Good afternoon. Before we moved to the third panel, the Lasting Legacy, i just want to take a moment and thank all of our Reagan Foundation trustees, in particular mr. Ted olson. Thank you for giving us this opportunity. applause throughout todays discussion, we reviewed the Historical Context of Justice Oconnors life and career and captured it significance. We have commented on the jurisprudence and now we will turn to the legacy and discuss the lasting contribution in the ways we will continue to see her hand in law and the civic life of this great country. About 15 years before he nominated Sandra Day Oconnor, Ronald Reagan delivered one of his most consequential political speeches at a law day lunch in southern california. In 1966, outlining his decision in creative society, Ronald Reagan advanced an initiative to take judges out of politics and articulated his vision of an ideal judge. He called for judges to be men with ability come up men of honor and men who are fairminded. When it came to his first nomination to the Supreme Court, president reagan delivered a nominee who realized his vision. Listening earlier today, we have gotten a taste of Justice Oconnors remarkable ability and the earnest and decent the with which she approached her life and her life and her craft. As one of Justice Oconnors clerks wrote, without fanfare, she hones her craft, deciding individual cases, answering concrete questions and in the process of providing clear and enduring answers to the most important questions of the day. She was honorable because she judged and ruled without fanfare. She was fairminded and able to decide individual cases answering concrete questions and her ability allowed her to provide clear and enduring answers to the most important questions of the day. It seems to me that the legacy presides not just in what she said, but how she did it too, with honor and fair mindedness. This dichotomy between the what and how gets to another facet of Justice Oconnor. As referenced before in her public letter to americas nearly one years ago, Justice Oconnor charged all of us to Work Together and commit to educating our youth about the and helping young people understand their crucial role as informed, active citizens in our nation. This is what president reagan called informed patriotism and why the Reagan Foundation has always had a civic mission. Inspired by our 40th president and guided by the example in charge of Justice Oconnor, today, the Reagan Institute has launched a center for civics education. Operating out of washington, d. C. , will probably embark on the work of engaging and supporting the next generation of informed, active citizens in our nation. We look forward to partnering with all of you on this truly noble cause that will take months and years and we hope you will enjoy the next panel, the Lasting Legacy. [applause] please welcome to the stage, our moderator and our distinguished panelists. [applause] lets make sure everyone can hear us. I guess you can for you with the way something. I think we are the biggest panel so we will dive right in and for those of us from a certain age, Sandra Day Oconnor was the rope that we hoped would be cast our way. Last year, i thought she was typically forthright and aspirational. I hope i have inspired young people about civics engagement and pave the way for whom may have faced obstacles in their careers. Now, even though we have way to little time we will talk about her Lasting Legacy and i will start with chief Justice Mcgregor because you knew her longer than anyone here from her days as a state legislature giver nomination and into her retirement. I was wondering how you think she changed over time. I dont mean ideologically, but in her own selfconfidence and her own being as a justice. One thing did not change as we mentioned earlier and that is the fact should brought to the Supreme Court the same characteristic every job she had her demand that everyone do the best they could, but what i think changed the most and was probably a result of growing confidence for her, those of you who remember much anyone know there were a lot of people who are not sure that this woman who they did not hear of could really do the job of a Supreme Court justice and she very quickly proved them wrong, but i think what happened over the next quarter of a century, she saw more and more what she could accomplish, what impact she could have and she was very concerned about a tax on the rule of law in the independence of the judiciary and she learned that when she went and talked, equal with take from her things they might not pay so much attention to that someone else said and so domestically and internationally, she used her celebrity i guess, but her persuasive abilities and the fact people would listen to her to make an impact in his areas and i think you see progression of that from the time she started on the court and continued that into her retirement, so that is where i would see the greatest change. You and i when we were talking prior, he talked about Judicial Independence which is not only to some extent under attack in this country, it is under attack in other countries and other countries we identify with, today and in the u. K. , for example. Im wondering what she did and im told she was pretty fearless in her foreign visits. The justice felt she had five years to really account for something. And so, at georgetown law school, she started a project that was devoted to two things civics and the independence of the judiciary. And for civics she said the practice of democracy is not passed down, but in the gene pull, but needs to be learned by each generation. Gene pool, but needs to be learned by each generation. [no audio] she felt there was a misunderstanding by an people of what judges did and their role in democracy. She felt it was her responsibility in she had the bully pulpit to explain to young people what role a judge was to maintain a rule of democracy. She traveled with titles and, she traveled to asia, to africa and that with judges everyplace she went and she believes our judges could be an asset and of course today, it may be there are things we can learn from judges abroad. You say she went toe to toe with some guy in china. Not in china but it was a judge on the Chinese Court and she traveled to china and the judge insisted that the Supreme Peoples Court had the last word and she was equally insisted [indiscernible] she was correct about that, but willing to go to her with the professor from beijing university. The single decision she really regretted was the fifth and decisive vote in a case the current unconstitutional in a case occurring unconstitutional that was in 2002. She wasnt a newbie at all so why did she do that . I think in a dont know. I know she regrets that vote, but i think her goal, she wrote a concurrent opinion and the current one state that if you elect judges, you set yourself up for this problem and we should not try to maintain judicial and the limiting what judges say in elections and her whole point was that states would think about this. It turned out that it did not have been in there was not a lot of Movement Towards marilyns election in traditional elections became more partisan, more money flowed into them, more like legislative elections and less like something that an independent judicial candidate they, so my unfailing own failing, this is what is going to happen. Be realistic and be practical. It did not work out this way. One of her main decisions was subsequently struck down. I wonder what her thoughts were about that. It happens that i was with her when she learned of Citizens United decision and she herself and said anything that was critical of the current court, but she commented that they dont understand and this will not work out well. If you look at the two opinions, i think you can see why Citizens United was not an oconnor opinion. First of all, it overturned the decision from seven years ago. It also that the mcconnell opinion that had given great deference to the registered deference whether spending money in campaigns or certain times could be harmful to raise the appearance of corruption and in mcconnell, they had accepted that argument. The thing that would trouble her about Citizens United is Justice Oconnor really try to deal with the four corners of the case presented to her and not make any sleeping comments in Citizens United far beyond the question presented to the court, so i think if you compare the two, it is pretty clear why she thought it was a bad opinion. Kathleen, you were in her first crop of law clerks and if theres one thing i learned from evan thomass book it was that as much as Justice Oconnor was i could not say terrified, but certainly understood the challenges before her in which she undertook this position in which she never operated in a federal court, she was thrilled to be playing in the big leagues in that effect, could you talk about that . She was very visible in the way she conducted herself. There was a fair amount of stress. We felt that we worked harder because she had to when we circulated an opinion, she was almost singing her way back to the chambers and she persuaded someone to join one of our opinions, that was a big moment and you could tell she felt like she had really made a difference. When she left the court and founded ultimately civics, and youve been on the board since the beginning, how do you think her vision of all those years of everything from National Security to abortion, the issue shes played a decisive role in how wide this country is, i wonder how her vision animated her idea of civics. I think it comes partly on her time on court and partly other things she did. She decided that i civics is her greatest legacy and a lot of people have doubts about that because it seems little counterintuitive. One of the things i learned is if she says something that was counterintuitive, you should stop and think about it because youre probably right. This comes out of love not only for the court, but were the court fits in with overall democratic structure. She really understood how it all works and how dependent it always. You cant have a functional democracy if you dont have citizens who can play the role in it and i think what she saw is that people dont understand what judges are supposed to do and as a result, we are in danger of losing that functional democracy, so her decisions on the court, they can be overturned. Some of them have a shelf life, but the need for our functional democracy goes forever and i think today we have civics that is not well educated because we have eliminated it on the curriculum and as a result, students dont know the role. What i civics has done is to create an interactive set of simulations where students can play roles in our democracy is and really learn how it is supposed to work and we are currently teaching over 6 Million Students per year. I think the justices family has actively been involved in this. One of the biggest a compass was is legislation in arizona by her son scott. I think if we reach her goal, it is on par with her other legacies. She loved going out in the early years to meet with young people. They loved her. That was very exciting. I will tell one story on julie osullivan. In the very earliest civic days, she took her son danny to the court and they played video games with the justice and the justice got very energized and said this would be a greay way to teach young people about civics. It is really part of the extended park family. This is a woman who did not do her own emails and now she is sponsoring video games because that is where kids are. Getting involved with Civic Literacy and making sure people have access to documents and the fact that she knew, even though she was not a tech person, to reach young people, we have to use the tools of today and be open to that. Public libraries and libraries all of the country are saying we need to have that available on our websites and connect. Justice oconnor really hated the term swing vote because she thought it suggested some sort of ambivalence or indecision, but i have to say in 25 years on the court, she was the fifth and deciding vote in 330 cases and in various cases infuriating the right or the left, so i want to ask each of you what you think in hindsight will be her most Lasting Legacy as a decision in the textbooks . Let me start with you, ruth. I dont think she minded at all being the deciding vote. I think she likes being the deciding vote. The court is changing so much, i dont know how many of her opinions will survive, but at least as part of the development, i think in the area of gender discrimination and i think at least as part of the development, i think it will survive. Im married to a law professor and i am pleased to announce my two favorite decisions from our term is still in the textbooks 30 years later. Im not seeing a lot of recognition in the crowd. My husband is a tax professor which i think is an important perspective on the justice. We were the first term, so a eighteen month ago, she had been on the intermediate Appellate Court and a year and half later she is running these cases and still talking to students because they are so important to an area of law. Linda . I think her most lasting decision was her earliest decision, hogan versus mississippi womens university. She came on and there were boxes of case files all piled around her office for. She organized the system to try to get to the first conference in the fall so she would look competent and when she got there, she found out justices organized their system different than the obvious one, so she had to run back and reorganize her casebooks. In her head, she is saying its ok to be the first, but i dont want to be the last. She gets a case, hogan vs. Mississippi, where the eight male justices are divided four to four, so she has to make the fifth vote on whether it is constitutional to segregate public universities by sex and she cast the decisive fifth vote to say that it was unconstitutional to segregate public universities by sex. In 1981, it was 15 years later that the court decided United States v. Virginia military case, so i would say she lay down United States verse Virginia Military case, so i would say she laid down her i think appropriate because we are a Reagan Institute, south dakota versus dal and it was a case where she was on the losing side, but important point is that there was only so far that the federal government should be able to go in coercing states because there are so many federal grant and aid programs and there is a linear projection from what she said and in some of the cases, where the states are turning their power to the federal government, so that was an early marker, which are having repercussions today. I often observed that it may be a gender difference but she arrives at the court and has everything piled up and does not want to be humiliated at that first conference and she does everything to be completely up on everything and Justice Scalia arrived at the court at a similar time just before the first conference, looks at all the stuff and says i cant possibly be up on this and he didnt. He went to the next conference. That is where the first nonjuror resonated and the idea that you dont want to be the last answer to have that joy, saying, she is something. Justice oconnor had a very different approach to judges. Could you talk about that difference . That response to a question about legacy will stop Justice Oconnor, i love what some consider and in some sense judging tradition and so she is making decision in very much a casebycase way and each one confined to its facts. This is going to constrain her legacy, what is an undue burden for abortion. As each burden came in front of her about which one was undue and which one was not, that is not something you pass along very easily. Justice ginsburg came with a very well worked out liberal prudence from her training at cornell under robert cushman. She said her vision was of an everincreasing circle of inclusiveness. She had a big vision of what should happen. Justice oconnor got to enact her can her vision into law and Justice Ginsburg, not so much once she got onto the court. Just a skin spur not so much when she got on to the court. There is been a lot said today. , but im sure there has been a lot said about Justice Oconnor as the groove of the court and the story that is in thomas this book about her persuading Justice Thomas when he first got to the court after his confirmation hearing. He says that she is the glue that holds this place together. The court was often very divided five to four on the biggest cases. I suppose the ultimate one was the case where oconnors idea of breaking bread with will make things better did not quite work. Not as well as she had hoped. There were some references earlier today about terms and which clerks became divided, and to understand how important this is to Justice Oconnor you have to really keep in mind that it was really important for her that people be able to Work Together and that they could disagree, but do so preempt lee. During the condensed time period where bush versus gore was heard, the clerks really took sites this troubled Justice Oconnor because it went beyond judicial differences and philosophical differences. It became personal in the two groups of clerks. This is the case, she spoke more publicly about saying perhaps the court should not have taken it and did great damage to the court as an institution. That was one problem for her, but the other was this personal fall out. Not among justices, but among the law clerks, and so she try to get everybody together at a Cocktail Party of sorts afterwards, but the strains were too great and she could not bring everybody back again, and shes had at least told me that a case that perhaps shouldnt have gone to the court cost this personal fallout. I gather there it was close to a fistfight among the law clerks. Im not sure we should say were given further youthful zeal, but they had the youthful zeal. And private, the kind of judge she was when she served on the court is so different from what we see today and i wonder what made Sandra Day Oconnor a reagan appointee, a states wide advocate, a woman of the west. What if anything made her different from conservatives, she certainly saw herself as a conservative. From conservatives on the court today . laughs she had enormous empathy. She really puts people in the center at the center of the jurisprudence. She cares about states rights when it is a balance of states right against the people, but the person winds out. This was true in terms of her ability to make friends but also in the jurisprudence, she is thinking about the people, and i went back, i looked at a chapter in evans book, because i wanted to think a little bit about her role as a state trial court judge. There is a story and there that i do not know personally. She had to give a sentence in a criminal case to a woman. A very difficult sentence. It kind of whacked her. She gave her five to ten years. She went back to the chambers and wept. She was just, but she also really cared about people. I think that really marks her jurisprudence. It is a very humane jurisprudence. It also has to do with how she took things on a case by case. Because people were very threedimensional to her. Clerks were three dimensional to her. They said in an interview that i got from my book, that it was hands down the happiest chambers on the Supreme Court. I think that is probably a piece of it. In bush against gore, she said it had to be decided. This is part of her western side. The sense that the bucks got to stop. It has to be decided. That somebody is the judge. That is another reason why i think she had an interest and young people understanding the role in the judiciary. Can we talk for minute about certainly Justice Oconnor was a trail blazer, but from a Vantage Point of social change in the country, when her appointment mate meant. I will speak personally. I had been in the court for years at that point. I have heard more than one president say that he would like to name a woman to the court. It never was serious. It never happened. Frankly, i dont think i took Ronald Reagan seriously with my mistake, i took it to be a promise or a pledge that he would name a woman. He was quite determined to do it. Her confirmation hearings were the first to be televised. I remember walking into that court. I had not understood how much i resented looking at nine men until i looked at eight men and one woman. I thought maybe the rest of you she certainly had that burden, but it meant a lot to women in the country. Things changed for women after that. It was like a spark. They did. Ive been practicing seven years when she was nominated by president reagan. I think that women lawyers across the country just all have the same reaction. Very emotional. We had been hearing for years that for this position, or that position, women did not have enough experience. They were not there yet. They were not good enough to do this. I was a trial lawyer and i heard it all the time, that it was in something women should do. Now we had somebody on the Supreme Court. That took away in my view and the view of my women lawyer friends, any argument that women could not do whatever they wanted to do in the law. It was a gamechanger. It was a tsunami. It gave us an argument to make when everybody thought women were not qualified to do something. It continued. Jungles, mothers, grandmothers, letters that came to the chambers from all these people. I cannot think of anything in my memory that has been that definitive a change, not that there werent any obstacles in the future, but that changed the attitude of people toward women and the. Law kathleen . I was just coming out of law school when this happened. At the time, there were still a lot of things that were challenging for women lawyers and having this happen, it let you know it was going to get fixed. It might not be immediate that in the long term it would work out as they should. It was part of my reaction. I have seen over the years and how important it has been two women of all ages. Ive lost count of the number of little girls ive met who for some reason found out about Justice Oconnor and want to tell me how they dressed up and black robes for their third great presentation about a firmest person in american history. They were thrilled to meet me because i met her. Every time i traveled with her in public, women of my age and older would come over, obviously not lawyers, so this was not just our profession. Arent you judge sandra . It matters to them. I was on some panels in upstate new york organized by the roosevelt library. She talked about what it meant to her as a girl, meeting and seeing there were so few women you could model yourself after. By the time she left office, there were so many. Just in the law. Forget all the other things, reporters, scientists, whatever. But in the law, now you are going to a state Supreme Court. There are many more women, many more women advocates. Carla, you have seen this and i take it librarians have gone from the library to being the librarian of congress. Role models make a difference. This is why i will get my book autographed. I am a librarian. I brought my own copy. The inspiration, and ive read it cover to cover. The lace collar. Her mother gave her that first caller. Just being able to be a female and being able to perform, and sometimes out perform it went beyond law. Justice oconnor served on the court for 12 years alone. I think all of us remember being the only woman somewhere. I, for way too long. It must have been incredibly lonely. She said she did not want to be the last and 12 years later, ginsburg appears on the Supreme Court of the United States and very few people know this, but in the years when gets burke was in the d. C. Circuit and oconnor was in the Supreme Court, she took more clerks from Justice Skills birx chambers then from the chambers of any other lower court judge. When Justice Ginsburg arrived, Justice Oconnor wrote 1 million ladders. This is what makes writing about her so wonderful. There is a letter from oconnor to senator gold walker and, shes talking about some arizona thing. Then it says, p. S. , quite unprovoked, Ruth Ginsburg is a very capable and knowledgeable justice. Just an fyi. She did an incredibly generous thing when ginsburg was pretty junior justice. Oconnor was assigned the va my case. She said to just a stevens was signed it, this opinion should be ruled. That was an ink generous thing. Its a big opinion. When Justice Ginsburg assigned the opinion, she has signed that mississippi case and looked down the bench at ginsburg and the two of them had this moment. Nobody else in the courtroom noticed, but they did. That was all that really mattered. I always thought it was kind of important. Linda, your book let me just say this outright. You are a lefty and you are more and sympathy of it, a ginsburgs overarching way of approaching the law. But you came to believe that oconnor was the perfect first, as you put. It why . This was oconnors personal impact on me, right . When i was writing the book about her and ginsburg. I started out, i do not want to admit, frizzy hair as i got to know her, as i learned about her character and her relationship with her law clerks and her relationship with ginsburg, i came to revere of her as a great political figure. It is so important that the person who is first be a great first, otherwise you have to start again. The cherry on the sunday is when i was interviewing justice john, the nicest man in the world, many rest in peace. His book, six amendments had some disagreements with some of the decisions oconnor had made. I thought i had a spooked scoop. Being a giant journalist, i was of course relentless. I leaned on just a stephens. Finally he looked at me and said, linda, she never gave us any trouble. At all. About anything. I thought to myself, she was the perfect first. She never gave them any trouble that they knew of. Actually, that makes her great today i wonder, kathleen and ruth and meryl, you all knew her for an extended have known her for an extended period of time when she was on the court and off. When she was first on the court. That is kind of a huge span of years to observe someone. How did she do that . She was not a shrinking today at all. Yet, just a steven said she never gave them any trouble, as i said, that he knew of. I am sure she gave him plenty of trouble. He just did not know it. Meryl, you want to take a whack . First of all, she was relentlessly charming. She charmed everyone. I was at an event with her and my mom who was the veteran new yorker came. She said, are you meryls mother . She could do that. She made everybody feel like the most important person in the room. That was a gift and that was a real politicians gift. That is another thing that made her a perfect first, along with her beautiful children and handsome has been. She was sort of quintessential. But kathleen, lets face it. She could be really bossy that goes with russia inaudible . I wish i could put my finger on what it was that worked for her, but certainly the kinds of things that even wrote in the book, that she did not have bad things to say about everyone. She made everybody feel like they were the center of attention. Her ability to not fight, and i think it is partly when everyone was talking about earlier today. Not picking big fights, but she would not necessarily disagree with you in a casual conversation if it did not need to happen. It always felt like she agreed with you and therefore she was smart, you are smart. Everybody got along. It was great but it is sort of a magic combination that she had. I never saw her working with other justices to get votes. But i did see her and other groups of men. She was just masterful. She was able to make everybody think that they were in charge and that they would come out exactly where she wanted them to be. It is a real skill and not many people can do that. By the way she asked questions, the way she agreed or sort of disagreed but not in an unpleasant way. She always got people to where she wanted them to be. I suspect that that is what she may have done with her brethren on the court as well. People talk about the ginsburg friendship. There was also the great oconnor breyer friendship. Along ideological lines. They greatly admired each other. Breyer and oconnor are and were much more incrementalist justices. They are not huge broad stroke people, which scalia certainly was and other people of her day. By breyer when said to me that even though he disagreed with her, not infrequently, they thought the same way. I think what he meant by that is that they approached the problem in a much more practical, what jeff might call common law kind of way, a realistic kind of way, to understand the problems of people. This was going to create or solve or prevent in the cases that they were dealing with. Carla, you are the perfect book and in a way for this panel. Although we will continue to talk a bit. Because Justice Oconnors papers are housed here in the library of congress and not every Supreme Court justice has done that, so why did she choose the llc as you all call yourself . How much of these papers will be public how soon . Can you explain the reasons for the decisions about the papers . I do want to start by saying that justice marshals papers are here as well and skull bridges currently working on a biography that will be published. Congress of course had access to the papers of the library and right now the papers are available with permission. We are working with the family. That is not unusual when a person is still alive and there are different people who are in some of the papers that are also alive. That is what we are working on now. They are being very carefully maintained and stored. When can i see them . laughs . Linda wants to see them to. There is an arrangement that you make with the family. Theyre working on that now. This book, i think, gives you such an and sight into what things are available and how what can happen when that legacy is left to an institution like the library of congress. Did llc pay you for that . No. But i am getting that autograph. Justice oconnor at some point, i would say maybe seven or eight years ago, she did begin to lament that her legacy was being dismantled. A lot of the things that she thought were good compromises and realistic compromises and were settled, were getting unsettled. I wonder. I saw you nod your head. She was less cautious then she had been about making that pretty clear. I think it concerned her, but i do not know if it was what she was worried about in particular . I think when she started talking about it, she said, you know things might change. But i think what was troubling her, and i am filling and a lot of blanks spaces here. She did not say this to me. I think we troubled her was the approach, the incremental approach, trying to look at things within the four corners is being abandoned and many cases by the current court. Because she believes strongly that that was the way to develop the law, then if the way of the developing the law changes, i think she sees danger in that. She was an incrementalist, not because she was afraid to be something more, but because she believed that she it was the best, most reliable, most fairway to develop the law. I think it isnt the fact that her opinions are being overturned as i think it is, that the protests become very different. I think that would be troubling to any of us. We thought we had done something the best we could and found a way that worked. Then to see it being sort of discarded. Anybody else . It is hard. I wish we could end this conversation by remembering that she has made a cultural contribution of such enormous moments. I ran into one of her law clerks at an event. The law clerk would not talk to me. She said to me, she could never walk down the block to go to lunch with Justice Oconnor and under 20 minutes, because on every block they would get stopped five or ten times by people who wanted to shake her hand. Girls. Women. They wanted to shake her hand. It is a good thing there werent selfies at the time. I think we should hang on to that positive legacy of what she meant to those girls. This was late in her tenure, well into the 24 century. What she means to women now. An African American librarian. Career librarian. Can read. This get inspiration. Some tips. laughs how to do it, it is a legacy is he measurable. That is versatile. It speaks to people on an entirely different level. Things change, law changed, whatever changes. I think that is all tied up with what she is doing for her, it is a statement of faith in the future, doubling down and reinvesting in our democracy. Those are important parts of her legacy as well. Another thing we have heard. We refer to it so often today. I think it is unusual an unusual legacy for someone of her position. It is a true deep affection that people have for her. People who knew her slightly and knew her well. That is her Lasting Legacy. That is something that goes beyond any other structured areas because that speaks to her as a person, and surely that is an important part as well. Carol . The educational function runs through as a theme throughout her career. The educational function of the opinions, of which she did in civics. The grueling schedule that she has kept up until recently in her post court career, where she just went every place and spoke to audience after audience, because she felt it was so important to get out that message of compassion, and the devotion to democracy shines through every time you see her appear in public. You see that. Her testament is not only what she says, but the fact that she is willing to go out and say it herself. Even the way she closed down her public life was she talked to the people of the country. She wanted to let them know why she was disappearing from the public stage, which was an amazingly unselfish thing to do. It always struck me that, yes she could be bossy, but she was an incredibly unselfish human being. I do not know when she slept. I really do not know when she slept. Given all the many things she did and her incredible energy, and even in illness when she had breast cancer, it really looked just gaunt. She never missed a day on the bench. And then justins Justice Ginsburg had to handle her chemo when she got sick. Youve got the weekend to recover, your back on monday and still in your chair so nobody will say you are not there. Her performance and public life was amazingly, profoundly, culturally effective and unselfish of a performance. On that, we will quit 30 seconds early. applause 50 years ago, on april 17, 1970, astronauts james lovell, John Swaggart and fred haise, after nonboard explosion caused critical system failures and almost stranded the crew in space. Next, the press conference four days later at the Johnson Space center in houston. I would like to introduce