 has a kind of magic and power all its own. As the space age was new, and the race to get there drove NASA forward. Working on the edge of the unknown forced the young agency to innovate and take risks. There was a can-do spirit, free discussion of new ideas, teamwork, a shared vision, and commitment to get the job done. There were setbacks and criticism, but the national priority was clear. NASA was demonstrating the technological competence of a free nation to the world, and the American people were squarely behind the new space agency. Resources were plentiful. The economy was booming. American companies led the world in exports of manufactured goods. Made in America was the mark of excellence. We gave managers ways to do things. We gave them the authority and the money to do stuff right there on the spot. We had groups of small teams that went around and attacked problems. All just working night and day to make this happen. Everybody cooperated. Resources were there. Many of the things we were doing with first time. Everybody was sort of learning how do you do this and so. And it was just an awesome feeling. It was just that exciting. We worked almost like children play. They actually go out and play until they're tired, and somebody has to call them in and make them eat and go to bed. We just did it for the sheer love of the adventure and the excitement and the challenge that lay ahead of us. The spirit of the right stuff came to infuse America during those wonder years. The NASA reputation for technical brilliance and managerial excellence grew with every first in space. The age of 30 still remembers where they were that day as everyone held their breath waiting for that touchdown on the Sea of Tranque building. But for the first time in history somebody was looking back. That brief moment in time NASA took its place at the pinnacle of human achievement. With its can-do spirit and a reputation for doing the impossible NASA saw galaxies of opportunity on the horizon and went seeking new worlds to explore. There seemed no limit to what NASA could do. With hardware left over from Apollo NASA created the first orbiting workshop, Skylab. During three missions, crews conducted more than 250 experiments using the largest collection of scientific hardware ever flown in space. Skylab astronauts were the first to spend three months living and working in space. By 1976, NASA's present to America on its 200th birthday Viking, the first spacecraft to soft land on another planet. Its mission to sample the Martian soil, search for life, monitor the weather and give the world a close-up look at the red planet. Voyager, a grand tour of the outer solar system. Two spacecraft made the 12-year 4 billion-mile journey to send back detailed images. Jupiter's turbulent ammonia clouds. The frozen rings of Saturn. The icy beauty of Uranus. And the fierce methane winds and mysterious dark spot of Neptune. Voyager will be regarded as the quintessential mission of exploration. There has been no other mission which has explored so many new worlds. Only Voyager has had the opportunity of visiting in sequence four giant planets with literally dozens of new worlds and orbit around them. NASA's cosmic background explorer. A small satellite straining to receive the faint whispers of the cosmic explosion that gave birth to the universe 15 billion years ago. While the radiation that we're looking at has come to us from 300,000 years after the Big Bang, the structures that we are seeing in that radiation are much, much older. And they were created in the first billionth of a second and probably even earlier after the Big Bang. This is like the golden age of cosmology. We're really making a breakthrough here. NASA's most Apollo successes were brilliant and path-breaking. But at some point on the way back from the moon, the national spotlight shifted. The young agency that had met John Kennedy's deadline and been too busy to bother with bureaucracy suddenly was left without the national mandate and urgency of those early days. NASA proposed a fully reusable shuttle providing low-cost access to space with launches every one to two weeks. The shuttle was part of a larger vision including a space station leading to further human exploration of the solar system. An imperfect compromise, NASA ended up with a partially reusable shuttle but without its primary destination, Space Station. The shuttle was a technological success but with what impact on the rest of NASA's program? Shuttle development was underfunded. Its schedule slipped, causing everything else to slip. Cost overruns became commonplace. Congress grew concerned. Paperwork requirements mushroomed. Our 1967 budget document consisted of four pages. We keep it in the display case to show visitors since it is such a rarity. These are the driving responses to the 24 requests for information levied on us by headquarters, the OMB and Congress. NASA projects take too long but didn't always. Take two missions in pursuit of Venus, Mariner 10 and Magellan. Recommended. Launched. Similarly, HEO II was funded in 1973. Flying only five years later, this high resolution X-ray assembly mission revealed the riches of the X-ray sky. NASA immediately proposed the follow on mission, AXAF. But today, despite breaking AXAF into two smaller missions, the first launch appears not likely any earlier than 1998. Nearly two decades after the mission was first proposed. To replace an aging U.S. weather satellite, goes next. The first of the new generation of weather satellites. Intended for launch in 1989. A technological marvel. A federal fumble. Leaving the nation suspicious that the NASA NOAA team can't deliver what it promises. In the face of this long, long history of $500 million overruns, three years of delay, awesome problems of quality control, I see very little in the history that would justify this Congress for taking yet another chance on you. You know, we can't do that. Three strikes is out in baseball. And I don't know how many strikes you've had. You've had a lot more than three going back a number of years. Business as usual. NASA management focuses on technical performance. But with schedule slips, technical fixes and new requirements, a typical program costs 75% over the original estimate. Still, all these problems were bubbling under the surface, invisible to the American people. Until challenging. American payloads backed up. For 30 months, NASA was on hold. In 1990, NASA's Crown Jewel, the Hubble Space Telescope, captured the world's imagination. But the euphoria was short-lived. The final straw. Fuel leaks grounded the shuttle fleet. NASA, America's symbol of excellence. The agency that won the race to the moon couldn't even get off the ground. Despite NASA's problems, the agency's budget grew. The possibilities seemed endless. NASA dreamt of an aerospace plane. A new national launch system. A return to the moon and a voyage to Mars. But the pieces didn't fit together. It was a program without a unifying vision. And what of the budget? February 1991. NASA estimates its 1993 budget at over $17 billion. To include space exploration would take even more. Fall 1991. After deliberating, NASA submits a budget of $16 billion to the Office of Management and Budget. More negotiations cut the budget further to $15 billion. Finally, the congressional process set the budget at $14.3 billion. The biggest portion for the shuttle. Flying eight missions a year. Then Space Station, a 30-year commitment. And the rest for Mission to Planet Earth, ACSAF, Cassini, other science missions and aeronautics. Will there ever be a budget with room for anything new? This budget puts more on NASA's plate than the nation can afford. The administration is proposing what I'd call a Buck Rogers budget for NASA. It's long on fantasy and it's short on reality. And congressional criticism isn't limited to NASA's programs and budget. Together we beg, plead and implore them to be fair and equitable in the hiring and promotion minorities and women in agency that uses taxpayer funds, federal dollars. NASA from the top down has few minorities in meaningful policy positions anywhere in the agency. For the past two decades, NASA's promises have exceeded its budget and its performance hasn't met the country's expectations. There are some who would have NASA abandoned its dreams. NASA knows how to rise to challenges. To make the space program an essential thread in the fabric of American life. To give the American people more than they expect as a return on their investment. NASA is unique because it alone can use the magic and resources of space. The infinite frontier. To produce a steady stream of scientific discoveries and technological innovations. To benefit all Americans and inspire humanity. NASA's future. It begins with aeronautics. Working with American industry to make possible the next improvements in speed, safety, economy and environmental protection. Helping America regain a growing market share in aerospace. The team with the Defense Department and industry to revitalize America's launchers. With a new fleet of small, efficient, affordable launchers that will transport payloads into space at an unprecedented pace. And heavy lift launchers that will carry spacefarers back to the moon and on into space. In Earth orbit, an armada of small and middle sized satellites will measure the world's oceans, atmosphere and lands to learn how they interact with each other and with human activities. NASA will lead what may be the greatest scientific achievement of the 20th century. Completing the great observatories with the Space Infrared Telescope Facility. And back to the moon. Small precursor missions blaze the trail. These missions rely on advanced technologies. Technologies that move quickly into the American economy. Back to stay. Using what we learn about living and working in space aboard Space Station Freedom, humans will be ready to build an outpost on the moon. A laboratory key to understanding how to colonize the solar system and harness its resources. Astronauts will construct high powered telescopes strong enough to search nearby stars for planets. By building smaller, lighter spacecraft NASA will revitalize planetary exploration. Sending out landers, rovers and sample return spacecraft that explore every major body in the solar system including comets and even the sun itself. This new knowledge about the solar system the runaway greenhouse of Venus. The disappearance of water on Mars. The record of the sun's radiation that's been written into the moon's surface for millions of years will provide insights into the most important place in the solar system. Home planet, Earth. There's no doubt in my mind that NASA has been and continues to be the world leader when it comes to peaceful space exploration. What I would like to see in NASA not only being the best of everything in terms of our space missions but in terms of how we do everything. We're the best in the world and we've done great things and will continue to do unique and really inspiring things. We are a visionary agency that we are in an R&D world which explores which looks at the unknown. There are no guarantees. We see a shuttle lift off and there's a sense of pride within NASA. I carpal with some people from the USDA and I tease them a lot and say, do you get that sense of pride when you see USDA slapped on that side of beef? In the future, as the space-faring nations become more mature, those outside of Russia that will have more of a sharing role as we work together. In 30 years, NASA will be as it is today responsible for those things which make this country a civilized nation. And those are exploration and discovery and knowledge. My vision for NASA would not only be that it be a technological and science innovator but also an agency that is viewed as one of the most prestigious and culturally diverse agencies. When you look at me, you're looking at the face of the future. I mean, women and minorities are going to be an important part of what NASA does in the future. And I would love to be able to say I worked for an organization that did something great for humanity. We impacted humanity. We did something to improve our life here on Planet Earth. There is a plaque displayed in the office of the NASA administrator. It represents the challenge that awaits the generation who will come and pick up the torch. The plaque has been gathering dust long enough. A new millennium awaits. It's time to move onward to the planets. And yes, even the stars.