[House Hearing, 114 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
THE SPACE LEADERSHIP PRESERVATION ACT
AND THE NEED FOR STABILITY AT NASA
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
February 25, 2016
__________
Serial No. 114-62
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
20-832 PDF WASHINGTON : 2017
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Publishing
Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800;
DC area (202) 512-1800 Fax: (202) 512-2104 Mail: Stop IDCC,
Washington, DC 20402-0001
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HON. LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas, Chair
FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., ZOE LOFGREN, California
Wisconsin DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois
DANA ROHRABACHER, California DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland
RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas ERIC SWALWELL, California
MO BROOKS, Alabama ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois AMI BERA, California
BILL POSEY, Florida ELIZABETH H. ESTY, Connecticut
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky MARC A. VEASEY, Texas
JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma KATHERINE M. CLARK, Massachusetts
RANDY K. WEBER, Texas DON S. BEYER, JR., Virginia
JOHN R. MOOLENAAR, Michigan ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado
STEVE KNIGHT, California PAUL TONKO, New York
BRIAN BABIN, Texas MARK TAKANO, California
BRUCE WESTERMAN, Arkansas BILL FOSTER, Illinois
BARBARA COMSTOCK, Virginia
GARY PALMER, Alabama
BARRY LOUDERMILK, Georgia
RALPH LEE ABRAHAM, Louisiana
DARIN LaHOOD, Illinois
C O N T E N T S
February 25, 2016
Page
Witness List..................................................... 2
Hearing Charter.................................................. 3
Opening Statements
Statement by Representative Lamar S. Smith, Chairman, Committee
on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of
Representatives................................................ 6
Written Statement............................................ 8
Statement by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, Ranking
Minority Member, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
U.S. House of Representatives.................................. 10
Written Statement............................................ 12
Statement by Representative Brian Babin, Committee on Science,
Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives........... 22
Written Statement............................................ 24
Witnesses:
Panel I
The Honorable John Culberson (TX-7), U.S. House of
Representatives
Oral Statement............................................... 14
Written Statement............................................ 18
Panel II
Dr. Michael Griffin, Former Administrator, NASA
Oral Statement............................................... 27
Written Statement............................................ 29
Colonel Eileen Collins, USAF (Ret.); Commander, STS-93 and 114;
and Pilot, STS-63 and 94; and former Chair, Subcommittee on
Space Operations, NASA Advisory Council
Oral Statement............................................... 34
Written Statement............................................ 36
Ms. Cristina Chaplain, Director, Acquisitions and Sourcing
Management, Government Accountability Office (GAO)
Oral Statement............................................... 40
Written Statement............................................ 42
Discussion....................................................... 67
Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Dr. Michael Griffin, Former Administrator, NASA.................. 92
Colonel Eileen Collins, USAF (Ret.); Commander, STS-93 and 114;
and Pilot, STS-63 and 94; and former Chair, Subcommittee on
Space Operations, NASA Advisory Council........................ 102
Ms. Cristina Chaplain, Director, Acquisitions and Sourcing
Management, Government Accountability Office (GAO)............. 106
THE SPACE LEADERSHIP PRESERVATION ACT
AND THE NEED FOR STABILITY AT NASA
----------
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2016
House of Representatives,
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
Washington, D.C.
The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:05 a.m., in Room
2318, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Lamar Smith [Chairman
of the Committee] presiding.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Smith. The Committee on Science, Space, and
Technology will come to order. And without objection, the Chair
is authorized to declare recesses of the Committee at any time.
Welcome to today's hearing entitled ``The Space Leadership
Preservation Act and the Need for Stability at NASA.''
I'll recognize myself for an opening statement and then the
Ranking Minority Member, Ms. Eddie Bernice Johnson from Texas.
And let me say just looking out on the audience today I'm
glad to see so much interest in this subject. And we have
actually two panels today. We're going to start off with
Congressman John Culberson, and then we'll go to a panel of
three witnesses after that.
Presidential transitions often have provided a challenge to
NASA programs that require continuity and budget stability. But
few have been as rocky as the Administration change we
experienced seven years ago.
Even before he was elected President, then-candidate Barack
Obama planned to delay the Constellation program being built to
take humans to deep space destinations. One of the Obama
Administration's first acts, in fact, was to cancel this NASA
program outright.
These jarring decisions have been accompanied by repeated
budget proposals that continue to cut key programs designed to
take humans to deep space destinations like the Moon and Mars.
The most recent proposal released just a few weeks ago would
shrink the Space Launch System and Orion crew vehicle by more
than $800 million. Even worse, the entire budget depends on
make-believe budget gimmicks.
This regrettable approach continues to make a Mars mission
all but impossible. It is not the approach of an administration
that is serious about maintaining America's leadership in
space.
The recent report from the National Academies of Science
titled ``Pathways to Exploration: Rationales and Approaches for
a U.S. Program of Human Space Exploration,'' stated that: ``The
human spaceflight program in the United States had experienced
considerable programmatic turbulence, with frequent and
dramatic changes in program goals and mission plans in response
to changes in national policies. The changes had a high cost in
program resources and opportunities, and imposed what many
feared was an intolerable burden on already-constrained human
exploration budgets.''
The Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, an advisory body
established by Congress to report to NASA and Congress on
safety issues that affect NASA, stated in their recent report
in January that ``NASA faces another challenge that has
historically led to disruption and inefficiency and arguably
has impact on safety and good systems engineering. This is the
challenge of starting over with new programs and directions
following administration change. As in prior reports, the ASAP
urges constancy of purpose. Failing to stay the course with
current programs of record will make it an even longer,
costlier, and potentially less safe trip to Mars.''
These facts are not lost on this committee. The most recent
NASA Authorization Act from 2010 contains several provisions
that remain the ``law of the land'' and continue to guide NASA
activities.
The Act notes that the ``commitment to human exploration
goals is essential for providing the necessary long-term focus
and programmatic consistency and robustness of the United
States civilian space program.''
The Act states that ``It is in the United States' national
interest to maintain a government-operated space transportation
system for crew and cargo delivery to space.''
The Act directs that ``The United States must develop as
rapidly as possible replacement vehicles capable of providing
both human and cargo launch capability to low-Earth orbit and
to destinations beyond low-Earth orbit.''
The 2005, 2008, and 2010 NASA Authorization Acts are
consistent in their direction to NASA. NASA needs the same
certainty from the executive branch that it receives from
Congress. Today, we are discussing how to provide that
stability to NASA once again as we look toward a presidential
transition in less than a year.
My friend and Texas colleague, Representative John
Culberson, has a bill that seeks to do just that. I thank
Representative Culberson for his leadership on this issue, and
I am a cosponsor of his legislation. We share the goal of
providing NASA with long-term, consistent support, and it is
great to have him here today to discuss his bill.
One of the first hearings that this committee held during
my chairmanship was, in fact, on this very topic.
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today how we
can ensure stability in our space program through the next
presidential transition.
Dr. Michael Griffin provides a unique perspective as the
last NASA Administrator to serve before a presidential
transition. Colonel Eileen Collins not only has served as a
pilot and commander of space shuttle missions, but also as a
member of the NASA Advisory Council during the last transition.
And Ms. Cristina Chaplain brings the Government Accountability
Office's insightful perspective.
We look forward to hearing their testimony and learning how
we can ensure that NASA remains on the forefront of space
exploration through the next presidential transition.
[The prepared statement of Chairman Smith follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Smith. That concludes my opening statement, and
the Ranking Member is recognized for hers.
Ms. Johnson. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and good
morning. I'd like to start by welcoming our witnesses.
NASA is a cornerstone of our nation's R&D enterprise, a
source of inspiration to our young people, and a worldwide
symbol of America's technological prowess and dedication to the
peaceful exploration of space. We want it to succeed.
Today's hearing is entitled ``The Space Leadership
Preservation Act and the Need for Stability at NASA.'' While I
have concerns about the legislation itself, I wholeheartedly
agree with the premise that we want to preserve America's
leadership in space, and that NASA will need stability if it is
to maintain that leadership role. I am heartened that Chairman
Culberson has long felt the same way.
That said, I regret that the legislation being discussed
today, while obviously well-intentioned, unfortunately is not
likely to fix the fundamental causes of instability at NASA.
Let me give just a few examples of my concern with what the
bill does and doesn't do.
First, the bill would establish a Board of Directors
apparently modeled after the National Science Foundation's
National Science Board. Of course, NSF and NASA are quite
different agencies with quite different missions. So the
applicability of the NSF model to NASA is unclear.
But there are other differences that also need to be noted.
As we know, the members of the NSB are all nominated by the
President. The Board of Directors established in this bill, on
the other hand, would have a majority of its members named by
Congress using a formula that injects partisan politics into a
board that ostensibly is supposed to insulate NASA from
politics.
In addition, the Board would be tasked with preparing the
budget for NASA in parallel with NASA's own budget preparations
process. This seems to be a prescription for wasteful
duplication at best, with the potential for serious confusion
and instability as the more likely outcomes.
It is unclear to me how this small group of individuals
with no agency management responsibilities or accountability is
supposed to develop a detailed budget for a $19 billion agency
without having to set up an unwieldy competing administrative
infrastructure of its own. This is an approach that will not
lead to a good outcome.
Instead, we should let the dedicated men and women at NASA
who are tasked with carrying out NASA's challenging programs be
the ones to develop its budget requests. It should not be done
by a group of individuals who, though may be talented, will not
have any accountability for delivering results under the budget
they may propose. If we're concerned that OMB is adjusting
NASA's budget request in unhealthy ways, then we in Congress
already have sufficient oversight and budgetary tools at our
disposal to correct that situation.
Next, the bill would establish a fixed ten-year term for
the NASA Administrator. I frankly don't know what problem this
provision is intended to correct. A mission agency benefits
from having an administrator chosen by the President or she--
that he or she serves. Having a carryover administrator from a
previous President's term will do nothing to ensure stability
if the President wishes to pursue a different policy agenda
from his or her predecessor and doesn't see the Administrator
as being part of his or her team.
In addition, as history shows, having a fixed term for an
agency head means little in practice. Only 5 of the last 15 NSF
Directors served out a full six-year term, and similar
instability has been the norm for FAA despite the five-year
term for its Administrators.
I could go on, but the reality is that we don't need to set
up a new bureaucracy outside of NASA or alter the appointment
process for its leaders. If we're interested in ensuring
stability at NASA, it is already in our power as Congress to do
so. We are the ones who ultimately determine NASA's budget. We
can provide the necessary budgetary stability to NASA or we can
destabilize it with appropriation delays, continuing
resolutions, and shutdowns. The choice is ours. It's right here
in this Committee.
In addition, we have the ability to set a stable direction
for NASA, and we did just that in the 2015 NASA reauthorization
bill that passed the House. We see that Mars should be the goal
of our human exploration program. The President has agreed,
though that was determined before he became President. We
should take that consensus and build on it rather than having
an unelected board put forth its own exploration vision every
four years.
The two Congressional actions that I have just described,
one budgetary and one policy-oriented, will do more to maintain
space leadership and ensure stability at NASA than anything we
might do in this bill that we are discussing today.
So in closing, I again want to welcome our witnesses. I
appreciate your service, and I look forward to your testimony.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Johnson follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Ms. Johnson.
Our witness on the first panel today is Hon. John
Culberson, Chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on
Commerce, Justice, and Science.
Congressman Culberson represents the 7th District of Texas,
a district formerly represented by President George H.W. Bush.
A longtime space enthusiast, Chairman Culberson is the sponsor
of H.R. 2093, the Space Leadership Reservation Act of 2015. We
thank him for being here this morning and look forward to
hearing about his bill.
And the gentleman is recognized for five minutes. John,
make sure your mike is on there.
TESTIMONY OF HON. JOHN CULBERSON (TX-7),
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Mr. Culberson. Thank you.
Chairman Smith. Okay.
Mr. Culberson. I want to thank you, Chairman Smith and
Ranking Member Johnson, forholding this hearing today to review
the Space Leadership Preservation Act of 2015. I also want to
thank your staff, particularly Chris Shank and Tom Hammond, for
working with me and my staff on this important legislation.
Chairman Smith, thank you for supporting this bill as an
original cosponsor. I'm deeply grateful for your confidence and
support on this important matter. And I also want to thank your
fellow Committee Members, Representatives Sensenbrenner, Posey,
and Bridenstine, for their support as cosponsors.
I especially want to thank my predecessor Congressman Frank
Wolf, who chaired the Commerce, Justice, Science Committee, in
helped me develop this legislation originally because Frank
saw, as I have, as all of you have, that we simply have to give
NASA greater stability. We need to make this agency less
political, more professional, and give them the ability to see
far into the future with the knowledge and with the confidence
that the Congress will be there behind them.
I have some of my very best memories as a boy growing up in
Houston. I've been to the space program. All my earliest heroes
were the Apollo astronauts. I got my first telescope for
Christmas when I was 12. I've had one ever since, bought myself
a rather large telescope as a high school graduation present.
These men and women have been heroes to all Americans.
And when I was assigned to the Appropriations Committee, I
asked but one thing. I wanted to be--to serve on the Commerce,
Justice, Science Committee and one day be there to share it.
And it's an extraordinary privilege for me to work with you,
Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Johnson, all the Members of this
Committee, as we do our best arm-in-arm in--to make sure that
NASA has the funding, the support that they need to do all
that's on their plate.
In the appropriations bill that the Congress just
approved--I made certain that NASA has today the largest
appropriation that they have ever received since the agency was
created in 1958, and I will continue to make sure that NASA has
the resources they need to accomplish all that is before them.
And that again is a year-to-year effort. That is again
something that tends to be reliant too much on who is in the
White House and who holds the chairmanships of these important
subcommittees.
I also want to be sure to thank my counterpart in the
Senate, Senator Richard Shelby, who chairs the Senate Commerce,
Justice, Science Committee. He's an ardent supporter of the
space program, and it's been absolutely vital to have him there
for his support.
You know, although it's been over 44 years since any human
has set foot on the surface of another celestial body, when
Gene Cernan, my constituent and good friend, and Harrison
Schmitt left the moon after three days exploring the Taurus-
Littrow lunar valley, mission control in Houston read a
statement from the White House to the Apollo 17 astronauts that
said, ``As the Challenger leaves the surface of the moon, we
are conscious not of what we leave behind but of what lies
before us.'' But today, the glory days of the Apollo program
seem to be behind us, and the country seems to have lost focus
on exploring what lies before us, or all the wonder that would
be, as Tennyson said so well.
The team at NASA unfortunately has faced program
cancellation after program cancellation. And as Mike Griffin
points out so correctly in his testimony you'll hear in a
moment--Dr. Griffin points out, ``As the year 2009 opened, we
had a plan for our nation's space program, a plan of
generational scope for what it was that NASA expected to do.''
But by early 2010, barely a year later, this carefully hewn
strategy that had been approved twice by Congress in two
successive authorization acts of 2005 and 2008, Dr. Griffin
points out, had been abandoned and cancelled.
And I have a chart here that I'll make sure each one of you
have a copy of that.
[Slide.]
Mike Coats, the Director at the Johnson Space Center first
pointed out to me that this is the fundamental problem at NASA,
that in the last 20 years, NASA has spent more than $20 billion
on cancelled development programs. No entity, no company, no
entity, no agency of the federal government, no agency of any
state government or local government can function in this
environment. And think of the heartbreak.
Brian Babin, my good friend and colleague from the east
side of Houston, represents the Johnson Space Center. We all
know the heartbreak that those great men and women, those
brilliant engineers and scientists who have devoted their life
to making the dreams of the future come true, to build these
incredible machines, these great rockets and spacecraft, they
pour their heart and soul into it only to have it yanked out
from underneath them. That is very, very damaging to their
morale and destructive to our program as a whole.
This is not a partisan issue. Completely set politics
aside. Now, forget who's in the White House, what party label.
It's just intensely destructive, and we cannot continue. It's
wasteful, damaging, and it damages our ability as a nation to
preserve our leadership in space. And space is the high ground.
I cannot imagine General Meade at Gettysburg abandoning Little
Round Top, just giving it over. You do not surrender the high
ground. And yet I'm very concerned that in the absence of
stability, in the absence of giving NASA a greater level of
professionalism and making them less political, that the
country is going to wind up abandoning the high ground.
There is no clear mission today, and we simply have to come
up with a way to get the agency the ability to give us that
vision, and with the guidance and support of Congress, make
that come true.
I had the chance, the honor recently to hear former Navy
SEAL Robert O'Neill speak about his work in identifying and
taking out Osama bin Laden, and one of the things that really
stuck with me from Rob's remarks was he said that a lack of a
clear mission hurts morale. That's true of all of us as human
beings, and it's certainly true with the team at NASA. We can
help fix that problem with this legislation.
I have welcomed suggestions or ideas on how we can modify
the legislation, but I put a lot of thought into this. With
your help, Chairman Smith and Chairman Frank Wolf, we looked at
the--some of the models in government that work well. The
Director of the FBI, for example, has--that--the ten-year term
for the Director of the FBI is serving very well. We know that
the FBI is a pillar of integrity, and that Director does not
think about politics or who the President is. They focus on
enforcing the law and doing the right thing for the right
reasons for the country.
Whether it is the President, Ms. Johnson, or whether it's
the Congress, your human nature being what we are, there's
going to be politics either way. And the idea of the Board of
Directors was to make sure that we had members from both
parties recommending appointments to that board, who would have
to then be submitted by the President to the Senate for
confirmation, preserving the separation of powers and the
Executive's role in making that appointment so there are no
constitutional issues, and you also have both parties in both
Houses of Congress having an impact on that Board of Directors.
The idea of the budget being submitted directly to Congress
is important because if--we don't all of us--none of us know
exactly what NASA's best minds have recommended. They submit
their budget to the Office of Management and Budget, and the
budget that we get, Mr. Chairman, and the budget that I
receive--the budget recommendation from the President is not
really from NASA. It's from OMB. As a practical matter, we all
know that OMB runs NASA today. The bureaucrats, the bean-
counters at OMB are the ones making the big decisions for our
nation's space program. And it's just unacceptable.
I'd like to know, as I know you would, an honest, accurate
number. What do the best minds at NASA recommended to the
Congress? What's necessary for you to achieve all that's before
you? And that's the idea behind the direct budget submission,
Ms. Johnson, that we would, as Members of Congress, receive
budget submissions from the Board of Directors at NASA. We
would also get OMB's recommendation. Then we can lay them down
side by side and see what is necessary to make those dreams of
the future come true and balance them and figure out what is
necessary for American taxpayers to fund that recommendation.
That longer term for the Administrator, I think, is not
only necessary for stability to make the agency head less
political, but to give that individual the time to make sure
that these tremendously complicated and expensive spaceflight
programs come to fruition so we don't see this start and stop,
as you see on this chart right here.
[Slide.]
Finally, Mr. Chairman, I really think that from my
experience working in the Congress, I started out here on this
Committee, and then when I went to the Appropriations Committee
and was able to see, as you have, the extraordinary men and
women at NASA who are so dedicated to make sure that the
American space program is the best on earth, who are so
dedicated to make sure that the spacecraft and the rockets they
build are truly the best that have ever been conceived or built
by human hands.
I keep coming back to the fundamental problem. The cause of
the instability is governance. We could continue to fund NASA.
We can continue down this path of year-to-year pillar-to-post
funding, or we could make fundamental long-term changes that
our successors will inherit an agency that is less political,
more professional, more stable, more focused on making the
dreams of the future come true, more focused on achieving the
goals of the Decadal Survey.
Quite frankly, I wish one thing that you could add, I'd
like to figure out a way to have a human spaceflight Decadal
Survey. The scientists at the National Academy of Sciences do a
great job when they prepare the Decadal Survey for
astrophysics, for earth sciences, for heliophysics, for
planetary science. And you'll see in my CJS bill I wired in
there that NASA shall follow the recommendations of the Decadal
Survey as they prepare what is necessary for missions in the
future, and I made certain they got the money to do it.
But what I can't figure out and resolve is how do you have
a Decadal Survey for human spaceflight without having all those
conflicting passions from the different contractors that are
involved? That's a challenge that I'd ask for the help of the
Science Committee in resolving.
But it is governance. It all circles back to governance.
And if we want to ensure that America maintains its leadership
role in outer space, if we want to make sure that we are
protecting the high ground and that our children and
grandchildren will live to see interstellar flight, that
they'll live to see the discovery of life on other worlds, I
encourage you, urge you to join me in passing this legislation
and modifying it. Make it better, and help us find a way to
give NASA the stability that they need at headquarters, again,
to make those dreams of the future come true.
And I thank you very much for having me here today.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Culberson follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Smith. Chairman Culberson, thank you for the
comments about your bill and also thank you for all you have
done for NASA over the years and into the future as well.
You are welcome to join us up here if you'd like to, to
listen to the next expert panel. And we're going to take a
brief recess while the witness table is prepared for the next
panel.
Mr. Culberson. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Smith. And while we're taking a recess, I
understand that the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Babin, the
Chairman of the Space Subcommittee, is recognized for an
opening statement if he'd like to make one.
Mr. Babin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good morning. It's a great pleasure to be here this morning
with our esteemed colleague and our first witness, as we just
heard, Chairman John Culberson.
And I represent the 36th District of Texas, which is the
home of the Johnson Space Center. I've had the privilege of
visiting JSC on a number of occasions. Every time I stop by
there, I am reminded of the truly extraordinary accomplishments
that we have made as a nation. I am also inspired by the
potential that exists at NASA to continue expanding our
horizons deeper into space. It's truly an awe-inspiring mission
that is pursued with dedication by NASA's personnel and its
contractors.
Space exploration and science captures the American
people's interests, it inspires us to pursue extraordinary
goals, and keeps us on the forefront of scientific achievement.
It is a challenging endeavor that distinguishes the United
States as a global leader. It supports innovation and economic
growth, and inspires the next generation to build, explore, and
discover.
The missions of NASA that we should be focused on are
complex, they are expensive, and they are long term.
Unfortunately, the last eight years have been characterized by
turmoil, and by upheaval and uncertainty. If there's anything
that we have learned from this experience, it is that our
national space program can ill-afford to change our program of
record every time that there is a new President. Space
exploration requires stability and unwavering dedication.
Chairman Culberson, a strong supporter and good friend of
our nation's space program, has been vocal, as you heard this
morning, about how the billions of dollars have been dedicated,
directed, and redirected over the years with fits and starts of
various NASA projects. Your pursuit of a solution to this
challenge, Representative Culberson, is greatly appreciated by
me and many of our colleagues.
Space exploration is a very worthwhile investment for the
taxpayer and for the Nation. It inspires the next generation of
explorers to pursue science, technology, engineering, and math;
it advances U.S. soft power and international relations; it
reinforces our aerospace industrial base; increases economic
competitiveness; and advances our national security interests.
There's a great deal of promise in the future of space, but
if we fail to provide stability for NASA's space exploration
programs, we may well lose our leadership in space. Make no
mistake, other nations are nipping at our heels and we can ill-
afford to rest on our laurels. Losing U.S. leadership in space
will significantly undermine our national interests, erode our
industrial base, undermine our international influence, and
cause the loss of a skilled workforce and will jeopardize our
national security. Our colleague Bill Posey often says that the
Chinese are going to the moon, and they're not going there just
to collect rocks, and I couldn't agree more.
Mr. Culberson's Space Leadership Preservation Act offers us
an opportunity to review many of the challenges facing our
nation's space agency. There may be many ways to achieve the
goals of this legislation, and so I have an open mind.
Presidential elections offer both challenges and opportunities,
and that's why it is imperative that our colleagues in the
Senate consider the bipartisan NASA Authorization Act that
passes via unanimous consent over a year ago. They must bring
this up. NASA would be well-served by the guidance that
legislation provides. It would provide stability of purpose in
an uncertain time. All that they would have to do is update the
funding levels to match the recently passed Omnibus
Appropriations levels for NASA.
And I appreciate hearing the testimony of Representative
Culberson and looking forward to hearing our other
distinguished witnesses this morning, and I thank them for
appearing here.
And with that, I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Babin follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Babin.
We are awaiting the arrival of a Member of the Science
Committee, the gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Brooks, who is going
to introduce our first witness, Dr. Griffin. And while he is on
the way, I'm going to proceed and introduce our other two
witnesses today.
And our second witness is Colonel Eileen Collins, Retired
United States Air Force Colonel and former NASA astronaut and
resident of my hometown San Antonio. Colonel Collins was
selected by NASA to become an astronaut in 1991. In 1995, she
flew the space shuttle as pilot aboard Discovery and then again
as pilot in 1997 aboard Atlantis. Colonel Collins became the
first woman commander of a U.S. spacecraft with shuttle mission
Columbia in 1999. Her final spaceflight mission was as
commander of Discovery in 2005, the Return to Flight mission.
She has logged more than 6,750 hours in 30 different types of
aircraft and more than 870 hours in space as a veteran of four
spaceflights.
Colonel Collins received her bachelor's degree in
mathematics and economics from Syracuse University, her master
of science degree in operations from Stanford University, and a
master of arts degree in space systems management from Webster
University.
Our final witness is Ms. Cristina Chaplain, Director of
Acquisitions and Sourcing Management at the U.S. Government
Accountability Office. Ms. Chaplain has a responsibility of GAO
assessments of military space acquisitions, NASA, and the
Missile Defense Agency. Prior to her current position at GAO,
she worked with GAO's Financial Management and Information
Technology Team. She has been with GAO for 25 years. Ms.
Chaplain received her bachelor's degree from Boston University
and her master's degree from Columbia University.
Okay. I'm sure that the gentleman from Alabama will be
joining us shortly, but in his absence, I'm going to go on and
introduce our first witness today. And that is Dr. Michael
Griffin, former NASA Administrator and current Chairman and
Chief Executive Officer of Schafer Corporation. Dr. Griffin
served as both Chief Engineer and Associate Administrator for
Exploration at NASA, as well as Deputy for Technology at the
Strategic Defense Initiative Organization. Dr. Griffin is a
recipient of numerous honors and awards, including the NASA
Exceptional Achievement Medal and the Department Of Defense's
distinguished Public Service Medal, the highest award which can
be conferred on a nongovernment employee.
Dr. Griffin received his bachelor's degree in physics from
Johns Hopkins University and master's degrees in aerospace
science from Catholic University, electrical engineering from
the University of Southern California, applied physics from
Johns Hopkins, civil engineering from George Washington
University, and business administration from Loyola College of
Maryland. By my count, that's five master's degrees. And his
Ph.D. is in aerospace engineering from the University of
Maryland.
We welcome you, all three of you, to the hearing today.
And the gentleman from Alabama has arrived, but I still
want to recognize him. Even though I just finished introducing
Dr. Griffin, I know that the gentleman from Alabama, Mr.
Brooks, will have some comments to make as well. And he is
recognized for that purpose.
Mr. Brooks. I'm sorry, Mr. Chairman. This is my third
hearing since 9:30.
From what I understand, you've already introduced----
Chairman Smith. I just----
Mr. Brooks. --Dr. Griffin.
Chairman Smith. I just finished, but I'd like to recognize
you to make any additional comments you'd like to make.
Well, Dr. Griffin, thank you for being here. Roll Tide and
War Eagle. I'll make it short.
Chairman Smith. In that case, we will proceed, and, Dr.
Griffin, you're welcome to start your testimony.
TESTIMONY OF DR. MICHAEL GRIFFIN,
FORMER ADMINISTRATOR, NASA
Mr. Griffin. Thank you, Chairman Smith, Chairman Culberson,
Mr. Brooks, for the kind introduction and recognition. I'm--and
thanking Ranking Member Johnson and Members of the Committee
for appearing here today and allowing me to appear to discuss
the future of our nation's space program.
With the inauguration of a new Administration and Congress,
we will have both the need and the opportunity to restore
American preeminence in space, and after that, to ensure
stability in the policy and programs we create. We should begin
now, and in that context, it may be of some value to review
some of our recent history. Some of that has been summarized by
Chairman Culberson in the earlier panel, and I will not repeat
it.
I will make the point that, following the loss of Space
Shuttle Columbia, the Columbia Accident Investigation Board
identified as one of the root causes of that failure the lack
of a clearly identifiable long-term strategic plan for NASA. As
has been stated, by 2009 that issue had been remedied, and we
were executing a powerful and compelling new plan. That plan
respected the need to complete existing commitments, the
constraints imposed by the geography of the solar system, and
the existing state of our technology and operational
experience. The plan respected the need of our international
partners for a roadmap for human spaceflight beyond the
International Space Station, while offering critical challenges
to which they could make critical contributions. Finally, being
achievable with only incremental real dollar budget growth, it
respected realistic budget constraints. It was a good plan.
This strategy received nearly unanimous bipartisan
endorsement by successive Congresses, Republican and
Democratic, in the NASA Authorization Acts of 2005 and 2008,
clearing the path for a period of unimpeded progress. And by
early 2009, the shuttle was flying regularly, the ISS was
nearing completion, a new crew transportation system was in
work, and the first two contracts for commercial cargo delivery
to the International Space Station had been signed. Some 14
nations had embraced partnership with the United States to
return to the moon and were orienting their own national space
policies to that end.
But by early 2010, just a year later, this strategy was in
disarray. Human lunar return had been abandoned, as had NASA's
development of a new crew transportation system. There was no
plan beyond ISS save for a nebulous commitment to visit an
asteroid sometime in the 2020s. Inasmuch as this--such a
mission is inherently a one-off exercise with limited
opportunities for international involvement, our existing space
station partners rightly felt abandoned and potential new
partners saw very little merit in working with the United
States.
The nations that were eager to participate in space
exploration in 2009 still wish to do so today, but a leader is
needed for such an endeavor, and for now, the only possible
leader is the United States. If we do not choose to engage,
then eventually other nations will, and we're unlikely to be
pleased with that result. This is not a future that the United
States should allow to come to pass.
Our space policy is bankrupt. While I certainly support the
stability for NASA that is the topic of this hearing today, I
would not want that desire to prevent us from correcting the
problems that have been created over the last seven years. To
quote my friend and colleague Jim Albaugh, the former Boeing
commercial aircraft CEO, the current Administration's plan for
space offers ``no dream, no vision, no plan, no budget, and no
remorse.'' We can fix this and we must.
Thank you. I would be happy to answer any of your
questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Griffin follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Dr. Griffin.
Colonel Collins.
TESTIMONY OF COLONEL EILEEN COLLINS, USAF (RET.);
COMMANDER, STS-93 AND 114; AND PILOT, STS-63 AND 94;
AND FORMER CHAIR, SUBCOMMITTEE ON SPACE OPERATIONS,
NASA ADVISORY COUNCIL
Ms. Collins. Thank you, Chairman Smith and Ranking Member
Johnson and Committee Members. It is a pleasure for me to be
here today to talk about the future of our great country and to
share my perspective as a former space shuttle commander. I
have a passion for exploration, and I'm firmly committed to the
future successes of our country's space program.
A few words about my background, I'm a former Air Force
test pilot, a graduate of the Air Force Test Pilot School, and
a veteran of four spaceflights. I served for five years on the
NASA Advisory Council from 2007 to 2011. I currently serve on
the National Academy of Sciences' Aerospace Science and
Engineering Board, and although I serve on this and many other
boards and advisory panels, I want to say that I'm here today
representing myself and not any of these other panels.
So in my opening comments I have three general points. The
first one is I want to thank you for asking the opinion of the
operators of our space systems or the guys in the trenches so
to speak. I hope I can give you an operational perspective from
the astronaut's point of view.
Secondly, I can't emphasize enough the love that Americans
have for our space program. As a speaker and as an advisor, I
routinely meet people from all around the United States. They
are inspired by human spaceflight and they are very excited
about scientific discoveries. They see the space program as a
bright future, where we can imagine possibilities both human
and technical.
And frankly, the brand of NASA is easy to love. For
example, my story began in 4th grade when I read a magazine
article about the Gemini astronauts. Since then, I've wanted to
fly in space and be part of this great adventure. It led me to
study of mathematics and a career in flying.
Today, I see people of all ages light up when the subject
of space travel is discussed. In my opinion, the history of
American exploration is right up there with baseball, apple
pie, and the Fourth of July. And I might add that the recent
announcement for new astronauts brought a record number of
applicants, 18,300 applicants, which is more than twice as many
as the previous record.
Now, my third point concerns the purpose and stability of
the human spaceflight program. Obviously, the success of any
decades-long program is related to the long-term commitment
from the top. So first, a mission is defined. Next, a strategy
is set. And then, an operational plan is written. Now, that
operational plan includes a test plan, and a test plan includes
a build-up approach. This is one of the fundamentals that we
learn when we go--and that we teach when we go through the test
pilot schools.
As we run a test program, occasionally, technical changes
will need to be made because we learn as we go. Sometimes, we
make mistakes when we do things for the first time. But
necessary technical changes will not affect the originally
defined mission. That must stay stable so that the team members
can stay focused on the mission.
I understand the long-range vision for U.S. human--for the
U.S. human spaceflight program is landing a human on Mars. I
support that mission. And I sincerely hope that that first
person is an American. We can do it, and frankly, we can afford
it. Those who say we can't are just putting their priorities
elsewhere.
When asked about how to best prepare for a successful Mars
mission, as a crewmember, I certainly would like to see the
hardware tested on the moon's surface first. This is part of a
test plan's build-up approach. Policy leaders are asking
astronauts to risk their lives on space journeys, and it is our
experience that testing in similar environments like the moon
will minimize risk.
When the Constellation program was cancelled in 2010, some
people said, ``why go back to the moon? We've already been
there.'' Imagine the year 1806, when Lewis and Clark returned
from their 2-1/2 year journey of exploring the western
continent. They and their team members are declared national
heroes. But then no one else goes back because we had already
been there. Of course, this is almost inconceivable. It would
diminish the entire reason for going in the first place.
I was a member of the NASA Advisory Council when
Constellation was cancelled. I was shocked, as were my
colleagues, first, because it was so unexpected, and second,
because the timing, so close to the end of the space shuttle
program, left NASA with no options.
The legislation that we're discussing here today has ideas
that will certainly address this problem. I'm not wedded to any
specific proposal myself, but the problem does need to be
addressed, especially given the billions of dollars wasted as a
result and the lost time and motivations of engineers and
astronauts.
I believe program cancellation decisions that are made by
bureaucracies, behind closed doors, without input by the
people, are divisive, damaging, cowardly, and many times more
expensive in the long run. As a shuttle commander, I would
never make a huge decision without input from all the experts,
even the ones I do not agree with.
So what will keep us from having surprises like this set us
back years? A continuity of purpose over many years and
political administrations. I know there are ways to do this
through policy, organizational structure, and strong
leadership. And finally, strategic stability will give the
teams efficiency and a focus that we saw in the Apollo program.
Apollo happened by the end of the decade because people knew
exactly what the mission was and when it should happen. They
believed in it. And of course it was properly funded. There was
not much division over what the mission was, and NASA was given
the responsibility to figure out how to do it, and the result
was dedication, passion, and success. And I know we can do this
again. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Collins follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Colonel Collins.
And, Ms. Chaplain.
STATEMENT OF MS. CRISTINA CHAPLAIN, DIRECTOR,
ACQUISITIONS AND SOURCING MANAGEMENT,
GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE (GAO)
Ms. Chaplain. Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Johnson, and
Members of the Committee, thank you for inviting me to discuss
the Space Leadership Preservation Act. You've heard the policy
and strategic perspective, as well as the operational
perspective, and I'm here today to discuss the acquisition
management perspective.
As you know, NASA's acquisition management has been on
GAO's high-risk list for more than two decades because of
persistent cost growth and schedule slippage. In recent years,
however, NASA has made progress in reducing this risk.
Specifically, in 2012, shortly after NASA re-baselined its
largest project, the James Webb telescope, development cost
growth averaged about 46 percent. This year, we plan to report
that it is at 17 percent. And when James Webb is excluded, cost
growth is just 1.3 percent, though that number is affected by
the addition of Space Launch System and Orion to the portfolio.
NASA has made positive changes in the past five years that
have helped contribute to the improved performance of its
projects. These include better cost and schedule estimating,
use of management reserves, and program monitoring. Moreover,
many projects are able to demonstrate that they have closed
gaps in knowledge about technology and design at key junctures
in their development process.
This does not mean NASA's acquisition problems are solved.
Several projects in the portfolio are experiencing significant
problems that are not just the result of inherent technical
risk. Programs still struggle with underestimating complexity
and managing and overseeing contractors. Moreover, the most
complex and costly development efforts, the human spaceflight
projects and James Webb, are entering their most risky phases
of development. Before we can take NASA off our high-risk list,
we need to see how these projects perform in times when they
are most tested.
Further, while initial estimates are more realistic, we are
finding larger projects do not plan to update their estimates
on a regular basis and that estimates are not always well
supported by well-defined schedules. The baselines for human
spaceflight projects also provide little visibility into long-
term planning and costs.
Today, this Committee is discussing the concern that NASA
needs more stability in order to truly thrive. That is what the
Space Leadership Preservation Act is focused on. The concept of
stability is an important one for NASA since projects require
heavy investments both in terms of time and money, and they
require the cooperation and support from a variety of
communities.
We have not assessed the extent to which the act can
insulate NASA from instability, but I do have a couple
observations. First, if NASA were to implement a Board of
Directors, that board must be willing to hold program managers
accountable, as well as leadership, by cancelling or
restructuring programs that do not perform well. I recognize
there is a frustration that shuttle successor programs never
seem to make it very far, and it's clear that these programs
are impacted by politics. On the other hand, when projects
prove to be too ambitious or poorly managed, not cancelling
them or not changing them can be damaging to the rest of NASA's
portfolio.
Second, the act emphasizes the use of longer-term or
multiyear contracts. Multiyear contracts can potentially save
money and improve the industrial base by permitting more
efficient use of the contractor's resources. It's important to
keep in mind, however, that they are generally used for more
production items and low-risk technology. Not too many NASA
projects fit this description. Multiyear contracts can also
reduce Congress's flexibility, as well as the agency's
flexibility in making changes to programs and budgets, so the
decision to use them needs to be carefully considered.
Finally, as you assess these measures, I would like to
emphasize that our examinations of complex acquisitions across
the government continually show that acquisition success hinges
on 1) having robust long-term plans to guide programs; 2)
having a sound business case when starting a program; 3)
providing the right support and oversight throughout the life
of the program.
We look forward to continuing to work with NASA and the
Committee in instituting these improvements.
Thank you. I'm happy to answer any questions you have.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Chaplain follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Smith. Okay. Thank you, Ms. Chaplain, and thank
you all for your testimony today. I appreciate your candor and
directness both.
Dr. Griffin, let me address my first question to you, and
actually this is a question from Chairman Culberson, and that
is, how would you design a process to create a human
spaceflight Decadal Survey?
Mr. Griffin. Such a question reminds me of a rye joke among
engineers about the dangers of doing math in public. With that
in mind, I think I might offer some broad comments----
Chairman Smith. Okay.
Mr. Griffin. --but--and I would be more than willing to
discuss the question offline----
Chairman Smith. Okay.
Mr. Griffin. --with Committee and staff. But the details
are probably not best hammered out here. I would say broadly
that, in order to craft a plan of decadal scope, a process much
like what science does in their various disciplines would be
helpful. One would have to gather together recognized experts
in human spaceflight ranging from operators to, in point of
fact, philosophers. Why are we doing this in the first place?
These were the kinds of questions that were addressed in the
period following the loss of Columbia and that did allow us to
come up with what I thought was a plan, a quality plan of
decadal scope.
Chairman Smith. Okay.
Mr. Griffin. The key to such a plan is having as many
knowledgeable stakeholders as possible contributing to it,
having it done in the open, and then having the opportunity to
discuss it and debate it when it's done rather than having it,
as Colonel Collins suggested, foisted upon us as a surprise.
Chairman Smith. Okay. Thank you, Dr. Griffin. We'll look
forward to a further discussion----
Mr. Griffin. All right.
Chairman Smith. --on the subject with you as well.
Mr. Griffin. I would as well, sir. Thank you.
Chairman Smith. Great. Colonel Collins, does NASA have a
set of clearly defined strategic goals and objectives? And if
not, what should those goals and objectives be?
Ms. Collins. Yes, thank you for the question. I think it
depends on your perspective because some say yes and some say
no, so I think at the top NASA does have a final goal of
landing a crew on Mars approximately 2030, 2033. But how you
get there is where there is maybe disagreement or some
confusion possibly on how we're going to do that because the
mission has changed and NASA has defined the roadmaps and they
are in those National Academy of Sciences' studies that have
been published, one in 2012 and one in 2014.
We go there by using the moon as a testbed or by visiting
an asteroid, and I realize the asteroid mission has changed
several times. It was originally astronauts would visit an
asteroid and work there, and as time went on, the asteroid got
smaller. It was difficult to find the right asteroid. One of
the problems is these asteroids are moving around in space so
they're not always where you think they're supposed to be. You
have to project where it's going to be in the future, and then
if your mission delays, that's going to change some of the
planning and possibly may even change the destination to a
different asteroid. And of course all these asteroids are
different and they have different makeups, different sizes.
So NASA then decided to capture an asteroid and bring it to
the lunar space, do that robotically, and then have astronauts
visit. So that mission has changed because, as we go along, we
find that there's technical difficulties.
So I see that that's where the disagreement is in the
scientific and operational community as to how we should do
that mission. Most people agree that we need to go to Mars. The
problem is how do we get there?
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Colonel Collins.
And, Ms. Chaplain, what are your recommendations for how
NASA should address their deficiency in their proposal to go to
Mars?
Ms. Chaplain. I think the long-term planning is very
critical here, and they do definitely need a strategic plan
that, again, lays out how they're going to get there, also what
technologies you need to get there. There's many more systems
and subsystems that are going to need to be developed for the
eventual trip to Mars, and to also have cost estimates at least
in ranges for the different kinds of choices that you can make.
At this point, we only have cost estimates going up through the
second fight for Orion and nothing after that. And for SLS we
only have cost estimates going up through the first flight, so
there's a lot of important questions ahead about how much is
everything going to cost and what else do you need to get in
order to get there.
Chairman Smith. Okay. Thank you, Ms. Chaplain.
The Ranking Member, the gentlewoman from Texas, Ms.
Johnson, is recognized for her questions.
Ms. Johnson. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Chaplain, based on GAO's work on NASA, what are the top
two issues that need to be addressed to ensure stability in
NASA's programs over the long term and what should Congress do
to address those? And would any of the other witnesses care to
comment after you?
Ms. Chaplain. So that's a good question. I think it speaks
to the levels of discussion that we're having. One is a good
strategic long-term plan that helps provide stability, and the
plan itself, if it has agreement from a lot of different
communities, you have a better chance of maintaining support
over the decades that need to happen.
But at the more tactical level, acquisition programs have
to be well-managed, too, and Congress has done a lot for NASA
in that regard by helping them get more transparency into costs
and progress, instituting good metrics and project management
tools. There's always more that can be done, especially in
terms of holding programs accountable when they don't meet
their goals and they don't have good plans for going forward.
But I see the solution as being on both those levels.
Ms. Johnson. Any other witnesses care to----
Mr. Griffin. No, I don't need to comment further at this
time. Thank you, ma'am.
Ms. Johnson. Okay. Okay.
Ms. Collins. The question was on the top two things that
NASA could do? I think that--although I'm not a policy or
budget expert, I think that there may be something in a
multiyear funding that seems to make sense.
And the other comment I have is on the Board of Directors
that we had heard mentioned earlier today. I think the key
thing about having a Board of Directors in adding stability is
getting the right people on that board that are entirely
independent. And I serve on several boards, and I think the key
to having a board that works very well and very healthy is
getting people that love the mission, have a passion for the
mission, and are good listeners and can listen to all sides of
the issue before they come in with their recommendation and
their good governance. So I think that where there could be
problems with that I think is something that's worthy of
looking at.
Ms. Johnson. Thank you. This Committee and Congress will be
considering and deliberating on the budget--the President's
fiscal year budget 2017 in the coming weeks. What in your view
are the top three challenges for NASA over the next two years?
Mr. Griffin. Ms. Johnson, I don't know that I would have a
top three. I think the topic of this hearing today is a
critical one. What should NASA be doing? What as a nation do we
want to do with our civil space program? I personally have been
very clear that I think the proper next step is a human lunar
return. That will occupy us in the near term and allow us to
cement the international partnerships that helped us to build
the space station.
Beyond that, we should be doing everything that we do in
returning to the moon in such a way that it has maximum
applicability toward going to Mars. As Colonel Collins has
said, this is something the United States can do, and I believe
it's something that we should do.
And so if I get my top three, the third thing I would say
is once these goals are locked in place by the legislature, I
think we need a cultural change. Our program is not something
which the Nation can afford to have be a playground for newly
elected Presidents and unelected staff. The legislature is the
proper repository of the long-term stability in these plans and
programs that we need, and it needs to be enforced. Thank you,
ma'am.
Ms. Johnson. Thank you.
Ms. Collins. I had a minute to think about the question.
You asked about the top three important things for NASA. I
would say first is most people know American astronauts right
now have to go to Russia and train in Russia to get to our
space station. So of course a very top issue is getting launch
from our country's soil, our astronauts to our space station,
which I understand is funded through 2024.
The second I believe is heavy launch, obviously for our
long-term space goals, and the third is getting the best
people. We need to get the smartest people into NASA by going
out and recruiting, and the best way to do that is having a
mission that they believe in.
Mr. Griffin. I'd like to echo my support for Eileen's
comment that we need to restore American access to space as
soon as possible. That might have been something I was assuming
was a given, and I think I should state it explicitly. Thank
you.
Ms. Johnson. My time is expired, but I'd like you to
comment if you could.
Ms. Chaplain. So I'll be quick in light of that. To add to
the conversation just to note that some of the largest programs
will be entering their most difficult phases of development
where we tend to see more cost growth and more problems. So
getting through those couple of years and ensuring issues that
happen on these huge programs don't affect and overwhelm the
smaller programs that are equally important.
Ms. Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Ms. Johnson.
The gentleman from Florida, Mr. Posey, is recognized.
Mr. Posey. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for
scheduling the Space Leadership Preservation Act hearing. I
thank all the panelists for appearing and for their wisdom and
foresight that you've shared with us so far.
You know, I've heard a lot of criticism from different
directions about this proposed legislation, but I've not heard
one single person propose an actual solution to the problem
that we have of lack of programming and foresight and how we're
going to get on track and stay on track and keep America's
space program first.
Mr. Chairman, I think you brushed over the beginning a
litany of events that kind of throws us into instability even
more. I mean, we have a candidate that runs for office that
says if he's elected President, he's going to abolish NASA and
put the money into education. Then, when he appears on the
space coast, he says I'm going to close the gap between the
shuttle in Constellation and keep America first in space. Then,
he gets elected and he asks for the NASA Administrator's
resignation, and he doesn't fill the position. So when they're
doing their planning and strategic planning for the
Administration's future, the NASA Administrator seat is empty.
That's kind of a shame.
So then we get a great NASA Administrator appointed, and
then we have an Augustine Commission appointed--I may have
these two out of order a little bit--to tell him what to do.
And the Augustine Commission says, of course, the shuttle is
terribly dangerous and needs to be scuttled.
We all know better than that. We know they were designed
for over 100 missions and they were only in the 35th mission,
mile per mile the safest space travel of any kind in the
history of mankind. And we know the catastrophes, the tragedies
were human error. It wasn't any failure of NASA.
And so then we go in a different direction and we have SLS
and Orion now, which I think are great plans, great goals, but
we have an Administration that frankly underfunds them. They
suggest them, promote them, and then underfund them. So then
NASA ends up being criticized that they can't keep up schedules
that they'd foreseen before, and we know that when you delay
projects and instability is going to cost increases, too.
So, you know, you have to wonder if you are NASA or you're
a NASA employee or a potential NASA employee or even just a
bright STEM student or, like the 18,000 who applied to be
astronauts, what is our future going to be? What is our future
going to be? And I love Neil deGrasse Tyson when he says, you
know, our investment in space is fundamentally basically the
only thing our Congress does strictly for future generations,
to benefit future generations.
And so I think Congressman Culberson's bill is much too
important to ignore not only for those reasons but for reasons
of national security, our technological advancement, and
eventually, the survival of our species.
Now either Dr. Griffin and Colonel Collins, China is
rapidly developing the capability to access and use all regions
of cislunar space. If the United States cedes that and moon
base sole use to China, what do you foresee as the strategic
and long-term impacts on the national interest of our country?
Mr. Griffin. Well, you mentioned me first, so I'll go
first, Mr. Posey. Thank you. I have a couple comments on that.
First of all, I think you can infer all that needs to be
inferred about how the Chinese will behave in space by watching
today how they are behaving in the Western Pacific and the
concern that that causes not only the United States but all
nations in that region. There is no reason to suppose that they
would behave any differently in space, and I think that should
give us concern.
More broadly, since World War II, the United States has
been a superpower and one certainly would say, I think, the
superpower in the world. The world is a better place when that
situation is so. I believe Western values and customs and
respect for individual rights and the rule of law matter. If we
want those cultural values to prevail upon in the new frontier
that is space, then we will have to be there. The decisions are
made by the people who show up, not by the people who watch on
TV.
For those reasons, which I believe are existential for our
culture, we need to be in space first among equals irrespective
of what China or any other nation seeks to do. Thank you.
Mr. Posey. Thank you. Colonel?
Ms. Collins. When the Apollo 11 crew landed on the moon,
1969, they put a plaque that said, ``We came in peace for all
mankind.'' I'm not sure China would put a plaque like that on
the moon.
I am concerned about China. I'm not an expert on China, so
I'll get that in the record. But I'm not sure what their
intentions are. And as Dr. Griffin said, we can only guess
based on what they're doing now, what their performance is. We
don't really cooperate with China in space although we
cooperate with all other nations, and I believe in
international cooperation. Whether or not we cooperate with the
Chinese is a big question mark. It's just a little bit scary,
and sometimes, part of me says competition is good in many
ways, and if we ever end up in a race back to the moon against
China, that might give us a little kick in the pants----
Mr. Posey. Okay.
Ms. Collins. --to get out there and do it, whether it's the
moon or Mars or whatever we're doing in space.
Mr. Posey. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you for your indulgence, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Posey.
The gentleman from Colorado, Mr. Perlmutter, is up next.
Mr. Perlmutter. I'm way down here. Thank you very much to
the panelists. Thank you to Chairman Culberson for bringing his
bill before us.
And there are a lot of principles that I think we all
share. Sometimes, you lose sight of those when you take shots
at each other's party or each other's President. I remind my
friends on the Republican side of the aisle, did the math, and
I did this in public, 2016 minus 1972, it's been 44 years since
we've been on the Moon and 24 of those years we've had
Republican Presidents and 20 of those years we've had
Democrats. So we need to get back into space.
And whether--so for me--and my colleagues know that I like
this time frame to get us to Mars, when the planets lineup,
it's time to get there. We set an outside date, 2033. That's a
responsibility of us on the political side whether it's the
Administration or Congresses, which change every 2 years.
So I'm going to give my friend, who's the Chairman of CJS,
the benefit of the doubt because he's been through this. And if
there's some way that we can put together a structure that
takes out the vagaries of each Congressional election and each
presidential election and gets us to Mars by 2033 and you folks
with the engineering degrees and the physics degrees and the
accounting degrees figure out how to put the building blocks in
place, then I'm there. That's your job. My job is to find you
the money.
And we've had testimony that over the course of--to get to
Mars is $200 billion plus. That's a lot of money. But we found
$800 million for the banks over a weekend. We found $250
billion a year to be in Afghanistan and Iraq. We can do this.
So, I'd like to have some kind of structure at NASA that
allows for long-term thinking. So I'll start with you, Ms.
Collins. You said you didn't have a real position on the
Chairman's bill, but what would you do that--what would you say
to me? How can we put long-term planning into place when we
have two-year cycles for Congress and four-year cycles for the
President?
Ms. Collins. Well, thank you for the question. I think--
well, first of all, let me say our system of government is the
greatest in the world, and I think that discussions that we
have are wonderful. We get things out on the table. We have
disagreements. I think the end goal--everybody's goal is the
same. We want to have a strong human spaceflight program with a
mission, we want to succeed, we want to get there at the best
cost, and we want to do it safely. We don't want to hurt
anybody in the process.
My first answer I would say is don't give up. So this
applies on all levels. I mean, we did give up on Constellation.
I think that the reason given was the cost, and yes, the cost
was high. I mean, we all admit that. But instead of just giving
up on the whole program--and I'm talking about not the past;
I'm talking about the future here if this happens again. Let's
just take a good hard look at can we--where can we cut the fat?
Do we have the right people in there working the program? Maybe
there's changes that need to be made, but we don't really need
to give up on the end mission once that's been defined. We
might need to change course a little, but keep--don't give up.
Keep the mission in sight.
Mr. Perlmutter. In mind. So for me--and I really agree with
a lot of the things that Mr. Posey said and some of the others,
you know, that there is--there are two pieces to this. One is
our basic desire to learn, science and exploration, to get to
Mars, to be in space. The second is a national security
question. And so between the two of them we ought to be able to
get out there and get going for a long time, for however it
might be.
So, Dr. Griffin, you've had your taste of political science
and obviously you're a scientist as well. So as Administrator,
you've been--you've run into both buzz saws. So how would you--
you know, just saying, hey, you guys got to have a longer-term
approach to this, what would be your view? How do we do it?
Mr. Griffin. Thank you, Mr. Perlmutter. I cannot resist
going for the simplest possible explanation or recommendation.
I've been very clear in today's testimony and on earlier
occasions that I very much admired the authorization bills of
2005 and 2008, which this Congress passed and frankly were
originated in this Committee. The 2010 bill was also a good
bill.
When proposals are made by the executive branch that
conflict with the existing law, why does Congress go along? I
have to say, had Congress merely made it extraordinarily clear
to the incoming Administration that while that Administration
had many problems before it, space was not one of those
problem, that the Congress had decided upon the space plan, the
space policy of the United States, and that policy would be
kept. Had that been communicated, we would not be sitting here
having this hearing today.
I said earlier in my testimony that I've regarded the
Congress as the long-term body of stability if you will in the
political system to capture the desire that Americans generally
have for a particular course of action, to capture that in
legislation, and to preserve it. If we treated our Navy the way
that we treat NASA in terms of stability, we would not be able
to project power upon the oceans the way that we do.
It takes as long to build an aircraft carrier as it took to
go to the moon even when people are really working hard at it.
If we decided with every incoming Administration whether we
were going to preserve aircraft carriers, the United States
would have none.
So I'll simplify my comments. The first recommendation I
would have would be let us again, as we did after the loss of
Columbia, decide as a nation what we want to see accomplished
in space. Let us, as we did after Columbia, codify that into
law. And then let us obey the law.
Mr. Perlmutter. Okay. Thank you.
Mr. Griffin. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Perlmutter. And I thank the Chairman for letting me go
over. And I want in the law that we're going to be on Mars by
2033.
Mr. Griffin. I'm not fighting that.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Perlmutter. We're with you
on 2033.
And the gentleman from Oklahoma, Mr. Bridenstine, is
recognized for his comments.
Mr. Bridenstine. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And I would like to say to my friend Mr. Perlmutter--
actually to the Chairman if it's all right--I think we should
have our own sticker that says 2032. We don't want to settle
for 2033. Republicans ought to go for 2032.
In 1982, President Reagan reorganized our Navy's Nuclear
Propulsion Program, citing the need to preserve structures and
policies. While ensuring the program continues to function
smoothly and efficiently, he ordered that the director of this
program of great national import be appointed for an eight-year
term. This change ensured that the leadership and direction of
our nuclear Navy remained constant over at least, at least two
presidential cycles if not multiple Administrations.
Likewise, NASA is an agency carrying out programs of
national importance, which by their very nature take years, as
Dr. Griffin just talked about, if not decades, to formulate,
develop, and carry out. It makes complete sense to me to remove
the Administrator of NASA from the political cycles in order to
allow for continuity and stability.
I am proud to be a cosponsor of Chairman Culberson's bill,
which proposes a ten-year term for the NASA Administrator. The
Space Foundation's pioneering doctrine recommends a term of
five years. I am working on legislation that includes a
provision that establishes a five-year term as well. Regardless
of the number, however, it seems that there is growing
consensus among stakeholders and advocates to set the length of
the Administrator's term beyond the standard political cycles.
Ms. Chaplain, while you focus mostly on space programs,
have you gotten a sense from your time at GAO of the
differences in how NASA acquisitions differ from those of
government agencies that are run by nonpolitical or
nontraditional heads? Have you seen a difference in how those
acquisition strategies go?
Ms. Chaplain. Most of the agencies with large acquisitions
and complex ones like NASA do have political appointees. We
don't get too much insight into the intel world, and that might
be something to look at, but they're still political there,
too. So I don't have a model there to look at.
There--other situations--agencies that have longer-term ten
years for Administrators, GAO is actually one of them. We have
a 15-year appointment for our Comptroller General, and the
purpose is to keep the politics out of our work.
Mr. Bridenstine. Sure.
Ms. Chaplain. So there are other good models out there.
Mr. Bridenstine. Butfrom your assessment, and maybe you
don't make assessments since you're with GAO, but those kind of
models, are they better at----
Ms. Chaplain. We don't have one that looks at that from an
acquisition perspective.
Mr. Bridenstine. Okay.
Ms. Chaplain. There's also other space agencies
internationally that have boards and different structures that
could be looked at, but we haven't done that ourselves.
Mr. Bridenstine. Okay. And, Mr. Griffin, when you think
about some of the stumbles, obviously your testimony today at
the beginning, talking about, you know, 2010 and beyond with
NASA and some of the stumbles that we've encountered, if your
term had been extended and you would have been the
Administrator, can you share with us how things might have been
different?
Mr. Griffin. Well, sir, I don't know that they would have
been because Administrators and appointees take orders from the
chief executive.
Mr. Bridenstine. I see.
Mr. Griffin. If the chief executive really wanted to change
the space program, then I would have had the choice of either
following orders or resigning. Had I been given the orders that
my successor was given, I would have resigned because I
thought, as I said now multiple times, I thought that the
direction of Congress in 2005 and '08 was extraordinarily good.
I believed we were on the right path and should maintain it.
Therefore, if ordered to deviate from that path, I would not
have remained.
I think, again, the issue--I have no objection to
considering a five-year term, a six-year term, an eight-year
term, whatever length of term for the Administrator, nor do I
have any objection with the way it's done today. I think these
kinds of discussions are a symptom of the problem we face,
which is a lack of understanding at the top levels of
government of the importance of our space program and the need
to have both a quality program and stability of that program.
I'll use another analogy. If we treated the Air Force as we
do the space program, we wouldn't have any flying aircraft. We
would--we cannot decide every few years what we want the
purpose of the space program to be. We have to have a societal-
level agreement as to that purpose and then let our appointed
officials carry it out. And it almost doesn't make any
difference to me how they are appointed or what their term is.
Thank you.
Mr. Bridenstine. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Bridenstine.
And the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Babin, is recognized for
his questions.
Mr. Babin. Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Great testimony, thank you. Thank you all.
Dr. Griffin, you testified that the most logical step
beyond the ISS is an international partnership led by the
United States to return to the moon, this time to stay. How
does returning to the moon and maintaining a permanent presence
there help us eventually send American astronauts to the
surface of Mars?
Mr. Griffin. Well, thank you, Dr. Babin. I love that
question. I believe that if God had wanted us to go to Mars, he
would have given us a moon to practice on.
Colonel Collins made the remark earlier--I'm not trying to
quote her, but to the general effect that learning how to live
on--in space and on another planetary surface would transfer
directly to learning how to go to Mars, and I believe that to
be the case.
As in--I'll summarize by saying, as an engineer, if you
wanted me to say when we're ready to go to Mars, if you will,
like the head of naval submarines certifying a submarine for
sea trials, then I'll say you're ready to go to Mars when you
can put a crew on the International Space Station for six
months, and they have to live there without any further help
from the ground. Then, they get ferried to the moon and they
live on the surface of the moon in 1/6 gravity for 13 months.
And then you bring them back and you let them live on the space
station again for six more months in zero G. and during all
this time they get no additional help beyond that which was
preprinted on the surface of the moon or on the station. So
that ends up being a total of about a 26-month cycle for that
crew.
When we can do that and the crew is still alive and
healthy, then we're ready to go to Mars and not before.
Mr. Babin. Excellent. Thank you very much.
And, Colonel Collins, you testified that program
cancellation decisions made by bureaucracies behind closed
doors and without input by the people are divisive, damaging,
cowardly, and many times more expensive in the long run. I
cannot agree more.
What do you recommend that we do as a nation to prevent
these types of cancellation decisions and ensure consistency of
purpose over many years and over many political
administrations?
Ms. Collins. We as a country need to discuss these very,
very important missions out in the open. They have got to be
discussed--I don't believe this was discussed--in fact, I'm
sure it wasn't because I was very shocked and very surprised
when I learned that the budget was rolled out that first week
in February of 2010 and there was a big fat zero in the
Constellation program. I asked one of the top managers at
NASA--in fact, I was up here on the NASA Advisory Council--did
you know this was coming? And he said well, we thought we might
have lost Ares I. We had no idea that we were going to lose the
whole thing. I was just amazed that--does our government work
this way? This can't possibly be true.
Mr. Babin. It shouldn't.
Ms. Collins. So to answer your question, what do we--we
have got to ensure the discussion takes place in the open and
that--and this is the way good businesses need to be run.
You've got to talk to the people that work all throughout the
organization, people outside of the organization from academia,
from industry. It is most certain that everyone will disagree
on how we do it, but that's healthy. And then we make a
decision by--I mean, you can vote or we can be autocratic about
it, but it cannot be a surprise, so however you do that.
And I'd like to add one other thing to your previous
question about going to Mars. It is very, very, very important
that the life-support systems work, and the space station, this
it--I know I'm saying the obvious here, but what we're doing on
the space station is essential. But the moon and Mars are
different places. You've got dust, you do have some gravity,
it's just a different place. You have got to test your closed-
loop life-support systems, whether it's in habitat, a
spacecraft or in a spacesuit. A spacesuit is a--like a mini
spacecraft.
Mr. Babin. Right.
Ms. Collins. So I just wanted to add that to the previous
question. Thank you.
Mr. Babin. Okay. Thank you so very much, witnesses.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Babin.
And the gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Brooks, is recognized
for questions.
Mr. Brooks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And witnesses, again,
I apologize for being a little bit tardy, but I had a 9:30
House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing with Secretary of State
John Kerry over the State Department budget, followed by Armed
Services at 10:00 a.m. with General Breedlove on U.S.-European
commands, so I hope you'll bear with me. I got here as quick as
I could.
I do have a question for each of you. And, Dr. Griffin, if
you could please lead off. Why do you believe--excuse me. What
do you believe the proper role of commercial space could be in
the context of a stable, long-term NASA strategic plan?
Mr. Griffin. Well, as I pointed out in my testimony, the
first commercial cargos for carriage to the International Space
Station were signed under my tenure, so I'm a strong supporter
of the utilization of commercial space purveyors in our
strategic plans.
That said, I think we've maybe a bit drifted off the path.
When I use the term commercial to describe an enterprise, I'm
talking about an enterprise such as I've run in the past where
you have to raise your own money, develop your own product,
bring it to the market, and then you sell it for every dime
that you can get. I'm not talking about enterprises where the
government has to invest the lion's share of the money in order
to earn the right to buy a ticket.
And if the public record is examined, I think that you'll
see that in recent years in our so-called commercial space
portfolio, that's what happened. The lion's share of the money
has come from government. In fact, I'm not sure there's a share
that the lion didn't have.
So these types of arrangements I would call private-public
partnerships, and I'm not always certain that we're getting the
best deal on the public side of those partnerships, and I think
we need to look carefully at it.
The second thing that I would observe is if we have--if we
were to be so fortunate as to have again a national strategic
plan for what we want to do in space, it certainly should
include as much contribution as commercial space providers can
offer. But they need to offer what it is that the government
wants to buy. It's not our purpose in government to figure out
what our space program should look like so that commercial
providers can sell what they want to sell. And again, I would
say that the experience of recent years offers some guidelines
in that regard. So I'll just leave it at that. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Brooks. Colonel Collins or Ms. Chaplain, do you have
anything to add?
Ms. Chaplain. I'll just add that, you know, the government
is usually the one to push technology and discovery, and in all
those areas that's where the government's role should be. When
you have lower-risk technology or something that's already
proven that's needed, that is a good place to use pathfinder
types of commercial efforts where they can prove themselves and
even take over some kinds of operations.
If you look more broadly beyond NASA, commercial space is
starting to play a bigger role in doing things like hosted
payloads for government, providing bandwidth for DOD, and even
running ground operations. There's all good areas for them to
be playing in.
Mr. Brooks. Yes, ma'am.
Colonel Collins?
Ms. Collins. Sir, I'd like to just mention the space
station as far as commercial space. I know this may sound like
it's a crazy idea, but--okay. The space station, we know, is
funded to 2024, and the United States has to decide are we
going to find that out to maybe 2028 or do we stop funding in
2024 and put it into heavy lift or deep space? Having been in
space, I believe that there will be a commercial interest in
the space station. I can't really say timing-wise 2024, but
there are plenty of tourists and people that have money that
would love to go up in space and live on the space station. It
is such an amazing, wonderful human experience. People would
pay big money to do that, and if we could find a private
company that'd be willing to take over the space station and
sell it like a hotel, sell space up there like a hotel, we may
be able to kind of wean ourselves off the space station and get
NASA back into deep space, just a thought.
Mr. Brooks. Well, what are we paying the Russians now?
Somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 or $70 million per ride?
Ms. Collins. Somewhere----
Mr. Brooks. Do you think there's a market for the space
station at that ticket price? Well, the Russians have sold one
or two, haven't they?
Mr. Griffin. If I could make a comment, I don't think we'll
find out if there's a market until we try.
Mr. Brooks. Okay.
Mr. Griffin. I would echo Colonel Collins' comments about
value--the longer-term value of the space station. I have to
add, I think it's really shocking to be considering that after
the multi-decade and multi-tens of billions of dollar
investment in the space station that now we're talking about
what date we're going to reenter it into the Indian Ocean. I
cannot think of another example of a large laboratory
investment or a large facility investment that the day it's
completed we start figuring out when we're going to tear it
down.
If the government cannot find suitable uses for a
laboratory in space, then I would echo Colonel Collins'
comment. Maybe we should consider turning it over to a private
entity and seeing what they could sell space on the space
station for.
Mr. Brooks. Thank you for that interesting insight.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Brooks.
In the interest of balance and because he is such a
diligent Member of this Committee, without objection, the
gentleman from Colorado, Mr. Perlmutter, will be recognized for
an additional 2 minutes.
Mr. Perlmutter. Thanks, Mr. Chair.
And my friends on the Financial Services Committee wonder
where I've gone. I just said I've gone to the Science
Committee, so that's what's happening here.
Ms. Chaplain, I'd like to ask you, because Dr. Griffin has
used the comparisons of the Air Force and the Navy and, you
know, building this and building that. From a GAO standpoint, I
mean, how can we have a multiyear--how does a multiyear kind of
acquisition process work when no Congress combined the next
Congress? How do you do that?
Ms. Chaplain. So typically, you do commit over time to any
program. Even NASA does that. The contracts work year-by-year.
The multiyear authority allows you just to go beyond that first
span of time, five years, and to commit to buying a lot more
items upfront. That does tie the hands of Congress, but it
doesn't tie funding so much because that's still done on the
year-to-year basis. So you're just making a longer-term
commitment.
The issue in taking this authority and applying it to NASA
is it works better in a production environment. Even DOD,
before it can employ a multiyear contract, has to demonstrate
that there's stable design, stable requirements, that there's
going to be substantial savings achieved from buying in bulk.
Instead of six airplanes, for example, you're committing to 30.
So we have some questions in our head about how this could
work in the NASA arena. Most NASA projects are just one-off
satellites, for example, and the cost-plus arrangements that
they use for that because they involve a lot of discovery, are
appropriate.
Mr. Perlmutter. Well, see, I guess one of the things we've
been talking about is a Mars mission, all right? And I--there's
a lot of support for something like that, and we pick a date
and, you know, we've had the scientists who say 2033 is when
the planets line up in a way that makes it easier for us to get
our astronauts there. So that's why I'm taking that date.
If we give--if we the Congress say to ourselves and to the
President, you know, we want a date, and then we let NASA and
its experts kind of say, okay, this is how we're going to do
it, these are the building blocks that includes going back to
the Moon and that this--I mean, they're the experts on this
side. Is there--have you seen anything in your experience that
gives us--we could do a multiyear acquisition or approach where
we could dedicate money for the next 17 years?
Ms. Chaplain. Usually, for long-term projects within DOD,
money is dedicated up front. But again, if you're developing
and researching a Joint Strike Fighter, all those contracts up
until the point that you're ready to produce are sort of in
that cost-plus range and they go year-to-year because you have
a lot of unknowns and you kind of have to revisit things on a
year-to-year basis. Once you enter the production phase, you're
in a better situation to do fixed-price contracting that can
actually go through many years.
So I don't know if what we have now would work ideally, the
authorities now would work well for the Mars situation. If you
committed everything up front, it would be an incredible amount
of money that you would have to put aside to guarantee that
it's all there for the 20-year effort.
Mr. Perlmutter. No, and I thank you for that. I mean, it's
a big amount, there's no question, but we, you know, at least
during my tenure here in the Congress since 2006, we've spent a
lot in the Middle East. We've spent a lot to keep Wall Street
from collapsing, you know, and it's been sort of bipartisan in
nature in terms of those appropriations. So the country is a
wealthy country; it's how we prioritize things. We can do this.
There's--from a money standpoint if we're prepared to make this
a priority.
And that's why I'm prepared to listen, you know, to an
approach like Chairman Culberson has of a way that might give
both sides of the aisle some comforts going long term because
we--this has to be long term. We have to think long term. We
can't think just next year.
Ms. Chaplain. And I would just add the bill talks about
multiyear contracting. There are also options for multiyear
funding and appropriations that work sometimes on the DOD side
that wasn't mentioned in the bill, but there are some other
mechanisms that could be explored on the appropriations side.
Mr. Perlmutter. Okay. Thank you. And I thank the Chair for
giving me this extra time.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Perlmutter.
The gentleman from California, Mr. Rohrabacher, is
recognized.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you very much. And I also apologize
for being tardy today. I was at that meeting with Secretary
Kerry, and I happen to believe that our space effort is
actually as important as American foreign policy to our future,
so I tried to run between these two.
I've been here 28 years, and of course Dr. Griffin and I
worked together over these years, and I certainly--let me just
be on the record that I certainly agree with your concept of
making sure we go to the moon before we go on to Mars and learn
a lot as we're doing that, getting back to the moon.
What I have seen, Mr. Chairman, is our biggest problem in
having space--a rationale space program is with us. I mean, we
just seem to try to--we prioritize projects and we spend money
for projects that we can't do. And thus we--and then we end up
defunding what we can do. And that's--it's irrational, and I
understand, with all due respect to my friend and colleague who
is so adamant about going to Mars, I have several of my friends
who are that way, we're not ready to go to Mars right now. We
don't even know--the technology's not there. But there is the
technology and availability of doing things that we can
actually accomplish right now. And if we want the respect of
the American people, we're going to do it by making sure we get
things done.
And having a long-term commitment that drains money away
from the projects that we can do in order to accomplish
something that we can't do now and maybe won't be able to do
within our lifetime, that is not being responsible, and
frankly, I think that's where the problem comes from. We
continually try to finance projects that we are incapable of
accomplishing at that moment. And of course you're going to
have a high failure rate if you do that.
So I would hope that as we--and I--as I say, I agree with
Dr. Griffin on his approach that we need to step by step--
several of the things we could do, by the way, which we could
do which may be totally unfunded if we just spend all our money
on going to Mars is we have a space debris challenge. We're not
going to be able to do anything in space unless we have some
sort of space debris program. It'll have to be an international
effort. But in the years ahead, that's going to overwhelm us.
It's already beginning to overwhelm us.
We don't have a global defense system set up so that if an
asteroid--and I'll ask this of the panel. If that meteorite
that skimmed the surface over in Russia a couple of years ago,
instead of going--being in uninhabited areas would have hit a
major city anywhere in the world and killed hundreds of
thousands of people, do you think that that would have then
changed the entire course and direction of our own space
budget? Wouldn't that have been a factor that would have
overwhelmed--and then all of these other programs that we've
financed like long-term missions to Mars would just go by the
wayside? So we need to take care of that issue, don't we? Don't
we need to take care of space debris? Don't we need to take
care of those things that we can get done and in the private
sector we could leave things up like--by the way, refueling
stations, et cetera?
There is one other lab, by the way, in terms of the space
station. I remember, wasn't the space lab also a huge
investment that we just allowed to come down as well?
Mr. Griffin. That was Skylab, sir----
Mr. Rohrabacher. Skylab, excuse me.
Mr. Griffin. --and yes, we did. We have an unfortunate
record of not preserving our capital assets in space.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Right.
Mr. Griffin. It reentered in 1979.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Well, I would think that the problem of
not being able to accomplish our missions is--can be found
right here in the fact that our judgment has been to try to do
things we can't do while defunding those things we can do.
Thank you very much.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Rohrabacher.
The gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Beyer, is recognized for
his questions.
Mr. Beyer. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you all
very much for being here.
Dr. Griffin, in his prepared statement this morning
Representative Culberson stated ``that over the years, a lack
of clear mission has worn down morale at many centers.'' And he
talked, interestingly, about people saying, well, is our
mission to go to asteroids or is it to go to the moon again or
is it to go to Mars?
But I also find the assessment somewhat puzzling when you
consider the findings from the annual survey by the nonpartisan
Partnership for Public Service that consistently ranks NASA as
the best place to work among federal agencies. And while the
median overall index score for large agencies has shown a
slight downward trend 2011 through 2015, NASA's score actually
went up during the same period.
And according to the partnership, the biggest factor
affecting employee satisfaction and commitment overall in the
best places to work rank is related to effective leadership.
How do you reconcile NASA being a great place to work with
Representative Culberson's concern about a lack of morale?
Mr. Griffin. I'm sorry. Was that for me or for Colonel
Collins?
Mr. Beyer. Oh, either one, yes. Colonel, Doctor, Colonel
Collins?
Ms. Collins. Well, I think that's a very good question
because it depends on who you talk to. I can tell you, though,
that when I was at NASA, morale was very high. We had space
shuttle program, we were building a space station and
supporting the space station with the knowledge that the long-
term goal is going to Mars. I know that's very far out in the
future. I sure hope I'm alive when people walk on the surface
of Mars, but I'm pretty sure my kids are going to be here when
we walk on Mars, and I think we're going to get there.
But to answer your question, you know, I think that would--
that's not entirely clear to me. I know that when I did surveys
like that, I gave NASA the highest ratings possible because I
felt that the leadership within the astronaut office and flight
crew operations and even at Johnson Space Center was
outstanding. And I think that was the perception of my
coworkers also.
Every organization has its cultural issues. I would have to
say of all the places I've worked, NASA is the tops, no doubt.
Mr. Beyer. Let me follow up. Representative----
Ms. Collins. But----
Mr. Beyer. Oh, excuse me. Go ahead.
Ms. Collins. Okay. When the Constellation program was
cancelled, what happened shortly after that was people thought,
did I just lose my job? What am I going to do tomorrow? Do I go
to work tomorrow? I think there was a very unstable period
there, and I'm not even sure that the bosses knew what to tell
their people. Just keep coming to work, just keep doing what
you're doing, but when am I going to lose my job?
So I think that's a--that's really a tough question to
answer. I can see both sides of the issue.
Mr. Beyer. Let me ask a follow-up. Representative Culberson
also in his testimony talked about--I think it was 27
projects--major projects have been cancelled, $20 billion that
basically had to be written off, invested but then lost. If you
had a ten-year Administrator who emerges from this new board,
is it less likely that these projects would have had to be
cancelled?
Ms. Collins. That remains to be seen. I do want to make a
comment on the proposal for the ten-year Administrator. I think
that the concept is good. I think it might be too long. In
reality, if--when you start searching for someone who is
willing to commit to ten years of a very, very difficult job,
which is your--it may be hard to find somebody of all the
qualified people out there that want to initially commit for
ten years. And then how do you know that they'd be willing to
stay that long? It's just a long period of time. If you went
more with 5 or 6, I think your pool of qualified potentials out
there would be bigger and you'd have more people willing to
take on the very difficult job of NASA Administration.
Mr. Beyer. Okay. Thank you.
Ms. Collins. But I think it remains to be seen. On the
surface, I would say yes.
Mr. Beyer. Okay.
Ms. Collins. Just based on what I have seen with over
government agencies.
Mr. Beyer. Let me--one last question of Dr. Griffin. So the
bill proposes a budget proposed by the management board in
addition to the one proposed by NASA and OMB and what we're
working at here on the Hill. Do you have any concerns about a
the Board proposing a detailed budget when they have neither
the management responsibilities, nor the accountability for
delivery and results?
Mr. Griffin. Well, I do. I do have concerns about that. I
had to--one of the key things for which I was responsible for
when I was Administrator was preparing with all of my staff a
detailed budget, and it was something that we paid close
attention to because, of course, it had to go from us to the
OMB, where we would have to defend it to the OMB, and then it
would come from the President's budget submission to Congress
and we would have to defend it to the Congress. And I didn't
want anything in it that I didn't support and didn't agree
with.
It would be, I think, very difficult as a practical matter
to support that exercise and then to have a similar but in some
ways different budget coming from an independent board. I would
wonder where they would get their information. If their
information came from NASA, as it almost must, then really how
would it be different than the budget the Administrator
prepares other than they have different priorities. But I can
ask any group of people what your priorities are, and they're
as, you know, likely to be different. So I would have concerns
about that approach.
Mr. Beyer. Thank you. Thank you, Doctor.
Mr. Griffin. But equally, sir, I must conclude by stating
that anything which can be done to ameliorate and control the
influence of the OMB on the process would be welcome. I mean,
the OMB is a haven for largely unelected, un-appointed, not-
very-well-qualified staff who seek to exercise a level of power
and control in their area that their accomplishments have not
earned.
Mr. Beyer. You're not doing anything to help OMB morale
right now, Dr. Griffin, so----
Mr. Griffin. You know, that's really too bad. So anything
which can be done by the Congress to ensure stable budgeting of
appropriate projects, I think, would be a good thing. I'm not
sure that the Board-of-Directors approach is that method. Thank
you.
Mr. Beyer. Thanks for your perspective.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Babin. [Presiding] Yes, sir.
I now recognize the gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Palmer.
Mr. Palmer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Griffin, we hear over and over again about a need for
constancy of purpose at NASA and the detrimental impacts of
shifting priorities, organizational conflicts, mixed signals
from Congress, and I can go on and on. How much of this lack of
purpose do you think can be changed through a reorganization
such as the one outlined in the Space Leadership Preservation
Act?
Mr. Griffin. Well, sir, as we talked earlier, I think the
Space Leadership Preservation Act might be one tool to achieve
that constancy of purpose, but it's just a tool. If the
Congress at large can codify into law a space policy for the
United States that its citizens support and the space community
supports and that we want to do as a society, that is the
crucial step.
Mr. Palmer. You're saying we've got to work through the
ideological differences Congress?
Mr. Griffin. Yes. Yes, sir. And I will remind you, if that
sounds a hopeless task, I was here.
Mr. Palmer. Well, if it were up to my colleague from
Colorado and me, we could work this out fairly quickly.
Mr. Griffin. But we did this in 2003 and '04 following the
loss of Columbia, and for a two-year period, I myself
participated in four hearings in both House and Senate, along
with many, many other people, and these things were thrashed
out, and we emerged from that period with a good plan.
Mr. Palmer. I come from an engineering background, and I
believe the space program is fundamentally more engineering
than science. Obviously, there's science and in engineering, I
think anyone who's been involved in that field understands that
you have to have clearly defined objectives. Otherwise, you'll
never build to design. You'll--and you will spend an enormous
amount of money and get nothing. And so I do think we've got to
have that--a vision that we can design to, which, I guess, does
the lack of continuity at NASA affect some programs more
intensely than it does others?
Mr. Griffin. I couldn't agree more with your comments, sir.
I could not agree more. And the longer-term and larger the
project is, the more that lack of consistency of purpose
affects it. If I have a discovery program, a small satellite
mission program to another planet that costs $500 million and
can be done in three or four or five years, then, no, such a
program would not be much affected.
If we're talking about recreating a new heavy lift launch
vehicle, as we are with the Space Launch System that Colonel
Collins mentioned earlier today, well, that is a multiyear
proposition and a multi-billion-dollar proposition, and it
needs to be sustained or not done at all.
Mr. Palmer. I've actually visited the facility where that
work is being done, and it needs to be completed because
there's not a whole lot of use for it if we don't. And I think
many of my colleagues here would agree with this, that we do
need to allow NASA to define the vision with our oversight but
get behind it. Otherwise, we're going to continue to waste an
enormous amount of money.
Dr. Griffin, I'll ask you this question. There's an op-ed
in Space News, Mary Lynne Dittmar of the Coalition for Deep
Space Exploration touts the flexibility of the Space Launch
System, which was just mentioned, which will be capable of
launching a wide array of missions, given the lack of
continuity, how important is it for NASA systems to be
adaptable to changing priorities?
Mr. Griffin. Well, it would be nice to say that NASA's
systems and programs could be easily adapted to changing
priorities. I don't think it's very realistic. It's one of
those things that everyone would like but is pretty hard to do.
When it takes five or six or seven or eight years to accomplish
a great thing, if the priorities change in the meantime, you
know, you're left hanging. And----
Mr. Palmer. That's where you run into all of the change
orders and----
Mr. Griffin. That's----
Mr. Palmer. --the run-up in cost and then everybody's
frustrated.
Mr. Griffin. Exactly, sir. It costs more money and you
don't get the product out in the end. I thought Mary Lynne's
op-ed was very well done. She's far more articulate than I am,
and I was glad to see such an op-ed in Space News.
Mr. Palmer. Well, I had to go to another hearing earlier,
but while I was here, I heard you talk about the overall vision
for space and what it means for us and Colonel Collins' comment
on this as well. And that was an inspired--in my opinion, an
inspired view of America's role in space, and I commend you for
it.
My time is expired. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Babin. Yes, sir, Mr. Palmer.
I now recognize the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Hultgren.
Mr. Hultgren. Thank you, Chairman, and thank you all for
being here.
First, I seek unanimous consent to enter into the record an
article that was coauthored by former Commerce, Justice,
Science Subcommittee Chairman Frank Wolf and Norm Augustine,
who this Committee knows very well. So I'd ask unanimous
consent for submission----
Mr. Babin. Without objection, so ordered.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Hultgren. Thank you.
Again, I want to thank you all for being here, so grateful
for your work. I especially want to just thank Colonel Collins.
I really appreciate your service to our nation and the
inspiration you are to young people, but especially to young
women of incredible opportunities and how we need them to be
involved in space and science and discovery. So thank you.
And, Dr. Griffin, so grateful for your service as
Administrator, really I think a bright time and a time we can
be proud of of your service there, so I want to thank you so
much for that.
This is an important hearing, and as we continue to look
for ways to bring long-term vision and stability for NASA,
National Aeronautics and Space Administration. I think it's
something we need to be looking at across our entire scientific
ecosystem as well. As science becomes an increasingly
collaborative and international enterprise, other countries are
putting their stake in the ground to find a place with they
will lead. America has traditionally led across the board. It
is not the only measure, but one need only look at the list of
Nobel Prizes per country. We are the number one, but other
countries are catching up very quickly.
If we rest on our laurels, we may have a future where we
have to send our kids overseas to get the best education in the
world and to do groundbreaking research to get that next Nobel
Prize.
One idea outlined by the article that I entered into the
record, but the article written by Congressman Wolf and Mr.
Augustine is for a dedicated fund for scientific research that
we can actually put together 5-, 10-, or 25-year plans. As our
witnesses should be able to attest, our researchers and
scientists are walking on pins and needles just hoping that
their project can stay on pace, on budget, and outside the ire
of OMB bureaucrats or a disinterested Administration. When the
President leaves or shifts around Administrators, researchers
have to spend their time catching new people up just to let
them know what we are doing.
A program can be cut or priorities can be shifted without
the full picture. The cancellation of Constellation was a
disaster. I think we all can see that now. It has been not just
a setback, but it also hurts our standing in the world. I think
Russia snickers when we need them to take our astronauts to the
space station that our shuttle built.
Dr. Griffin, what are the first questions that we get from
other nations when we come to them with an ambitious long-term
project that will require all sides to deliver to see success?
What response do we get back from them?
Mr. Griffin. Well, in my time we were still working on
trying to do two things. We were working on completing the
International Space Station because only 1/3 of it was finished
when the shuttle went down, and so the first questions I faced
almost immediately after my confirmation hearing back in the
spring of 2005 were from our partners. Are you really going to
stick with this? Are you going to see it through?
And following the loss of Columbia, we knew that we were
not going to be able to have as many shuttle flights as we had
previously planned, so we had at that time to cut back somewhat
our--what we called our utilization flights in order to
prioritize assembly. And I committed--with the backing of then-
President Bush, I committed that the United States would finish
the station. And the sighs of relief were palpable. So I'm
answering your question by my experience is what they want to
know is are you going to see it through?
Mr. Hultgren. Yes.
Mr. Griffin. When we asked them--the second thing we were
doing--per our instructions from the White House Congress, the
second thing we were doing was embarking on a plan for human
lunar return. And the written words in the policy said that we
would do it in company with our international partners, so it
became my job to put that partnership together.
The first question they asked is, are you really serious?
And at first they didn't really believe it. As several years
went by, they did believe it, and by early 2009, they were
fully in support of returning to the moon. And in the next year
we cancelled. I had--I was of course gone from Washington by
then, but I had phone calls from all over the world.
Eileen made the comment earlier that the NASA Advisory
Council did not receive any information prior to the
cancellation of Constellation, that it would happen. Well, you
can take that and square it for our international partners who
woke up on a Tuesday morning to find out that the lunar program
they thought they were a part of was gone.
I know I'm overstaying my time and yours, but I must
conclude this question with a story that I think is sad for
what it conveys. In the spring of 2010 I happened to be down at
Cape Canaveral and having dinner at one of my favorite
restaurants down there over the years, and a waiter, an
immigrant from Italy who knew me well, came over to my table
and said, Dr. Griffin, he said, what is this I hear they're
cancelling the moon program? And I said, yes, that's true. And
in typical Italian fashion, he starts waving his arms and
saying I came to this country because you were the people who
can build space shuttles and build space stations and go to the
moon, he said, and now you're not? He says what is it with
these people? Do they not know what it means to be a
superpower? And I will never forget that conversation. That is
what people from other countries think of us when we start and
stop. Thank you.
Mr. Hultgren. Thank you. Well, I totally agree. My time is
up, but really, we need to put our money where our mouth is. We
need to follow through on our commitments. And so I appreciate
it. Again, my time is up. I yield back, Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Babin. Yes, sir.
I now recognize the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Loudermilk.
Mr. Loudermilk. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Griffin, I know during your tenure at NASA you put a
lot of focus on international cooperation, but you were
cautious about putting international partners on a critical
path, especially from the lessons from the International Space
Station program. What--I'm sorry. What recommendations would
you have for the future Administrators regarding international
cooperation?
Mr. Griffin. Well, sir, the way that I would characterize
that--and that's a superlative question. And when we talk about
critical path, we have to understand what we mean. Certainly,
our international partners in terms of our lunar program were--
I'll use the quote on the critical path for a lunar base
because the United States certainly wasn't going to build
everything we needed for a human outpost on the moon, far from
it.
When I say that it's a good idea to keep partners off the
critical path--and that may apply as well internally to the
country as externally--a given piece of hardware, a given
mission support function should probably, as best you can, be
confined to one entity. So we were going to build the heavy
lift rocket. Maybe the habitat would be furnished by the
European Space Agency. Maybe a laboratory would come from
Japan, something like that. Maybe the power system would come
from France, which is, you know, as you know, 80 percent
nuclear in--domestically.
So my comments about critical path have I think in the past
often been misinterpreted. When we're doing international
programs, we need everybody's contribution. I don't want to
build a car by having, you know, the tires come from one
manufacturer and the engine from--I think you get my point.
Mr. Loudermilk. Right. Yes. I appreciate that. You know,
growing up during the Apollo time period, NASA and those
astronauts were an inspiration to me. And that--my life was
surrounded by the idea that we were exploring the unknown, that
we were doing something that a superpower does, that we were
taking risks and we were beating the odds of things that people
said that could not be done. There were more reasons that we
could not go to the moon than there were that we could. But I
think that helped define American exceptionalism is that we set
our mind to do it and we did it. And I think that inspiration
set us on a path to further greatness, and I know it inspired
me. It inspired a lot of my schoolmates.
What can we do going forward so that our space exploration
will have that type of impact on the generations that are
following us? It seems--I know that there is a lack of
inspiration, I think, in our education system because a lot of
children are asking where are we going? What are we doing? What
am I here for? At least during that time period of my life
there was a destiny. We had a purpose.
And for Colonel or Dr. Griffin, anyone, will we ever see
that time again?
Ms. Collins. Well, thank you for the question. I think
that's great. And obviously, the mission we had--now, I was
inspired by the Gemini astronauts, as well as the----
Mr. Loudermilk. Yes.
Ms. Collins. --Apollo astronauts. I wanted to be one of
them as a young child, and it led me into the study of math and
science and eventually becoming a pilot in the Air Force and it
was----
Mr. Loudermilk. I was Air Force as well, so thank you.
Ms. Collins. Yes, and it was just seeing what can be done.
I wanted to be part of it because to me it was just a great
adventure.
And to answer your question, though, we need to teach our
teachers because every astronaut cannot be in every classroom.
Mr. Loudermilk. Right.
Ms. Collins. Now, I learned about the space program from a
magazine. There's not enough astronauts to get into all the
classrooms. I wish there were, but the teachers need to have
continuing education because I think some of them are a little
bit afraid to teach space because they think the kids might
know more than they do. So some of them--they don't--they want
an astronaut to be in the classroom, but otherwise, they don't
want to talk about it, so education for the teachers so they
can get pumped up, it doesn't have to be done by the U.S.
Government. A lot of private entities, educational groups
around the country teach teachers, and I think we need to do
more of that because that'll get more young people involved not
just in the space program but we're becoming, you know, so much
more technical. We need kids in cyber, we need kids in
engineering, energy, there's--it's everything. But you can tie
it all to the space program.
Mr. Loudermilk. That's right. I mean, and as I go back and
look at movies such as The Right Stuff, and the one Tom Hanks
did, the series, it--what it emphasized to me was the ingenuity
beyond just the engineering but the thinking outside the box,
the development of the lunar landing module, how we broke every
other design because we needed to make it lighter. Whoever
thought of a pilot standing up?
But these are the types of things that we just broke the
mold and decided we're going to do it our way, and that's the
type of thing I think that we need to see again, something to
inspire this next generation to move forward and take what--the
hearing we had yesterday was the discovery of magnetic waves.
Well, one of the questions was how is that going to be a
practical application? Well, my sense, the guys who discovered
it are not going to be the ones who will take it and make a
practical application, but it's the next generation that will
take that discovery and then match that to something.
I applaud you for what you're doing. I still admire those
who have the courage to break the surly bonds of Earth and go
and explore the great unknown. Thank you.
Mr. Babin. Thank you, Mr. Loudermilk.
And I want to thank the witnesses. This is one of the best
hearings I have attended since being a Member of Congress, a
Member of this Committee.
And I want to thank the Members for their questions, and
the record will remain open for two weeks for an additional--
for additional written comments and written questions from any
Members who desire to do so.
Without any more ado, this hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:13 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
Appendix I
----------
Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
[all]