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