Opening Statement By Chairman Bart Gordon

Good afternoon.  I want to welcome our witnesses to today’s hearing.  You each bring significant experience to this afternoon’s deliberations, and we look forward to your testimony. 

Today’s hearing marks the first congressional examination of the summary report of the Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee, which was released just last week.  We will have two panels of witnesses appearing before us today. 

The first panel consists of someone who is no stranger to this Committee, Mr. Norman Augustine, an individual with many years of experience in the aerospace field.  Mr. Augustine chaired the human space flight review committee, and he will present the findings of that review in his testimony today.

The second panel will consist of two witnesses.  The first, Admiral Joseph Dyer, is the chair of the congressionally-established Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel.  I believe that as we consider the potential paths for our nation’s human space flight program, we need to make sure that we keep safety uppermost in our deliberations, and Adm. Dyer is well equipped to help us understand the safety issues that need to be considered.  The second, Dr. Michael Griffin, currently serves as a professor at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, and before that, he served the nation as NASA Administrator.  Dr. Griffin was heavily involved in formulating the Constellation architecture that has been authorized and for which funds have been appropriated by Congress over the past four years.  As such, he will be able to help this Committee better understand the considerations that go into developing a mature human space exploration architecture, which should aid our deliberations as we work to determine the best path forward.

Because that’s fundamentally what I believe this hearing should be about—determining where we go from here.

I have made no secret in recent years of my belief that the resources given to NASA haven’t kept pace with the important tasks that we have asked NASA to undertake.  That has caused significant stresses in recent years, and we can’t continue down that path. 

We either have to give NASA the resources that it needs or stop pretending that it can do all we’ve put on its plate.  That’s especially true for NASA’s exploration program, and it’s true for the rest of its important missions too. 

So as we proceed today, my focus is on the future.  In that regard, I want our witnesses to help the Committee address a number of important questions.  First, NASA has been working for more than four years on the Constellation program, a development program in support of which Congress has invested billions of dollars over that same period.  As a result, I think that good public policy argues for setting the bar pretty high against making significant changes in direction at this point—that is, there would need to be a compelling reason to scrap what we’ve invested our time and money in over these past four years.  Thus we will need to know whether or not the review panel found any major problems with the Constellation program that would warrant its cancellation, such as technical “showstoppers”, improper cost controls, or mismanagement.  If it didn’t, logic would argue that our focus should be on ensuring the success of the current approach, not walking away from it. 

Second, I have no interest in buying a pig in a poke…and I don’t think anyone else in Congress or the White House will want to either.  Thus we need to know how we can credibly compare options proposed by the review panel that are immature technically, programmatically, and from a cost estimation standpoint—especially  relative to the current program.

Do we just pick an option and hope for the best, or will we need to bring our exploration program to a halt for a year or more while the options are fleshed out and then re-evaluated once the specific implications of each are better understood?

Third, safety has to be a significant determinant of what we do.  The review panel’s summary report is largely silent on safety.  How do we meaningfully compare the safety implications of the various options proposed by the review panel? 

And finally, while the review committee proposed a number of options that it asserted could be done with enhanced funding, what if the Administration or Congress determines that there will be no enhanced funding—is there any path forward that makes sense in that situation?

Well, we have quite a lot to discus today, and I again want to thank our witnesses for their testimony. 

Before closing I should note that while we initially sought the participation of NASA Administrator Bolden at today’s hearing, we determined that it would be premature for him to appear until the Administration has developed its response to the Augustine committee’s report.

We look forward to having Administrator Bolden testify at a later date.

With that said, I will now recognize Mr. Hall for any opening remarks he may care to make.