[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 1]
[House]
[Page 402]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




           INDEPENDENCE PLAZA HONORS AMERICA'S SPACE PROGRAM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Olson) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. OLSON. Mr. Speaker, in the summer of 1972, my dad was transferred 
from northwest Alabama to southeast Texas. I remember the first time I 
got off the Gulf Freeway, headed east down NASA Road 1, and saw the 
Johnson Space Center and the Nassau Bay resort hotel with an NBC studio 
on top. Right then, it hit me: my neighbors were astronauts, Moon 
walkers. My life was changed forever.
  The next 9 years were rather dull. Three missions of Skylab and one 
handshake with the Russians on Apollo-Soyuz.
  The excitement came back in 1981. The Space Shuttle Columbia flew for 
the first time. The space shuttle was the heart and soul of human 
spaceflight until July 21, 2011, when three words ended the program: 
``Houston, wheels stop.''
  Those words were heard in the dark, 4:57 a.m. Texas time. My home was 
dark for 4\1/2\ years. That darkness will end on January 23 when Space 
Center Houston opens Independence Plaza right by the Johnson Space 
Center. Independence Plaza will have the Space Shuttle Independence 
atop the 747 transport carrier.
  Our space shuttles flew 133 successful flights, with crews as small 
as two or as large as seven, with 55,000 pounds of payload. Our 
shuttles carried astronauts from 17 nations: Belgium, Canada, France, 
Israel, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Japan, 
Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Slovakia, and America.
  Our shuttle built the International Space Station, which has had a 
human being on board since November 2, 2000. Scott Kelly has been on 
board the ISS since March 27, 2015. Scott must love the view because he 
will come home after 1 year in orbit.
  The Hubble Space Telescope would have been the biggest piece of space 
junk ever without the space shuttle. When it was launched in 1990, it 
was a telescope that needed glasses. Its vision was blurry. Five 
shuttle missions followed, fixed its vision, gave it decades of new 
life, and changed history.
  But Independence Plaza will do more than remind us of the 
achievements of our space shuttle. This exhibit will ensure we never 
forget the two crews we lost on space shuttles. Dick, Michael, Judy, 
Ron, Ellison, Greg, and Christa touched the face of God when Challenger 
exploded after 73 seconds of flight on January 28, 1986. Eighteen years 
later, on February 1, 2003, we lost Rick, Willie, Michael, Kalpana, 
David, Laurel, and Ilan when Columbia returned mortally wounded and 
broke up over their home, my home State of Texas. Independence Plaza 
will ensure that these 14 heroes will always be revered, and a new, 
young generation of Americans will follow their lead and soar into the 
heavens.

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