[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 126 (Thursday, July 25, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5076-S5078]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     MOON-MARS DEVELOPMENT PROJECT

  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, those of us who have had a chance over some 
time now to work with the former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, 
know that he is a man of ideas and is often thinking well beyond the 
moment. I had a chance the other day to read a paper that he prepared 
on President Trump's Moon-Mars Development Project, and I want to 
borrow heavily from his thinking as I talk about this project today.
  It is an important time. We just spent significant time remembering, 
appreciating, and looking back at the 50th anniversary of American 
astronauts landing on the Moon and returning safely. Fifty years goes 
more quickly than you might think.
  But for the first time in that 50 years, we are really at a point 
where there is a chance that we could cease to be the leading power in 
space. We decided we were going to become the leading power in space; 
we became the leading power in space; we have been the leading power in 
space. But that is

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not necessarily a given, and you can last only so long living on your 
past accomplishments.
  President Trump, on the Fourth of July, made this comment: ``I want 
you to know that we are going to be back on the moon very soon, and 
someday soon we will plant an American flag on Mars.''
  My guess is that was received with sort of the same amount of 
skepticism as President Kennedy's challenge was more than 50 years ago. 
There is no question that the Artemis Project that President Trump is 
talking about is not the Apollo Project 50 years later. This is no 
longer an effort just to go somewhere and get back. We know we can do 
that. It is an effort to look at where we might go next and why we 
might benefit from that.
  In May of 1961, President Kennedy challenged the Congress by saying 
we ``should commit [ourselves] to achieving the goal''--talking about 
the goal of getting to the Moon--we ``should commit [ourselves] to 
achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the 
Moon and returning him safely to Earth.''
  There was pretty heavy skepticism. I think 58 percent of the American 
people polled said they were opposed to doing that. Why would we send 
somebody to the Moon and worry about whether we could get them there? 
Of course, if we got them there, we would want to get them back. There 
was great skepticism.
  So a little over a year later at Rice University, President Kennedy 
tried again. He said: ``We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and 
do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are 
hard.''
  That is one of his famous quotes. If you look back at President 
Kennedy's challenge to the country, you hear it: We are going not 
because it is easy, but because it is hard.
  He went on to say ``because that goal will serve to organize and 
measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is 
one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, 
and one we intend to win.''
  There is nothing wrong with an America that wants to win. There is 
nothing wrong with an America that doesn't want to take second place. 
There is nothing wrong with an America that wants to set a standard 
that everybody else can hope to achieve.
  We had been caught a little flat-footed in the midfifties when the 
Russians put a satellite in space--Sputnik. Americans would go out and 
see if they could measure when it was passing over because they had put 
something up there that appeared to be there perpetually.
  Then there was a cosmonaut in space. President Kennedy said that we 
don't want to accept anything more than the opportunity to meet big 
challenges and show what we can do to test ourselves.
  The Vice President of the United States, Vice President Pence, said 
at the National Space Council in Huntsville, AL, on March 26 of this 
year that ``50 years ago, `one small step for man' became `one giant 
leap for mankind.' ''
  You really had to be trying to avoid it not to hear that quote last 
week as it was being repeated over and over again. The Vice President 
said that now it's come time for us to ``make the next `giant leap' and 
return American astronauts to the Moon, establish a permanent base 
there, and develop the technologies to take American astronauts to Mars 
and beyond.''
  That's the next ``giant leap.''
  You will note here that the direct connection between Moon 
development and going to Mars, as the President put it, is there. It is 
the reason to go back to the Moon. It is the reason to do what we can 
to understand the Moon. Our goal is not just getting to the Moon. Of 
course, we have already done that. Our goal is to be there and to do 
that in a way that works for us.
  John Marburger, President George W. Bush's science adviser, said in 
2006: ``The Moon is the closest source of material that lies far up 
Earth's gravity well.''
  This is the closest place we can go and get material that can be used 
with 3D printing and all sorts of things that are possible to construct 
on the Moon that weren't possible to construct anywhere in that same 
way just a few years ago.

  The first phase of science on the Moon would be a lot like exploring 
Antarctica. I haven't been to Antarctica. I would like to go sometime. 
We don't have people on Antarctica because Antarctica is an easy place 
to live; we have people staying all the time on Antarctica to see what 
we could learn by being on the continent of Antarctica all the time. 
The next phase of the Moon would be like that, with people going to the 
Moon, staying on the Moon, and looking at opportunities on the parts of 
the Moon where we believe there is ice. I know the formula for this. If 
you have ice, you probably have some form of water. If you have water, 
lots of things can happen that might not happen otherwise.
  This is a project that will inspire others to want to be part of it, 
whether it is Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk or Richard Branson or Paul 
Allen--who has passed on, but was intrigued by the Moon. They are all 
people who have great private resources.
  America was founded on a public-private model. Jamestown, Plimouth 
Plantation, and the East India Company all had private individuals with 
government sponsorship trying to make something happen that wouldn't 
happen otherwise. That, I suggest, can happen on the Moon.
  In Newt Gingrich's telling of the challenge on the Moon, he repeated 
that great story of what happened at Wollman Rink and how it might 
relate to what could happen on the Moon if you are not bound by the 
normal things that bind a lot of people. Every person thinking about 
the Moon-Mars project, according to former Speaker Gingrich, should 
look at what Donald Trump did at the Wollman Rink. The Wollman Rink was 
a very popular site for ice skating in New York City in 1980 when it 
broke down. It totally broke down. The city of New York spent 6 years 
and $13 million trying to fix the ice rink. Fortunately, I guess, for 
the city of New York and ice skaters who go there, the abandoned ice 
rink happened to be within sight of President Trump's apartment. He 
kept complaining about the ice rink and the failure of the city to do 
anything about the ice rink. Finally, Mayor Koch said to Donald Trump: 
Why don't you fix it if you think this is so easily done? And he did. 
He fixed the ice rink in 4 months for $2.25 million. I remember the 
city had already spent $13 million and failed to fix the ice rink.
  The first year after the ice rink was fixed, 225,000 people skated on 
the ice rink. One reason the President was able to do that as a private 
citizen was that he wasn't bound by the things that bind most people. 
He wasn't bound by the things that bind the government. The historic 
project to fix the Wollman Rink achieved the goal at 1/5 the cost and 
1/18 the time that the city had used and did not get it done, and ice 
skaters flourished.
  The same kinds of things could happen if we looked beyond the normal 
boundaries of what could happen in this project that the President has 
talked about.
  Remember, on the effort to get to the Moon, President Kennedy turned 
that project over to Vice President Johnson and said: You are going to 
be in charge of NASA, and you are going to be the point person on the 
Moon project. So there is a little history there that may be repeating 
itself when, in March this year in Huntsville, AL, the Vice President 
outlined the principles we could use to meet the goals that the 
President had established for our efforts in space.
  Principle No. 1 was to establish a big goal and then stick to it. 
Remember, we went to the Moon to start with, not because it was easy, 
but because it was hard. Establish a big goal, then stick to it. 
``Failure to achieve our goal to return an American astronaut to the 
Moon in the next 5 years is not an option,'' according to the Vice 
President.
  Principle No. 2, Be prepared to reach outside the traditional 
bureaucracy to new, entrepreneurial, private companies if it is 
necessary to get the job done. He went on to say:

       [W]e're not committed to any one contractor. If our current 
     contractors can't meet this objective, then we'll find ones 
     that will. If American industry can provide critical 
     commercial services without government development, then 
     we'll buy them.

  We will buy into that project and share it with them. If commercial 
rockets are the only way to get American astronauts to the Moon in the 
next 5 years, then commercial rockets will be the way we return to the 
Moon.

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  Principle No. 3, Be willing to change the bureaucracy rather than 
abandon the goal.

       [W]e will call on NASA not just to adopt new policies but 
     to embrace a new mindset. That begins with setting bold goals 
     and staying on schedule.

  A new mindset matters. Failure is not an option. The willingness to 
postpone our goal, as President Kennedy said almost 60 years ago, is 
not an option.
  Principle No. 4, Be determined to change the bureaucracy in 
fundamental ways.

       NASA must transform itself into a leaner, more accountable, 
     and more agile organization. If NASA is not currently capable 
     of landing American astronauts [men and women] on the Moon in 
     five years, we need to change the organization, not the 
     mission.

  By the way, as for principle No. 5, I know, in the Presiding 
Officer's case, it is coming from private business and might be his 
most important principle.
  Principle No. 5, Urgency must replace complacency.
  The hardest thing to achieve in government is just to drive to a 
result. The fifth principle that the Vice President set out is exactly 
that. It is not just competition against our adversaries; it is, 
frankly, competition against our worst enemy--complacency. It is 
competition against our own willingness to believe that things aren't 
going to happen that clearly can happen.
  This is a great goal. It is a step to the Moon and beyond. It is a 
step outside our solar system to other solar systems. In our lifetimes, 
we may not see much of that, but this is not about our lifetimes; this 
is about a step into the future.
  I applaud the President and the Vice President for their leadership 
here. I look forward to applying those five principles. By the way, I 
think almost all of those principles are five principles we could apply 
to government every day, and we would have a more effective government 
if we would.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The minority leader.

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