already are under contract with NASA. They
are already being subsidized by NASA. They are already behind in their
programs with NASA, and they are asking for more Federal dollars for
NASA.
So, once again, I oftentimes hear, well, this is an administration
that wants to totally change the way we deal with space and they want
to try and commercialize everything. That's a cute word, but the
reality is you're simply having some people in the private sector who
will lose their jobs so
[[Page H4900]]
the administration can pick other people in the private sector to have
jobs, and not necessarily on a one-to-one ratio.
There is no such thing as commercialization of space or these
programs, and we are not trying to come up with a free enterprise
approach to the future of space. This is simply the government picking
winners and losers among a lot of people who are out there in the
private sector. The 30,000 jobs that are going to be lost are not
government jobs. Those are private sector jobs.
Mr. OLSON. Yes, sir. My colleague from Utah makes a great point, if
he'd yield a little time.
Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I yield.
Mr. OLSON. Certainly commercial has a place in our future, but they
are not anywhere near being ready to do what this administration wants
them to do, carry cargo to a space station. They're not there yet.
They've had one launch. That's a long, long way to go from being able
to carry cargo up to and from the space station.
More important, astronauts, human beings, that is a much, much
greater challenge than carrying cargo, and they've got a long way to
go. When I talk to experts back home, they say a decade would be a good
number for the commercial operators to have man-rated vehicles. And
they've got a long, long way to go.
And one thing I'm concerned about is safety. As my colleague from
Utah alluded to earlier tonight, safety is paramount. I mean, we need
to do what we've done at NASA. The 50 years they've been in existence,
they have put safety of astronauts as the number one concern. And it is
a very, very risky endeavor that they do. And we've got to make sure
that safety is put first, and that's one of my concerns with these
commercial operations.
Again, as my colleague alluded to, economically, it's no different
than what we're doing now. But it concerns me that we're going to have
people who don't understand NASA's--the safety that's required. And
they think that just because they get cargo to the station, they can
get crew to the station.
Wrong. You have to do--there's so much more to carry a crew to and
from the space station. You've got to insure they're safe. You've got
to have the redundancy to the redundancy to the redundancy to the
backup to the backup system to ensure that if anything happens to that
vehicle from the time it pulls off that pad till the time it gets to
the station and comes back down that the crew has the ability to get
home safely. And I'm concerned that's one thing that this President's
budget proposal doesn't take into account.
Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I appreciate that.
And reclaiming the time once again, I'm glad we're talking about the
fact that these are real people in the job market that we're going to
be harming. I'm glad we're talking about the overall purpose of our
space exploration program and what it means to them. I'm glad the
gentleman ticked off a bunch of areas. I mean, let's face it. When my
kids were growing up, the fact that I could put their shoes on with
Velcro was a major advantage than trying to tie their shoes. We have
those examples in our life.
I'm glad that we're talking about the fact that the Constellation is
the future. It is the best science that we have. It is the safest way
of going forward. And I'm glad we're talking about the fact that we're
not, this entire idea that we're going to privatize our space program
which has caught the fancy of some of our colleagues who aren't really
perhaps deeply involved in the Science Committee, as the gentleman from
Texas is, to realize that's not what we're talking about here. All
we're talking about is, once again, government picking winners and
losers amongst the private sector to go on with programs that will
still be subsidized by the taxpayers. And in some respects, perhaps
this is the right approach to do it.
If I could take us into one other direction just for a minute as
well, and perhaps this comes back to one of my areas of interest,
because I'm on the Armed Services Committee. One of the things that
this particular administration failed to do when they announced their
new program of canceling Constellation for whatever new goal that they
want to have in the future is they failed to communicate with other
members of the administration and with other policies and programs
within government to see what the impact would have in other government
areas. And once again, I'm specifically talking about our military
defense system.
As I said in the very beginning, we forget that the people who build
rockets and have the component parts to put a man to the moon are the
same people who build the component parts and build rockets that shoot
down incoming missiles from other countries.
If, indeed, we are going--and once again, as was mentioned earlier,
the industrial base that creates these jobs is not something you can
turn on and off like a spigot on a water fountain. You can't just
decide today we're going to have these scientists; tomorrow we'll fire
them and turn it off, and then the next day we'll just open it up and
they'll be there again.
What we are doing, if we decimate Constellation, is we're decimating
the industrial base that builds our Defense Department missiles at the
same time.
The House authorization bill has intent language that tries to
quantify what this is because, to be honest, as we started our hearings
this year on authorization bills, both for NASA as well as for the
Defense Department, we simply asked the question that if, indeed,
Constellation is taken out, what impact will it have on the military.
And it was clear that the military had never been broached. They had
never talked about this. They had not anticipated it. However, reports
going over a year now, going back to Congress simply said that there
would be devastating circumstances and harmful consequences if, indeed,
Constellation was stopped for the military side.
Now, in the language that will be presented in the House
authorization bill, it simply says that the best estimate we have right
now is the cost of military defense on everything that deals with the
missile, any kind of propulsion system, is between a 40 to 100 percent
increase in the cost to the defense side of our Nation if, indeed, we
stop Constellation and you fire those 30,000 workers who are part of
that industrial base. That simply means that anything that needs a
solid rocket motor, an ICBM, the Navy missile system, double the cost
of what it will take just to replace those motors to replace the work
and to keep that system functioning. Any kind of strategic missile that
has propulsion as part of it, and I hate to say that, but that's every
kind of missile that we have, the cost will increase 40 to 100 percent
simply because we are losing the expertise and the industrial base.
And, indeed, oftentimes those propulsion concepts have a fixed cost to
them, so if, indeed, you have to have propulsion in there, there's a
fixed cost. If you have less of that, the military will be picking up
what is now being shared as far as the cost with NASA at the same time.
Our land-based missile system, our kinetic energy system, even the
fact that some of our laser systems in the future will have a negative
impact simply because the industrial base that builds those missiles
for our military is the same industrial base that builds missiles, the
component part, the labor, the propulsion system for NASA for
Constellation.
{time} 1900
You hurt one, we will hurt the other. And that was a factor that was
never considered by the administration or NASA when they came up with
their quick decision to try and stop Constellation for something else,
some nebulous policy in the future.
Defense of this country is the role of Congress. It's a legitimate
question. This administration should have asked those questions ahead
of time before they announced the policy. They should have understood
what the costs would be and how they planned to handle that cost. As it
was, it kind of snuck up on everybody. And now people are trying to
play catchup. And the best way of solving that problem is simply go
with the winning program, which is Constellation, and continue on with
the goal that is safe and has a clear, concise goal message to it.
Don't lose the jobs, don't lose the industrial base, don't increase the
costs for our military. And let us move forward in an organized,
rational approach rather than this helter-skelter idea that takes place
at some particular time.
Mr. OLSON. Would my colleague yield?
[[Page H4901]]
Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Yes, I will be happy to yield.
Mr. OLSON. One thing I am concerned about, as my colleague knows, is
the fact that this administration is making NASA a partisan issue in
many ways. As you alluded to, I am not sure who proposed this budget or
who put it together, but they certainly didn't outreach. It seemed like
a very small group of individuals at the White House over at OMB who
made these decisions that have dramatic impacts for our Nation.
As you alluded to, I don't think they talked to any of the defense
contractors, particularly the ones that developed the missiles for our
strategic nuclear deterrence. As I understood it, nothing. They heard
nothing. I represent the Johnson Space Center, the home of human space
flight. Our center director, when I called him up on February 2 just to
sort of get how are people doing, what's the mood there, those type
questions, I asked him, when did you find out? He says, I found out
about it when you did. I read the paper yesterday.
That's another point. I mean Congress has the oversight. We are the
power of the purse. And I am unaware of any outreach from the
administration to any Member of Congress prior to this decision being
made. I am a freshman here as a Member of Congress, but I have been on
the Hill for a number of years, particularly in the military and the
Navy. One of the standard things was, if you are going to make a
radical change in a program, you went and talked to the committees of
jurisdiction, the chairman, the ranking member, and at least sort of
gave them the courtesy of what you were planning to do. And I am
unaware of anything like that happening.
And again, they are playing politics with this. This thing we are
doing with the termination liability, the Anti-Deficiency Act, where
they are using--we think it's unprecedented. We are doing some research
to find out if it's ever been done in the past. As my colleague knows,
what's basically done is, NASA has told the contractors you are going
to have to hold some money in reserve for termination liability. You
can't spend that on developing rockets and human space flight. You are
going to have to hold that in an account in case things get terminated.
And what do the companies have to do? The money they were holding for
September 30 is now going to be dried up sometime in the middle of
August. The only solution they have is to lay off those people.
And again, I don't want to be skeptical, but that gets the
administration more of what they want. If those people go, we are going
to have a hard time getting them back, and the costs are going to go
up. We need to stop this. We can't make NASA a partisan issue. It's
been a bipartisan issue. That's its strength. Every American loves
human space flight, is proud of America, what we have done in orbit and
what we have done on the Moon. And we've got to go beyond that. And
Constellation, as my colleague alluded to, is the best, most tried way
so far to do it. There is no reason to get off that path.
Mr. BISHOP of Utah. If I could reclaim my time very briefly here
again, and once again I appreciate you making those points, because
they are spot-on accurate. Congress made its voice very clear last year
when we specifically told NASA, Constellation is our program of record,
and you will not cut funding to Constellation. It's very clear that
Congress has never changed that position. Well, this is speculation,
but nor do I think we would, given our own choice of what to do.
But as the gentleman from Texas clearly illustrated, there are some
things that NASA is doing right now that appear--I don't want to try
and ascribe motives--but they appear clearly to try and force the issue
so that by the time Congress goes through its process of coming up with
a budget and appropriations process and language directing what the
bureaucracies will do, in this case NASA, that this will be a fait
accompli.
So the idea of withholding the derivatives was not a reduction of
their contracts, but it had the same effect. The idea of taking the
Constellation manager and reassigning him had a specific effect. And
then, as you alluded to, the idea of telling companies that they are
going to have to hold out closing costs, which has never been done in
NASA before, in fact there was only one time where Congress did tell
them in some way, shape, or form that they needed to close a program,
but that's when Congress told them to close a program down, not when
they were trying to close it down before Congress has a chance to react
to it. But what that would do is simply force them to fire people now
so the industrial base is gone before anything takes place.
And that is a strange approach for any kind of executive branch of
government to do when the legislative branch has yet to give them any
clear direction that's what we want to do, or has spoken. In fact,
everything we have said so far is the exact contrary to that. So I
appreciate that.
If I could just put one last thing in, and then I will yield to the
gentleman from Texas again. The government apparently put out the
National Space Policy of the United States today. It's an interesting
document. It says that we should have a robust and competitive
commercial space sector, which is good. But I promise you, if you take
all the jobs away from those who are doing Constellation, there will
not be a robust or competitive space program.
They say that we should strengthen U.S. leadership in space-related
science. Now, once again we have said over and over again if indeed you
stop Constellation, you are ceding leadership in space-related science.
We're not creating leadership. They say we should retain skilled space
professionals. Once again, what is happening today is the exact
opposite of this effort or this directive.
They say we should reinvigorate U.S. leadership. You don't
reinvigorate something if you destroy the program that is our program
of record that will move us towards a leadership position. I find this
document unusual.
Now, I haven't had a chance to read everything that is in it, but
certainly certain things come glaring out in the process of just
skimming through it, saying that what we are doing is not necessarily
what our words are. If our words here were indeed what our policy is, I
would be very happy and content. But what I see happening is not what
this policy statement says that we should be doing.
Sometimes I wonder if we really do understand what we are doing in
space. And we need to recognize the significance of it, the importance
of it, and the importance it has in other aspects of the government,
and to our citizens, and to the future to inspiring kids. I yield back.
Mr. OLSON. If my colleague would yield very briefly again, I am just
very scared that this administration is turning NASA into a partisan
political football, and it's never been that way. Let me read just
another quote again from the letter I read earlier that was put
together by Walt Cunningham, who was one of our first return-to-flight
astronauts after the Apollo 1 disaster. Walt flew in the next Apollo
mission. And he has been very adamant and very clear about how he feels
this change, this radical budget is going to affect our human space
flight future.
Let me just read the three paragraphs that I think are most
important. Again, Walt and about 30 other astronauts from every
program, every human space flight program we have, signed this letter:
``Too many men and women have worked too hard and sacrificed too much
to achieve America's preeminence in space, only to see that effort
needlessly thrown away. We urge you to demonstrate the vision and the
determination necessary to keep our Nation at the forefront of human
space exploration with ambitious goals and the proper resources to see
them through. This is not the time to abandon the promise of space
frontier for a lack of will or an unwillingness to pay the price.'' Yet
that's exactly what this budget proposal does.
And I am very scared that this has become a partisan issue that
doesn't serve America well, that doesn't serve our future well. As my
colleague alluded, Republican Congress endorsed the Constellation,
Democrat Congress endorsed the Constellation. You hear people out there
say this is George Bush's plan. Yes, it was his plan, but it's been
endorsed by, again, a Republican Congress and a Democrat Congress. It's
not Bush's plan. It's America's plan. And we need to see it through.
[[Page H4902]]
Mr. BISHOP of Utah. If I could just reclaim for just one particular
second right here. Once again, and I appreciate you bringing that point
out, I think the pushback or the outrage in Congress has been a
bipartisan pushback and outrage. Republicans and Democrats alike have
said the approach this administration is taking is not necessarily the
right approach. Because indeed, Constellation is a safer, better system
than the space shuttle. It is the new way forward. It shows what is the
best and the brightest that this country has to offer. It is something
that makes us good and makes us noble. It is the direction we should go
into the future.
And for us to back off now for some program that is not clear, is not
understandable, has no discernible goals, that's just not the way a
country moves forward. It is indeed the way a country moves backwards,
and this country should not be moving backwards.
I appreciate the gentleman from Texas's leadership on this particular
issue, everything that he has been doing in organizing our review, our
reports, some of our complaints, too, as we try and say what we need to
do is do that which moves the country forward and ennobles us as a
people. Constellation does that. A clear space mission does that. A
mission emphasizing safety for astronauts does that. That's what we
need to continue on. And I'm sorry, but what NASA is asking us to do
right now does not meet those goals.
I yield back for any concluding statements the gentleman has.
Mr. OLSON. Yes, I will be very brief here. You are very aware of the
Orion Pad Abort, the very successful launch test we had I believe it
was in late April or early May. Good chance you could get a Time
magazine from this upcoming year, and that's going to be on the cover
of that magazine. That was a flawless, flawless test.
In fact, if you remember, the rocket got off the pad so quickly at
White Sands that the cameras that are there to track rockets--I mean
they are there to track all rockets--couldn't keep up with it because
it was moving so darn fast. And that's the program of record.
And I will just conclude by saying what I tell people all across this
country. The President and the administration have a voice in this
process, but they don't have the final word. The United States Congress
has the final word. And I am confident that at the end of the day,
Constellation is still going to be the program of record. I thank my
colleague, and yield back my time to him.
Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Thank you. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate your time
and efforts. We yield back.
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