Transcripts For CSPAN3 House Appropriations Hearing On NASAs Moon Landing Budget 20240713

Id like to welcome nasa administrator, Jim Bridenstine and ken bowersox to the subcommittee this morning. Earlier this year, nasa commemorated the 50th anniversary of the landing on the moon, which remains the single most successful and Famous Mission and nasas history. Just a week before our bill was marked up in subcommittee, nasa submitted a 1. 6 Million Dollar Budget Amendment that intended to advance our humans to the years. This blowup obtained more information from nasa, regarding its plans to return to the moon. Of all of us on the subcommittee, we would like to send the first woman astronaut into the deep space, including to the surface of the moon and we want to do it in a responsible way, from the perspective of safety, cost and likelihood of success. As most of you know, i have been a strong supporter of nasa and we provide nasa more than 22. 3 billion in our house bill. However, i remain extremely concerned about the additional cause to accelerate the mission by four years. Some experts have said that they needed to in a meeting the deadline, c 25 billion dollars in the next years, compared to the original schedule. Today they have not provided a four estimate. In the time of fall neat, all competing for funding, an additional 25 billion dollars would severely impact vital programs, not only in this committee put across all subcommittees. Another concern i have is the lack of a serious justification for such a cause, since nasa has already program the landing, why does this need to split up the clock by four years, the time needed to carry out a Successful Program for science and safety perspective. For a lot of members, giving President Trump a moon landing and a possible second term should he be reelected. Not only nasas leadership has confidence in the success to advance this timeline, nasa acting associate administrator bowersox was a former astronaut with us today. He referred to the 2020 moon landing date as a difficult to achieve in a house science hearing just last month, saying i wouldnt bet my oldest childs birthday present on anything like that. Additionally, nasas manager for the human landing was quoted in an article about the timing saying, quote, this is a significant deviation for nasa and the government. All of this has to be done on the fast, on the quick, typically in the past, nasa is quite methodical, which is good. We are going to have to have an abbreviated approach to getting to industry standards and how we will implement this, this is a big shift for the entire nasa community. We cannot sacrifice safety and cannot sacrifice other programs to appease the president. Nasa needs to be prepared to see what missions will be canceled and the effort to come up with an additional 25 billion. I remain concerned for four years of this mission. In the eyes of the world, we cannot be afford to fail, therefore its better to use the original schedule in order to have a successful, safe and effective for the benefit of the people and the world. Thank you, i look forward to hearing your testimony. I would like to recognize my good friend, the Ranking Member for opening comments. I want to thank you for your leadership on the subcommittee, or willingness to have hearing throughout the year but in particular for this hearing, regardless of party labels and your kindness, we look forward to looking with you throughout this congress and we have a long way to go. So we know youre not leaving yet, but i would like to be remiss if i did not mention that this morning. I also appreciate the Ranking Member being here today, she has put a lot of hard work and expertise and the defence issues and on the space issues for her district and the state and for their country. Also, i would like to express my gratitude to to the president and Vice President were taking a real interest in nasa. They represent a very small part of the national budget, but which continues to serve ambitions. That was evident when i go into schools and everyone is very interested in it. I support the goal in 2024. I believe we owe it to the taxpayer to make sure the program we will need taxpayers support. The program suffer the kinds of delays, setbacks, the costs of returns, which have become what is known as business as usual in our states program. On the contrary. The artemis era its supposed to be characterized by unparalleled accountability and agility. Today, i will have questions whether national is still committed to getting to the moon by any means necessary. As an Ardent Supporter of the Space Exploration and also as fiscally conservative, im concerned that nasa could undercut its flexibility and and career unnecessary costs by forgoing opportunities to leverage existing assets and an attempt to foster a commercial space economy. Vice president pence declared in his comments, that nasa is not currently capable of landing american astronaut on the moon in five years, we need to change the organization. I couldnt agree more. The administrations ambitions but critically important 2024 moon land will be the ultimate test of nasas judgment and its accountability. Finally, the rockets and capsules and transfer vehicles and the descent must be systems which will keep our astronauts alive during the mission and bring them back to earth safely. As our nation embarks on complex new deep space endeavors but unprecedented private sector involvement, safety must be our number one priority. Hence, nasas ability to ensure safety in the commercial program will be a bellwether and i appreciate the administrators comments noting that commercial crew programs must proceed to contractor attention it deserves. I thank you both for being here today and its an honor to have you here before our subcommittee. Thank you mister chairman for holding this hearing and i will yield back. Thank you for your client comments. We are on this morning to have the Ranking Member with us, a person i respect a lot and a person i will remember for a way of dealing with people in such a friendly and professional way and bipartisan way. Miss granger . Thank you for holding this hearing and for your attention to space and your involvement. Im old enough to remember space programs, everyone sitting at their television and watching it. It was good for america and good for all of us. Welcome mr. Ken bowersox and welcome mr. Bridenstine. Its important to all americans in our Space Exploration goals. In march youre ally and she was challenged with returning our astronauts within the next five years. I support this accelerated 2024 goals and the Artemis Program. Sending american astronauts including the first woman on the moon to take advantage of the Technological Advancements in space. Our nation is facing threats in space from china. I read classified briefings that made the case that we must accelerate the artemis project. My advocacy for the Artemis Program was solidified after learning about chinas capabilities and their future plans. Unfortunately, the u. S. Has largely fallen behind in Space Research and development and will soon be outpaced by the chinese if we dont take action immediately. The only way to protect both our National Security and our economy is to dominate space and beat chinese and other near peer allies. Space is the next high ground and we have to take it. The decision to establish a presence there will will require a significant investment. As a result of, support for this ambitious but important 2024 timeline will be accompanied by great expectations, both in terms of schedule, cost, and safety. The administration recognizes that we have a tough job ahead of us, we are committed to working with you to ensure that nasa can advance our nations exploration priorities as effectively and efficiently as possible. Im working with the chairwoman, and Ranking Members on the appropriate of process. Before i ask the administrator for the comments, a lasting whats wrong with me and i dont do a shout out here. We spend a lot of time in washington, so shout out to the national to work on the upset of the century people who thought they couldnt do it is a lesson to all of, us just keep trying and you can pull us off. If we can only get the yankees to turn around against houston. Administrator, five minutes, we will include your full statement so, please go ahead. Thank you. Before i became the nasa administrators, the president had issued space policy directive one, and that direction was to go to the moon, to go sustainably, to go with the commercial partners and International Partners, and to utilize the resources of the moon that we discovered back in 2009, the hundreds of millions of tons of water ice on the south pole, the water ice represents life, its air to breathe, its water to drink, it rocket propellant. Hydrogen is the same rocket feel that will power the space launch system the, same that powered the Space Shuttles. We are going to use the resources of the moon and then ultimately we are going to take all of this knowledge that we learn in this architecture and go to mars. That was all in the president forced space policy directive. When i became the nasa administrator we put, together a plan. Given our current budgets, what will take to achieve this . We came up with a plan, as you identified, that put us on the moon in 2028 if budgets remain fairly constant. The challenge we have as a nation is that the longer programs go, the more Political Risk that we have and when we look back in history, we look back on the 1990s, it took decades in time and eventually got canceled. You look at the vision for Space Exploration. It took many years and eventually got canceled. So, the question is how do we reduce risks. Theres two types of risk, technical and Political Risk. The Political Risk is not partisan. Its just one programs go too long people start to lose confidence and then money is redirected in other places. I heard you say slow and methodical. Methodical, yes. Its all about doing things stepbystep and building on one lesson after another. What we are trying to change as a culture is that we are slow. We dont want to be slow. I think going fast makes sure we will have success. I also think that by going fast we will put ourselves into the Ranking Member position. Well put ourselves in a position to leave the world. Weve had astronauts from 19 Different Countries on the International Space station and experiments from 103 Different Countries on the International Space station. China is moving fast. They move going to the moon. The last time they landed on the moon, it landed on the far side of the moon. They had with a small probe and that was the first time in the ministry anyone had landed on the far side of the moon. They took out a two page ad in the economists and made it clear they are the leader and the exploration and everyone should partner with them. I think thats the wrong position. We have Political Risk, its Political Risk for programs taking too long and making sure our partners are with us. Thats an important reason to move faster. We dont want to take any undue risk and put lives at stake, but the history of nasa might be a little more slow than what is necessary, and we are changing the organization, as representative aderholt said, if we cant land on the moon in five years we need to change the organization. I believe that and i will tell you why. In the 1960s, president kennedy announced, 1962 they will end on the moon before the decade is out. They had the Johnson Space member and the orbital dynamics are going to the moon. They did not have to launch facilities, the rocket that went to the moon, we do not have any of these capabilities that currently we have to our advantage. They had to go from scratch. They did not have the ability to restore power and smaller quantities. They do not have the ability to reduce rockets and do all these things that were on the cusp of how we do spaceflight, so if we cant do today within five years, when they did within eight years and really seven years back in the sixties, i think we need to change how they do things. We need to leverage existing assets. If we go fast, if you want to land on the moon, which we want to do, if we want to go fast, how fast would we go . 2024 as halifax we would go. And at the end of the day, i think its important to note that that is not a guarantee, but its in the realm of what is possible. A lot of things have to go right to make that a reality, but what we are asking for is to make going past a possibility. I think these are all important things that we need to talk about and i appreciate you having this. And i look forward to answering any questions. Thank you. We will begin the first round of history for each member, each member will receive five minutes. We have asked for information about the mission we have received no response when we dont know it down the road. What is the additional from moving up it and further, any break the cost down by year for the upcoming year. Can you tell us, on a personal level, you know me, weve dealt on a personal level but this is not about finding the money. Its about where this president will find the money when he needs them. If he came to us and said no wall in return for it, you might get it from democrats. Maybe more than that. Lower pell, rounds lower foods that, lower education and that is not acceptable. That is the problem. I asked you a question couldnt give you time to answer it. The question is for 2020 includes 1. 6 billion dollars. I have been very clear with everyone i have talked to, it has to be a political. If we cut out of nasa, that will create a partisan divide we dont want to have. If we try to take the money out of the International Space station we will have the International Space station. Those are the two big areas where nasa has money, but i dont think that the right approaches to cannibalize those moments. Weve been very clear with everyone ive talked, to both sides of the aisle. The goal should be additional resources, not cannibalizing one part of nasa to feed another part of nasa. That being said, when we did the Budget Amendment, the 1. 6 Million Dollars, we were operating under previously established budget cuts, and its fantastic that an agreement was made between republicans and democrats to rates those budget counts that gives nasa a great chance. I also want to say, we are grateful for the market he did in the house, bigoted great, work especially on behalf of the science minister. I want to take anything away from the house mark but its also true that when we go forward with trying to get to the moon in 2024 that requires additional resources. I understand the concern with the outcome, and we want to give you the out years. We are working inside the administration with the office of management and budget and the National Space council to come up with what those numbers are, to get a consensus about what we are willing to put forward. I would also like to say that the budget settlement for 2021 is to do in february and we will have it in the 2021 bottle settlement without settlement. If you look at what they have done, they fenced the money, pending the full report on what it looks like. I think that is a big solution, something to consider we certainly want to move forward. You were very clear you dont want to take money from other national programs. I dont want to go to the moon without taking money from people who cannot afford to survive in this society to the level they should survive, so that is a big problem that we have to get over, your fiscal year was delivered earlier this year and are Still Available online. Youre looking at the out years, and included in that budget but part of nasas budget do you anticipate would need to go down and the 2021 . In order to pay for the additional costs associated with the scheduled change on the moon landing. Let a short cross to other priorities to achieve this effort . My objective is to let everybody know that cannibalizing certain parts of nasa to find another part its not my goal. I certainly will need additional resources, and whether you take it from stations, those of the two money that you create partisan fights. Im trying to stay and trying to maintain nasas a political approach. So i would say that my goal is to not cut any of nasas budget in order to finance the agenda, the budget settlement will be delivered in february of next year. Im having a little trouble getting the message through. Ill try one more time in the not drop it, okay . You dont want to hurt a nasa, they have support from this committee and the very people who were very hurt, but what you keep that support if the people knew that, eventually, you have to take money from their very needed situations, factory workers to help feed their family and now nasa is going to go to the moon based on taking money from them. I dont need an answer for that, just think about that as we go forward. And my time has been used up. Thank you. I was wondering how you think things are currently Going Forward on this, especially one through three. Absolutely. I will tell you, weve had some very challenging conversations. Youve seen that in a very positive way to the challenges that weve had development. Number one we have now started, or in fact weve completed the integration of the engine section. The engine section, which was the holdup, got delayed so we started to integrate the rest of the rocket and the horizontal, which enabled us to integrate the rocket while the engine section was still under development. Previously, if you do the vertical stack everything has to wait on the engine, boeing did great things in order to make that happen. The engine texan is complete and is now integrated into the rocket itself. By the way, we are very satisfied with how fast things are moving now. At this point, the engines are being integrated into the engine section and as soon as that is complete there will be a month or two of testing, but at the end of this year will be moving the rocket out of the facility and into the space center for testing. Boeing has responded very well and we are very pleased with where the sls is right now. We are confident it will be delivered on time . The new time, yes. As you mentioned, the work is progressing more quickly. On the second core maybe 40 faster . Yes. What we learned on the first sls is paying dividends on the second, so things are moving a lot faster. I dont know, can, they want to address that . I will say that its true. We are moving faster on the second court, but were finding the challenges, right . Theyre still on the rockets and even on the second court we may find a new challenger to. Overall, its positive. Does the same to you that the work is faster . Absolutely, without question. I understand there is a growing confidence for sls to be able to produce two rockets a year, starting in 2024. And they believe they could deliver a block one be in 2024. What do you think . It depends what boeing is willing to invest quite frankly we dont have the preparations necessary to achieve that. If we were to do that, we may need some more infrastructure that currently existing. So, i dont know if you want to address that. We havent seen the performance yet that would indicate that we are guaranteed a moon landing in 2024. We are open to considering those kind of options, we are looking for that but we have not seen it yet. We will have to be sls is available and the third one would be for artemis three, that takes us to the moon in 2020, four i think that is fully within the realm of possibility but a lot of things have to go right to make that happen. Adding an additional sls into the mix could im not confident that could happen. Okay, understanding the complexity of this, as both of you to do you have any reason to believe we will prevent a viable opportunity to engage the contractors and fort unnecessary agreements in order to incorporate the excellence and the proposals before the response that line . Again, this would be a question for boeing specifically to come up with a derivative that would be the officers for the systems and then to find out what would require investment from boeing to do that. The goal would be that those offers would select boeing as their provider of that lot service, but will it be a launch service i think its in the realm of what is possible, if boeing wanted to make those investments. They want to comment on that . I just concur with the administrator. Thank you, thank you mister chairman. Thank you. Let me recognize our Ranking Member this granger. Thank you. Administrator bridenstine, could you tell me, there are three questions. One, life should be accelerators at the cost . What is the primary importance of that change, and whether its worth that investment. And then, focus on the sensitivity to National Security, what is the process to the taxpayers, talk to us about that. Then, how does that benefit our taxpayers . Its huge. This goes to what the chairman was talked about earlier about the trade offs. We look back at apollo, and we just celebrated 50 years of apollo, everyone loved it. We saw 500,000 people on the National Mall, celebrating 50 years of apollo, and i know all of us do see 500,000 people on the National Mall before, weve never seen 500,000 people happy people celebrating something good. That was a very great day for nasa, a great day for america, and 50 years later, the inspiration that came from that moment in time, lets transformational for our nation, and transformational for people that went into the stem fields that would not have done that. You walk around nasa and you ask folks, why are you here . They will tell you where they were when Neil Armstrong and buzz aldrin walked on the moon, and people that are of age can probably tell you where they were on that day as well. Thats that thing is, and this is why we need to go faster, and the first nasa administrator from that day to this day that was not alive when that happened. I think thats a big challenge. The reality is, i dont have that memory. And we have to make sure that we dont have another generation that goes by that doesnt have that memory. When it happens we, need to make sure that it is the United States of america leading a coalition of nations that makes it happen. Going to your question about what is the value to the taxpayer, all of that is tremendously by the ball to the taxpayer. It was a piece of winning the cold war. Im not going to say it was the preponderantly of it, but a piece of it. All that being said, some people watching this, analysis on tv, some people watching are going to watch on dish network or direct tv, maybe they have internet broadband from space. I come from oklahoma, if you dont have broadband from space, you dont have broadband. Navigation, gps technology, the way we do disaster relief, National Security and defence, all these capabilities are born from a Little Agency called nasa. The movie predict whether, weather satellites or purchased by nasa in the Program Management of the satellites is nasa. How we understand the climate is done by nasa. How we produce food, preserving nitrate in the soil, all these technologies come from nasa. The way we produce energy and do it cleanly without Greenhouse Gas emissions, methane leaks, those things, we can detect from space instantaneously and help prevent Oil Companies from getting fine from the nba. This is transforming how the world moves forward and these technologies have elevated the human condition for all of america and if you ask Neil Armstrong and those aldrin why, are you going to the moon, they would have answer because they dont know, but now we know. Were less than a half of a percent of the federal budget and you look at what weve been able to deliver by creating technologies capabilities they get commercializing, on the rise, i think the return on investment is amazing. Thank you. We thank you. We are not scoring any points by reminding people who are younger than us. Mr. Cartwright . Thank you mister chairman. And thank you administrators bridenstine and ken bowersox for being here. Its no secret that as a member of the nasa caucuses i share your enthusiasm for nasa and i believe in your people. Im willing to bet that everybody on the subcommittee feels the same way. Thank you, sir. We are appropriator some have to deal with the dollars and cents and we have to evaluate budget requests and i appreciate your comments about not cannibalizing one part of nasa for another, but the fiscal year 2020 budget requests in an overall reduction of 480 Million Dollars, including a reduction in the science budget of 600 million and a complete zeroing out of the office of stem engagement. You submitted that, didnt you . Yes. That was in the budget. With a drill down on this stuff. The subcommittee rejected those cuts, just as we did in fiscal year 2018 and 2019. The increased nasas funding by 18 Million Dollars, to fully funded the Lunar Landing program and robustly funded scientific discovery and stem education. If youre detecting a pattern there you are right. Look, the 2020 budget request did not adequately fund artemis, because a mere two months later, he submitted this 1. 6 billion dollars supplemental request for increased ornaments funding. What im trying to do is grapple with the true cost of the program and whether nasa has a firm grasp on it, how much money you need for ornaments and when you will need it. The first question is, at what point did you realize that the fiscal year 2020 budget request was insufficient to fund the Artemis Program . I would say, for that budget request, there wasnt an Artemis Program at the time. We put together a budget to land on the moon at the earliest possible date without any changes to the budget, or with changes to the budget based on inflation. We were able to say it was a threat but we could land on the moon in 2028 i dont mean to interrupt you but when did you realize that the 2020 budget was going to be insufficient for the Artemis Program . After the 2020 date came out there are, a lot of people that said that was too long. The challenges when these programs last a decade. Theres a risk. Im with you. It was after the acceleration of the program. Before us submitting the budget, you did not know about that . We had not planned to accelerate at that point. He submitted the request as a down payment. Heres what we are grappling with, administrator. What is the total cost of the whole program . What do you ask them . You asked him how much of the car and when they say, its only going to be to thousand dollars in the first year, but then youre asking how much the car is. How much will have to pay for this car and he says, oh no, those are the out years. Thats not acceptable. You need to know the total costs. We are walking through an administration conferences for what the total cost will be and we will summit that in february. February of this year . Itll be part of the budget submission, yes. Do you know, sitting there today, how much extra the whole project is going to cost because of accelerating it . Theres a lot of different options that would be available. Some of the options increase the possibility, some decrease and based on the range of options, this is what we looking at and attempting to come to a resolution on, for example, i really believe it will be in the interests of success to start off with at least three different human landing systems that we could move down to two. If the budget concerns but its in a position where we get only have one, we put ourselves in a position whose contractor, we dont know that and the best interests of success. If we go inexpensive or early, the likelihood is that costs go up over time. These are all different traits that we are looking at for the out years, we are anxiously anticipating in february. Anybodys johnson rates an issue regarding the specific appropriations language included in the supplemental requests, and i want to follow up with you. The language in the supplemental request would allow nasa to transfer funds from other agency accounts to pay for artemis. That is not the intent. We want to have as much flexibility as possible. There is something to go fast and some things that were refined. There are unknowns unknown to we need to be prepared. For the flexibility causes that. Ive heard people have concern they were going to take money from the Science Mission director, that is not my intent. Nobody has indicated that is the intention. She said the language we give you a Carte Blanche authority to move funds among nasas accounts from this year forward if you determine that transfers are necessary in support of the established intent of presence on the moon and, you are saying thats not. So this has to be looked bipartisan and if we put ourselves in a position where one side of the aisle is not happy with what we are trying to achieve we will not be successful. We want to make sure this is a political and bipartisan as much as possible and i think cannibalizing the Science Mission director and to achieving the objectives of human exploration, which i dont think theyre exclusive each other, i think they work hand in hand. Its within the realm of we dont have any desire to do that. We want to make sure we have support of both sides of the aisle. Thank you for being here today. Under nafta the American Space program has been a symbol of world leadership and a national pride. At this point in our history we must use our investment wisely and work even harder to advance our own policies if we expect to maintain American Leadership in the space domain. To help nasa centers around the country engaged in commercial industry and we can better stewards of their underutilized infrastructure, will administer news. This will really utilize the agreement authority for ten years and the supportive by representatives from both sides of both parties and across the country. Can you elaborate on the waste nasa centers have used the agreement to reduce operating costs and a proven nasa Facility Condition . Absolutely. I think they are really good examples of infrastructure that would include buildings where a private Company Wants to use a building that nasa is not using currently. Part of the way they have access to the building its to make it usable and improve it. After a period of time, nasa has the right to that again, and they could continue their lace. We have similar kind of agreements for launch facilities and there is lots of opportunity to improve nasa facilities by partnering with the private sector. Theres lots of production facilities in operations facilities at the cape. I just about every center where we got the capacity, we are trying to find uses from outside nasa to can come in and take advantage of those facilities, so its been very helpful to us. What would happen . Itll be bad for nasa, will be bad for our partners, so please reauthorize it. And pleas, to my colleagues, if you have not signed on to it, we would appreciate it if you would take a hard look at it. Another question is, im proud to represent our space center where we have tested every rocket since the apollo program. I know you know this, we are encouraged by the progress on sls this, year we near the completion. Given the rationale for astronaut going under the tests, de planned to conduct another test . Deeply to lunar lander providers should also conduct a similar a green engine test as part of a development program, and if not, what is the rationale for not putting the landers through the same thorough and rigorous testing as the as a last course stage in the last . Ill start. Hes an astronaut that has had the experience of riding on these kind of vehicles. I think its important that we recognize that what the commercial providers provide couldve already been tested. Hes not saying how to land on the moon, were asking them to promote how they would do it. When gone to the space way and back to the gateway, to do that, we are using hardware that has been tested significantly. A transfer vehicle, a descent module, and a cent model, when he talked about propulsion there could be solutions that have a lot of history, that we wouldnt give to green run tests. There could be brandnew designs that it may be necessary. I dont want to prejudge what nasa will require but, certainly, depending on the solutions that we can presented we have thoughts on it. Can . All else say is that we will look at all the test plans when we get back from the human launch system providers once the proposals are all in to talk a whole lot more in detail. It would not be good right now but, depending on the type of engine they have they me have that different engines, and companies have done it in other places around the country. They will be thoroughly tested before we get there. Thank you for your responses, i yield back. Thank you. The overall purpose of the hearing is to discuss with the weather the big picture long term the School Operational considerations have been thought through when we got the sudden and unexpected approach. Its one thing to deal with it, another thing to deal with the implications of it. You have commented in response to the church question that event be submitting with the 21 in the long term out year projection for this particular, so does that submission include an updated full life cycle mission . Does it include, youre proposing to outsource a lot of this work, youre going to have a lot of partners in this. Thats your intent, right . Yes. Thats going to take a lot of internal supervision, because thats a lot of money running wild out there and, if not adequately overseen it could get away from new budget, as well as i would expect quality wise. Do you anticipate that in your mission you would before pure oversight capabilities inside of nasa . I think we have pretty good oversight capabilities already. What we are doing is applying the lessons of the past. If you look at how we reapply that station, we do it with commercial resupply. What that means this, nasa does not purchased, own or operate the hardware, we buy service from a robust commercial marketplace. The marketplace was in fact developed by nasa, with our investments where we invest our money, our commercial providers invest their money, we start off with three different providers, we now have selected to. They are competing against each other on costs and innovation, which does drive down costs. We are continuing to innovate to drive down costs, but the goal is to create a competitive environment. Because we did commercial resupply that way, the cost savings have been significant. And, we are on the cusp of having success with the commercial crew as well. The interesting thing, when we do programs in this fashion, their contractors dont come back to nasa and ask for more money all the time. In fact, they both want to be first. So, what we do provide our engineers are embedded with their engineers. Our finance folks are working with their finance folks. Our development and the fixed price that you makes jim before, that has milestone payment associated with that. We are controlling the process all along the way. The goal here is to have as much as possible, we want nafta to be a customer of services. Especially for. And ultimately not just a customer, but have providers that compete against each other. That is how we are doing the lower orbit activities, but we need to go to the moon to get to the vote on schedule we will need to have the sls rocket and that is going to be a Great Program Going Forward. For a long period of time. It is a mix. I got it. Thats a concern for me, that you be able to watch the big accelerated contracts and, number two, do you anticipate that a corollary of your proposal to excel a rebuttal subpoena acceleration of a mars mission . Is that sequential . In other words, is that a big picture long term consideration that this committee should know about. Because if its not only about the moon and exhilarated program for, anything we want to be surprised on that one. We want to know what the big picture, longterm plan is for the overall deep Space Exploration. You are hitting the nail on the head which is the, sooner we get to the moon with an architecture that is sustainable, we need to learn how to live and work on another world, that is what enables us to go to mark. When we go to mars, we have to be there for a long period of time. So, we need to use someone as a proven ground. If we delay the moon program, by definition, we are delaying the mars program. If we accelerate the moon program, we are by definition accelerating the march program. Thats a great question, a great point. I hope we get that information in the context of fiscal year 2021 as well. Yes sir, we will have strong march content in the future. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you administrator bridenstine and associate administrator ken bowersox for being here today. You testified about what nasa is doing to increase opportunities for women in stem careers, at the agency. I want to circle back to something specific you said in your comments about space suits and the them canceled all female spacewalk. He said, quote, its related that the spacesuits are little spaceships. Each one is designed specifically not just for the astronaut before the mission. The challenge as we only have a certain number of pay suits. You also stated, publicly at a cnn cameras hearing that nasa is looking at a space suit architecture that is flexible to allow them to with their announcements, i want to ask a few questions. Do we know how many years nasa needed to research and developed space suits that Neil Armstrong noon buzz aldrin used. How long does it take to develop the original spacewalking spacesuits. Well look that up. What lessons did they learn from the canceled all female spacewalk that was helping the next generations of Space Exploration . We made it transparent that space suits a very difficult because there are so large, and we need spacesuits the history of nasa as build a space that works in the interest of downscale at. Its a lot harder than upscaling it for larger people. And i think that we have already been investing in making that possible, not just for space flight but walking on the surface of the moon. We are very committed to it. The spacewalk that you are friends obviously highlighted wine we have said that. I was going to say that on the way, i got to check the tv and i saw that two women are preparing their space suits and we hope to see that uva very soon. They needed even more time, than what we are doing for this particular uva. Thats part of the issue. We are doing the all woman spacewalk here in a matter of days. We are very excited about it. What challenges and maybe key milestones much be mad with the 2024 efforts to bring astronauts to the moon, research, testing, development . The rocket, the biggest most powerful rocket ever built that will take our astronauts to the moon is going to come out of the facility here by the end of the year, daily are complete they will be testing soon. A Pentagon Research center in ohio, thats positive. The challenges we have, we have to start with the human landing system, that we dont have on the moon if you dont have a landing system, so thats one of the reasons that we did the amended budget request. We are underway with the development of gateway which is a small space station that will be in orbit around the ruin pervading years. Think of it as a reusable command module just like the call out it doesnt get thrown away at the end of the mission and be used over and over again by over the course of 15 years and probably longer. The spacesuit are a big piece of the architecture as well. The sls rocket and the European Service module and the gateway and the human landing system and the space suits. At the same time, theyre doing commercial crew which will be launched in the part of lower bit orbit so just know that congresswoman, we have as an agency more underdevelopment dow and these are a big part so were working really high right now of this reality and we are confident we are where we are especially when it comes to commercial crew were confident and sls were confident. Gateway and the human and existence has some outstanding issues in just because we are so early in the development process. Ken did, you want to add to that . The only thing i would emphasize is that our biggest technical challenge is getting this ready for 2024, that is the most challenging part of what we got to develop. Were excited to take on that challenge. Thank you are yield back. Best canter. Stitching thank you mister chairman and welcome, were really glad to have you here this morning and i know how hard you work at your job and also mr. Ken bowersox thank you very much for your service to our country. If we could just step back a second for the budget request directly and i wanted to ask you about the timetable and the changing timetable. How the accelerated date of 2024 was chosen. And then if you could provide for the record if you havent already done it the original timeline and the Budget Proposal for that and then the accelerated timeline and the Budget Proposal for that. It would be very helpful for us soon. Its a significant change and one of my questions for the American People is that we support you in your efforts to land on the moon and mars. I go back to a report that augustine did many years ago. Where he said unmanned flight could provide us with a great deal of Research Data space results whether its commodities or whatever and human spaceflight. When you add humans into the mix its much more expensive. Im wondering what whether you have read the report and whether you believe that to be outdated and my primary question is how is the data of 2024 chosen as a starting period . Great questions. Theres two things to 2024 date and the number of things have changed. Number one, when we came out with the date in 2028 that was with buzz its not changing significantly with inflation. Where there were people people in congress and members of the administration thats a 2028 is ten years. Programs that last ten years obviously historically have been the history of nasa going back to the Space Exploration in the 1990s and the Space Exploration and early 2000s. Here we are in this is going to be how do we retire as much risk as possible for success . The answer was we need to go faster. If youre going to go faster than the next question was where do we get the money . We got science . Station . My response was, neither. Well get new money because those will create political or parochial devise between members of congress and we dont want to create. We got an additional appropriation or a request for 1. 6 Million Dollars. That accelerated the timeline. But its not just the risk of these programs, its also the other changes with china landing on the far side of the moon and theyre going to be landing on the moon with delaying humans on the moon in 2030. They took out a two peace spread saying that there is a world leader in Space Exploration in all the countries in the nations into partner with them. All of these things and will lead the world in space that the appropriate decision was to maintain leadership and keep our partnerships. As you look forward, what all ask you for the 2028 versus 2024 and the appropriate dollars that are necessary in both scenarios. Could you pinpoint a few of the most difficult technologies our system that require considered effort to achieve the objective . In achieving those, has nassau a deep experience and looking at the Energy Technologies with the department of energy, lets say, and some of their laps. Could you discuss about the ways in which other parts of the government might achieve your objective your objective, if its not directly in your budget, lets say. This goes to your first question about robotic science versus human exploration. In fact, we do partner with the department of energy on a lot of our robotic issues because they use Nuclear Power. What do we use radio isotopes thermal generation of whats powers our spacecraft. Solar energy is not just that robust, so when we go into the space we have to have different ways of getting propulsion. They are a form of nuclear and the only way we can do deep state exploration. When we send humans to mars it will be in the best interest to use Nuclear Propulsion which would be an absolute gamechanger with how we do the Space Exploration. If you do this, the department of defense would have a Significant Interest and that capability for boston as well so i believe we will be some lead over there from the capability perspective. When it comes to communications technology, theres a lot there i think that theres a lot of applications for National Security capabilities as well. Theres a lot of cross over and why we have these communities. It crosses over to what is being done in the d. O. T. , i was assigned the military and theres a lot of cross over. The intent is to have these services to build a relationship with partners around the world. If you look at that they can cooperate with the most with declare propulsion and Nuclear Power for the services. Would you classify those, for the record, i could ask a listing of the most difficult technologies and systems that you face and achieving success in this project. Thank you. Thank you mister chairman, and thank you for being here today, we appreciate your presence and your service to our country. As a floridian, Space Exploration both interests and excited me, part of our states culture and our economy. I have a constituent in my country that are working to build as harass, but most important you talked about it earlier and will Health Future scientists. As you both are aware, supporting the goal of sending the next woman and man to the rule, as long as the sun safely and efficiently. Failure is not an option when we are pursuing in endeavor of this magnitude, because if we do fail it could threaten our ability to return to the moon again. So we have to get it right. Im sure we all agree with that. I want to help nasa meet its goal of 2024, but i need to see a schedule and cost estimate to understand how best to do that. With that, you previously indicated that a full schedule as being deferred until a new associate administrator for human experts are in place, but it seems to me that they are starting to put that to put that. Can you discuss a lot of work event nasa has been doing with respect to artemis, particularly artemis three. I think regarding having new associate administrator, what i want to make sure that we did not do is set a schedule and set a schedule for launching until a new associate administrator was had an opportunity to assess. If i said the schedule, and they come in later, and may not be a good. We have a new associate administrator and they testified it throughout the committee, and was on the committee, the Science Committee and subcommittee on space, who worked very efficiently on it. My goal is to get everything you need in february. In february we, will do the budget summit for 2021 and we will do a run out for all the out years in that 2021 budget submit. It is also true that if you look at what the senate has already passed in their committee that they fence the 2020 numbers pending that submission on 2021. Could this be a solution for making sure that we are all in agreement on how to move forward and not moving forward but an agreement on how to move forward. We need to think that would be available in february of next year . Yes. This coming february. That would include the elements for article three . Yes. To the schedule and budget, one of the decisions related to heart of this are impacted by the leadership that was announced this morning. The big thing is that we have Great Program managers and every element of what is required will be eventually on to mars. Ken bowersox has been the associated magistrate are in this district and of course having an astronaut which worked in the private sector and by the way, maybe an astronaut for a navy guy and we like that. Hes been doing i see him laughing at me. So, can has done a wonderful job and im looking forward to getting dug on board to achieve all of the great things that we have established. Thank you mister chairman. Part of the issue that i keep coming back to is the importance of knowing the full cost where appropriators that i wont be here after next year but we also say that we concern will we leave as procreate ors and if we find or got programs to find over one billion dollars with buying into the 2024 state, we dont know how much is going to cost in our mind. So, i employee as you try to support on both sides of the aisle to understand that unless we know what this is going to cost it will be responsible for us to take the first step. Certainly for me and this is not about me or i dont want to be there this year in this at the same time are having to figure out how to have the 25 billion dollars. We need to hear that from you and we dont see it and quite soak about february. February might seem early but these guys behind me are already working on numbers for what the budgets will look like and we need to know earlier if. Okay . The administrator as you know Aerospace Safety in panneling and the safety performance awaits to improve that performance. Since march 2019 announcement as the Aerospace Safety panel weighed in on any astronaut safety risk associated with specifically the new sped up timeline . I have to tell you, it is a serious concern that i have heard from some people by speeding it up, we risk safety issues and run into safety issues. There is a concern that i hear in that ive heard and the concern is schedule pressure and sometimes i think that the schedule pressure is something were concerned about and historically challenging think that nasa has to deal with. The last thing i want to do is put any unscheduled pressure on anybody. That being said, its important for us to have schedules and its important to us to create milestones and the last player to accelerate programs and talk about schedule pressure ill make sure that people dont feel pressure from a schedule perspective and working and we need to achieve milestones. They really delicate matter and we have great folks that you are working on these issues for many years. That being said, i think probably they have been focused on commercial crude because thats the closest alligator to the canoe right now. I think that we are getting to a good position on commercial crew which is in the first part of next year and american soil in the First Time Since the retirement of the Space Shuttle and that is going to be a great development. Administrator, unlike these strangers, all the amending are a small black and white tv set and they are exciting. I want to ask you a question about the worrier because i seem to remember as part of the conversation on the things that we had learned or were able to create if you as part of that whole mission. One that i remember something about the space of having some abilities to move forward on people with disabilities that are suffering. Do you know what im talking about at all . Im not familiar with that. Its something we can definitely look into. Are you familiar with it . Our goal to, one of the reasons were doing low earth orbit specifically commercially is because we want to see everybody able to see themselves and flying into space. When we go to space commercially maybe its industry and were using the International Face specialty shun and the lines of effort and transformational capabilities and the ability to recount pharmaceuticals and how to do so we have treatment so he can create in space and create human tissue using adult stem cells have we had to a day where we can print human organs and the way they cant do it on earth well and these are transformational industrialized bile things that will result in a day and a massive amounts of capital and our amounts of capital throwing to commercial space industry for lower earth orbit. We want to see a day where they can see themselves as being an astronaut. Having more access its really important to the American Economy the balance of payments in the export for United States of america reduces the trade deficit. Its not this industrialized by those materials its fiber optics and technology would all zebra and which is the way we do communications to rest really and other materials that can only be done in a micro gravity. I think that the goal is to have everybody know that we want space to be for everybody. Or making those investments. Thank you mister chairman. I want to talk about commercial space and vehicles. What commercial lodge vehicles exist today that are in development that can or will be able to launch the age el as to the accomplished the goal thats on the moon by 2024 . If we are taking humans the only rocket that is available to take humans by 2024 is the sls rocket and theres no other way to accelerate that program other than sls and ryan. That is to carry humans to the press in the and when we talk about what we need at the great way and the system could be carried to the gateway and the only rocket i think of right now it would be the falcon nine heavy. There is a lot of other rockets in development and it would be the falcon which is a you l. A. Product and what would be the star ship which is the space task product one would be the gland which is a other product. I cant think of any others offhand. A chance that the north or. Im sure there are rockets we havent even heard about yet. Are there any in currently inflight . The falcon is the only one. Remember, this goes to your question earlier, there could be prevention or a sls driver commercial solution. Who are not getting the fault on that which would be the investment for boeing to achieve and certainly in the be a it could be an option. How many options will be a test of as a less by 2020. Sls and the falcon nine heavy. Its anything that any responsible provider with you but that would be up to them since their activities but its a typical type of test to preparing a rocket into space. If you put american astronauts on these vehicles its not up to that as well. What is the contingency plan for some commercial rockets . I think i think right now, we have a falcon nine heavy thats available and theres a number of others that are close. Whats the contingency plan . Go ahead. We have the potential for multiple commercial options and we think that all of those options if we didnt have any of those four vehicles flying then we would look at whats available. Mr. Ranking member is landing in 2024 pen if we dont have the additional rockets that were not going to be able to achieve the goal. We are confident we will have those rockets. Its a Pretty Simple fact that the capability to take cargo to an orbit youll need to carry otto mission . Correct . So, i also want to focus in on the inaudible former societally missed radar for inspiration who didnt oped on the 13th on the hill and in that oped he said that nasas 2024 approach will require a new development, eight launches and 17 Mission Critical operations to achieve this goal. Are you familiar with that oped . That they wrote last month and would you agree with that assessment . I do think i have not read the oped and i would love to read it before commenting on it is out will be all right. Id be happy to take that for the record and give my feet back. How many commercial launch vehicles will it take . Let me go back one second. I know you hadnt read the article but would you agree with his assessment. And he said one more time. It will require eight new developments, eight new launches and 17 mutual operations to achieve this goal. I think thats a fair assessment. How many commercial vehicles will it take to launch the system including having the gateway in a Critical Path . That is open and we are not telling the commercial providers how they need to do tour system. Some providers would implicate that they could do it with just one vehicles, others indicate they might need three. The baa Broad Agency Announcement is out and because of that i dont know how much we can comment on those activities because of the outcome. Basically its open right now . Were not specifying how many of the commercial providers for the human landing system ought to how their system ought to be developed. Were waiting to have them tell us what their approaches and will assess their approach. Nasas 2004 system with the study notes that after a launch plan it requires more than six to eight launch vehicles. The likelihood goes up dramatically. Does that concern you . I guess the point is there more launches and more that they could have a problem. That certainly is an issue and i would say that we would need the overall architecture and see what creates more and less risk and we see those reasons and having a gateway thats important for a lot of reasons and open architectures our International Partners and with our own systems to develop to be working with the gateway. But the weight were building the architecture strategically in nature enables us and a neighbors are commercial partners to have the opportunity to get to the moon themselves. International partners in the opportunities yet to the moon and so, i think, in general, what we are trying to achieve any cost and risk associated with that we, have the right architecture at this point. I would say that when we use different types of rockets we have similar redundancies so it reduces risk because of one fails we continue moving forward. The challenge in the 19 eighties after the actually is everyone was entitled and when that went away the dod had no access to space. The study i referred to it established benefits of using sls for a landing mission. From a mission reliability standpoint. If thats the case, should nasa be working on completing the sls before since it maybe needed to help with the moon mission . Certainly we are in fact doing a letter contract and signed it this morning for additional sls and exploration of the stage. These are underway right now and certainly we have a strong interest in seeing the fourth one be successful. Did the letter go out . I think the announcement went off this morning. We saw the signatures a little bit earlier. Thank you. China is ahead of us in space and people who are supportive of this request say that if we dont move now, china who own space. And who owns space owns the earth and our technology and it. Knowing that situation, how would the 2020 timeline for the funding if it is in provided in 2020 . So, i think of it as a range of probabilities and there is no definitive how we get there early and if we dont have the money or if we do have the money its a range of probabilities and if we look at what the second mark was ian because of that it reduces the probability to land within five years. And i think it cant be ruled out either and the level of risk and im not talking about life but wrist schedule. And we need to think about what put us in the past probability of success with the budget request and the best probability of success and i think that is what we are asking for. Thank you. Thank you mister chairman. Weve been talking a lot about the importance of commercial partners which obviously will pay a key role and not getting massive back to the moon. Thats right. 2020 budget requests and also the 1. 6 billion dollars of supplemental requests does speak a lot about and how they plan to leverage and the commercial partnership with launch vehicles and deep developers with Companies Like that. I want you to go into some more detail on that . Would you describe how these partnerships are helping nasa reduce costs and accelerate developments in the Artemis Program. Nasa is doing a lot of things that are accelerated in the process. The tradition is, youre aware of this, that if we have a program to develop, we spend six months develop and many a year are requesting for information in the industry spent six months to developing the information thats requested and we spent six months to a year revealing that information and put out the proposal and then they spent six months to respond to those proposals over the course of three to four years we find another contract. That doesnt include what all the contractors protesting decision that nasa made which cuts to taxpayers a lots of money and creates all kinds of problems for the country which is not good. All that being said, we were trying to do is move faster in the way to do that is where it makes sense as you mentioned with those partnerships where we put forth an american taxpayer dollars their own private investments and collaboratively we figure out a solution. Were willing to do that because we expect that they will one day get customers that those customers could be International Partners our can be in agreement with them but not just International Partners to be commercial and people that want to go to the moon for different reasons. Maybe its technology that can only be developed in the gravity or it could be tourism for Goodness Sake and are willing to go to the moon for vacation. I dont think it would be much for a vacation but some people do. As long as there are people willing to invest money in the capability and have customers that are not nasa it drags down our costs and increases access for everybody. Nasa doesnt always want to be the purchaser operator of all of our hardware. That being said, there are times where its in our interest to be the purchaser, owner and operator of our hardware. By the way, some of the companies that develop that capability cant even offer that hardware as a commercial opportunity for the future. There are different ways of doing Different Things but the eagle that i think is important is that we open what is legally possible and stay within the confines of the legal requirements given and dont go outside of that. Ultimately, take advantage of what is been provided by law to the public and private ships. Knowing that the vital part that the contractors are going to be playing, are you satisfied that nasa and its personnel ive been doing the work of overseeing the oversight work to make sure that the private contractors are doing what theyre supposed to be doing . I think at this point who, are in good shape. As programs move forward and we might need to reconsider the number of personnel that we have involved in this program. I think right now are okay and if our budget to go up and we have under developments then we could need more support. Thank you i, yield back. Thank you mister chairman. Nasa has a solicitation of providing a human landing system that will be used with landing astronauts in the mood in 2024. But tea sls with this upper stage could launch the system from a single mission. Nasa does not appear to be offered on its own sls vehicles to launch the hls and the solicitation to come up with their own sls commercial cargo vehicle solution. My question is, has there been any discussion with nasa to offer the sls as a government to large the lander system . I havent had any discussions regarding with the industry or for folks of people who have interest in that. This goes back to representative cart rights question regarding the new approaches and certainly we thought it would be appropriate for sls. If there is a commercially viable option for sls that is an opportunity that any human landing system provider or offer could tap into without an agreement between them and boeing for that activity or whoever. Theres a lot of contractors involved in that. I have to be really careful because you could have on the street and we dont want to say if we want to leave it to the hls providers to make that determination. With baa you might not be able to answer the question. With these missions and will never really effect . Again, all have to look theyre capable of doing and determinations in the process and we are in blackout. And i want to talk about details and were doing it with smaller rockets and they had advantages and disadvantages no one at the advantages of bringing those small pieces is we tend to do better with smaller programs as we work through the management and production of those different items. Breaking them into chunks could be very helpful. One thing you mentioned and is interesting in government furnished equipment. Certainly, any offer for a system has that option to requests government so you want to send too nasa to provide this and in the baa it is perfectly appropriate and what that means is we have a look at it and say you have an extra sls thats available and are we willing and this is the other challenge to pony up the cost with the original hls player. Not appropriate for that and this is a lot of money. And it with the approach on that, im not saying its yes or no and will have to offer but it does look awfully challenging to accommodate that. From an appropriation perspective thats part of it. Thank you and i really appreciate your oral testimony here today. I yield back. What is the status of the parachute testing the commercial crew . Great question, my goodness. So, we have two different commercial debris providers and the spacex right now is rapidly integrating and testing of the most recent design. And materials and were trying to meet the factor of safety which is numbers that go into that calculation. Were confident and the margin of safety and were looking for in that market is consistent and repeatable performance at that 1. 6 level i were looking at the margins for that parachute. Spacex has said that they got as many as ten drop tests done on the three wood would be impressive. If thats possible would be very positive and if we look at how that matches and if it matches with the drop test if those parachuted points dont match the mark to then we will have to do have additional tests. These are things that we are going to be analyzing in the upcoming days with space acts, they have the shared because were putting something on these rockets and can afford that information through some of our astronauts. Lastly, nasa fortunately has a reputation for overseeing projects that are behind schedule. My question is what, has changed . What are the difficulties of that theyve seen in the past . The big thing is i think the number one thing that we have to do as an agency and if they go forward with realism and a contractor will tell us what they can she and we accept it and they advertised it to the public and this is true. For every contractor and not singling out anyone and then those schedules get publicized and will account for achieving. It is not based on realism and a cost to schedule and we need realistic assessments and that these programs is a big difference and that there is a big difference between development and operations. When the Space Shuttle thats an operations capability and we knew that we had it and yes there were dark days but we had the shuttle were, doing now a commercial crew and sls is that theyre development for brands and as we go through the development of testing and that we have to make adjustments so its a lot harder when youre not in development and now being said i think we need to get better and i could see how can has some thoughts. A big part of it is the initial estimates for people and we tend to try to be a little ambitious and a little bit optimistic in our process and maybe we need to start off being a little bit more pessimistic. So that we set out in schedules so that we can meet. What type of issues continues to slow you down. What authority do you need to stay on budget . There is a very delicate balance on the contractors involved in this process. Quite frankly we need all of them and we need them all to be successful. A lot of times what happens is theres contractor on contractor violence that undercuts or trying to achieve on a rapid schedule. China is not going to slow down and that means we as a country come together and figure out what the architecture is and be committed to that process and move forward as quickly as possible. Sometimes contractors are constantly overcutting each other and thats not good for the agency and, not good for our country. When you make a plan to move forward need to move forward. I think that is one thing and as far as the companies. Ill take that for the record and i guarantee you will come up with a big in that time. Thank you mister chairman traditional time. That brings us to the end of the hearing gentlemen. Withstanding whatever questions we had and the comments have been made we support the work you do and we appreciate the work that you do and we can differ on one issue. Again, as i look up by an last year in congress, im proud of the fact that i was able to deal with issues that ordinarily people would think i was stereotypically not capable of dealing with and supporting it as other things. At the same time, looking out for the guy and the woman who are paying rent for the department having trouble paying their mortgage. So, all of those folks that are writing on twitter newspaper clippings while were sitting here saying that i just killed the mission, i dont have that kind of power i dont kill the mission. Those are some questions i know you know need to be asked before we move forward are not. So i thank you for your work and if you want a list of people that you want to send to space all that you know that im capable of doing that. To all the houston astros. laughs i sincerely thank you for coming in today for participating and i thank you for your input and making sure we have this hearing. Thank you so much. Thank you chairman. Good morning. Thank you all for joining us whether youre here with us in person and youre watching on our webcast or watching on c span. Im john valant at the Ground Center on education policy and were here today to talk about education policy and the 2020