[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 14]
[House]
[Page 19744]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



 EXPRESSING THE SENSE OF THE HOUSE WITH REGARD TO SHUTTLE MISSION STS-
  93, COMMANDED BY COLONEL EILEEN COLLINS, FIRST FEMALE SPACE SHUTTLE 
                               COMMANDER

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                          HON. STENY H. HOYER

                              of maryland

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, August 2, 1999

  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the tremendous 
accomplishments of Air Force Colonel Eileen Marie Collins as the first 
female space shuttle commander. Col. Collins represents the best in 
America's space program and I congratulate her and the crew for the 
successful deployment of the Chandra X-Ray Observatory during the STS-
93 Mission aboard the Shuttle Columbia. With three missions under her 
belt, Col. Collins has certainly become one of our most experienced 
astronauts.
  I look forward to seeing the results of the time and resources 
invested in making the Chandra X-Ray Observatory a reality. The 
telescope will give scientists an important tool to study phenomena 
like exploding stars, quasars and black holes.
  Chandra and other major projects like Hubble and Landsat are the 
results of a team effort of NASA scientists, engineers, contractors, 
educational institutions and the highly trained astronauts who place 
these satellites and observatories into orbit. While we commend the 
efforts of this mission and NASA's many previous accomplishments, I am 
deeply concerned by the $1 billion cut in NASA's overall budget of 
$13.6 billion and the impact this will have on future programs like 
Hubble's successor, the Next Generation Space Telescope.
  Goddard Space Flight Center is one of NASA's premier research and 
program management facilities and the facility that will be most 
impacted by the cuts. The $1 billion dollar cut would adversely impact 
NASA's Space and Earth Science Programs based at Goddard. These are 
serious cuts and I am deeply concerned with the impact this will have 
on the almost 12,000 employees that work either directly as employees 
or indirectly as contractors.
  So as we recognize the success of STS-93 and Col. Collins' tremendous 
achievement, let us also keep in mind that future programs like 
Discovery and the Next Generation Space Telescope--programs that will 
utilize the shuttle program--face an uncertain and unnecessary fate, as 
a result of these cuts.

                          ____________________