[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 121 (Tuesday, September 11, 2012)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1480-E1481]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              WE MUST CONTINUE TO FUND NASA'S ``VOYAGER''

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                          HON. ADAM B. SCHIFF

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                      Tuesday, September 11, 2012

  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to the men and 
women of NASA and Caltech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who designed and 
flew the Voyager spacecraft, which have been exploring our solar system 
for thirty-five years and which are on the cusp of entering 
interstellar space. Even now, more than thirty-five years after launch, 
the Voyagers are still transmitting valuable scientific data through 
NASA's Deep Space Network, which is also managed by JPL.
  Voyager 2, which was launched on August 20, 1977 and its twin, 
Voyager 1, which followed on September 5, 1977, were designed to take 
advantage of a rare alignment of the outer planets that allowed for a 
``grand tour'' of the four gas giants that lie beyond the asteroid 
belt. The Voyager flybys of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune built 
on the earlier missions of Pioneer 10 and 11 and revolutionized our 
understanding of the solar system and particularly the complex Jovian 
and Saturnian systems with their many and diverse moons. Galileo, 
Cassini and other subsequent missions to the outer planets have 
deepened our knowledge of our planetary neighbors, but they would not 
have been possible without the path breaking work of the Voyager team, 
many of whose members have devoted decades of their lives and careers 
to this one program.
  Now, Voyager 1 is poised to become the first manmade object to leave 
the solar system and venture into the great void of space after 
completing its primary mission of exploring Jupiter and Saturn in 1980. 
Voyager 2, which went on to Uranus in 1986 and Neptune three years 
later, is not far behind. Both craft carry a gold ``record album'' 
containing sounds and images of Earth if either spacecraft is found by 
an alien civilization.
  Voyager was among many spectaculars of NASA's planetary science 
program, which has contributed so much to our understanding of our 
celestial neighborhood and of ourselves. We were recently reminded of 
this when Curiosity, the Mars Science Laboratory, landed on

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the Red Planet last month. But these missions are not cheap and they 
take years to design, test and fly. They also require highly 
specialized teams of engineers and scientists to make them work and to 
interpret the data they return to Earth. And without missions to work 
on, this talent pool cannot survive.
  That is why I am committed to ensuring that funding for NASA includes 
sufficient resources for a robust planetary exploration program that 
will provide for continued investigation of Mars, while also allowing 
us to visit the many other fascinating places in the solar system, like 
Jupiter's moon, Europa, which was photographed in detail by Voyager 2 
in July 1979.
  We cannot cede our leadership in space exploration and the incredible 
advances that come with it. I will continue to use my seat on the 
Appropriations committee to argue for a planetary exploration program 
that secures our continued place at the head of the table of space-
faring nations.

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