[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 156 (Thursday, December 2, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8369-S8370]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                  NASA

  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Madam President, we had a hearing in the 
Commerce Committee yesterday about the future of NASA. We had the 
President's science officer, the head of the Office of Science and 
Technology Policy, Dr. Holdren; and the Chief Financial Officer of 
NASA, Dr. Robinson. We pointblank asked both of them if they intended 
to follow the new law, the NASA authorization bill, that sets out a 
visionary course for the future of our manned and unmanned space 
program. They both indicated they would absolutely follow the direction 
of policy within the administration; they would follow the law.
  Clearly, this has the President's stamp of approval. For once, we 
passed the bill unanimously in the Senate and by a three-quarters vote 
in the House of Representatives. The President then signed the bill 
into law. It is the President's policy. It is a policy that balances a 
number of things.
  We continue the International Space Station at least until the year 
2020, a space station, by the way, that is just now being completed 
after over a decade of construction. It is designated as a national 
laboratory, but a host of nations are all participants in the 
International Space Station, and cutting-edge research will be done 
utilizing the unique property of zero gravity of orbit as the space 
station orbits the Earth at 17,500 miles an hour.
  We will start to develop new rockets that, as we speak, are being 
developed to carry cargo to and from the International Space Station. 
Those rockets will be in a competition between commercial companies, a 
competition conducted by NASA for making those rockets safe enough in 
order to take crew to and from the International Space Station and, at 
the same time, realizing that NASA's real vision is to go out and 
explore the heavens.
  The NASA authorization bill starts the development of a heavy-lift 
rocket that will be able to take components up into low Earth orbit, 
where they can be assembled, and then ultimately to fulfill the 
President's goal he has set, which is to go to Mars.
  The path by which we go to Mars is yet to be determined. A lot of 
that will depend upon the development of technology. There is within 
this NASA bill a robust technology development program for such 
missions as going to Mars or to an asteroid or whether we go back to 
the Moon. We were on the Moon 40 years ago. Now it is time to venture 
on out into the cosmos.
  Under conventional technology, it would take 10 months for us to get 
to Mars, and by the time you got there, the realignments of the planets 
as they orbit the Sun would cause us to have to stay on the surface of 
Mars for a year until the planets were realigned where Earth was going 
to be close enough to Mars for the 10-month return journey. So, 
naturally, there is development going on by a number of entities, but 
one in particular headed by the astronaut who has flown more than any 
other astronaut--seven times--Dr. Franklin Chang-Diaz. He has been 
developing over the years, even from the time he got his Ph.D. at MIT, 
a plasma rocket, and that rocket is being now sufficiently developed 
that they are ready to do the testing stage and carry a small version 
of the rocket to the International Space Station, where it would be 
attached. A plasma rocket gives a constant stream of plasma energy that 
would keep the space station boosted to its height instead of 
constantly having to boost it every year or so because the orbit 
degrades. That plasma rocket would take us to Mars, if perfected, in 2 
months instead of 10 months. If you go to Mars that fast--and by the 
way, that is going at 400,000 miles per hour--if you go that fast, then 
you don't have to stay on the surface of Mars for a year because you 
can stay there for a first trip for a few days, and the planets are 
still aligned so they are close enough so that in a 2-month period, you 
would be able to get back.
  These are exciting things for the future of both the human space 
program and the nonhuman space program. The development of technologies 
in Earth science, the unmanned portion--we have a fairly significant 
increase in the NASA budget with regard to the science portion.
  There is a huge increase in the budget of NASA for aeronautics. 
Remember, the first ``A'' in NASA--it is the National Aeronautics and 
Space Administration. The first ``A'' is aeronautics. There is a huge 
increase in the research and development for aeronautics. A lot of the 
airplanes we take for granted today or the cutting-edge advances in our 
military aircraft, where do we think that originally came in? It came 
from the research and development through NASA.

[[Page S8370]]

  So, naturally, the Commerce Committee wanted to make sure the 
administration, given some of the uncertainties of the actual funding 
levels, is on point to follow the NASA authorization law. We received 
those assurances yesterday.
  It is our hope that as we now come to decide how we are going to fund 
the rest of the government for the rest of the fiscal year--we are 
already into the fiscal year, October and November and going into the 
third month of the fiscal year; a fiscal year that started October 1--
we are hoping that, at the very least, we can take the existing 
appropriations from last year, the fiscal year 2010, and carry that 
forward, at the very least, for NASA. What that would mean is instead 
of having funding at $19 billion for 2011, the funding would be at last 
year's level of $18.724 billion. That would be $276 million less than 
the authorized level. NASA can live with that. The exceptional goals 
that are set in this NASA bill can be achieved with that cut, which is 
less than 1.6 percent of the total NASA authorized level--clearly, it 
can be done under these very austere times.
  So I am hopeful, on the basis of what we saw yesterday and heard in 
the Commerce Committee, we will be able to go forth. A third shuttle 
flight will be added that will fly next summer. As we transition into 
the new commercial rockets, as we transition into the development of 
the new heavy-lift rocket, along with its spacecraft known as a 
capsule, as we transition into the extension of the International Space 
Station, the modernization of our space facilities, particularly at the 
Kennedy Space Center--as we transition into all that, we will have less 
of a disruption of the employment in the space community than otherwise 
would have been the case with employment dropping precipitously off a 
cliff because of the shutdown of the space shuttle program.

  I am encouraged, I am optimistic, I am grateful, and I was happy to 
hear the unequivocal statements by the administration yesterday in 
support of the NASA bill.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Udall of Colorado). The clerk will call 
the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Hagan). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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