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

The Committee Shall come to order. Welcome nasa administrator jim bridenstine, and acting associate add in mrer for human exploration and operations Kenneth 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 in nasas history. Just a week before our cjs bill was marked up in sub skmit, nasa submitted a 1. 6 billion Budget Amendment and intended to start the effort to advance the return of humans to the moon by four years. Such little time prevented us from adequately considering the proposal. This hearing will give us an opportunity to obtain more information from nasas regarding its revised plans for returning to the moon. While all of us on this subcommittee would like to send the first woman astronaut into deep space, including to the surface of the moon, we want to do it in a responsible way from the perspective of safety, cost, and likelihood of mission success. As most of you know, i have been a strong supporter of nasa during my 29 years in congress and we provide nasa more than 22. 3 billi 22. 3 billion for fy 2020 in our house bill. However, i remain extremely concerned about the additional costs to accelerating the mission to the moon by four years. Some experts have said that additional Financial Resources to make the see 25 billion over the next five years. Compared to the original 2028 schedule. To date, nasa has not provided the committee with a full cost estimate despite repeated requests. At a time of huge financial across numerous Government Programs all competing for funding within the budget caps, an additional 25 billion cost would severely impact vital programs not only under this subcommittee, but across all nondefense suburban committees. Sub committees. Another concern is the lack of a serious justification for such a cost. Since nasa has already programmed the Lunar Landing mission for 2028, why does it suddenly need to speed up the clock by four years . Time that is needed to carry out a Successful Program from a science and safety perspective. To a lot of members the motivation appears to be just a political one. Giving President Trump a moon landing and a possible second term should he be reelected. Not even nasas own leadership has enough confidence in the success and safety of advancing this timeline. Nasa acting soeshtive administrator bowersox was a former astronaut and here with us today referred to the 2024 moon landing date as difficult to achieve in a Health Science hearing just last month saying, quote, i wouldnt bet my oldest childs birthday present on anything like that. Additionally, nasas manager for the human landing system, lisa watson morgan, was quoted in an article about the timing of the mission saying, quote, this is a significant deviation for nasa and the government. All of this has to be done on the fast, has to be done on the quick. Typically, in the past nasa is quiet methodical, which is good. We are going to have to have an abbreviated approach to getting approval for industry standards for design and construction and how we are going to go off and implement this. So this is a big shift. I would say for the entire nasa community, too, unquote. We cannot sacrifice quality just to be quick. We cannot sacrifice safety to be fast and we cannot sacrifice other Government Programs just to please the president. Before asking for such a substantial additional investment, nasa needs to be prepared to state which Nasa Missions will be delayed or even canceled in the effort to come up with an additional 25 billion. Overall, i remain extremely concerned by the proposed advancement by four years of this mission. The eyes of the world are upon us. We cannot afford to fail. Therefore, i believe that it is better to use the original nasa schedule of 2028 in order to have a successful, safe, and Cost Effective mission for the benefit of the American People and the world. Thank you once again, administrator and acting associate administrator for being with us today. I look forward to hearing your testimony. Now id like to recognize at this time my good friend the Ranking Member for his opening comments. Thank you, mr. Chairman. First of all, i want to thank you for your leadership on this subcommittee. Your willingness to have hearings throughout the year. But in particular for this hearing. Regardless of party labels, the house of representatives will your professionalism and kindness. We look forward to working with you, of course, through the rest of this congress. We have a long way to go. So we know you are not leaving yet. But i would be remiss if i didnt mention that this morning. Also i appreciate the Ranking Member of kay granger being here today and for her engagement with these issues. She has put a lot of hard work and expertise in defense issues and on the space issues over the years for her district, state, and country. And also id like to express my gratitude to the president and to the Vice President for taking a real active interest in nasa. And compared to other agency, it represents a very small part of the national budget. But which continues to serve the dreams, it serves the ambitions of the entire nation, especially young people. And that is evident when i go into schools and have a chance to talk about things related to space and everyone is still very interested in it as ever. Mr. Administrator, mr. Bowersox, thank you both for being here today, and i strongly support the president s goal to land the first woman and the next man on the moon in 2024. In support of that goal, i believe we owe it to the taxpayer and to the mission to make sure the Program Remains focused. However, to make it to the moon by 2024 nasa will need sustained congressional investment and taxpayer support. The art miss program cannot afford to suffer the kinds of delays, setbacks and costs overturns which have sometimes become what is known as business as usual in our Space Program. On the contrary, its supposed to be characterized but unpair latitude and longitude accountability and agility. Today i have questions regarding whether nasa is committed to getting to the moon by any means necessary. As an Ardent Supporter of deep Space Exploration and as a conservative, i am concerned nasa could undercut its flexibility and incur unnecessary costs by foregoing opportunities to leverage existing assets in an attempt to simultaneously foster a commercial space economy. Bridenstine this past month, Vice President pence declared in his comments if nasa is not currently capable of landing american astronauts in the moon in five years, we need to change the organization, not the mission. And i couldnt agree more. The administrations ambitious but critically important 2024 moon plan will be the ultimate test of nasas judgment and its accountability. Finally, the rockets and the capsules and transfer vehicles and the dissent and assent landing systems must, above all, 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 with unprecedented private sector involvement, safety must be our number one priority. Hence, nasas ability to ensure safety in the commercial crew program will be a bellwether and i appreciate the administrators comments noting that commercial crew program must receive the contractor attention it deserves. So again i thank you both for being here today. Its an honor to have you here before our subcommittee, and thank you, mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing today. At this time i yield back. Thank you. And thank you for your kind comments. We are honored this morning to have our Ranking Member with us. A person that i respect a lot and a person that i will remember for a way of dealing with people in such a friendly and professional way. Bipartisan wherever she could. Like 3 of the time, but only kidding. Only kidding. Miss granger. Thank you, chairman. Thank you. Thank you for holding this hearing and your attention to space and your involvement. Im old enough to, i remember the Space Program as it was for everyone sitting at their television, their black and White Television and watching it, and it was good for america and it was good for all of us. Welcome, administrator bridenstine, and welcome mr. Bowersox. Thank you for your stewardship to the National Aeronautics and space administration. Its important to all americans and its our nations Space Exploration goals. In march, your agency was challenged with returning our astronauts to the surface of the moon within the next five years. I strongly support this accelerated 2024 goal and the art must mission. It will showcase the Global Leadership and technological advances of the United States. While also enhancing our National Security leading us to establish a strategic presence on the moon. Our nation is facing serious threats in space, specifically from china. I have had classified briefings that would shock any reasonable person and that clearly made the case that we must accelerate the art miss program. My add vo kissy was solidified after learning of chinas future capabilities and future plans. The u. S. Has 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 our National Security and our economy is to dominate space and beat the chinese and other near pier add voersaries. Space i believe is the next high ground and we have to take it. The decision to accelerate our nations return to the moon and establish a sustainable presence there will require a significant investment by this and future congresses. As a result, support for this ambitious but important 2024 timeline will be accompanied by Great Expectations both in terms of schedule, cost, and safety. A we recognize that you have a tough job ahead of you t i am committed to working with you to ensure thatynh nasa can advancr nations exploration priorities as effectively and efficiently as possible and i look forward to working in funding for nasas programs as the appropriate process moves forward and i yield back. Thank you. Before i ask the administrator for his comments, people who know me would wonder whats wrong with me if i dont do a shut out here. We spend a lot of time in the city of washington. Its like a second them all of us. So shout out to the nationals for pulling the upset of the century. People thought they couldnt do it. It should be a lesson to all of us. Just keep trying and you can pull it off. And now i can only get the yankees to turn it around against houston. Anyway, thats another issue. Mr. Administrator, five minutes. We will include your full statement in the record. So please go ahead. Before i became the administrator, the president had issued space policy directive one, and that direction was to go to the moon, to go sustainably, to go with commercial partners, and international partners, 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 support. Its air debris. Its water to drink. Its, in fact, rocket propellent. Hydrogen is the same rocket fuel that will power the space launch system. Its the same rocket fuel that powered the Space Shuttles. So we are going to use the resources of the moon, and then ultimately we are going to take all of this knowledge that we learned and this architecture at the moon and go to mars. That was all in the president s first space policy directive. When i became the nasa administrator we put together a plan. Given our current budgets, what will it take to achieve this . And we came up with a plan, as you identified, that put us on the moon in 2028. If budgets remained fairly constant. The challenge that 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 to the 1990s, the Space Exploration initiative, it took, you know, decades in time and it eventually got canceled. We look at the vision for Space Exploration in the early 2000s, again to tack many, many years and got canceled. So the question is how do we reduce risk. There is two types of risk. There is technical risk and then there is Political Risk. The Political Risk, its not partisan. Its just when programs go too long, people start losing confidence and then money gets redirected to other places. So one of the reasons to go fast, and i heard mr. Chairman, i heard you clearly say slow and methodical. Methodical, yes. Nasa is all about doing things step by step and building on one lesson after another. What were trying to change as a culture is that word slow. We dont want to be slow. I think going fast makes sure that we will have successes. I also think that by going fast we put ourselves to the Ranking Members position. We put ourselves in a position to lead the world. Right now we have international partners. 15 are with us on the International Space station. We have had astronauts from 19 Different Countries on the International Space station. We have had experiments from a 103 Different Countries on the International Space station. China is moving fast. They are going to the moon. And the last time they landed on the moon, they landed on the far side of the moon in the beginning of this year. They landed with a small probe, and it was the first time in Human History anyone landed on the far side of the moon. They took out a twopage ad in the economist magazine and made very clear they are the worlds leader in Space Exploration and everybody in the world should partner with them. I think thats the wrong position. So we have Political Risks we need to deal with. Its Political Risk from programs taking too long. Its Political Risk from a geopolitical standpoint, making sure our partners are with us and not them. I think those are Important Reasons to move faster. But we do not want to take any undue risk, put any lives at stake, but i can tell you 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 within five years, we need to change the organization. And i believe that with all my heart r heart. Ill tell you why. In the 1960s, president kennedy announced 1962 at my alma mater Rice University that we are going to land on the moon before the decade is out. At the time we didnt have the Johnson Space center. We didnt understand the orbital dynamics of going to the moon. We didnt have the launch facilities. We didnt have a rocket that could get to the moon. We didnt have any of these capabilities that currently we have to our advantage. They had to go from scratch. They didnt have the miniaturization of electronics. They didnt have the ability to store power in smaller quantities. They didnt have the ability to reuse rockets and do all these other things that are on the cusp of changing how we do space flight. So if we cant do it today within five years when they did it within eight years and really seven years back in the 60s, i think we do need to change how we do things. I think it is important that we go faster. I heard the Ranking Member say that we need to leverage existing assets. If we go fast, if we want to land on the moon in 2024, which we want to do, and thats they said if we wanted to go fast, how fast could we do it . 2024 is how fast we could do it. And at the end of the day i think its important to note that thats not a guarantee, but its in the realm of what is possible. And a lot of things have to go right to make that a reality. And what were asking for in the budget request is to give us an option to make going fast a possibility. So i think these are all important things that we need to talk about today and chairman, i appreciate you having this hearing. Ranking member, i appreciate your comments as well and i look forward to answering any questions. Thank you. We will now begin the first round of questions with each member. You will receive five minutes. The Appropriations Committee has repeatedly asked for information regarding the additional costs of moving the moon mission up by four years. To date we have received no response. It is hard to just any afy any fending in the current fiscal year when we dont know the coasts couns coasts down the road. What is the additional cost of moving up the schedule by four years from 28 to 24 . Could you please break the costs down by year for the upcoming five years . And let me just tell you on a personal level, although we are here in plij. You know me. We have dealt in the past on a personal level. This is not just about finding the money. Its about where this president is known to go find monies when he needs them. Now, if he came to us and said no wall and in return for a 24, you might get a few democrats to agree with that, right . Maybe more than that. He is probably going to say lower pell grants, lower food stamps, lower education dollars. And thats not acceptable. And thats the problem. But i asked you a question. Im sorry. The request for 2020 includes an additional 1. 6 billion. I have been very clear with everybody i have talked to. The goal to get to the moon needs to be bipartisan. It has to be apolitical. And if when we go to the moon we are doing so by cutting the Science Mission directive of nasa, that will create a partisan divide we do not want to have as an agency. If we try to take the money from the International Space station, that will create a parochial fight with members from texas, florida, alabama, about the International Space station. Those are the two big areas where nasa has hundred. But i dont think that the right approach to cannibalize those programs to achieve the moon landing. So i was i have been very clear with everybody i talked to on 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 billion we were operating under previously established budget caps. And i think its fantastic that an agreement was made between republicans and democrats to raise those budget caps that gives nasa a great chance. I also want to say, mr. Chairman, we are grateful for the mark you did in the house because you did great work, especially on behalf of the Science Mission director and thats really good for the agency. I want to take nothing away from the house mark. Its also true when we go forward with trying to get to the moon in 2024, that requires additional resources. And i understand the concern with the out years. We want to give you the out years. We are working right now inside the administration with the office of management and budget and the National Space council to woman come up with the out y numbers are to get a consensus within the administration about what were willing to put forward and once we have that we want to give it to you as absolutely as soon as possible. I would also say that the budget smith for 2021 is due in february. Certainly we will have it in the 2021 budget submit without question. The senate actually fenced the money pending getting the full report on what the out years look like. They fenced the 2020 money based on what the out years looked like. I think that is maybe a good solution, something to consider, but i think at the end we want to give you those numbers. We are not ready just yet, but certainly we still want to move forward. At the expense of being a subject to death, you were very clear that you dont want to take money from other nasa programs because you dont want to hurt those programs. I dont want to go to the moon by taking money from people who cant afford to survive in this society to the level that they should survive in this society. And so that is a big problem that we have to get over, where that money is going to come from. Your fiscal year 2020 budget justification was delivered to the Committee Earlier this year and it is Still Available online. In looking at the out years budget chart that is included in that budget what parts of nasas budget do you anticipate would need to go down during a 2021 through 24 period compared to the numbers displayed on your earlier budget chart in order to pay for the additional costs associated with the schedule change on the moon landing . What is the cost to other priorities to achieve this effort . So my objective is to let everybody know that cannibalizing certain parts of nasa to fund another part of nasa is not thats not my goal. Certainly we are going to need additional resources, and i have been clear that, you know, whether you take it from station, whether you take it from the Science Mission directorate, when we do that it creates parochial fights or partisan fights, and i am trying to maintain nasas apolitical bipartisan approach. So i would say that my goal is to not cut any of nasas budget in order to finance the moon agenda. The budget submit for 2021 will be delivered in february of next year. I am having a little trouble getting my message through, so ill try one more time and then drop it, okay . You dont want to hurt nasa. Will you please understand that nasa has support from members of congress. Yes. Nasa has support from this committee, as our mark showed, our bill showed. Nasa has the support of the American People, including the very people you would hurt. But would you keep that support if the people knew that take money from their very needed situations, you know, factory worker who needs a little extra from the federal government to help feed his family and now nasa is going to go to the moon four years earlier based on taking money from them. Thats, you know, i dont need an answer for that. Just think about that as we go forward. And my time has been used up. Thank you. Regarding the comments you made about sls production work after your visit back i think it was midaugust that you were there, i was wondering how you think things are currently going for work on the sls rocket, especially one through three . Absolutely. I will tell you, you know, we have had some very challenging conversations with boeing, and of course you have seen that in real time maybe in the public. I would also tell you that they have responded in a very positive way to the challenges that we have had with sls development. Number one, we have now started in fact, we have completed the integration of the engine section. So the engine section, which was the holdup, kind of got delayed. So we started integrating the rest of the rocket in the horizontal, which enabled us to integrate the sls rocket while the engine section was still under development. Previously, if you do the vertical stack, everything has to weight on the engine section. We changed that. We started integrating the horizontal, and boeing did great things in order to make that happen. T engine section is now complete and integrated into the rocket itself. By the way, we are very satisfied with how fast things are moving now. And at this point the engines themselves are being integrated into the engine section, and as soon as that is complete there will be probably a month or two, maybe a little bit longer, of testing at mishu. I think by the end of this year we will be moving the sls rocket out of the assembly facility, moving it to the Stennis Space Center for testing for what we call a green run test. So boeing has, in fact, responded very, very well, and we are very pleased with where the sls is right now. You are confident that it will be delivered on time . Well, the new time, yes, sir. And, of course, as you mentioned, you have heard work that is progressing more quickly . Yes. On the second core. Maybe might be 40 faster . Yes. So what we learned on the first sls is paying dividends on the second sls. So things are moving a lot faster. I dont know, ken, do you want to address that . I just say that thats true. I mean, we are moving faster on the second core. But we are still finding new challenges, right. There are still new rockets. Even on the second core we might find a challenge or two. But overall the trend is positive. Does it seem to you that the work is indeed faster than core number one . Absolutely. No question about that . Without question. All right. I understand there is a growing confidence among the prime contractors for sls to be able to produce two rockets a year starting in 2024. And they believe they could deliver a block oned in 2024. What do you think . Do you think it will be done . So it depends what boeing is willing to invest, quite frankly. We dont have currently the appropriations necessary to achieve that. If we were to do that, we might need some more infrastructure that currently doesnt exist, and, ken, i dont know. Do you want to address that . Well, what id say is we havent seen the performance yet that would indicate that were guaranteed the second core wed need for a moon landing in 2024. Were open to considering those types of options. We are looking for that type of progress, but we just havent seen it yet, sir. So, to be clear, i am confident that given our current rate of production. We will have three slss available and the third one would be for the artemis three that takes us to the moon in 2024. 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 that could happen. All right, understanding the complexities of integrating the sls, as both of you do, you have any reason to believe that the Broad Agency Announcement for the human landing system presents a viable opportunity for to engage the prime contractors and force the necessary agreements in order to incorporate and sls into the proposals before the response deadline thats in november of this year . Again, this would be a question for boeing specifically, they would need to look at the sls and come up with a sls the riveted that would be made available to the offers for the human landing system, and figure out how they would deliver that to those offers but i think it would require investment from boeing to do that and the goal would be that those offers would side boeing as their provider of that launch service but it would be a launch service that i think its in the realm of what is possible if boeing wanted to make those investments i just concur with the administrator. Thank you. Let me recognize now Ranking Member miss granger. Administrator, could you succinctly, there are three questions, one is why should we accelerate this at the cost it is whats the primary importance of that change and if its worth that large investment, and then focus on the sensitivity of the National Security, what does it mean to taxpayers. We are talking about talk to us about and say 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 here 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 valuable to the taxpayer. It was a piece of winning the cold war. Im not going to say it was the preponderance 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 directv, 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 borne from nasa, the way we do disaster relief, National Security and defence, all these capabilities are born from a Little Agency called nasa. The way we predict weather, 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 nitrates 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 epa. This is transforming how the world moves forward and these technologies have elevated the human condition for all of humanity, 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 and capabilities they get commercializing. The return on investment is outstanding. You 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 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 appropriators and we 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. We have to 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 815 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 by nasa did not adequately fund artemis, because a mere two months later, you submitted this 1. 6 billion dollars supplemental request for increased artemis 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 stretch, 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 2028 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. That makes sense. 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 a car salesman . You ask him how much of the car and when they say, its only going to be two 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. In response to the chairmans figures you, dont have those figures. We are working through an administration concensis 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 as an agency, 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. We have disimilar redundancy. 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 so you know, more money early reduces cost, best interests of the agency and 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. Finally that he johnson really its an issue about the appropriations language included with a 1. 6 Million Dollar supplemental request, i would like to follow up on that point, is it your understanding that the language and 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 some things 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 at nasa 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 establishment of us strategic 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 of 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 the 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 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, we have introduced the nasa act, there will really authorize this for ten years and the supportive by representatives from both sides of both parties and across the country. Can you elaborate on the ways nasa centers have used the agreement to reduce operating costs and improve nasa facility conditions . 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 rights to that again, and they could continue their lease. We have similar kind of agreements for launch facilities and of course test facilities. There is lots of opportunity to improve nasa facilities by partnering with the private sector. I think youve had a couple of them, the launchpad, there is a lot of production facilities and operation facilities at the cave, where we use that type of agreement, every center where we got the Spare Capacity we are trying to find users from outside nasa to can come in and take advantage of those facilities, so its been very helpful to us. Not reauthorize and eu out, what would happen . Itll be bad for nasa, will be bad for our partners, so please reauthorize it. And please 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 . 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 . I will start, hes had experience on these kinds of i think its important that we recognize that what the commercial providers ultimately provide, a lot of them already been tested, we are not saying how to land on the moon, were asking them to propose to us how they would do it if to go from the gateway, which is that space station in orbit around the moon, in order to get back to the gateway, to do that, we are using hardware that has been tested significantly. A transfer vehicle, a descent module, and ascent 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 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. Ken . 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 may 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 fiscal and 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 you budgetwise, as well as i would expect qualitywise. 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 resupply the International Space 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 two. 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, the 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 mentioned 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 nasa to be a customer of services. Especially for lowearth orbit. And ultimately not just a customer, but have providers that compete against each other. That is how we are doing the lowearth 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 accelerate would also mean an 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 mars. When we go to mars, we have to be there for a long period of time. So, we need to use the moon 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 mars 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 space 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 and buzz aldrin used . How long does it take to develop the original spacewalking spacesuits. Well look that up. What lessons did nasa learn from the canceled all female spacewalk that was helping the next generations Space Exploration . We made it transparent that space suits are very difficult because there are so large, and we need spacesuits, so the history of nasa is to build a space suit that works in the interest of downscaling that. 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 referencing obviously highlighted what we have said that. I was going to say that on the way, i got to check the tv and i saw the two women are preparing their space suits and we hope to see that very soon. They needed even more time, than what we are doing for this particular eva. The suits needed more work. 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, the european module 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, were doing commercial crew which will be launching in the 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 hard right now to make 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. We are excited to take on that challenge. Thank you, i yield back. 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. I wondered, if we could just step back a second from 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 in 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 and space results, whether its commodities or whatever and human spaceflight. When you add humans into the mix its much more expensive. Im wondering whether you have read the report and whether you believe that to be outdated and my primary question is, how is the date of 2024 chosen as a starting period . Great questions. Theres two things to 2024 date and a number of things have changed. Number one, when we came out with the date in 2028 that was with budget not changing significantly with inflation. Where there were people people in congress and members of the administration that said 2028 is ten years. Programs that last ten years obviously historically, that has 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 needed 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. We need to 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 billion 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 page spread saying that there is a world leader in Space Exploration and all the countries in the nations need to 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 appropriated 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 . And in achieving those, has nasa a deep experience in 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 Missions because they use Nuclear Power. What we call 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 Space Exploration. When we send humans to mars it would be in the best interest to use Nuclear Propulsion which would be an absolute gamechanger with how we do deep Space Exploration. If you do this, the department of defense should have a Significant Interest and that capability for 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 could have a lot of applications for National Security capabilities as well. Theres a lot of cross over and why we have these communities. Just about everything we do in human spaceflight, 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 are in Nuclear 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 in achieving success in this project. Thank you. Sure. 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 excites me, its part of our states culture and our economy. I have a constituent in my distrcit that are working to build , but most important you talked about it earlier and will Health Future scientists. As you both are aware, supporting the goal of sending the first woman and next man to the rule, as long as the sun safely and efficiently. Failure is not an option when we are pursuing an 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 for artemis is 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 schedule together now to put that. Can you discuss a lot of work event nasa has been doing with respect to artemis, particularly artemis three. Yes sir, i think regarding having new associate administrator for human exploration and operation, 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 has had an opportunity to assess. Accountability matter, if i said set schedule, and they come in later, and may not be a good. We have a new associate administrator and they testified best for the house committee, and i 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 have 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 they actually fenced 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 artemis three . Yes. In addition 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 to go to the moon and 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, a navy astronaut for a navy guy, 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 pay the 25 billion dollars. We need to hear that from you and we dont see it and now you spoke 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. Okay . The administrator as you know Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel 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 crew 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, i like these 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 will, 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;;;;;;;;;;;;1 what the right answer is we want to leave it to the hls providers to make that determination. So with that, you might not be able to answer the next question, so splitting this will this negatively affect the schedule . Again we are going to have to look out what the commercial providers demonstrate they are capable of, doing we will look at all of that and see, we are in a blackout zone. Yeah i dont want to talk about details but the idea of doing anything with one big rocket versus doing with smaller rockets, each approach has its advantages and disadvantages, one of the advantages and breaking things into small pieces we tend to do better with smaller programs as we work through the management and production of those different items, so breaking them into chunks that we can handle me very helpful. You mentioned government finished 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. Just from an appropriation perspective but also from a schedule perspective. Well thank you, i really appreciate your written and oral testimony today, i yield back. What is the status of the test and the commercial crew . Great question, my goodness, so we have two different commercial crew providers, spacex right now is rapidly iterating testing of the mark three parachute which is the most recent design, and materials, the goal here is we are trying to meet a specific factor of safety of 1. 6, it is a whole host of numbers that go into that calculation, but we are confident that the parachute is the right system to achieve that margin of safety, what we are looking for now is, consistent and repeatable performance at that 1. 6 level, so we will be looking at the margins for every element of that parachute. Spacex has said that by the end of the year they think they could get as many as ten drop tests done on the work three, watch, if that is possible it would be very positive and then we are going to look and see how that matches with the arc to, if it matches with mark to them i dont have to do as many drop tests. If they dont match, the marks to then we would have to do additional drop tests, these are all things that we are going to be analyzed in the coming days with spacex, they have a static fire test coming up and of course a lot of parachute testing, remember this is a Development Program that means were gonna learn things, we learn things that we werent anticipating it when that happens we need to be prepared for it, then on the boeing say with the, rocket and the storyline are, a lot of these similar challenges that could come from the asymmetry issue from up here into diplomacy and is fighting them as well but akin nasa is making sure that what we learned each of these programs grants widely shared because we are putting humans on these rockets and we cannot afford to have from porridge very information to put astronauts in jeopardy. Lastly nasa has a reputation for overseeing projects that are behind schedule and over budget and my question is what is changing how are you hoping to overcome the difficulties of that that youve seen in the past . Yeah so the big thing is i think the number one thing that we have to do as an agency is go forward with real is a, oftentimes a contractor will tell us what he can achieve and we accept it and they advertised to the public and this is true for every contractor, im not singling out everyone, those schedules get publicized but in a lot of cases its not based on real is and when it comes to cost and schedule we need to be more realistic in our assessments and know that these programs, there is a big difference a lot of people dont know, between developments and operations when we had the Space Shuttle that, we knew that we had the, shuttle we had the shuttle, what we are doing when the commercial cruel and sls these are Development Program, so we dont know yet what we dont, know as we go through the Development Testing we learn things and we have to make adjustments, so its a lot harder to pin down with the schedule is when you are still in development. That being said i do think we can be better at being more realistic, i can see can has some thoughts. I think a big part of it is the initial lessons, we tend to be a little ambitious, maybe a little optimistic and maybe we need to start off being a little more, i wont say pessimistic but realistic so we set out schedules and cost goals that we can meet. Lastly let me just say, what type of issues continue to slow you down, what Additional Authority do you need to stay on budget and stay on schedule . There is a very delicate balance among the contractors involved in this process and right frankly we need all of them and we need them all to be successful, a lot of times what happens is theres a contractor on contractor violence that ultimately undercuts what we are trying to achieve on a rapid schedule, heres what we know, china will not slow down, that means we as a country need to come together, figure out what the architecture, is be committed to a process and move forward as rapidly as possible, sometimes contractors are constantly undercutting each other and that is not good for the agency, its not good for our country, when we make a plan to move forward we need to move forward, so i think that is one thing, as far as authorities, i will take that for the record, i guarantee you i will come up with some but i might need a little time. Thank you for the additional. Time that brings us to the other hearing gentleman and whatever questions may have been asked to her comments made we support the work you do and we appreciate the work you do and we can differ on one issue and try to work at all but again as i look at my last year in congress i am proud of the fact that i was able to deal with issues that ordinarily people would think are stereotypically not capable to doing it i support those things and at the same time looking after the guy and the woman who are paying ranch for their apartment and having trouble paying their mortgage, so all those folks that are already writing on twitter, newspaper clippings, were sitting here saying that i just killed a mission, they dont have that kind of, power i just asked some questions that i know you know need to be answered before we move forward or not, so i thank you for your work i want to list the people i want to send to space, ill send you the list, i sincerely thank you for coming here today for participating and i think you for your and vote and making sure we held this hearing, thank you so much. Thank you chairman. On a federal Appeals Court heard oral arguments in a case that determines whether an Accounting Firm must comply with the Manhattan District Attorney subpoena for certain financial records including President Trumps tax returns berkeley threejudge panel with us court of appeals for the Second Circuit engaged with attorneys on both sides on legal issues prickle this is 50 minutes