 Good morning. Welcome to CSIS. I clearly underestimated turnout so we will be bringing more chairs I thought you know four-day weekend rain but there will be more chairs coming in soon. We are going to have a good discussion today. I'm looking forward to it. Donna Edwards is the representative for Maryland's fourth congressional district just on the road from us and she's been in office since 2008. She serves on the science space technology committee and is the ranking member for the subcommittee on space. Before going to law school and entering politics Congresswoman Edwards worked for Lockheed at the Goddard Space Center on the space lab program. All those who know what space lab is hold up your hand. This is a good audience we're laughing about it beforehand is it's like so someone with real background in the industry and on the issue. She's going to talk about the importance of federal investment in civilian space, the role of NASA in economic growth, the benefits to the US of maintaining a robust space program something which I'm pretty sure most of you believe in and how we need sort of a unifying vision for NASA's NASA's role and for space exploration and I understand that today you'll be introducing legislation on this could be and we'll find out so with that the format for today is the congresswoman will speak for 20-30 minutes depending on how you want and then we'll take questions for a little bit of time so with that let me turn it over to her thank you. Thank you very much German good morning to everyone I want to especially thank the Center for Strategic and International Studies this morning for allowing me to join you to discuss the future of the nation's civil space program and you know I've always relied and this is not brown-nosing although you do learn how to do that in school I have relied tremendously on the good work of the folks here at CSIS and so I just really appreciate being able to be here today and as I you know look at I see a lot of friends and colleagues people who work in the industry the staff of the science committee I can see them as well and I know that they're waiting to to hear what I want to say this morning and so I'll get on with it like some of you and as Jim just described I'm a Mercury Gemini Saturn not wondering but knowing that we could indeed journey beyond the earth and into the heavens I watched the miracle of those early missions on my little black and white television our family television and I watched in amazement that first step that giant leap and so I've been hooked since childhood and I think the question for all of us is how we hook this next generation from kindergarten forward and so while the focus of today's discussion is the national aeronautics and space administration's human spaceflight efforts NASA is and should remain a multi-mission agency and I want to reaffirm my commitment today to that approach indeed it's the connectedness of the multi-mission concept that makes NASA in the United States the envy of the world in addition to human exploration and spaceflight NASA has made incredible progress in meeting national priorities to improve observations of our dynamic earth and its processes to explore bodies within our solar system to advance heliophysics and research astrophysics to understand the creation and the properties of our universe in fact NASA has such unique expertise in each one of these fields that its missions are linked to its stated vision of reaching new heights and revealing the unknowns to benefit all humankind those aren't my words those are from NASA's own website it's its mission we have to work to ensure that NASA's diverse portfolio is balanced and that it's funded adequately to reflect our commitment to each of these components if we expect NASA to do the work of the future we have to provide a budget in the president that allows those goals to be filled it is perhaps my biggest nitpick with the way that Congress does business and I might add to do that work within achievable timelines and with safety at the forefront as an authorizer and a member of the science space and technology committee I remain committed to outlining the missions of the agency and to be honest about what it takes to get the job done we're a nation of great people we've said that we've done amazing things we have but it's time for us to support NASA and our space industry in doing those amazing things in the 21st century since its inception in 1958 NASA's been the anchor of our nation's civil space program and from Dwight Eisenhower's pen to president Kennedy's call to action in 1961 NASA has led the charge to expand the boundaries of our scientific and technological capacity while it's meeting daring challenges of national significance NASA success in civil space has inspired generations of scientists engineers and astronauts and just plain interested people like me NASA's young and old continue to be captivated and motivated by the mission and indeed the most recent solicitation for astronauts even without a defined new destination resulted in an astounding 6400 applicants nearly double the number during the space shuttle era thankfully enthusiasm in the public for civil space and human exploration remains robust we have to make sure that that's true in the government realm as well among politicians and so therein lies the test to define the next generation of science innovation and exploration to match that enthusiasm now from the beginning NASA was giving a daunting task create a civil space program in the nation largely from scratch which has led to the growth of a global civil space enterprise valued at nearly 300 billion dollars but while also meeting one of humankind's greatest challenges named namely lending a man on the moon now during the this year's state of the union address president Obama called for a level of research and development that's not been seen in 50 years since the early days of the space race and while he didn't mention NASA specifically we know that space exploration has to be the centerpiece of an innovative innovation agenda that president Obama described I think it's time for us to be unified as a nation around a bold vision for NASA the industry and she inspired and for our entire nation now in 1957 when the Soviets launched their Sputnik satellite we had no idea how we would beat them in space we just knew that we could and we set in motion the path to the moon and ushered in several decades of innovation that have made the united states the premier leader in science engineering and space exploration now similarly our nation's 21st century space innovation agenda requires the same high risk high reward wager we can't simply shelve the past and move in to the future but our 21st century space innovation agenda and get used to hearing that because I believe it is a 21st century space innovation agenda should reflect the times that have changed in those 50 years so unlike the 60s we have now a mature agency at the helm where tough lessons have been learned about schedules and budget and safety we have a mature industry that's entrepreneurial and nimble it's ready to take on tasks that are assigned and also prepared to create their own we have a mature international set of partners who are prepared to collaborate as they never have before the international space station was really just a dress rehearsal for the future challenges and bar none we have the best scientists the best engineers and the best workforce to meet those challenges one thing that is the same as yesterday is that the united states must lead one of nasa's most recent undertakings a curiosity rover captivated thousands who stood in times square and thousands more around the country i'm smiling because i was one of them up at night to watch what some have described as a scientific and technological marvel i just thought it was cool and it was a lot more precise than my own parallel parking not only did nasa demonstrate that she's still on the cutting edge of scientific research and engineering it was also really good economics according to the agency curiosity helped create and support seven thousand good high-paying american jobs during its eight years of planning and development and most of those were in the private sector so when we think about how we grow our economy and how we create a highly skilled workforce we have to remember that nasa has always been will always be a source of innovation and tangible economic benefits for american families the fact is that from the beginning nasa and by extension the entire space industry has always been good business marilin is home to 17 of the top 25 aerospace companies but we're not alone from startups to large corporations big and small universities the united states is really fertile ground for space entrepreneurs during the early years technology innovation and development proceeded at a rapid pace to meet those challenges from rocketry to aeronautics to commercialization of lunar mission technologies the result has magnified the influence of the space exploration and one of my favorite publications is nasa's journal spinoff i love knowing about the things that we take for granted every day that come from technology development that was spawned by space exploration over the last 50 years water purification technology used on the apollo spacecraft is now employed in several applications to kill bacteria viruses algae and community water supply systems and yep my own home water filter computer-based advances made possible integrated inventory and process management systems improve computer assisted manufacturing in fact this morning as i was getting dressed on television there was a company that was running an ad about it's improved manufacturing processes that were all electronic and digitized and computerized that's because of nasa technology nuclear magnetic resonance imaging we hardly even say that anymore mri's computer tomography cts and microelectronics that are used to regulate heart pumps lasers for satellite-based atmospheric research used for my eye laser surgery and cool suits by astronauts on the moonwalk that are used for individuals with multiple sclerosis have really transformed medical technology and the list goes on and on i think sometimes i go to schools and i describe to students my connection personal connection to nasa technology and i described the car accident that i had where that airbag that saved my life was nasa technology and we can't even find a car that's manufactured today that doesn't have that technology in place and so when we commit ourselves to ambitious goals we should do so with the knowledge and the total confidence that we have a workforce that's capable of truly awe-inspiring results and today that competent workforce is waiting for a bold vision for nasa's future that's going to take us to the next frontier now curiosity has 1.4 million twitter followers i'm one i know that there are a lot in this room but in 1997 the landing of sojourner a smaller nasa robot streamed live on the internet to audiences of hundreds of thousands later spirit and opportunity also had their turn on the internet when they landed on mars so one can only imagine what will happen when we send people there there's a growing consensus among the scientific community that that next great frontier really is mars and i agree this is our moment to unite behind a truly audacious vision it's time to meet the american public where it already is and the american public is already on mars with sojourner with spirit with opportunity and curiosity it's time for us to recapture our frontier spirit with nasa once again guiding us to do the absolutely impossible so we have a choice we can either hold on to and reminisce about past missions and accomplishments or we can chart a bold new vision for 21st century space exploration and innovation i want to choose the latter we don't need another report or another commission it's time now that we commit i mean really commit to a man mars mission this will require collective and uniform support on the part of the president congress nasa and its workforce the private sector and the scientific community all of us on one page and of one mind in fact i think that part of what has happened over these last couple of decades is that even at the height of employment 135 000 or so folks and now down to around 50 000 if i have my numbers right part of that in part is because a lack of vision and clarity on the part of policymakers and that truly has to change in order for the agency in the industry to succeed we have a space agency that's demonstrated that it can operate in fast forward and make mars happen we just need to give it the tools and the resources that it needs to succeed investments in our civil space enterprise support emerging industries foster commercialization and grow our economy while improving our international competitiveness however lacking an ambitious and unifying vision coupled with flat or decreased funding our long successful mission focused human spaceflight program has been paralyzed and imperiled by start stops and redirection without a unifying vision that inspires scientists and engineers contractors researchers and the american public that inspires kindergartners we risk losing our global edge in space and jeopardize significant advancements in innovation and economic development failure to establish a visionary goal undermines our ability to attract recruit and maintain the skill sets that are necessary for high technology projects our current experience workforce continues to age present company excluded it isn't as in jeopardy of switching industries because uncertain long-term missions and funding result in declining morale and increase the potential for risk the reality is that we simply cannot afford to have our best and brightest leave the space workforce if our preeminence diminishes so too will our workforce the risk of diminishing stature in space exploration cannot be overstated and while the united states remains a leader there are increasingly more space faring nations these countries are not just planning to put satellites into orbit but they're planning ambitious exploration missions that include the moon near earth asteroids and even a mission to mars the chinese are taking serious steps to build their space program and recently completed their fifth man mission and have goals to complete a sample return mars mission by 2030 and our current dependence on the russians to access the international space station is another area of consternation that has to be fixed and while these nations and others will experience varying degrees of success it should not be our goal to engage in a competitive race but if competition is necessary for us to gun the engines then we have to do that our goal has to be to capitalize on our current expertise and the spirit of exploration that's helped us succeed over the last century the truth is that space exploration is truly difficult missions can take unexpected turns and unforeseen challenges are certain to arise now my colleagues on the house science committee also have to be challenged to appreciate the complex scientific missions and the fact that no one not anyone can plan for the unknown put simply in space things just happen nasa and its talented private sector partners of which there are many has been all always been capable of meeting any challenges presented and with over a hundred successfully launched man flights in addition to its other mission directorate activities like developing the Hubble space telescope spacecraft to study jupiter and Saturn and explore outer space and earth observing satellites that have revolutionized our understanding of our processes the agency has a success rate that far exceeds other space faring nations we're good at this and with respect to mars activities nasa has completed 13 successful missions out of 19 attempts comparatively the russians have four partial successes and 15 failed missions curiosity became the sixth rover to attempt to land on mars and is nasa's fourth rover that's been sent there again we are good at this in recent years our unmanned space program has also been tackling new challenges for one the rover became the curiosity rover became nasa's most advanced spacecraft equipped to navigate the difficult martian terrain and survived one of the most complex precise landings the instruments on board curiosity will be essential to answering some of our questions about the origins of life and the potential for other life forms in our universe as you can imagine the challenges with a manned mission to mars our manifold compared to a robotic mission the first of which is safety and the second funding in the current fiscal environment but i would caution us because if dwight eisenhower or president kennedy had thought about the funding priorities in getting to the moon they would have said no but they didn't they said yes and they were okay not to even live to see that accomplished our challenge really has to be the scene and if we commit today to reach mars by 2030 we'll have more than a 15-year funding profile for planning and development to meet the challenges of accomplishing a complex mission and if you think about that kindergartner today that means that within that child's lifetime that child will get to experience what some of us what i experienced when we did ma polo and gemini and saturn a 15-year funding window the major scientific challenge will be to understand the impact of deep space missions on humans not only will astronauts be traveling for long periods of time in compact space but during long duration space travel astronauts will experience dangerous solar storms and galactic cosmic rays resulting in high levels of radiation and with our current technology it would take six months to reach mars and another six to return to earth but that's the point we're not talking about our current technology just the travel to and from mars might expose humans would expose humans to radiation levels that would exceed the maximum allowable career limit for a nasa astronaut this is why we need new technology investment curiosity's radiation detect assessment detector is providing life science experts early information about these radiation levels and allowing scientists to consider the implications astronauts as well as the sort of suit shielding equipment and life support that's going to be needed to safely transport nasa astronauts to and from mars we do want them to return now given the safety priority nasa also has to develop lighter shielding develop new propulsion technology that could take astronauts to mars faster and a heavy lift system that could support all of the necessities these are serious challenges solar electric propulsion or even nuclear thermal propulsion would be critical to the long-term plan for this mission nasa and some private companies are already working on propulsion technology aimed at expediting the journey you see we've already begun the process the question is whether we will commit to seeing it through we would also need to consider how we can evolve the current space launch system in a ryan capsule to meet mars's mission requirements these are answerable questions but we must get to the task of actually answering them the challenge of entry descent and landing comes next for the curiosity rover the mars science laboratory developed a high precision system that required six different spacecraft configurations 76 pyrotechnic devices the largest supersonic parachute ever designed and manufactured and more than 500,000 lines of code to execute the required maneuvers to safely ease curiosity to the surface 500,000 lines of code that's a lot of jobs in the industry it's a lot of testing too the spacecraft that will carry humans to mars could be the size of a two-story home weighing 40 tons the rover weighs a ton and in terms of size is only comparable to a small car we have a lot of work to do the initial challenges are clear and they're significant but the potential benefits to include technological advancement potential resource mining and an improved understanding of our earth's history and processes makes this mission worth doing and worth doing safely in order to accomplish this challenging and pioneering endeavor we have to declare as a nation that a manned mission to mars is a priority and a program of national significance we need to determine which milestones along the road to mars would address the risk and challenges to reach the martian surface and safely return successive nasa authorization acts have authorized a stepping stone approach to human exploration this is not new to us our mission to the moon took incremental steps through the mercury gemini and early Apollo missions to land humans on the moon we need to take a stepping stone approach also to reaching mars milestone destinations include sys lunar the moon near earth astro asteroids lagrangian points mars orbit or martian moons among the many steps that can be taken to be considered to help prepare for eventual human exploration of mars i want to caution and make very clear that in my view neither congress nor the president should assign any of these destinations to nasa in a roadmap to mars it's not our job we have to resist the urge to prescribe nasa's technical requirements and instead allow the competent workforce at nasa and within the scientific engineering and academic community from top to bottom to determine the necessary steps neither president eisenhower nor president kennedy sat down and did the job of scientists and engineers and we shouldn't be doing that either another critical component of the roadmap is establishing whether the international space station will be available as a test bed beyond 2020 extending the iss until at least 2028 will allow us to research further the impact of microgravity on on the human body it'll provide an analog based in space for simulations and enable technology testing this also provides an opportunity to engage our international partners early to determine their role in this long-term program we will need them and we want them but we also want them to be ready to be with us we will also need to consider the mars sample return mission enabling the collection of sample mars rocks soil and atmosphere for return to earth and allowing mars scientists to conduct chemical and physical analysis to understand the martian environment before sending our astronauts a long-term plan to reach mars should also consider robotic precursor missions to test and demonstrate tech technologies and assess the hazards or potential risks as part of a roadmap defining nasa's long-term vision and developing a clear roadmap is a priority of mine and i hope to outline this priority through the 2013 nasa authorization act which will be released later today a clear vision and roadmap will provide a certainty and direction needed to set nasa on the right course and reawaken our position as a nation in the driver's seat of 21st century innovation human curiosity the determination to explore and understand the world and universe around us has defined humankind and we've constructed high-powered telescopes so we can look into the heavens we've developed rockets powerful enough to launch into space and we have landed man-made vehicles on another planet mankind has shown that we can accomplish nearly anything when we're truly determined i know that the next time that i lay out on the beach and i look into the stars and i see mars i want to know that it's americans who've had the capacity to get us there john f kennedy said it best and perhaps more plainly that we don't need to choose exploration and innovation because they are easy but because they are hard i hope that we can continue to honor that spirit that's brought us so far and will take us even farther than we can imagine i'm ready and so should we all be thank you very much and now the hard part the questions how do we do this okay so we have one in the front how can we get the various presidents to follow these lines but without the bush it was going to find that they go back to them when they love science it's the near world war and work in our world but it was going to find it and that councilor next president who starts going to an asteroid how do we pass these presidential cycles with the same vision the funding could be different just depends on congress no but keep the vision out there and that from president to president the president doesn't say i want to go home tomorrow tell you how do you do that well this is why i think it's a really great question because we know that politics plays a huge role in all of these discussions but this is why i'm calling on all of us to develop collectively a unified vision i think it's actually been very difficult both for the agency and for the private sector workforce to figure out who's on first from one president to a different vision and direction from one congress to the next and so it isn't even just about presidents and administration's determination about what to do next it's also about what the congress has done and what i'm saying to you here today is that it's time for us to stop that and to come up with a unified vision something that the congress the president and the agency all sign off on so that our industry knows where to go go next we've developed this robust industry and this misdirection puts us on the verge of allowing it to sink right before our eyes over there could i ask people to do me two favors introduce yourself and then wait for the microphone thank you hi i'm pat host with the fence daily a representative edwards you said that congress should not tell nasa what would be the appropriate steps to take to get to mars i'm wondering if there was an effort in your subcommittee to what direct nasa to do uh you know whether they should go certain steps or not and i'm wondering if there was that effort and if you did anything to offend that offer will that be in the authorization report that's exactly what i'm cautioning against i think you know and especially as somebody who um who worked in the industry for a time and on a really wonderful project um one of the sensibilities that i think i bring to this is knowing that there are really incredibly competent talented smart people who are not in the congress who need to figure this out and that our goal has to be sort of like a board of directors to set a vision to offer some clarity in that vision and then to leave it to those who are really talented to figure it out and so while i think that you could hear some of that in some of the discussions that have taken place in our committee over these last several weeks and months again what i'm saying today is that that has to stop in order for this industry to grow in order for the agent agency to evolve in order for our international partners to understand what's next and for those in our academic community to also be on that page and of that mind what is interesting to me um and we could hear it especially over these last couple of weeks is that there is there's a lot of clarity frankly within the scientific community but they have to be the ones to spell out the direction and to write that roadmap we should be the ones to say we believe in the great vision and now let's have it fulfilled business time thank you so my name is Hasmukh Shah from business times which has been promoting US business interests in South Asia especially India now recently there was a US India strategy dialogue held in New Delhi where Secretary of State Mr. Kerry visited and there are big discussions held on many subjects especially on defense space and other explorations US administrator NASA administration also had visited India so there is a lot of opportunities for promoting US business between space technology with India's partnership can you throw some light on that sir because it's going to create a lot of jobs in America through Indian partnership thank you what i would say to that is that um i recall when i was a part of the industry and the international community was really in its infancy that is really not true uh today and so i think that we're going to have an awful lot of strategic partners if we have a unified vision and that will allow American corporations both to create jobs here in the United States but also across the across the globe and whether that is with India and i think that that is a partnership that will facilitate the the technological relationships that we need but there are many all around the world that would be buoyed by robust leadership on the part of the United States and when i say that the United States has to lead it's not the kind of leadership that we experienced in the 1960s when essentially because of the cold war and other aspects we were kind of the game in town today is a very different challenge and so when the United States leads it coordinates the work of our international partners it galvanizes the work of what is not any more a young and growing industry but is very mature and can do lots of things on its on its own and it galvanizes scientists and researchers who are around around the world nasa is going to be at the center of that but we will have a lot of other partners from aerospace corporation you emphasize the homework that we need to do to to get where we want to go in the solar system i think we can certainly all agree with that but that and that the congress should not be telling scientists and engineers how to do their job well doesn't that conflict with the idea that congress is going to say thou shalt go to mars and thou shalt do it by 2030 if you take that approach you risk having something that we don't want which i refer to as apollo 2.0 this is a bad thing because what that what that means is we would we would maybe have one or two missions that would be elaborate scientific field trips and then no follow-up for two or three generations certainly we don't want to get into that so should we not be moving away from the notion that it's all about destinations and deadlines and instead focus on something like cislunar space development which will teach us all the things that we need to go out further and at the same time bring the private sector on board as something more than just government contractors well i mean i haven't in fact i haven't spelled that out and i think i laid out a wide array of opportunities that there are for this kind of robust development but i think it's actually helpful frankly for the public for us to have a big goal in mind that people understand that they can look up up to as much as we need to develop a private sector that operates on its own and there are a lot of players in the private sector now who aren't as dependent on government contracts but are thinking intelligently about the future and about technology but the fact is that unless the american public writ large embraces this idea then politicians are not going to have the capacity and the backbone to provide the resources that are necessary for for development and i don't know how many of you but i certainly do as i go around through the through my community and we're in a tough economic time i hear people all the time say well if we need to fund schools or roads or bridges or you name the thing then why are we funding space well for this room and for those who are in the public i can say that the reason that we make investments in space is for all of those reasons that i outline because the payoff is 10 or a 100 fold when it comes to the technologies that will be developed the industry that's that's created and the opportunities that there will be for people who aren't just invested in nasa's programs but for for companies for entrepreneurs for scientists and researchers who are thinking even beyond the box of what the nasa frame will be that's a vision that i believe the american public can invest in and is prepared to do it but i think it really does require us being able to say that there is some big goal out there because we embrace ourselves around goals and i hear your caution that we don't just want to be you know to send a whole bunch of resources into one place and let that be the end of it this really does this effort really does have to spawn a whole new sense of adventure and frontier and i believe that it can do that how about the fellow right there and then we'll get the one in the back yeah my name is creighton jones with 21st century science and technology magazine so i really appreciate what you had to say it is refreshing to hear someone in government with this level of vision so i just want to know what your thoughts were on why it's sort of two problems it seems there does have to be a re-educating of people in government about what real economic value is what growth is that it's can't be simply measured in dollars and cents but things like were we to develop nuclear rocket technology how would that spin off the change everything in our economy also fusion what would that do for it so just want to know what you think in terms of what more we can do to start to re-educate people about what real economic growth is that which would how the space program would get us out of this economic crisis one and two there's a real crisis in education i mean you hear from industry from machine tool factories that they just don't have the skilled labor force to carry out this kind of a mission and were we to really have a robust space program obviously we'd need more and more at that level so secondly how are we going to address the educational crisis a couple of really good points i think that when i think of our STEM learning science technology engineering and and math learning one of the things that occurs to me is that when i was in grade school and some of you remember this as well that the mere fact of a robust space program inspired people to want to do science and math and so we did have that generation that was created and then we had a lapse and people are no longer as inspired not in the in the same kind of way and so it's kind of one thing to push money out into STEM fields but it's another to show young people what that bold vision is what they can aspire to and so much about what NASA does and what this industry does is about aspiration and when those aspirations are there we will find we'll find the teachers the students will come pouring out to learn but not if they don't know that there's anything on the on the other side and so i think that these things work work together and so it's important for us to make the investment in STEM learning so that we create the kind of workforce that's really needed to see out this vision but we have to recognize that we have to have a vision in order to create that education stimulus for young people to grow and learn and and develop and then with respect to to the to the industry i think that it is it's really complicated to get policymakers to see on the other side of something and so we have to tell the story about all of the great innovations that NASA has spawned i mean NASA itself i think holds about 6400 patents and not to mention the patents that are held throughout the industry that's real economic development and growth and when you tell the story about the airbags or the titanium that's in your braces or the you know your sunglasses that are more protective than they used to be from ultraviolet violet light those are stories that help people understand the value the true economic value of what this industry produces hi congresswoman edwards i'm dan leone with space news thanks for coming to talk to us i'm afraid my question is not as interesting i'm curious in the hearings about the subcommittees nasa authorization proposal it's been pretty clear that there's some disagreement and some people who are of the opinion that things need to change before it goes to mark up well here we are going to mark up what changes if any will you propose you know in television they say stay tuned and so this afternoon we'll actually i'll be releasing a proposal that really is about a vision and i think that there are two minds here on the one hand the majority is introduced or has it has draft legislation that says here are the constraints under which we are right now and i think that's one way i don't think it's the way that you do science frankly i think that when you invest in science you have to again think aspirationally and so i've proposed a vision that recognizes that we have fiscal constraints but also that plots the workout over a 15-year period that allows the kind of funding profile that really will spur the kind of development at a pace and a timeline that's responsible i think one of the the things that has occurred to me since i've been on the committee is the constant adding to the laundry list of things that nasa is supposed to do and that the industry is supposed to fulfill without providing anywhere near the level of resources that are required and so again you will see an authorization that i will introduce that recognizes the multi-mission focus of the agency because i believe that those missions are incredibly important to all of the work and that they are connected to each other that will allow us to do space exploration in a responsible way but you will also see a funding profile that says nasa we believe in you we believe in what you can do we believe in what the industry can do and we're prepared to make an investment in that vision and it will be bold and it will be audacious i think we have two more questions and that might have to be it so we had one over in the corner there and then one of the we have four more questions do you have a little time congresswoman sure thank you so we have time for four more questions but that's it hi i'm peter johnson class 2016 Princeton University my question is with such a prescriptive as goal as 2030 or bust how do you protect non-mars focused nasa programs from being cut once we reach crunch time well i think as you've just heard um i believe and i want to reaffirm a commitment to the multi-mission focus of the agency um out in my district near in my county the home of goddard space flight center it is the home of an awful lot of work that is that is not necessarily focused on human exploration and yet it has great value to understanding the earth great value to understanding and seeing the sun and and everything in between uh and i believe in that and want to make an investment in it and i think that we as one of the things that sets nasa apart as this nation's space agency is the fact that we've taken on all of the big work to be done and whether that is in helio physics or astrophysics and earth science and human exploration and all of the research and technology in between i think that that is the value of the agency and it's the value of all of the all of the industries that have grown up around this agency and it would be irresponsible irresponsible for us to give up on that multi-mission focus hello yeah my name is herman i am freelance for a newspaper in jacarta indonesia and i am also a member of our national press club in washington i read the history of a congressional science committee and i understand also it was abolished a couple years ago and my question is that is there any difference between the present commission science commission at the congress with in the past which was abolished thank you well one of the differences is that i'm on the committee now and i i think that we have actually a number of new members on the science committee who really do have a deep understanding and commitment to our nation's space program writ large and who understand that while human exploration is a significant component and should be of what we do that there are many other things that the agency does i mean let's just look at what it what happens now with weather forecasting and prediction and those things that those fields have actually grown up around a robust and developed nasa committed along with along with noa and so uh i will just just share with you that over these next several weeks we are also going to have a very robust discussion about the future of space exploration and whether we have a commitment as a nation to make the investments that are necessary and required for us to remain at the top and we can either be content to look backwards and we can be content to be second or we can strive for a vision that makes certain that we're first and that we lead okay i think we had one in the back all the way by the wall commercial space uh coalition thank you for being so generous with your time today i was curious whether you have uh engaged in any discussions with members of your subcommittee uh as to renewing or improving our risk sharing regime as a way to drive innovation uh we have um and i think that what you will see though reflected in in our authorization is you know a recognition and i have to say from the on the commercial commercial side those of you who've seen me evolve over the past couple of years understand that i was not a believer at first in the role of of commercial companies and commercializing space transportation and it's an evolution that's in process and i've actually been quite pleased with the progress that's been made thus far and really look forward to the to the future and i think that that risk sharing is something that we're going to have to come to grips with um you know part of me though frankly says that um if you have an industry that wants to engage in the in the commercial sector then it's actually really important that you do what other risk takers do in the larger economy um and on the other hand i also do understand that um that some of those risks are unforeseen in this area that is emerging and um and developing and so it's a conversation that we need to continue to have thank you what's that for okay the last question the gentleman there on the left in the red tie hi jeff fowles a space review uh with these dueling authorization bills do we run the risk of nasa policy becoming more partisan than it traditionally has been in the past and what can we do to avoid that well i don't know if you're talking about the recent past but i have to tell you over the last couple of years in fact it's been quite sadly quite partisan um and i think i've had a chance to discuss already with some of my colleagues on the um on the other side some of these issues and i think that this will be a work in progress what i will conclude by saying is that um i believe and i and i think that most americans really believe in the agency its workforce its private sector partners and the academic community and we have a challenge to make sure that the public can push us in a healthy way to do the right thing for our space program for the next generation and that doesn't have a d or an r written behind it it has an s for science thank you very much