[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Pages 1326-1327]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                  NASA

  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Madam President, the President of the United 
States has come forth with a budget for the future of the National 
Aeronautics and Space Administration. I can tell you that, among the 
aerospace community, it has not been well received. The perception is 
that when the President's proposed budget is to cancel the 
Constellation Program, which was the program from the previous 
administration that was to take us to the Moon by 2020--a position, by 
the way, that then-candidate Senator Obama had embraced--it has not 
been well received because the perception is that it is killing the 
manned space program for the United States. That perception is not 
entirely true, but we live in a world here in the government where we 
have to set policy and flesh out that policy with authorization and 
then appropriations for that policy. We live in a world where 
perception often governs instead of the actual substance.
  It is my hope, as we have a hearing in our Science and Space 
Subcommittee of the Commerce Committee, which I have the privilege of 
chairing, that we can start to separate the perception from the 
substance. What the President has proposed actually has some very good 
things. In the first place, this ridiculous idea from the previous 
administration that we were going to shut down the International Space 
Station in 2015, when, in fact, it hasn't even been completed--as a 
matter of fact, the mission that took off, I guess it was last night, 
that has the last major component to go up to complete the 
International Space Station, and then the remaining four flights of the 
space shuttle will take up additional experiments and equipment, and 
then the station will be fully ready for business.
  The idea from the previous administration that we were only going to 
have it until 2015, of course, was ridiculous. The Obama administration 
has come out and said we are going to extend it until 2020. That is a 
good thing. That is the right thing.
  The administration also has said NASA is one of the few civilian 
agencies it is recommending, to the Congress, get additional funding, 
and it is no small amount. It is an additional $6 billion the President 
is recommending over the next 5 years. That is substantial, given the 
fact that the NASA budget is a very small budget compared to the rest 
of the Federal agencies. However, that amount is only half of what was 
recommended by the Obama-appointed blue ribbon panel, called the Norman 
Augustine Commission, looking at the future of spaceflight--only half 
but it is substantial. I should note that is a step in the right 
direction.
  The Obama administration has also recommended a substantial increase 
in research and development and particularly with regard to a heavy-
lift vehicle that will change NASA's mission from just going to and 
from low-Earth orbit, where we have done all our work in the last three 
decades with the space shuttle--to and from low-Earth orbit, either to 
the space station or certain projects such as the Hubble space 
telescope, which has been miraculous, and the refurbishing missions 
that have kept that space telescope alive and has opened our 
understanding and knowledge of the heavens and is peering back into the 
beginning of time. That has been extraordinary.
  The President has said: Let's get out of low-Earth orbit and explore 
the heavens. That is all a good thing. But here is where the President, 
in his rollout of his recommended budget, made the mistake and has 
given the perception that he has killed the manned space program. He 
just said we are

[[Page 1327]]

going to cancel Constellation. They did not explain: But we have to do 
an aggressive effort toward building the new heavy-lift vehicle to take 
us out into the heavens. They put all their eggs in the basket to say 
we are going to let these commercial companies develop rockets that are 
going to take us to and from the space station, first with cargo, and 
then we are going to human rate them for human crews.
  But the first commercial rocket, Space X, is supposed to have flown 
six times by now. They have not flown that Falcon 9 rocket yet. They 
are saying they are going to fly it this spring. Let's hope they do, 
and let's hope it is successful.
  But what if it isn't? There is another one, a much smaller rocket 
called Orbital Sciences. They want to take cargo. Ultimately, they 
would like to take humans. But they have not gotten off the ground with 
the first test rocket.
  For us, where safety ought to be primacy--and one of the key 
fundamentals for the Constellation Program was to create a rocket and a 
follow-on heavy-lift rocket that was going to increase, by a factor of 
10, the safety for astronauts because the space shuttle has 1,500 
parts, any one of which, if it malfunctions, that is it. It is tube 
city. It is a catastrophic loss.
  The idea is to have a rocket that builds in a lot more safety for the 
humans going to and from the space station and ultimately a heavy-lift 
rocket that gets us out of low-Earth orbit.
  What I think the President needs to do, he has to repair the image 
because the perception is he has killed the manned space program. He 
does not want to do that. I know the President. The Presiding Officer 
knows the President. He is a great space aficionado. But the perception 
is there, and it has to be corrected.
  The first thing he should do is set a goal. Presidents are the only 
ones who can lead America's space program. A Senate committee cannot do 
it. The Administrator of NASA cannot do it. Only Presidents can set the 
vision and the goal, and that goal ought to be what we all know is 
where we want to go and that is to the planet Mars.
  If you think I am reaching too far, no less than one of the most 
critical editorial pages of NASA in America this morning endorsed the 
goal of going to Mars. That is the New York Times editorial page. This 
is what a bunch of us have been saying for years: The goal is Mars. We 
have to develop the technology, the vehicles, the safety systems, the 
life support systems to get there. But the President needs to set the 
goal and set the vision that this is where we are going.
  If the President would do this, and then if he would turn the 
architecture over to his science adviser and to his Administrator of 
NASA and that great team, and if they would continue with the testing 
of the rocket that has already flown successfully, that will be a 
precursor to building the heavy-lift vehicle--if they will continue 
that testing, then the President will be well on the way of doing what 
he wants to do, which is for America to be the leader in space 
exploration and combined with other countries, where it is appropriate, 
in international exploration, as we have on the International Space 
Station.
  I urge the White House to start listening to some of their most 
vigorous supporters in the Congress. I can tell you other Members on 
both sides of the aisle are not pleased with the way the President's 
message about the future of human spaceflight has been received. If we 
can work together, we can get the perception of our space exploration 
back on track.


                           health care reform

  Madam President, I wish to say, in conclusion, I am hopeful that as 
we have seen over the last couple days, as we have been in this 
blizzard and we have had time to reflect and read and sometimes hear 
the commentary on the radio and TV, all the shrillness we have seen on 
display over the last several months is going to subside and, in a 
bipartisan way, the country can start healing.
  For the country to heal, we must change the discourse in the public 
square. Civility, not savagery, is the only way a democracy can proceed 
and succeed. Politics cannot be the blood sport that takes people down 
on a personal basis, where the attitude is that I am all right and you 
are all wrong because that leaves little room for consensus building, 
and consensus building is so essential to the functioning of a 
democracy.
  As we get into more of the discussion with regard to health care, 
health insurance reform, it is my prayer that we have much more 
conciliation and mediation and moderation in our views so we can build 
consensus. Consensus building is the finest hour of a democracy in 
representing all the people.
  (Mr. UDALL of Colorado assumed the Chair.)

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