[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 11]
[House]
[Page 15752]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      THE RETURN OF ``DISCOVERY''

  (Mr. DeLAY asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, 2 years ago on a Saturday morning, the vessel 
and crew of space shuttle mission STS-107 were lost in the high skies 
over Texas.
  That same day, even in mourning, America made a promise to the memory 
of the Columbia Seven that our journey in space will continue, that 
their legacy of discovery would survive them.
  This afternoon at 3:51 on the east coast, the space shuttle 
Discovery, carrying as it will two women, five men, and the ancient 
hopes of an entire planet, will keep that promise by rocketing out of 
our atmosphere and into history.
  Commander Eileen Collins and her crew, James Kelly, Andrew Thomas, 
Wendy Lawrence, Charles Camarda, Stephen Robinson, and Soichi Noguchi 
will pilot the safest, most sophisticated, and reliable spacecraft ever 
built back into low earth orbit to begin NASA's historic work realizing 
President Bush's bold new vision for space exploration.
  That mission will command the physical and intellectual energies of 
some of America's brightest and bravest for years to come. The men and 
women of NASA, some of my constituents and some of my heroes, who 
devote their lives to doing the impossible for our Nation and our 
world, will spend the next decade and more on a technological and 
visionary quest: To send and resend the shuttle fleet into space to 
complete the International Space Station; to examine with unprecedented 
vigor and precision in the galaxy's preeminent laboratory the long-term 
exposure of the human body to microgravity and radiation; to design and 
construct the next generation of American spacecraft; to return to the 
moon; and to plot and endeavor a manned mission to Mars.
  The exploration of the unknown is one of the innate motivating forces 
of our species. That universal and ancient yearning will be satisfied 
today by NASA's heroic ``corps of discovery'' in a mission not to 
conquer space, but to conquer human ignorance.
  The darkness will be lighted, and this afternoon seven heroes will 
carry the torch of human discovery into the void.
  Our future in space is still unknown and unknowable: The station 
remains incomplete, the moon is still years away, and Mars is still a 
red speck in the night sky, but today's launch is a step toward our 
destiny.
  And like all steps into the unknown, the voyage of Discovery, T-minus 
5 hours and 40 minutes, will prove the next giant leap in ``the most 
hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever 
embarked.''

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