[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 11 (Wednesday, January 26, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S260-S261]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            A CAN-DO AMERICA

  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, whenever a Senator, such as 
Senator Pryor from Arkansas, has to announce to the Senate the loss of 
a near personal friend, especially one he has been friends with, and 
with their parents, for years, it is always a tremendous loss.
  We are coming up in a couple of days on the 25th anniversary of 
another great loss in this country, when the Space Shuttle Challenger 
exploded before our eyes on our television screens on January, 28, 
1986. It was such a shock to the Nation, and it hit deep in our psyche 
because the symbol of America's technological prowess was the space 
shuttle in the early infancy of the program. The Challenger was only 
the 25th flight of the space shuttle that the Nation witnessed. In that 
rerun over and over of the close-up view of those solid rocket boosters 
going off in different directions 10 miles high in the Florida sky, the 
Nation witnessed that extraordinary loss.
  I will never forget the memorial service in Houston at the Johnson 
Space Center, when the President of the United States--as sometimes 
happens in times of grief--became not the President of the United 
States, not the Commander in Chief, but the comforter in chief. And 
that was again vividly illustrated a few weeks ago as President Obama 
delivered that ringing and highly emotional speech in Tucson, AZ. So 25 
years ago, as all the crews gathered there at the Johnson Space Center, 
President Reagan touched the Nation as the comforter in chief and 
pointed out that despite that tragedy, those brave souls were doing 
what America has in our genes. By nature, we are explorers and 
adventurers, and we don't ever give that up. Otherwise, we become a 
second-rate Nation.
  Look at the history of America as explorers. Remember the criticism 
we read about in our history books concerning President Thomas 
Jefferson when he wanted to spend a paltry couple of thousand dollars 
on an expedition called the Lewis and Clark expedition, to see if they 
could find the passage to the Pacific coast. As a result of that 
mission, from which miraculously they returned and most of them were 
alive, they brought back all the artifacts of what this broad land 
contained.
  Remember when Tom Hanks played Jim Lovell in ``Apollo 13.'' ``Apollo 
13'' was one of the most successful American space ventures not because 
they didn't land on the Moon, because they couldn't. Most of the 
spacecraft on the way to the Moon blew up. We thought we had three dead 
astronauts who were going to drift in space until they ran out of 
consumables. And it was that incredible story about how all of 
America's aerospace expertise resided with the astronaut who had stayed 
behind. He had been training, but he was exposed to the measles and so 
he was replaced. So then he was there, with all that knowledge and 
training for the mission and he could go into the simulator and they 
were able to simulate in real time how they were going to convert that 
motor of the lunar lander to get the space ship kicked out of lunar 
orbit and back on a trajectory to Earth. And remember after they got 
back--as Tom Hanks is playing Jim Lovell, the commander, in the movie--
someone in the audience asks the commander of the now safely returned 
crew of Apollo 13: Well, is there really the money to continue to 
explore space? And Lovell's answer is: What would it have been like if 
Columbus had returned from America and they never went back to follow 
in his footsteps as an explorer?

[[Page S261]]

  So it is, during this time of tragedy, and hearing an individual 
Senator, Senator Pryor, talk about the loss of loved ones and family 
friends and young people with bright futures, and the reflection in a 
day or so of the anniversary of the Challenger tragedy and the loss of 
seven lives, including the teacher, Christa McAuliffe, who was going to 
teach that lesson plan to the classrooms from space, we are once again 
reminded that because we dare to venture, because we are by nature 
explorers, there are risks, and sometimes the price to be paid is with 
human life. But that is not a reason not to take the risk and to boldly 
venture forth.
  This is a good reminder for us as Americans as we face so many 
uncertainties--whether it be financial and our future of trying to get 
out of the recession, or whether it be the uncertain future in 
Afghanistan or Pakistan, or how the leadership of al-Qaida is being 
morphed into other countries, such as Yemen or Somalia, or the constant 
uncertainty of whether we will have a job tomorrow, or whether we can 
retrain for the new kinds of jobs that are coming on line.
  There are a lot of uncertainties--the uncertainties of our energy 
future. Can we remain dependent on 70 percent of our daily consumption 
of oil coming from places such as the Persian Gulf and Nigeria and 
Venezuela? No. It is time for us to venture forth, to explore new 
realms, to develop new technologies and to be creative. And, of course, 
as the President spoke last night, we can't do that unless we have an 
educated workforce, which is so necessary for us to be creative. It is 
that creativity, that Yankee ingenuity of Americans, that keeps us 
competitive in the global marketplace today because we can outinvent, 
we can outcreate. That is the change America has.

  As we reflect upon the tragedies, the individual tragedies that we 
have, the collective tragedy that we had as a nation--25 years ago with 
Challenger, several years ago with the loss of Columbia, the losses we 
had most recently that are seared into our hearts in Tucson--the hope 
that springs forth for those who are wounded, that they would come back 
to lead normal lives, these are our challenges. Keep at it. Keep at it.
  I say this also. Because it is a time of uncertainty, a lot of 
pundits are having fun because it appears that NASA is in disarray. 
NASA should not be in disarray. We have a blueprint. We have a roadmap 
for the future in the NASA bill that passed this Congress--one of the 
few that passed in the Congress before the lameduck session. It simply 
says let's continue to encourage the commercial companies to develop a 
service of taking astronauts and cargo to and from the space station 
and let's see if we can do that safely, as determined by NASA, but more 
efficiently and, therefore, more cheaply, given the constraints of 
budgets.
  But, at the same time, we then allow NASA to do what it does best, 
which is to venture out and explore the heavens. In so doing, we are 
going to build a new rocket that will take large components up and that 
will fulfill the President's goal, which is to go to Mars.
  The President specifically set a timetable of 2025 to land and return 
safely on an asteroid. That is no easy feat, given how fast an asteroid 
flies through space. But it will give us new technologies, as we 
develop, to go to Mars.
  Think of the unbelievable time it would take us under conventional 
technology--10 months to get to Mars. Then, once you got to Mars, you 
pretty well have to stay on the surface of Mars for 1 year, until the 
planets are realigned, revolving about the Sun, so Mars comes in closer 
to the Earth for the 10-month trip back. That is why we need new 
technologies. An astronaut who flew seven times, Dr. Franklin Chang-
Diaz, a plasma physicist from MIT, is developing a plasma rocket that 
will take us to Mars in 39 days. Then, with that short time flying, at 
400,000 miles per hour by plasma thrust, we could stay on the surface 1 
month, to return to Earth without having to stay 1 year.
  These are exciting new technologies. A pilot project of that plasma 
rocket, with the acronym VASIMR, is being developed to fly on the space 
station and provide a continuous pulse that will keep the space station 
boosted, instead of it having, in the degrading of its orbit for 
conventional technology, to keep boosting it.
  Not only is the sky the limit, not only is the stratosphere the 
limit, the heavens are the limit if we as Americans will assume this 
can-do posture that is so typical of the personalities of explorers and 
adventurers; in other words, the personalities of we, the Americans.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BEGICH. 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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