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 administrator 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 subcommittee, 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 billion for fy2020 in a 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 s needsed to make the administration impose 2020 deadline could exceed 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 needs 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 subcommittees. Another concern that i have is a 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 associate 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 costeffective 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 mr. Aderholt for his opening commence. 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 your 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 on the defense issues and on the space issues over the years for her district, the 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 Artemis 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 unfair by unparallel 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 fiscal conservative, im concerned that 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. Director bridenstine this past march, Vice President pence in his comments declared nasa is not currently capable of landing american astronauts on 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 her way of dealing with people in such a friendly and professional way. And bipartisan wherever she could, which was like 3 of the time, but only kidding. Only kidding. Miss granger. Thank you, chairman. Thank you, chairman serrano and Ranking Member aderholt. 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 artemis mission. Appropriately named after apollos twin sister. Sending american astronauts, including the first woman, to the south pole of the moon will showcase the Global Leadership and technological advances of the United States. It will also enhance our National Security by allowing us to establish a strategic presence on the moon. Our nation is facing serious threats in space, specifically from china. Ive had classified briefings that would shock any reasonable person and that clearly made the case that we must accelerate the a Artemis Program. My advocacy 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 the chinese and other nearpeer adversaries. 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. We recognize that you have a tough job ahead of you. I am committed to working with you to ensure that nasa can advance our 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 shout out here. We spend a lot of time in the city of washington. Its like a second home to 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. Yes, sir. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Before i became the nasa 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 it took many, many years and eventually got canceled. And so the question is, how do we reduce risk . Theres two types of risk. Theres technical risk and then theres 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 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 of them 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. But china is moving fast and theyre going to the moon. The last time they landed on the moon, they landed on the far side of the moon. That was in the beginning of this year. They landed with a small probe. And it was the first time in Human History anyone had landed on the far side of the moon. They took out a twopage ad in the economist magazine and made very clear that 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, we dont want to 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. Ill tell you why. In the 1960s, president kennedy announced 1962 at my alma mater rice university, he announced we were going to land on the moon before the decade was out. At the time we didnt have the Johnson Space center. We didnt understand the orbital dynamics of going to the moon. There were 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 now 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 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 justify any extra spending on this effort in the current fiscal year when we dont know the costs down the road. What is the additional cost of moving up the schedule of the moon landing by four years from 28 to 24 . Further, could you please break the costs down by year for the upcoming five years . Let me just tell you on a personal level, although were here in public, and you know me, weve 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 in return for 24, you might get a few democrats to agree with that, right . Maybe more than that. But hes 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, and im sorry, i didnt give you time to answer it. So, 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 that 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 maybe with members from texas, florida, alabama, about the International Space station. Now, those are the two big areas where nasa has money. But i dont think that the right approach is to can balancize 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 come up with what those out year 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 submit for 2021 is due in february. Certainly we will have it in the 2021 budget submit without question. If we look at what the senate has already done, they 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 look 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. Were not ready just yet, but certainly we still want to move forward. At the expense of being a at the expense of beating a subject to death, you were very clear 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 2021 through 24 period . Compared to the numbers displayed on your earlier budget chart, nard 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 director, when we do that it creates parochial fights or partisan fights. And im 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 ill 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, as 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 eventually you would have to 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 nasas 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. Mr. Aderholt, of course. Thank you. Regarding the comments you made about sls production work after your visit back to, 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, weve 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 you 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 wait on the engine section. We changed that. We started integrating the horizontal, and boeing did great things in order to make that happen. The engine section is now complete. The engine section is now 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. So, you are confident that it will be delivered on time . Well, yes, 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 . A lot more 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. I mean, there are still new rockets. And even on the second core we might find a new 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 1d 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 artemis 3 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, do you have any reason to believe that the Broad Agency Announcement for the human landing system presents a viable opportunity for offers to engage the prime contractors and forge the necessary agreements in order to incorporate an sls into the proposals before the response deadline thats in november 1st of this year . Again, this would be a question for boeing specifically. They would need to look at the sls. And come up with an sls derivative that would be made available to the offers for the human landing system. And then figure out how they would deliver that to those offerers. But i think it would require investment from boeing to do that. And the goal would be that those offers would select boeing as their provider of that launch service, but it would be a launch service. So, i think its in the realm of what is possible if boeing wanted to make those investments. You want to comment on that . I concur with the administrator. All right. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you. Let me recognize our Ranking Member, miss granger. Thank you. Administrator bridenstine, could you to me there are three questions. One is, why should we accelerate this at the cost it is . Whats the primary importance of that change . And whether its worth that very large investment. And then focus on the sensitivity of the National Security and say, what does it mean to taxpayers . Because were talking about how you pay and what it costs. Talk to us about that and say, then, how does that benefit our taxpayers . Oh, its huge. And this, i think, goes to what the chairman was talking about earlier, about the tradeoffs. We look back at apollo and we just celebrated 50 years of apollo. Everybody in america loved it. We saw 500,000 people on the National Mall celebrating 50 years of apollo. And i know all of us, we have seen 500,000 people on the National Mall before. Weve never seen 500,000 happy people celebrating something good. That was a very, very great day for nasa. Its a great day for america. And its 50 years later. The inspiration that came from that moment in time was transformational for our nation and transformational for people that, you know, went into the s. T. E. M. Fields that otherwise never would have done that. You walk around nasa and you ask folks, hey, why are you here . They will tell you where they were when Neil Armstrong and buzz walked on the moon. And im sure members of this committee could tell us where they were. The sad thing is, this is why we need to go faster. Im 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 weve got to make sure we dont have another generation that goes by that doesnt have that memory. And 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. But going to your question about what is the value to the taxpayer . All of that, i think, is tremendously valuable to the taxpayer. It was a piece of ultimately winning the cold war. Im not going to say it was the preponderance but a piece of it. All that being said, remember, some people watching this, i know this is on tv, some people watching on going to watch on dish network, or directv, or maybe they have internet broadband from space. Im from rural oklahoma, if you dont have broadband from space, you dont have broadband, gps borne from this Little Agency called nasa. The way we do National Security, defense, all these capabilities i should say a lot of these capabilities there borne from a Little Agency called nasa, weather satellites are purchased by nasa, and of course, the Program Management of those weather satellites is nasa. How we understand climate and how its changing is done by nasa. The way we produce food, increasing crop yields, increasing nitrates in the soil. All of these technologies come from nasa. The way we produce energy and do it cleanly, methane leaks, those kind of things we can detect methane leaks and we can do stait instantaneously from space and prevent fines from occurring. And so this has elevated the human condition for all of humanity in the way that if you asked Neil Armstrong and buzz al drin why are you going to the moon and they wouldnt have known that, because it was not what they were thinking. So looking at this for less than the federal budget and delivering technologies and capabilities that are commercialized and elevate the human condition, and the return on investment is just outstanding. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You are not scoring any points by reminding people that you are younger than some of us. [ laughter ] mr. Cartwright. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you, mr. Bridenstein and bower socks for being here. I dont believe it is a secret that as a member of the nasa and the planetary caucuses, i share your enthusiasm for nasa, and i believe in your mission, and i support your people and im willing to believe that everybody on the subcommittee feels the same way. Thank you, sir. But we are appropriators and we have to deal with the dollars and the cents and the budget requests and i appreciate your comments of not cannibalizing nasa for another. But the fiscal year 2020 budget requested an overall reduction of 480 million including the reduction in the science budget of 600 million and the complete zeroing out of the offices of s. T. E. M. Engagement, and you submitted that, didnt you, administrator . Yes, that is in the budget. And so we have to drill down on that. And so looking at the cuts in fiscal 2020 as we did in fy 2018 and fy 2019 we increased nasas funding by 90 million for the Lunar Landing and the funding of the s. T. E. M. Education and if you are detecting a pattern there, you are right. Look, the 2020 nasa budget request evidently did not adequately fund artemis, because a mere two months later, you submitted this 1. 6 million supplemental request for the increased artemis funding, and what i am trying to do is to is that i am grappling with the true costs of the program and whether nasa has a firm grasp on it and how much money you need from artemis, and when you are going to nitd. And 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 was not 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, you know, changes to the budget based on inflation. And attend, we were able to say and it was a stretch, but we could say that we could land on the moon in 2028. And i dont mean to interrupt you, but the question is when did you realize that the 2020 budget was going to be insufficient for the Artemis Program . Well, after the 2028 date came out, there were a lot of people that said that is too long, and the challenge is when these programs last a decade, theres risks from a budgetary perspective. So, im with you, and so it is after the acceleration of the program that you realized that you did not have enough money. Right. And so you didnt know before submitting the fiscal 2020 budget request, you did not know about the acceleration, fair . We had not planned tok a sell ra to accelerate at that point. You described the 1. 6 billion supplemental request as a down payment. Heres what we are grappling with, administrator. What is the total cost of the whole program . I mean you go to buy a car and there is a car salesman there, and what do you ask him . You ask him how much is the car. And when he comes up to you and he says, well, it is only going to be 2,000 in the first year. And you say, yeah, but i am asking you how much the car is. What you mean . I mean after the first year, how much do i have to pay for the car, and he says, oh, no, those are the out years. And, you know, that is not acceptable. You need to know the total cost. You have said, i think in response to the chairmans question that you dont have those figures. Well, we are working through with the office of management and budget and the National Space council to come up with an administration consensus for what the total cost will be, and we will submit that in february. February of this coming year, you will have those figures for us . It is going to be part of the budget submit in february, yes, sir. Okay. And do you know sitting there today how much extra the whole project is going to cost, because of accelerating it . So there is a lot of different options that would be available. Some of the options increase the probability of success, and some of the options decrease the probability of success and based on the range of options, and that is what we are looking at, at as an agency and the office of management and budget, and trying to come to a resolution on, i believe it is in the interest of success to start off with at least three different Human Systems that we can down select to two Human Systems and so we have dissimilar redundancy and that is the higher probability of success, and if the Budget Constraints put us in a position to have one human landing position, we put ourselves in a position to where the contractor could have Pricing Power that could get us in a position where we have cost overruns and schedule delays, and so that is not in the best interest of the agency or the success, and here is what we know. We know that more money early reduces the costs, but if we go inexpensive early then the likelihood is that costs go up over time. So these are all different trades that we are looking at, at this point for the outyears that we are anxiously delivering in february. All right. Finally, the Science Committee chairwoman Bernice Johnson raised an issue regarding the specific appropriations language included with the 1. 6 billion supplemental request and i wanted to follow up with you on that point. Is it your understanding that 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. The intent is to have as much flexibility as possible within artemis, and some things that go fast and some things that we dont find what we dont know, and there is unknown unknowns that we have to be prepared for, and that flexibility is going to give us that, and i have heard of people concerned that we will take the study from the Science Mission to fund other operation, and that is not my intent, and nobody i have talked to at nasa has indicated that is my intent. And i will specifically quote her that the language would give you Carte Blanche authority to move the funds among nasas accounts from this year forward if you determine that the transfers are necessary and supportive of the Strategic Options on the moon and you are saying that is not so . Well, look, it has to be bipartisan and if we put ourselves in a position where, you know, one side of the aisle is not happy with what we are trying to achieve, we wont be successful. We want to be apolitical and bipartisan as possible, and cannibalizing the chief objectives of the cannibalism, and they are not exclusive of each other, and that narrative is promoted a lot, and they are not exclusive, but work hand in hand and it is within the realm that we dont have any desire to do that. We want to make sure that we have the support of both sides of the aisle. So, no cannibalism in the february figures . I agree with that. Thank you, mr. Chairman, and mr. Bridenstein and associate administrator bowersoks for being here today. Under nasa the Space Program has been a symbol of leadership and national pride, and at this Crucial Point in history we have to use the investments wisely and advance sound policy to maintain American Leadership in the space domain. To help nasa Centers Across the nation to become better stewards of the underutilized infrafrauk sthur we have introduced hr244 the nasa lease enhanced reauthorization act of 2014. This is going to reauthorize for ten years and from representatives of both parties and across the country from virginia to california and everywhere in between. Administrator, can you elaborate on the ways that nasa centers have successfully used the eul agreements to improve the operating costs and improve nasa facilities and conditions . Absolutely. I think that there is some really good examples of the infrastructure that include buildings for example where a private Company Wants to use a building that nasa is not using currently, and part of the way they have access to that building is to make it usable and improve it. And then, after a period of time, nasa has the rights to that building again in the future or they could continue their lease. So these are all good things, and where nasa can partner with the private sector, and we have similar kind of agreements for launch facilities, and of course, as you are familiar with it in stennis, the test facilities, and so there is a lot of opportunity to improve nasas facilities to partner with the private sector, and ken, do you have anything that you want to add to that . Well, you have hit a couple of those that the launch pads at the cape, and lots of the production facilities and operations facilities at the cape where we are using those types of agreements, and just about every center where we have got spare capacity, we are trying to find users from outside of nasa who can come in and take advantage of the facilities, and so it is helpful to us. And that is not reauthorized an eul, and what would happen . Well, it would be bad for nasa and it would really bad for the private sector partners and please reauthorize it. Well, great. That is please to the members of the committee if you have not signed off on the hr244, we would appreciate you have to take a hard look at it and we will get it to you. So another question is that i am proud to represent Stennis Space Center where nasa has tested every space rocket. And so this year they will have the green engine test, and we are encouraged by the progress as we near the first flight rocket from artemis one and see the progress of artemis two being built, and now, going with the green run test and the similar green run test at the upper stage of stennis, do you believe that the lunar planner should run a test for that test and if not, what is the rationale for not putting it through the same testing of the coreless stage at eus . El well, i will start, and ken will have some to add i am sure, because he is an astronaut who has some experience with these vehicles. So what the commercial providers provide, a lot of it could have already been tested. We are not saying how to land on the moon, and we are asking them to propose to us how they would do it. And so if to go from the gateway which is that space station in orbit around the moon tho get to the surface of the moon and back to the gateway and if to do that, we are using hardware that has been tested significantly, a transfer vehicle, and ascent and descent module, and there could be solutions that have history that we dont necessarily have to green run test, however, there are brandnew designs and brandnew capabilities that it is maybe necessary. I dont want to prejudge what nasa is going to require, but certainly depending upon the solutions that we are presented we will have of course thoughts on it. Ken. Yes, ali say is that we will carefully look at all of the test plans that we get back from the human launch, or the human landing system providers once the proposals are all in to talk a lot more in detail and that would not be good right now since we are in blackout for the proposals, but depending upon the types of the engines they have, stennis is maybe a great place for testing, but other types of engines we have done at different places of nasa and companies have done them at other places around the country, but they will be thoroughly tested before they get to the moon. Thank you for the response, and i yield back. Mr. Case. Thank you. The overall purpose of the hearing is to discuss with you whether the big picture of long term fiscal and operational considerations have been thought through or were thought through when we got a pretty sudden and unexpected request for the supplemental appropriation, and one thing to deal with the supplemental appropriations or the implications of it over the long term, and you have commented in response to the chairs question that you would be submitting with the fy21 budget a longterm outyear projection for this particular propostal, correct . Yes, sir. Yes, sir. And does that submission include an updated full life cycle of the emission cost assuming a 24 emission . Yes. You are proposing to outsource essentially a lot of the work, and so you have a lot of the Development Partners out there in the private sector on the fixed contract situations, and that is your intent, right . Yes. Yes. And do you, and that is going to take a lot of the internal supervision, because it is a lot of money running wild out there, and if not adequately overseeing, and it could get away from you budgetary wise and quality wise, so do you anticipate in the recalculation of the accelerated mission that you would beef up the oversight capabilities inside of nasa. Well, i think that we have pretty good oversight capabilities already. We are applying the lessons of the past. If you are looking at how we resupply the International Space station right now, we do it with the commercial resupply, and that means that nasa does not purchase own or operate the hardware and we buy the surface from robust commercial marketplace. And so we invest our money, and the commercial providers invest their money and we started off with three different providers and down selected to two, and now they are competing against each other on the costs and innovation, which is driving down the costs, and ensures that we are continuing to innovate and drive down the costs, and the goal is to create a competitive environment, and 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 is that when we do programs in this fashion, the contractors dont come back to nasa and ask for more money all of the time. In fact, they both want to be first. And so, what we do absolutely do provide our engineers that are embedded with their engineers, and our, you know, the finance folks are working with their finance folks. Our development and the fixed price that you mentioned before, and that fixed price has milestone payments associated with it. So we are controlling the process all along the way, and the goal here is to have as much as possible to have nasa to be a customer of the services, especially for the low earth orbit, and then ultimately not just a customer, but also to have provider and numerous providers who compete against each other. Now, that is how we are doing the lower earth orbit activities, but we need to get to the moon. To get to the moon on schedule, we need to use the sls rocket, and that is going on to be a Great Program Going Forward for long periods of time. So different, and it is a mix. I got it. So i would suggest to you that it is a concern of mine at least that you are able to watch the big accelerated contracts, and then, two, do you anticipate that a corollary of your proposal to accelerate would also be an acceleration of the mars mission, and is that sequential . In other words, is that a big picture, and longterm consideration that this committee should know about, because if it is may not only be about the moon that you are asking, and accelerated program for, and we dont want to be surprised on that one, and we want to know what the big picture Long Term Plan is for the overall deep Space Exploration. Congressman case, you are hitting the nail on the head and that is the sooner you get not the moon with the architecture that is sustainable, and we need to learn how theley and work on another world, and that is enabling us to go to mars. When we go to mars, we have to be there for a long period of time. And so we have to use the moon as the proving ground to get to mars. 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 mars program. That is a great question and a good point. I hope we get that information in the context of fy21 as well. Yes, sir. We will have strong mars content in the budget request. Thank you. Administrator bridenstein, and associate administrator bowersox for being here. When you were here earlier, you testified what nasa was doing to increase opportunities for women in the s. T. E. M. Careers, and i wanted to go back to something that you said about the allfemale spacewalk. It should be noted that the space suits are little spaceships and each one is designed not just for the astronaut, but also for the mission. The challenge is that we only have a certain number of space suits, quote, unquote. And you stated publicly at a Senate Commerce hearing that nasa is looking at a space suit architecture that is flexible to allow astronauts to conduct missions in the low orbit and the moon, and with the yesterdays announcement of the two nasa space suit designs for artemis, i wanted to ask a couple of questions. One, do we know how many years did nasa need to research and develop space suits that Neil Armstrong and buzz aldrin used . That is a good question, and i honestly dont know, but i will get that back to you, and the question is how long did it take to develop the original moon walking space suits, and we will look that up. Thank you. What lessons did nasa learn from the canceled all female spacewalk at the International Space station that might help with the development of the next Generation Space suit . I think that we had already learned the lessons and that made it very transparent that space suits are very difficult, because they are so large. And we need space suits, so the history of nasa is the build a space suit that works, and then try to down scale it. And when we do that, it is a lot harder than starting small, and then upscaling it for larger people. So we need a space suit that can go from the 1 to 99 in size. I think that we have already been investing as you saw with the announcement in making it possible not just for space flight, but for the walking on the surface of the moon, and we are very committed to it. We have been committed to it for a long time, and the spacewalk that youerenced highlighted why we are committed to it. Ken may have something to say about the space suits. On the way this morning, i got to check the tvs at the ops center and i saw the two women on orbit preparing the space suits to go outside and this is really exciting for me to see, and we hope to see that eva very soon. Part of the problem of last time is that we are resizing the suits for the spacewalkers going out on this eva, but the suitst that ne suits at that time needed more work on this eva and that is part of issue. And so the allfemale spacewalk is within a matter of days and very excited about it. What are the challenges and the key milestones that must be met with the 2024 time line to bring the operation to the moon with the deployment and research . The sls rocket, and the most powerful rocket ever built to takes a tr astronauts to the mo going to be created right here at stennis, and the european surface module and capsule will be complete and testing soon up at the Glenn Research center in ohio. So all of that is positive. The challenges right now is that we have to start with the human landing system, and you cant land on the moon if you dont have a landing system, and that is one of the reasons that we did the amended budget request, and then we are under way with the development of gateway which is a small space station around the orbit of the moon for 15 years. And think of it as a reusable command module like apollo, but not getting thrown away at the end of the mission, and so it is going to be over the course of 15 years and probably longer. The space suits are a big piece of the architecture as well, and so the sls rocket, and the orion crew capsule, and the surface module and the gateway and the human landing system and the space suits, and at the same time, we are doing the commercial crew which is going to be launching in the first part of next year to low earth orbit. So just know this, congresswoman, that at this point, we have more underdevelopment than at any point at nasa, and we are working hard to make it a reality. And we are confident with where we are, and especially when it comes to the commercial crew, and confident and sls and orion, we are confident, and the others are in the Early Development process. Ken, would you like to add to that . The only thing they would like to emphasize is the biggest technical challenge is getting the landers ready for 2024 and that is the most challenging part to develop, and we are excited to take on the challenge. Thank you, yield back. Ms. Canter. Thank you, mr. Chairman, and welcome. Administrator, really glad to have you here this morn and we know how hard you work at your job, and also you, mr. Bowersocks, thank you 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, the change in the timetable and how the date, the accelerated date of 2024 was chosen and then if you could provide for the record if you have not done it, the original time line, and the Budget Proposal for that, and then the accelerated time line and the Budget Proposal for that, and i think it is very helpful to us, and it is quite a significant change. One of my questions for the American People is that though we support you in the efforts to land on the moon in mars, and i go back to the report that norm augustine did years ago where he said that unmanned flight could provide with us a great deal of Research Data and space results whether it is commodities or whatever, and then human space flight. When you add the humans into the mix, it is much more expensive. So i am wondering if you have read that report and whether you believe it to be outdated and my primary question is how is the date of 2024 chosen as a start year . Well, two questions. Two things with the 2024 date, and a number of things changed. Number one, when we came out with the date of 2028, it was daysed on the budgets not changing significant, and within inflation. There were people, people in congress, and the members of the administrations that said that 2028 is ten years, and the programs that last ten years obviously, they get cut, and historically, they are going to get to the history of nasa, and so going back to the Space Exploration vision, and the vision of the early 2000s and this is lucy and the football again, and how do you retire as much risk as possible to ensure success and the question is to go faster. Well, if you want to go faster, the next question is where do we get the money, and cut science or station . And my response was neither. We need new money, because those will create political or parochial divides within the members of congress that we dont want to create. So we got the additional appropriation or the request of approapriation for 1. 6 billion and that accelerated the time line, but it is not just the risk of these long programs, theres also some other changes that have happened. China landed on the far side of the moon for the first time in history and according to them, they will be landing humans on the moon in 2030. When they landed on the far side of the moon they took out a twopage spread saying they were the worlds leader of Space Exploration, and all of the nations needed to partner with them and they are building a space nation, and so the question is do we want to lead the world in space or yield it to someone else . The appropriate decision is to main tin the leadership and keep our partnerships. As you are looking forward, what are, and i would ask you for the chart of the 2028 versus 2024 and the appropriated dollars necessary in both scenarios. Yes. Could you pinpoint a few of the difficult tech nol nologies require a objedeep objective, a with those achieved, could you discuss with the labs, and ways in which other parts of the federal government might help you the achieve the objective if it is not directly in your budget lets say. Absolutely. This is your first question about the robotic science versus human exploration, and in fact, we do partner with the department of energy on a lot of the robotic missions, because they use Nuclear Power. What we call radioi isotope regeneration when nay go to pth pluto, and so that type of power is not easily there. And isotope is, radioisotope is the only way to get that energy. And so when we go to mars, it is in the best interest of the nation to not use radioisotope regeneration, but thermal Nuclear Propulsion which would be an absolute gamechange norer the way we do deep Space Exploration. And i argue and this is something for maybe the Armed Services committee, but that the department of defense should have a Significant Interest in that capability for propulsion as well. So i imagine some bleedover and crossover there from the capabilities perspective. So, i think when it comes to communications technology, i think that there is a lot of opportunity there. When we are talking about super heavy lift and the sls rocket, that could have a lot of applications for the National Security capability as well. So, i think that theres a lot of crossover that we think about, and one of the reasons that the National Space council was established so that we can think cross agency about how we do these kinds of programs. Ken, would you like to add anything . Well, just about everything that we do in human space flight, and it crosses over to what is being done in say the d. O. D. , and you know, i was assigned to nasa as a military astronaut, and that is part of the reason that we do that. There is a lot of the crossover. But the intent at nasa is peaceful use of outer space, right, and to be able to use the technologies to build relationships with partners around the world. But if you are looking at future exploration activities, the areas where we could cooperate the most are in the areas of Nuclear Propulsion and Nuclear Power for the surface, and those would be gamechangers for the exploration. Would you classify those, then for the record, mr. Chairman, a listing of the most difficult technologies and the systems that you are facing in achieving success in this project . Sure. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you, administrator bridenstein, and mr. Bowersocks for being here. We appreciate your service to the country. As floridian, Space Exploration both interests and excites me. It is part of the states culture and economy. I have companies and constituents in my district who are working diligently to develop and build sls, orion, egs and perhaps the most importantly, the human space flight can inspire our nation as you all know, and you talked about it earlier, administrator, and help to motivate future scientists and explorers. As you are both, i know, are aware, and supporting the goal of sending the first woman and next man to the surface of the moon is the priority for all of us. As long as it is done safely and efficiently. Failure is not an option when pursuing an endeavor of this magnitude, because if we do fail, it could threaten the ability to ever return to the moon again, and so we have the get it right, and i am sure that we all agree. I want to help nasa meet the goal of 2024, but i need to see a schedule and cost estimate to understand how best to do that. And so mr. Administrator with that, you have previously indicated a full schedule for artemis is being deferred until a new administrate for for human exploration is in place, but it seems to me that nasa should be putting that schedule together now so it can be provided to new leadership as soon as they take over in order to hit the ground running. So can you discuss what work if any nasa has been doing thus far to put together a schedule with the analysis with respect to artemis, and particularly artemis iii . Yes, sir. So i think that regarding having a new associate administrator for human exploration and operations, and what i wanted to make sure that we didnt do is to set a schedule for launching the sls rocket specifically and set a schedule for launching commercial crew specifically until a new associate administrator for human exploration and operations has had an opportunity tos assess, because accountability matters and if i set the schedule, and they come in later, it is maybe not a good dynamic for the affordability. So this morning we announced that we will have a new associate director for human exploration, and doug lavarro who has testified before the committees when i was in the house of representatives that i served on, and i was on the Armed Services committee and the Science Committee and the subcommittee on space, and he is someone who has worked in the space environment for a long time and been very effective at Program Management, and so with that said, our goal so get you all of the things that you need for in february. February, we will do the budget settlement for 2021 and have a runout for all of the out years in the 2021 budget settlement, and it is true that if you are looking at what the senate has passed already in the committee, they fenced the 2020 numbers pending the submission in february of 2021. So i mean, i think that could be a solution for how to go about going about making sure that we are all in agreement of how to move forward and at the same time not moving forward with being in agreement of how the move forward. Yes, sir. And so you think that is going to be available by february of next year . Yes. This coming february. Yes. And this is going to include the cost assessment for artemis three . Yes. And in addition to the scheduling and budget, what other decisions and actions related to artemis are on hold or otherwise impacted by the leadership uncertainty until it was announced this morning . Oh, good. I think that the big thing is that we have Great Program managers for every element of what is required to go to the moon and eventually on the mars. Of course, ken bowersocks has been the acting associate administrator, and he has done an amazing job. Of course, having an astronaut that is an engineer who has worked in the private sector, and by the way, a navy astronaut for a navy guy, we like that. So i can see palazzo laughing at me, but we had this conversation in the house. And so ken has done a wonderful job, and i am looking forward to getting doug on board and having him and ken Work Together to achieve all of the things that we have established. Thank you, mr. Administrator, and thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Administrator, part of issue that i keep coming back to is the importance of knowing the full cost. We are appropriators. And white we are concerned about what we leave our children, i am also concerned about what i leave other appropriators if we find or get other programs to find the over 1 billion, and buying into the 2024 date, we dont know how much it is going to cost down the line. So i implore you as you are trying to gather support from both sides of the aisle to understand that, unless we know what this is going to cost at the end, it will be irresponsible for us to take the first step. Certainly about me, and that is not about me or this one or the other one, but i dont want to leave these folks after i leave this year, and ms. Lowey leaves at the same time of how to pay the other 25 billion over a period of time. And so we need to hear that from you, and we are not hearing it. We dont see it. Now you are speaking about february having the numbers, and february may seem early in the year, but february, these guys behind me, and the folks behind me, they are already working on thes for what the budget is going to look like, and we need to know earlier, and much earlier. Okay. Mr. Administrator, you have looked at the advisers in the agencies on ways to improve the performance and since march 2019 announcement of the landing goal, has the Aerospace Advisory panel weighed in on any of the astronaut safety risks associated specifically with the new spedup time line . I have to tell you that it is a serious concern that i have heard from some people by speeding it up, and do we risk safety issues and we run into safety issues . So, and i think that there is a concern that i hear and that i have heard, and the concern is schedule pressure. Sometimes i think that schedule pressure is something we are concerned about, and historically a challenging thing that nasa has to deal with, and the last thing that we want to do is to put some undue schedule pressure on anybody. That being said, i think it is important for us to have schedules and it is important for us to create the milestones and work the achieve the milestones. So i think when you are talking about accelerating programs, a lot of people talk about the schedule pressure and i want to make sure that people dont feel pressure from the schedule perspective, but at the same time working to achieve the milestones and it is a delicate balance and we work on it everyday at nasa. We have great folks working the issues for many years. And that being said, i think that probably the asap has been focused on the commercial crew, because it is the closest alligator to the canoe right now. So we are getting to the good position on the commercial crew which is in the first part of next year, we are going to launch american astronauts on american rockets from american soil for the First Time Since the retirement of the space shuttles. I think thats going to be a great development. So, administrator, i like ms. Granger saw the moon landing on a small black and white tv set. It was very exciting. I just wanted to ask you a question off of the wall here. Okay. And out of left field, because i seem to remember as part of the conversation of the things that we had learned or were able to create if you will as part of the whole mission is something about the space suits having some abilities to move forward on people with disabilities or something. I dont know. Do you know what i am talking about at all . I am not familiar with that, sir. It is something to look into. Are you familiar at all . I dont know. And so one of the goals and the reasons that we are doing the low earth orbit specifically commercially, is because we want to see everybody be able to see themselves as flying into space. And when we go to space commercially, with maybe it is industry, and what we are using the International Space station now for are two lines of effort that have transformational capabilities and one is industrialized biomedicine and the ability to compound pharmaceuticals in space in a microgravity is unlike earth, and treatments to create in space. Right now, we are proving on the International Space station that we can create human tissue using adult stem cells and what that means is that we could get to day to print the human organs in 3d in the way that you cant do it in the gravity of earth, because it goes flat. These are transformational and industrialized biomedicine things that i think that will result in the day where we have massive capital and three to seven years away of the massive capital flowing into the space industry for lower earth habitation, but we want to get to the day to have everybody seeing themselves as astronauts, and more access to space is good for the american policy and helps the balance of payments and export for the United States of america, and reduces the trade deficit. But it is not just industrialized biomedicine, but advanced materials and fiber optics, and the technology that we call the zbland which is going to improve the way we do communications terrestrially, and other Materials Sciences that can only be done in a microgravity environment of space. So i think that the goal is to have Space Available for everybody, and we are making the investments to make it a reality. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I wanted to ask a little bit about the commercial space launch vehicles. What commercial launch vehicles exist today or that are in development that can or will be able to launch the hls to get to the moon to accomplish the goal of the u. S. Boots on the moon by 2024 . Okay. So, if we are taking humans, the only rocket that is going to be available to take humans by 2024 is the sls rocket with the orion crew capsule. There is no other way to accelerate that program other than sls and orion. Thats to carry humans to the vicinity of the moon namely the gateway. When we talk about what we need at the gateway, we need a landing system. And that landing system could be carried to the gateway, and the only rocket that i can think of right now that exists is the falcon 9 heavy, but there is a lot of other rockets under development, and you mentioned development. It would be the vulcan which is a ula product. One would be the starship which is the spacex project, and one is the new glenn which is a blue origin product. I cant think of any others offhand . There is a chance that the north grumand omega. And how many are flying . Only the orion. And as you mentioned the slsderived commercial solution, and we are not shutting the door on that opportunity. Okay of course, that would require some investment from boeing to achieve, but in the baa, it is an option. How many of the rockets will have a full engine test equivalent to the green run test of the sls by 2020 . I would say sls and the falcon 9 heavy. It is probably something that any responsible provider would do, but it is up to them, since they are commercial activities and a typical test to prepare the rocket to go into space. But if you are putting the american astronauts on the vehicles, it is not just up to them, but it is up to us as well. And what is the contingency plan if for some reason that the commercial rockets are not available by 2024 . Well, i think that right now, we have, i mean, there is a falcon 9 heavy currently available, and i think that there is a number of others getting close. And the commercial is not available, what is the contingency plan . Go ahead. I mean, we have the potential for the multiple commercial options, and we would think that we have all of the option, and if we didnt have the four vehicles flying, then we would look at what was available. I think that mr. Ranking member, that would put us in a po is igs to mas po is igs to maition to landingy difficult if we dont have the additional rockets we wont be able to achieve the goal, but we are confident that we will have those rockets. It is a Pretty Simple fact that the smaller the capability, and to take cargo to the moon orbit, the more launches that you will need to carry out of moon mission . Correct. So, i also want to focus in on the doug cook who you are familiar with and the associate admin st administrator option, that he had an oped in the hill and in that oped, he said that the approach will require eight new developments, and eight launches and approximately 17 Mission Critical missions to operate to achieve the goal. Are you familiar with the oped that he wrote last month, and what would you agree with that assessment . So, i do think that i have not read the oped before commenting on it, but i would be happy to take it for the record and give you my feedback. Okay. How many commercial launch vehicles will it take to well, let me go back one second. I know you have not read the article, but would you agree with what his assessment would be can you say it one more time. The approach of requiring eight new developments and eight launches and approximately 17 Mission Critical operations to achieve the goal. I think that is a fair assessment. Okay. And how many commercial vehicles will it take to launch the human landing system including having the gateway in the Critical Path . So that is open. We are not telling the commercial providers how they need to do their landing system, and some providers would indicate maybe they could do it with just one vehicle, and others are indicating maybe three. And the broad agency announ announcement for the landing system is out, and because of that, i dont know how much we can comment on those activities, because of the blackout. Oh, so, and so, basically, that is open right now . We are not specifying how any of the commercial providers for the human landing system ought to, and how the systems ought to be developed, and we are waiting to have them tell us what their approach is, and then, we will assess the approaches. Okay. Nasas 2004 architectural study notes that after a launch plan, it requires more than six to eight launch vehicles and the likelihood of mission lost goes up dramatically, and does that concern you . Yeah, i think that i guess that the point is that the more launches, the more one could have a problem. And so that is certainly is an issue, and i would also say that we would need to look at the overall architecture and see what creates more risk and less risk and how the build the architecture and the reasons and having a gateway orbit around the moon is important for a number of reasons and for the International Partners to have their own landing systems to be developed and worked with the gateway, but, again, it is so, the way we are building the architecture is strategic in nature and enables us to get to the moon and our commercial partners to have the ability to get to the moon themselves, and the International Partners to have an opportunity to get to the moon. And so i think that in general, we have to look at what we are trying to achieve and the cost and the risk associated with that. And i think that we have the right architecture at this point. But i would also say that when we are using different rockets, we have dissimilar redundancies, and that is going to reduce the risks, because if one fails, then we have others to move forward a. Wu forward. And one of the challenges we had earlier in the Space Program is the dod relied on shuttle, and when we were done, we were done. And that is it. And not a good position in the 1980s and we dont want to repeat that. This 2004 study, that it seems that it is establishing benefits of using slssized rockets for the Lunar Landing mission for the mission reliability standpoint. If that is the case, shouldnt nasa be working on a completing sls number 4 since it may be needed to help with the moon mission . Certainly, we are, and we have done a letter contract for additional slss and exploration upper stage, and so these are under way right now. And certainly, we have a strong interest in seeing the fourth one being successful. You sthaid that is created ts morning . Did the letter go out . The announcement went out this morning and the signature was earlier, i believe. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you. China is ahead of us in space, and i think that we know this. People who are supportive of this request have said to me if we dont move now, china will own space. And who owns space owns our technology and the earth in it. Knowing that situation, how would the 2024 time line to return to the moon be affected if the funding is not provided in the 2020 . So, it is i think of it is as a range of possibilities and can we get there early if we dont have the money or if we do have the money, and so it is a range of probabilities. I think that if we are looking at what the senate mark was, it wasnt the entire budget request for the entire Artemis Program, but it is, and because of that, it is reducing the probability of success to land within five years. I think that, but it cant be ruled out either that it is achievable, but it is just that the level of risk goes up. I am not talking about the risk to life, but i am talking about the risk to schedule. And so i think that when we are moving forward, we need to think about what is going to put us in the best probability of the success, and we put together the budget request that is putting us in the best probability of success. And i think thats what we are asking for. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Bridenstein, we have been talk about the importance of the commercial partners which is obviously going to play a key role in getting nasa back to the moon and beyond, right . That is right. And i was reading that 202 budget requests from nasa, and also the 1. 6 billion supplemental request, and they both speak a lot about how nasa plans to leverage innovative commercial partnerships with launch vehicle providers and lander developers and the Companies Like that. I want you if go into more detail on, that and please describe how these fixed price partnerships are helping nasa to reduce the costs and accelerate the development in the Artemis Program. And so, nasa is doing a lot of things, i think rightly that are accelerating processes. The tradition is and you are aware of this, and that if we have a program that you want to develop, we spend six months to develop, and maybe a year to develop maybe a request for development, and then six months to a year to developing the information that we requested and then we spend six months to a year to reviewing the information and putting out a request for proposal and that i spend six months to a year replying to the proposals and over the course of three to four years we get under contract, and by the way, that is not going include when all of the contractors protest the decision that nasa made which is going to cost to taxpayers money and waist wastes a lot of time and creates problems for the country which is not good. All that being said, we are trying to move faster, and the way to do that is where possible and do where it makes sense partnerships with the industry, and where we put forth american taxpayer dollars, and they put forth their own private investment, and collaboratively we figure out what the solution is. And now, we are willing to do that, because we expect that they will one day go get customers that are not nasa, and the other customers could be International Partners and by the way, we want to be in agreement with them of who those partners are and not just International Partners, but the commercial people who want to go to the moon for Different Reasons and maybe it is a technology to only be developed in the microgravity or the low gravity of the moon. And so it could be tourism, and for goodness sake, there are people out there willing to go to the moon for vacation. It is not much of a vacation, but some people do. So, as long as there are people willing to invest money in the capability of having customers who are not nasa, it is driving down our costs, and increases the access for everybody. Nasa does not necessarily want to always be the purchaser, owner, and operator of all of the hardware. That being said, there are times when it is in our interest to be the owner and purchaser and operator of the hardware. And by the way, some of the companies that develop the capability can offer that hardware as a commerciallike opportunity for the future. So there is different ways of doing different thing, but the goal that is important is that we open the aperture of what is legally possible, and then stay within the confines of the kind of the legal requirements that we have been given, dont go outside of that, but ultimately take advantage of what has been provided in law to do Public Private partnerships. Thank you for the answer. But knowing the vital part that private contractors are going to be playing, i am curious if nasa has enough personnel to do the work of overseeing, the oversight work, to make sure that the private contractors are doing what they are supposed to be doing what theyre supposed to be doing . I think at this point, were in good shape. As programs move forward, in a more robust way, we might need to reconsider the number of personnel that we have involved in these programs. I think right now, were okay. If our budgets do go up, and we have more under development, we could need more support. Thank you. I yield back. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Nasa has a solicitation under way for industry to provide a humen lander system that will be used to land astronauts on the moon in 2024. It is my understanding that the sls with this exploration upper stage could launch the entire lander system on a single mission. Nasa does not appear to be offering its own sls vehicle as an available option to launch the hls, rather the solicitation instructs bidders to come up with their own sls derived commercial cargo vehicle solution. So my question is, has there been any discussion on, with nasa, to offer the sls as a government furnished equipment to launch the lander system . So i havent had any discussions regarding that with industry or folks that might have an interest in that. But i do think this goes back to representative cartwrights question regarding kind of new approaches. Certainly, we thought it would be appropriate for sls, if there is a commercially viable option for an sls, thats an opportunity that any human landing system, provider, or offerer could tap into, but that would be an agreement between them and the, you know, boeing for that activity. Or, i dont know, whoever, theres a lot of prime contractors involved in that program. But ive got to be really careful, because we do have that baa on the street, we dont want to say what the right answer is, we want to leave it to the hls providers to make that determination. And with that baa, you might not be able to answer the next question, will splitting the lander system into three missions and assembling the system on orbit negatively affect mission risk and schedule . Again, were going to have to look at what the commercial providers demonstrate theyre capable of doing. We will look at all of that and make determinations in the source selection process. Again, we are in a blackout. I dont want to talk about details, but the idea of doing everything with one big rocket versus doing it with smaller rockets, each approach has its advantages ap disadvantages. One of the advantages of breaking things into small pieces is we tend to do better with smaller programs as we work through the management and production of those different items. And so breaking them into chunks that we can handle could be very helpful. One thing you mentioned, i think this is interesting, you mentioned government furnished equipment. So certainly any offer for a human landing system has an option to request government furnished equipment. So if an offerer wanted to say to nasa, hay, provide this as government furnished equipment, in the baa that is corre, that appropriate and we have to look at it, do we have an extra sls what is available, and are we willing, and this is the other challenge, are we willing to pony up the cost for that additional sls should it be available . Right now, were not appropriated for that activity. Thats a lot of money. So i would say doing the gfe approach on that, again, im not saying its yes or no, offerers are going to have to offer, but it does look awfully challenge to accommodate that. Just from an appropriations perspective. But also from a schedule perspective. Well, thank you, and really appreciate your written and oral testimony here today. I yield back. What is the status of the parachute test and the commercial crew program . Great question. My goodness, so we have two different commercial crew providers, spacex right now is rapidly iterating testing of the mark3 parachute, which is the most recent design, and materials. The goal here is were trying to meet a specific factor of safety of 1. 6, which is a whole host of numbers that go into that calculation, but we are confident that the mark3 parachute is the right system to achieve that margin of safety. What were looking for now in that mark3 parachute is consistent and repeatable performance at that 1. 6 level. So were going to be looking at the margins for every element of that parachute. Spacex has said by the end of the year they think they could get as many as ten drop tests done on the mark3, which would be, if thats possible, it would be very positive. And then were going to look and see how ha that matches with the mark2, and if it matches with the mark2, then we might need to do as many drop tests. If those parachute deployments dont match the mark2, then we would probably need to do additional drop tests but these are all things that we are going to be analyzing in the coming days. With spacex, they have a static fire test coming up. They have a High Altitude launch abort test coming up. And then of course a lot of parachute testing. Remember, this is a development program. That means were going to learn things that we might, we might learn things that we werent anticipating and when that happens we need to be prepared for it. And then on the boeing side, with the atlas a 5 rocket and the star liner, a lot of similar challenges with parachutes that come from the asymmetry issue from a parachute deployment are affecting them as well. But again, nasa is making sure that what we learn in each of these programs gets widely shared because were putting humans on these rockets and we cannot afford to have proprietary information put some of our astronauts in jeopardy. And lastly, ill, of course, nasa, unfortunately, has a reputation, for overseeing projects that are sometimes over budget and behind schedule. My question is, what has changed and how are you hoping to overcome the difficulties of that, that youve ween in the past. So the big thing is, i think the number one thing that we have to do as an agency is go forward with realism. A lot of times, a contractor will tell us what they can achieve, and then we accept it, and they advertise it to the public, and this is true for every contractor, im not singling out anyone, and then those schedules get publicized and then were held to account for achieving them. But i think in a lot of case, its not based on realism. When it comes to cost and schedule can, we need to be more realistic in our assessments and know that these program, this is the big difference, and a lot of people dont know, there is a big difference between development and operations. When we had the space shuttle, that was an operations capability. We knew that we knew that we knew that we had the shuttle. Yes, there were delays. But we had the shuttle. What were doing now with commercial crew and sls, these are development programs. So we dont know yet what we dont know. And as we go through the development and testing, we learn things. And then we have to make adjustments. So its a lot harder to pin down what a schedule is when youre not in operations and youre still in development. That being said, i do think we can get better at being more realistic at schedule. I can see ken has some thoughts. I think a big part of it is the initial estimates that we give people, right . We tend to try and be a little ambitious, maybe a little bit optimistic in our initial cost estimates and schedule estimates, and maybe we need to start off being a little more, i wont say pessimistic, but realistic, so that we set out schedules, and cost goals that we can meet. And last, lets me just, what type of issues continues to slow you down, and what Additional Authority do you need to stay on budget, and stay on schedule . So theres, theres a very delicate balance among the contractors involved in this process, and 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 ultimately undercuts what were traying to achieve on a rapid schedule. Heres what we know. China is not going to slow down. That means we as a country need to come together, figure out what the architecture is, be committed to a process and then move forward as rapidly as possible. Sometimes, contractors are constantly undercutting each other, and thats 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 thats one thing. As far as authorities, ill take that for the record. I guarantee you, ill come up with some, but i might need a little time. Thank you. Thank you mr. Chairman for additional time. That brings us to the end of the hearing, gentlemen. And notwithstanding any questions which may have been asked or comments made, we support the work you do. Thank you. We appreciate the work you do. We can differ on one issue and try to work it out, but again, as i look at my last year in congress, im proud of the fact that i was able to dealing with issues that ordinarily people would think i was stair typically not capable of doing with, like supporting this and supporting other things and at the same time looking up at the guy and the woman who are, you know, paying rent for the apartment, and having trouble paying their mortgage, and so all those folks that are already writing on twitter, newspaper clippings, already went out while were sitting here, saying that i just killed the mission, i dont have that kind of power, i didnt kill the mission, i just asked some questions that i know you know need to be answered before we move forward on that. So i thank you for your work. You want a list of people we want sent to space, ill let you know. Theyre only houston astros. But anyway. I sincerely thank you for coming here today, for participating and i thank you ms. Adderhole holt for making sure we held this hearing. Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you so much. Later today, the Smithsonian Institution holds a ceremony for the new secretary, lonnie bunch. He previously served as the director of the National Museum of africanamerican history and culture. You can see that live at 3 00 p. M. , eastern, on cspan. And also watch online at cspan. Org. And listen with the free cspan radio app. Cspans campaign 2020 coverage continues live today, with president ial candidates, in iowa, and mississippi. Starting at 7 30 p. M. Eastern on cspan, the democratic president ial contenders speak at the liberty and justice celebration in des moines. Featured speakers include senator michael bennet, former Vice President joe biden, senator cory booker, governor steve bull lock, mayor pete buttigieg, secretary hulian castro, representative john delaney, senator kamala harris, senator Amy Klobuchar representative beto orourke. Bernie sanders, snon steyer, senator elizabeth warren, and andrew yang. Then at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan 2, President Trump holds a Campaign Rally with supporters in tupelo, mississippi. Watch cspans 020 Campaign Coverage live today at 7 30 p. M. Eastern at cspan and at 88 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan 2. And watch on cspan. Org and listen any time free with the