NASA Hearing, House Appropriations Committee

Congressional Hearing Report

The House Appropriations Committee, Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies held a hearing on the NASA FY 2013 Budget Request.

Members in attendance:

Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA), Chairman Rep. John Culberson (R-TX)
Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-AL)
Rep. Steve Austria (R-OH)

Rep. Kevin Yoder (R-KS)
Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-PA), Ranking Member Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA)

Witnesses:

The Honorable Charles F. Bolden, Jr., Administrator, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Rep. Wolf’s opening statement:
NASA’s FY 2013 budget request totals $17.8 billion, and is essentially flat from FY 2012.
That relatively flat total masks a number of significant reallocation of funding within the agency. As we look at the expression of these funding shifts as programmatic priorities, it would look as if you are placing them most emphasis on commercial crew, space technology, and the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). While deemphasizing your work on planetary science, aeronautics, exploration and education.
Allocating scarce resources in a time of fiscal constraint is a complicated and subjective test, which is why I requested in last year’s bill an outside look at the balance of NASA’s missions and the feasibility of its goals. We don’t have the results of that review to inform our discussion today, but I’m sure that other Members already have thoughts about your proposal for where we should be focusing our investments.
In addition to discussing budgetary priorities, I’d also like to use this hearing as an opportunity to check in with you on a couple of policy issues, including the question of interaction or cooperation with NASA and China. The Administration is in favor of closer ties in the aerospace, space science, and exploration, and as you know, I strongly disagree. China is an economic competitor who has been proven to steal from us, and who doesn’t need or deserve our help to improve their own capabilities. And I hope the Administration comes to realize that soon.

Rep. Fattah’s opening statement:
I think you’ve provided extraordinary leadership for NASA during some very challenging times.
I think the Chairman is correct that in the budget of $17.8 billion you have to deal with a number of different priorities, and I know that the Administration has set of goals that you are trying to accomplish, but obviously we want to see how the appropriations process fits in and where there may be shared consensus in space exploration. It is critically important, however, that we understand your priorities and your needs as we go forward.

Administrator Bolden’s opening statement:
Despite the constrained fiscal environment facing the nation this request represents an ambitious civil space program that puts us on a path to achieving a truly exciting set of goals. Send humans to an asteroid and ultimately to Mars, and broaden human activity in low-Earth orbit (LEO). International Space Station (ISS) assembly is now complete, allowing us to focus on full utilization of the ISS’s full research capabilities. NASA is operating a fleet of spacecraft to investigate Earth, the solar system and the universe. All of this is critical to ensure America’s leadership in space exploration, as well as our stewardship of Earth.
The FY 2013 request supports the implementation of key proprieties for NASA agreed upon by the President and Congressional leadership. First, American astronauts continue to live and work aboard the ISS, conducting research to benefit life here on Earth and prepare us for deep space human exploration. NASA is committed to making this national resource available to the broader scientific and commercial research communities. We are also committed to ensuring American companies launching from U.S. soil transport our astronauts and their cargo to the ISS. This year we will see the first commercial cargo flights to the ISS, and with Congressional approval of the funding request, we are on track to have American companies transporting our astronauts to the ISS by 2017. Second, NASA’s on track to develop a flexible deep space launch system that will ultimately be the most capable in history. Through the Space Launch System (SLS) heavy lift rocket and Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) Orion we will carry American astronauts beyond LEO and into deep space within the decade. We are pushing forward with contracts and design efforts to advance this critical next generation exploration system. Our FY 2013 budget request supports our plans for an uncrewed SLS test flight in 2017 and a crewed test mission by 2021. A robust technology development program will be key to our success of the synergized robotic and human exploration. Third, we propose to continue progress toward launch of the world’s most advanced telescope in 2018. The JWST will operate deep in space, orbit the Sun, and look at outer space from its vantage point one million miles from Earth. Over the past year NASA has made important adjustments to JWST management and put the project on a sound financial footing. NASA is confident the 2013 request supports a 2018 launch of JWST.
NASA’s budget request supports a portfolio of innovative science missions resulting in a stream of data from orbits around the Sun, Mercury, Moon, the Asteroid Belt, Mars and Saturn. We now have missions on the way to Jupiter, Pluto, and Mars. 16 earth science missions currently in orbit study Earth as an integrated system. The Hubble, Spitzer, Chandra, and Fermi space telescopes continue to make groundbreaking discoveries on an almost daily basis. Last year, the Messenger spacecraft entered orbit around Mercury, the Ebb and Flow satellites began mapping the gravity field of the Moon, and Juno—launched last August—is on its way to Jupiter. However, tough choices had to be made. We will not be moving forward with the planned 2016 and 2018 ExoMars missions that we had been planning with the European Space Agency (ESA). Instead, NASA is developing a new integrated strategy for a sequence of strategically placed missions that increase scientific knowledge, advance key technologies, and form and enable human exploration goals. Our plan, including the framework for a mission to take advantage of the 2018 and 2020 launch opportunity, is targeted for completion hopefully in time to support the FY 2013 appropriations process. The FY 2013 request supports this approach, and it will be informed with extensive cooperation with the science community, our international partners, and Congress. The FY 2013 budget request continues to support robust Mars exploration, including two spacecraft currently orbiting Mars, the Opportunity rover on the surface, a multi- year exploration on Mars by the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Curiosity, and the planned 2013 MAVEN mission to explore Mars’s upper atmosphere. The FY 2013 budget request supports continued advances in new aviation, science and technologies, which are absolutely essential to enable NASA to achieve its ambitious goals.

At the same time, NASA technology research seeds innovation, supports economic vitality, and helps to create new jobs and expand opportunities of skilled workforce. With the 2013 request NASA will conduct aeronautics research to enable realization of the nation’s Next Generation Air Transportation system, or NextGen, and the safer, more efficient, quieter, and responsible aircraft that will operate with NextGen. To inspire the next generation of scientists and explorers and to foster the development of the U.S. workforce, NASA’s education programs will focus on demonstrable results and capitalize on the agency’s ability to engage students and educators. To help today’s young people envision their future in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics is our goal. NASA is grateful for the American people and you on this Subcommittee’s support during these challenging times.

Sample Q&A

Rep. Wolf:
I understand that the budget pressures require you to make cuts to your science programs, but I don’t understand why those cuts are overwhelmingly in planetary sciences. Is planetary science the lowest priority within the Directorate? Are there no other activities within earth science, astrophysics, or heliophysics that could have been reduced to lessen the impact on planetary science?

Administrator Bolden:
Mr. Chairman, we took a look at the portfolio and the area that looked to be in the best shape was our Mars exploration, contrary to popular belief. As I mentioned in my opening statement, we have a rover that’s continuing to provide data, two orbiting satellites that continue to pump data back to us on Mars and help us frame the strategic selection of future missions that will be affordable. We also have the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity en route to Mars and that’s scheduled to land on the 5th of August, and it will be the largest, most advanced rover ever to be put on any other planet. It will begin to return information that dwarfs anything that we’ve ever received before. It will actually have a drill that will be coring and getting data from the Mars surface, it will have high-definition 3D color cameras sending back images. Finally, we have MAVEN that will be looking at Mars’s upper atmosphere, which is critical to our understanding of the atmosphere as we try to send larger and larger vehicles to the planet, such as a human mission.

Rep. Wolf:
The Planetary Decadal Survey says any future Mars activity must contribute to the goal of sample return, which is the only way to make further fundamental advances in Mars science. Can your smaller focused mission contribute in a meaningful way to sample return? And if not, how will it be consistent with the Decadal Survey’s findings?

Administrator Bolden:
Mr. Chairman, our belief is the smaller focus missions will help us to better determine the landing site that you want for a sample return. Right now MSL is going to land in a crater that was chosen because we think it is the most likely place where we will find water. Most of my planetary scientists, when we are talking about Mars, will tell you to follow the water. This will be our first chance to go to a place where we are very confident we’ll get the best chance to find out whether there was ever water there, or if there is life on Mars. We believe that bringing about a consistent pattern of less expensive, more focused flights will leave us better prepared to set up a Mars sample return. My position has been, and continues to be, while we don’t have the resources for a sample return mission now, nor have we had them in any of the budgets I’ve submitted, everything we do will not preclude a Mars sample return mission when the resources are available.

Rep. Wolf:
Last year we had to cut $156 million out of NASA’s science and management budgets to keep JWST on track for a 2018 launch. This year NASA has proposed an additional $99 million in science cuts to keep pace with the JWST replan. Now that we’ve seen two years of the JWST impact on your science portfolio, do you still believe replanning and continuing the program was the right decision?

Administrator Bolden:
Yes, I absolutely do. Hubble Space Telescope changed our entire outlook on the universe. It helps us to rewrite textbooks every day. And JWST will dwarf that. We expect the return from the JWST will be anywhere from 50 to 100 times as good as the Hubble Space Telescope. Not only as a national initiative, but as an international mission it is critical for our further understanding of the universe, and I think the investment is well worth our time. I will comment that we could have taken cuts from the science budget and other parts of NASA’s budget to bring JWST to the capability of flying in 2014, but that didn’t seem prudent. The prudent thing seemed to be to take the hit on the launch date, move it out to 2018, so that it would not decimate other parts of the NASA budget. I think we’ve maintained a balanced portfolio, and we still plan to accomplish the scientific objectives that I laid out when I first became NASA Administrator in 2011. Timeframes have stretched out in some places, but scientifically we aren’t going to miss any of the objectives.
Also, I need to correct one thing. We never had a Mars sample return mission within our budgets. So people think that stepping away from ExoMars, we are stepping away from Mars sample return. There was no Mars sample return in the 2016 and 2018 ExoMars mission. The 2018 mission would have had a European drill that would core even deeper than MSL is going to do—MSL goes inches, the European drill will go two meters—and that material would then be cached and then we would have to go off and determine what subsequent missions would enable us to go to the surface and pick it up, or put it in orbit and fly a mission to Mars orbit and go and pick that sample up and bring it back. So I think people misunderstand what ExoMars was. There was no sample return mission in ExoMars. Although that is a prime objective of the Decadal Survey, I think everyone on the Decadal Survey study team understood we had no sample return mission on the books. We can’t afford it right now.

Rep. Wolf:
Was it accurate that the Planetary Science Decadal Survey says any future Mars science activity should contribute to the goal of a Mars sample return?

Administrator Bolden:
That is correct. What I’m trying to say is that the missions we are trying to plan now in our restructured Mars robotic program will contribute to our ability to plan and execute a future Mars sample return mission. I am one to believe we need samples back before we send humans, although that is not universally accepted. For example, Mr. Zubrin with the Mars Society will tell you that he vehemently disagrees. That we know enough about Mars today that we can send humans is the belief of some. I am not someone that shares that belief, but I’m not smart enough to know. So, our intent is to mount an effort to fly a future sample return mission so we will know what’s on the planet before we send humans.

Rep. Wolf:
The original cost of JWST was going to be $1.5 billion. Is that correct?

Administrator Bolden:
Mr. Chairman, if I remember correctly was billed to be much lower. I think at one time it was projected to cost $800 million, and it was a figment of peoples’ imagination.

Rep. Wolf:
But that’s the way it was sold?

Administrator Bolden:
Yes sir, that’s the way it was sold.

Rep. Wolf:
So, FY 2012 CJS bill included a provision capping JWST formulation and development cost at $8 billion and requiring NASA to get the program reauthorized if cost increased any further. NASA has proposed to delete the cost control language in the 2013 request. Should this be seen as a sign that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) took control of this budget, or that you don’t intend to abide by the cap and reauthorization provision?

Administrator Bolden:
Chairman Wolf, I fully intend to abide by the cap.

Rep. Wolf:
So the request to delete the cap is unnecessary?

Administrator Bolden:
Chairman, I will have to give you a response to that for the record, because I don’t recall the rationale for requesting to delete the cap. All I can tell you now is my intent to abide by the cap.

Rep Wolf:
It is NASA’s policy that all projects budget to include a 70% Joint Cost and Schedule Confidence Level (JCL) estimate. Budget request, however, so that the JWST has a joint competence level of 66%. Why is your highest stakes, most complex science mission budgeted below the agency’s estimation standard? Should we be concerned the JWST budget reschedule is not sufficiently robust?

Administrator Bolden:
Chairman, the schedule and the replan we feel is robust. We found recently, as you point out, that JWST’s JCL was less than 70%.

Rep. Wolf:
Does that trouble you that it falls below the 70%?

Administrator Bolden:
No sir, it doesn’t. To put this amount of money on it, or that amount of money on JWST, does not change the confidence that we can execute in 2018 significantly. That’s the reason we chose the additional funds we did request, instead of a lot more. JCL’s are great. We have several missions that demonstrate to us that they are the way to go, including Juno, GRAIL, and several other missions. JWST, unfortunately, was pretty much sealed in concrete before we started using JCL. We have tried to apply JCL to JWST, which gives us confidence that we have a good replan.

Rep. Fattah:
Let’s turn to the Administration’s priority on commercial crew. Please summarize the progress being made in that area.

Administrator Bolden:
Congressman Fattah, I feel very good where we are, in spite of the low amount of funding in the FY 2012 budget. We still have a good stable of potential proposers for a commercial crew system that we hope to have in place by 2017. We know we have no less than 7, but we anticipate there will be many more than that that will ask for an opportunity to be considered for the Space Act Agreement that we use to develop the system we choose to take humans to space. So, I’m very confident in what we have going right now. While it is different, we will see this summer the demonstration of private industries capability of doing what NASA used to do, which is taking cargo to the ISS. And, as I’ve testified in previous hearings, that’s a big deal. That’s an incredibly big deal when we have two private companies that will successfully put a capsule in space, rendezvous and be birthed with the ISS, and become a part of the ISS, that’s a huge deal for the U.S.

Rep. Fattah:
As we move forward the Administration’s request in commercial crew is a lot more significant this year, at least based on enacted numbers from last year. Can you explain where these dollars would fall in play?

Administrator Bolden:
Congressman, if the Committee will think back to the Augustine Report, at that time the amount that was deemed necessary for a viable commercial space program was $6 billion. When I started asking questions to industry about what would it take for a company to mount a successful effort to take humans to LEO, the answer I got was about $2.5 billion per company of NASA investment. And I still believe that number to be in the ballpark. Our original request was significantly more than the request we submitted in this year’s budget of $830 million. It was $1.2 to $1.5 billion, because we felt it was what was necessary. And as we briefed previous hearings, if we got less than that it would stretch the time out. We now find ourselves, unfortunately, with a gap between shuttle retirement and an American capability to take humans to orbit widening, because we have less money. The ability to close the gap is proportional to the amount of money the nation puts forth for that effort. Less money equals more time.

Rep. Fattah:
Let me shift gears to the astrophysics. Could you give us an overview of what you are doing in astrophysics, and what you intend to do?

Administrator Bolden:
Congressman Fattah, we have a number of telescopes currently operating in orbit. If you look at Kepler, we have discovered that instead of hundreds of planets we now know there are millions in our universe. And some of those are Earth-size and –like and could potentially harbor life. So, the excitement for our astrophysics mission has exploded, and a lot of that has been due to the accomplishments of less well known missions, like Kepler.
SOFIA is a 747 airplane with an airborne telescope. Sophia’s in its operational phase now, and the returns on its findings are in some ways mind-boggling. The other part about SOFIA, which I think is incredible, is the benefit to education. Education is not just about the money we put into our university campuses or high schools, junior high schools and elementary schools; there is another aspect that we call indirect education. We take teachers on SOFIA and we allow them to look at the data that’s being gathered by an airborne telescope, that’s something they couldn’t do before. And that doesn’t come out of the education budget that comes out of the SOFIA budget in their educational outreach program. So, as we talk about education, there are a lot more ways to educate the public than putting direct money on it. Sometimes we find that direct money doesn’t have the result you want, and that’s one of my concerns about education. When I became NASA Administrator, I can tell you that I don’t think we had the ability to show anybody demonstrable results on what we were getting for our dollar. I think we are getting to the point where we can do that.

Rep. Fattah:
First, I’d like to give you a chance to talk about the fact that a lot of advances in aviation, like the Boeing Dreamliner, that are based on NASA technology and research. Because a lot of times, when the public is flying on the safest system of air travel anywhere in the world, I don’t think they have the benefit of knowing that a lot of this is directly related to the research that you and your team at NASA have done.
Second, at the end of the day, we are going to have to wrestle with some pretty tough decisions between the MPCV, JWST, Planetary Science and so on. To some degree we are not going to be able to fit all of these priorities within what might be the available dollars.

Administrator Bolden:
Congressman, you picked the plane, and Boeing may disagree with me, but it’s a NASA airplane. They will tell you, as you approach the airplane from the outside it’s largely a composite structure that’s developed from NASA research. The engine kind of looks like shark teeth--it’s something we call chevron nozzles--which sat on the shelf at Glenn Research Center for probably ten years until engine builders picked it up. It has significantly decreased the noise level on the Boeing 787. I was told by the test folk at Boeing that they are restricted from running engine test after 11 pm at night, except for the Boeing 787. The chevron nozzles have made that engine so quiet that the community doesn’t even know that they are running engine test, and that’s NASA technology. So, we have done things with NASA aeronautics research that have continued to make aviation and air travel safer and more efficient. After talking with the airline industry that have flown some of the test on our new airline management system for routing, they’ve said it will provide them potentially $300 million in fuel savings just by using the new system.

Rep. Fattah:
Talk to us about the budget challenges as we talk about the big-ticket items, please.

Administrator Bolden:
These are very difficult fiscal times, and I know I’m preaching to the choir when I say that. Because of that, the President and the leadership of the Congress back in late 2011 came to an agreement that we were going to establish three priorities at NASA. That doesn’t mean we aren’t going to do other things, but it means we are going to really promise to focus on these three priorities. First,we are going to develop a heavy lift launch vehicle and MPCV, which is underpinned with a NASA priority for technology development. We cannot do exploration without enhancing our technology development. The second priority was enhanced utilization and expanded use of the ISS, critical for that is another NASA priority of commercial crew and cargo. Without having an American capability we will continue to pay the Russians a minimum of $450 million dollars a year for seats on the Soyuz to get to ISS, and I want to reduce that reliance as quickly as I can. The third priority is the JWST, which is the most advanced, critical scientific instrument for the world in development today. Those are the three top priorities, and we tried to fully fund all of those. Then with the remaining funds we tried to balance across our portfolio so that we could spend the taxpayers’ money wisely. I don’t think we have lost the effectiveness of anything we had planned in prior years. People keep talking about efficiencies, well if you don’t gain by efficiencies, which you have to do when you have less money, then its hopeless. I think we are gaining efficiencies in the way that we operate and manage programs. JWST is a great example; we’ve met every milestone in the past year and a half on our replaned JWST effort.

Rep. Austria:
Administrator Bolden, I was pleased to see in your testimony that NASA is continuing to work with the Department of Defense (DOD) to maximize efficiencies and increase partnership to accomplish common goals. One of the emerging industries that I believe holds great promise for our national defense and in our state of Ohio is the Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS). So, I’m very pleased that NASA is working to help integrate UAS into our national air system. Can you go into a little more detail, as to NASA’s work with the UAS systems, as well as your partnership with the DOD?

Administrator Bolden:
We are very closely tied to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the DOD in trying to come up with the software and traffic management systems that will facilitate the integration of UAS into the national air transportation system. That is easier said than done. Pilots don’t like having UASs flying around them, and so part of it is education. But as late as yesterday afternoon, as I was giving Secretary of the Air Force Michael Donley a heads up on what I was going to talk about today at this hearing, we agreed that in the next few weeks we should have a NASA and DOD meeting on UAS integration.
If you go to the Dryden Flight Research Center right now, we are developing a test in conjunction with Northrop Grumman to put scientific instruments on their UAS systems to study both North and South Poles, which we could not do before. We also are getting ready to do an inflight refueling test, and so these are some of the things we are doing to advance the integration of UAS into the national air transportation system.

Rep. Austria:
Well I appreciate that you are working with Secretary Donley and the FAA on this.
One of my challenges on this is that we’ve had several agencies working on this to advance the UAS technologies, but there doesn’t appear to be a comprehensive, Administration-wide strategy for moving this industry forward. I think this is especially true when it comes to airspace and integration of UAS systems. For example, various agencies are supporting various research on UAS technologies, but there doesn’t seem to be a comprehensive plan from this Administration on airspace and regulation standards needed to deploy the technology and move this forward. Is that one of the hurdles you’re facing, or trying to overcome that and put together a comprehensive plan?

Administrator Bolden:
Congressman Austria, I think there is a comprehensive plan on the part of the Administration to try and move it forward. As I talk about collaboration between the FAA, DOD, and NASA for integration of UASs into the national airspace system, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) also gets involved with that. So we have executive committees that are responsible for a comprehensive policy for UAS use. What Secretary Donley and I were talking about is a senior level meeting that we need to have to make sure the Administration’s policy promotes a comprehensive plan.

Congressman Austria:
Questions still get raised back home about the shuttle display location selection process; so let me bring that up. As I’m sure you are aware, there was conference report language that came out of this Committee directing NASA to submit quarterly reports to the Committee on the status of its disposition on the four space shuttle orbiters. Help me understand what’s going on in New York. I want to better understand that situation, and whether you are aware of the fact that New York did not have a site that was ready for a shuttle until 2014.

Administrator Bolden:
Congressman Austria, we are required to submit a report to you, and the latest report was submitted in January 2012. I have to check with the Committee, but I think we have reached an agreement that the submissions have been sufficient, and we may be relieved of the responsibility to do that. But, I don’t know that for certain.
At the time that I made the decision of where the orbiters were going to go, there was only one facility in the country that had completed a structure to specifically house an orbiter. And unfortunately, that facility did not get an orbiter. So there was no facility in Ohio, New York, California, or Texas to put the orbiter on display. Not even Kennedy Space Center had a facility ready. Every one of the locations chosen to receive an orbiter had an engineering and funding plan that had been reviewed to the satisfaction of NASA, and we are confident that we are going to be able to do it. The middle of next month we will make delivery of Discovery to the National Air and Space Museum. That will begin the consecutive movement of orbiters. Once we have delivered Discovery, we will put Enterprise on top of the 747 and transport it to JFK where New York will temporarily display it aboard the Intrepid, while the final facility is prepared for it. Ground breaking for the housing facility at Kennedy Space Center took place a month ago, and that’s supposed to be ready in 2013 or 2014. Finally, the California Science Center already has their facility already underway, and they have an elaborate plan for transporting Endeavor from LAX through the streets of Los Angeles in a parade. So every place has an extensive plan in place and we’ve received all monies that were due for transfer of the orbiters.

Rep. Austria:
I appreciate that, Mr. Administrator. However, the concern that we have is that in not just Ohio, but throughout the Midwest, is about the criteria process. I’m looking at a transportation and risk criteria sheet that came to us and it turns out there was a mistake on NASA’s part when they went through this whole criteria stuff--a cut and paste mistake—where they put the wrong information in for the National Museum of the United States Air Force, which lowered our score. That information is coming from the NASA Inspector General’s (IG) report. Finding out about this mistake four months later from the IG that when our correct information was input into the calculation we had the same score as two locations that received a shuttle raises concern on my part as to the integrity and how accurate this criteria choice was.

Administrator Bolden:
Congressman, I won’t disagree or challenge anything you say, but I’ll ask my staff to come over and brief you. And I think when my staff comes over to brief you, you’ll find that there were significant shortcomings on the proposal from the National Museum of the Air Force, not the least of which was funding.
To be quite honest, I asked each of the facilities to brief their congressional delegation first, so that they would be able to share with you what they thought their shortcomings were. Because I do not want to get into a public debate about any of the shortcomings about the places that did not get selected to receive an orbiter.
Other than the National Air and Space Museum the three other selected locations had funds, designs for display facilities, and were shown to be superior to the places that did not get an orbiter.

Rep. Austria:
My question to you is on the broader sense, the process that was used. When information is brought to us after the fact that there was a mistake, that’s a concern.

Administrator Bolden:
Congressman, I think you’ll find that the mistakes that were made—and there were mistakes made—affected every single site that was a competitor, including some of those that received orbiters.

Rep. Austria:
How have you responded to that?

Administrator Bolden:
I have responded to each entity that had a complaint, and explained why I had stayed with the entities that were originally awarded orbiters, even after I had looked at all the corrected information. So, there was nothing subjectively that changed significantly that would have made me pick one of the locations I had already chosen.

Rep. Austria:
So you are saying that had you known that information prior to that decision, you still would have made the same decision?

Administrator Bolden:
When I testified to the IG investigation, I told them when I went back and looked at where those mistakes had been made, I reevaluated the relative standing of all of the entities that were being considered and there was nothing of significance that caused me to want to change my mind about a location. That’s all I’m trying to say.
Also, almost every facility that put in a request and proposal for an orbiter, subsequently received significant artifacts from the space shuttle program, including full-scale mockups and simulators that astronauts trained in. Granted, everyone wanted an orbiter, but I think you’ll find that from an educational and outreach perspective they won the prize. The Museum of Flight, for example, has a full fuselage trainer; they can put kids in and out of that thing like astronauts. Nobody that got a flown orbiter can do that, because none of the flown orbiters will be opened up. They are going to be there for display. Orbiters are still incredible, but not what you can do with a trainer that you can open up and let students go through.

Rep. Aderholt:
There are some concerns by many of us about the slow development of SLS. Given the fact that you once said SLS needs to catch up with MPCV, why is the request for FY13 so far below the authorized level?

Administrator Bolden:
Congressman, we’ve now broken out separate budget lines for vehicle development, exploration ground systems, 21st century launch complex, and construction of facilities into four different accounts. But when you look at them together the funds for SLS meet the authorized level. I want to say that we have $1.3 billion set aside for SLS, and that is strictly for vehicle development. We’ve fired the J2-X upper stage engine a couple of times now. Glenn Research Center has some cryogenic propellant storage test right now that will contribute to lower the weight of the eventual 100 metric ton SLS. We are looking at a new composite fuel tank that will lower the weight of the SLS. So, there is a quite a bit of technology development work for SLS that is ongoing. So I think we are doing as much, if not more on SLS right now than the MPCV, because MPCV was so far along. MPCV has completed drop tests, vibration testing, and its well along compared to everything else. So, we are ramping up the work on the SLS.he total cost spent on commercial space, beyond the $500 million for Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS)? Especially in the Commercial Resupply Service (CRS) account?

Administrator Bolden:
I will take that for the record. However, the amounts that have been spent for COTS and CRS so far are documented. We have essentially spent nothing on CRS, except for some of the additional milestones we added to the COTS program to buy down the risk on cargo resupply. So, we did advance those companies some funds from the CRS contracts that they would not have ordinarily gotten until they had actually gotten into CRS. I think everyone knows we are still in the COTS program. The end of the COTS program will be the demonstration flights coming this spring and summer. Hopefully SpaceX will fly their first CRS at the end of FY 2012 and Orbital will fly their first CRS at the beginning of FY 2013.
Other than what we spent on Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) funds, those are the only funds that NASA has spent on commercial crew to date. We have not selected a vendor yet, so we have not spent any money on development of a system. That’s what we are trying to decide now, with the extension of the Space Act Agreements and selection of competitors that will come this summer.

Rep. Schiff:
Mr. Administrator, as you know, I’m deeply troubled by the NASA budget in which Science is cut overall by $162 million and Planetary Science by $300 million. Resulting in the Administration’s shortsighted proposal to walk away from the ExoMars program with ESA. It would have put an orbiter around Mars in 2016 and a lander on the surface two years later to begin the process caching samples that would later be returned to Earth. I don’t need to tell you that a Mars sample return is at the top of the scientists’ list and that the 2018 mission is ranked at the top of the Planetary Science Decadal Survey. I also don’t need to remind you that the number two mission is the Europa orbiter that will give us insight into one of the solar systems most mysterious bodies. If there was any question to the priorities of this Committee the language that Rep. Culberson proposed last year makes clear: those Planetary Decadal priorities are our priorities as well.
No element of the America space program has generated more public excitement and interest over the last decade than our robotic exploration of Mars. In the days after Spirit’s landing in June 2004, NASA’s web servers crashed under an assault by literally millions of people worldwide who wanted to see the pictures from the Mars surface. These cuts not only threaten the most successful exploration program in NASA’s history, it also imperials what is most certainly the world’s most specialized workforce; the engineers and scientists at JPL who specialize in entry, decent and landing on other planets. I don’t need to tell you how difficult it is to do this type of work. There are more failures than success on landing vehicles on Mars, and ours is the only country to have yet succeeded. But this is a workforce and capability that cannot survive long periods of inactivity. If we adopt your reconfigured Mars program, a drastic scaling back of our capacity to do this type of edge-of-the-envelope science will be the inevitable consequence. I think cannibalizing the Mars program, which gets closer to unlocking the secrets of Mars past with each mission and discovery is a major step backwards for NASA and the nation. While human spaceflight has been stuck in LEO for three decades and is now reliant on the Russians, and with JWST still years away from launch, the Mars program is a key driver for public support of the space program. In short, I think the budget proposal is a disaster for our leadership in space.

And, I want to thank the Chairman, sincerely, for calling a timeout to give us a chance to fully explore this proposal and I hope come up with something much better. I am perplexed at the responses you gave to the Chairman at the outset of this hearing. When he asked you why the disproportionate and devastating cuts to planetary science—and particularly the Mars program—your response was quote, the Mars program was in the best shape. I don’t understand that answer. That’s an answer that says in order to make budget cuts we savaged the most successful program we have.

I don’t think you can come here and tout MSL. This Committee is about the future, and to rely on MSL is to rely on our past. That was a program that was largely developed under the President Bush Administration. And for this Administration and NASA to say this is proof of our ongoing commitment to Mars just falls desperately short to me. Because if you were before this Committee when MSL was still on the drawing board, you’d be coming to tell us to pull the plug on MSL, and I think that is a tragic place to be.

We now have a Decadal Survey whose top priority will not be undertaken if your proposal is accepted. It will not be taken by the United States, but by the Europeans now in partnership with the Russians. And I think it is a very sad state of affairs when we are already reliant on the Russians to get a lift to the ISS, that now we are also going to tell the Europeans they can’t count on us anymore and they need to count on the Russians for the top priority of our own scientists. I also don’t understand the response you gave to the Chairman when he asked you a question about the Decadal Survey, when he asked you isn’t this inconsistent with the Decadal Survey’s priorities. Your answer was something to the effect of no, canceling the top priority of the Decadal Survey somehow advances the Decadal Survey’s priorities. That is a very Orwellian answer in my view that says the way to go forwards is to go backwards, the way to go up is to go down. Just by saying so, doesn’t make it so. If we walk away from the Decadal Survey, we are walking away from the Decadal Survey. No amount of spin or rhetoric can change that fact. What I would like to try and understand is when you came before our Committee last year, when you met individually with Members of this Committee, and you said we could do a flagship mission to Mars--that we had a budget to do a flagship mission to Mars. When did you make the decision in the last 12 months that that was no longer the case? Was that a decision you made, or a decision OMB made? And, if it was a decision OMB made, why is OMB deciding what the Planetary Science Decadal Survey priorities ought to be? I understand they can give you a topline, but the thing I don’t understand is the topline budget for NASA is essentially flat from the year before—and I don’t think any of us thought that that would be any different—so there is no surprise on going from the topline last year to this year. What I would like to know is, did this proposal to abandon the flagship missions come from you or was that proposed from OMB?

Administrator Bolden:
Congressman, the decision came from me.

Rep. Schiff:
I’m not asking you where the decision came from; I’m asking you where the proposal came from.

Administrator Bolden:
The decision came from me.

Rep. Schiff:
I understand where the decision came from, but where did the proposal come from. Did you propose this, or did OMB propose this?

Administrator Bolden:
The question that led to my decision came from me. I asked how are we going to do a Mars sample return based on the budget we have currently? I asked what is the detail in the 2018 mission? And at that time, I was told we are developing the 2018 mission with ESA. I said, well what about the sample return? I was told that will come on subsequent missions.

Rep. Schiff:
Mr. Administrator, the sample return was always going to come on subsequent missions.

Administrator Bolden:
That’s not the impression that I had.

Rep. Schiff:
Nobody was ever proposing that we were going to go and cache the samples and bring them back on the same mission. That was always the proposal.

Administrator Bolden:
Well the person who didn’t understand that was me.

Rep. Schiff:
My question, Mr. Administrator, I still haven’t gotten an answer to. Which is, where did the proposal to cancel the flagship mission come from? Did that come from you, or from OMB?

Administrator Bolden:
The proposal came from coordinated efforts between my science experts in NASA, our talks with the White House—with OMB and Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP)—and our talks with our international partners.

Rep. Schiff:
And when did this happen?

Administrator Bolden:
This happened over the last 12 months. It started, actually, as early as 2009 when I signed the letter of intent.

Rep. Schiff:
Then when you came here last year and told us we’d have the resources to do the Flagship mission...

Administrator Bolden:
At the time I thought we had the resources to do a flagship mission.

Rep. Schiff:
But now you’re telling me that back in 2009 you decided you didn’t have the resources.

Administrator Bolden:
I didn’t decide that I didn’t have the resources then. I began to question whether we had the resources then, because as I said, you and others fully understood ExoMars was not a sample return, I was not that smart. I thought ExoMars was a sample return because that’s what the Decadal Survey says.

Rep. Schiff:
You understand from us last year that our priority was to do the top of the Decadal Survey. And as the NASA budget hasn’t changed, I can only conclude that you, OMB and the White House had already made the decision to cancel the flagship mission and just didn’t want to tell us. Or, related to the Chairman’s question of why you want to remove the cap language related to JWST, now your view is that those cost are going to increase, and therefore, you need to come in and cannibalize the successful Mars program. Something changed over the last 12 months.

Administrator Bolden:
A number of things changed over the last 12 months, and my growth into this job and my understanding of the complexity of the missions we were doing, and our ability to mount a sample return mission changed. My understanding of that changed.

Rep. Schiff:
So, it’s not a change in JWST from last year.

Administrator Bolden:
Yes, it is. There is a change in JWST from last year. Last year, JWST was gone. And I felt that JWST was so critical to this nation and the international science community that I could not make that shortsighted decision. I fought to get funding for the JWST. As I told the Chairman, I would have liked to ask for enough funding to launch JWST in 2014, but that would have been irresponsible because it would have decimated the science budget.

Rep. Schiff:
When you came to this Committee to argue for JWST, and the Chairman raised the concern about JWST, you didn’t tell the Chairman or any of us that, oh, by the way, we’re not going to be able to do Mars if we do this.

Administrator Bolden:
I didn’t know that at the time.

Rep. Schiff:
And when did you have this epiphany?

Administrator Bolden:
Congressman, this epiphany as you call it, wasn’t an epiphany. It was a successive understanding of our posture fiscally, and our successive understanding of our technical capability on my part. As I told Jean-Jacques Dordain—head of the European Space Agency—I could not continue to let them think in good conscious that the United States is going to be there for them on a sample return mission that we cannot support, that we cannot afford. As I told the Europeans, most of this happened before Christmas of 2011, because we had people in France in negotiations with Roscosmos and ESA, and I finally decided that I couldn’t allow in good conscious to allow our folks to sit there and negotiate something we know we cannot support.
Now we are trying to find missions to launch in the 2018-2020 timeframe, that are decreased in scope, but accomplish the basic objectives of setting up a subsequent Mars sample return mission. I think we will do that.

Rep. Schiff:
And Mr. Administration, I can’t in good conscious support a budget that says America’s best days of leadership in space science are limited, that Europe you can’t count on us, that China is ascendant to the Mars program, that you’ve got to go to Russia and later China, that we’re going to walk away from our own Decadal Survey priority, that when we are this tantalizingly close to finding the building blocks of life on another planet we’re going to walk away and rest on the laurels of the administrations and generations that went before us. I can’t in good conscious support that kind of proposal.

Administrator Bolden:
Congressman, as I mentioned to you before, I would hope that you would not put MSL in the past when you communicate with people at JPL. We have the hardest part of that mission coming, and when they feel like their Representative feels like that is something that is in the past...

Rep. Schiff:
No, I don’t think the mission is in the past. And no one has greater respect for the work that those brilliant people are doing than I do. But, what I resent is coming in here and using MSL as a justification for cancelling the future of the Mars program and the Flagship missions. I can tell you, Mr. Administrator, there is no one at JPL working on MSL or any other program, that will accept the argument that because they are working so hard and have had such great success with MSL thus far, that we should cancel our future flagships.

Administrator Bolden:
Congressman, we have not given up on our future flagships. What I have done is have Dr. John Grunsfeld—Associate Administrator for NASA’s Science Directorate—to come up with a plan that will allow us to strategically approach the next flagship mission to Mars that will enable us to do a sample return mission. That is still a primary objective of our Mars exploration program. We are trying to accomplish the science objectives of ExoMars and trying to accomplish the priorities of the Planetary Science Decadal Survey. We are not decimating Mars; we are not giving up on the Mars program. We have, what I think, is a very ambitious Mars program, and we are not giving up on Europa. We have three studies underway looking at how we can attack Jupiter’s moon, Europa. We’ve just got to figure out how to prioritize our science budget to figure out how many of those goals we can accomplish. However, we can’t do them all.

Rep. Schiff:
Mr. Administrator, the last thing I’m going to say is, those are all fine words but they don’t make it so. Defunding Europa doesn’t mean you are pushing forward with Europa. Canceling the flagships doesn’t mean you are pushing forward with an aggressive Mars program. It’s exactly the opposite. And, I wish we could all get by on good words, but what matters are the deeds, and the deeds right now are canceling the flagship missions, canceling Europa, seeding to Russia, with Europe, the leading mission of our scientists of the Decadal Survey. And that is a very sad proposal, and one that I can’t accept.

Administrator Bolden:
Congressman, we don’t have the program in place that I’d like to have, because we don’t have endless money, but I think we’ll have a program in place that I think will bring great results.

Rep. Yoder:
I’m a big fan of what you do at NASA, not only from the economic and scientific impact, but also from your ability to inspire Americans to dream.
I note there has been a decline in resources for your budget that Congress has provided, which is kind of rare. I’ve been on Appropriations for 2 years now and mostly we look at big increases on the discretionary side and request for even more. Washington’s version of a spending cut is not getting as big of an increase as you requested for many agencies. So you are actually dealing with constrained resources, and you’ve really tried to be creative in what you’re doing in the exploration of space. So, I thought I’d give you the opportunity to give us an idea of what we could do if we had additional resources? What’s the potential for U.S. space exploration if we were able to find additional resources? With regards to technologies that could shorten the travel between Earth and Mars, what’s on the horizon? Also, what’s NASA’s larger strategic plan for down the road in about 25 to 50 years? Finally, are these goals we are trying to get to achieve on day, a function of resources, or are they a function of capabilities that we aren’t sure we’ll be able to achieve? If we had unlimited resources, what would you say we could be doing at this point?

Administrator Bolden:
Congressman, I won’t conjecture what we could do with ultimate resources, but I will answer the other questions.
The biggest challenge is capabilities—although resources do bring capabilities—but the shortcoming for us, right now, as the agency responsible for maintaining the nation’s leadership in exploration is capabilities. And that’s why when we talk about priorities, while not one of the top three, technology development is a critical priority for NASA. It is only through technology development that will help us deal with the issue of speeding up the travel time between Earth and Mars. Our space technology program has over 1000 projects right now that are funded.
As to the topic of increased funding, I would like to see full funding for the President’s FY 2013 NASA request. Because we have crafted this budget to fully support the priorities agreed to by the President and the Congress, and also it will enable us to take care of the internal priorities that we have, which are trying to craft a strategic program for robotic exploration of Mars. It is critical for us to get the President’s budget request funded to the level he requested, or we do stand a chance of relinquishing our leadership in space. And I don’t want to do that.
Anyone who thinks we are not the leader today, I would beg to differ. Everyone still looks to us. Our European partners are really dependent on us for JWST; they are providing the launch vehicle and some of the instruments. The Europeans depend on us for aeronautics and we are there. You can go through and look at what we are doing with South American nations, too. We are the leader in the world, whether it is exploration or robotic. We have not relinquished that leadership. However, to give up, and not fund the President’s budget would be to say we have decided we are okay with being a follower. That’s why I am fighting for this budget. We have done the absolute best we could do to prioritize and make sure we retain our leadership.

Rep. Yoder:
And I think reassuring the country and the world that the United States is going to continue to be a pioneer in this endeavor is something that I think we have to continue to do. I know when we are back in our districts and we are talking to regular folks that are inspired by space exploration, for them, without having the shuttles and having to rely on the Russians to access space, that doesn’t provide the assurance that we will remain the leader. So, we need to get back to the point where we have American capability to take our astronauts to space.
Are there things that Congress is doing—besides the funding issue—which we should stop doing in order to be helpful? Are there any regulatory restrictions that are making it hard for NASA to achieve its mission?

Administrator Bolden:
Congressman, there are issues we are working with the Administration to bring proposals to you. The Secretary of State and Defense have talked about some modification or relief from export control restrictions that impede Americans. Those are things that are beyond the purview of NASA, but those are things I would echo.

Rep. Yoder:
Going forward, I certainly think the commercialization of the exploration of space is going to continue to be a part of NASA’s mission, and utilization and partnership with private industry appears to be a very successful approach to dealing with some of the cost issues we have. Looking at the commercial cargo program, my understanding is that NASA’s cost models indicate the development cost of a rocket like SpaceX’s Falcon-9 by NASA would cost $4 billion where in contrast SpaceX was able to develop it for a cost of $400 million. Are there other examples where we have been able to do things in a more efficient way utilizing commercialization?

Administrator Bolden:
Congressman, there are examples I can provide to you that show you reliance on private entities to do the development with NASA as a partner has resulted in cost savings. We haven’t completed our goals for commercial cargo yet, but so far, the trend is that we are definitely saving funds. When we look at the commercial cargo program, we’ve spent hundreds of millions instead of spending billions, getting to the point where we are about to have private companies deliver cargo to the ISS. At this point with developing systems for humans we have spent hundreds of millions as opposed to billions had we used traditional acquisition models. The only difference is we have relied on industry to do development at their pace and using their brainpower with us as consultants, as opposed to our project that we dictate to them the pace and the content. We aren’t dictating pace and content, they are.

Rep. Yoder:
I think that’s an area where we will have to work together to find what is the right balance, but you continue to try and find ways to be creative within the resources you have available and be a pioneer there.
I also want to talk to you a little bit about plutonium, which is a critical fuel source that NASA relies on. Where are we at on the amount of plutonium that is available? Are there steps we need to take to make sure NASA has enough plutonium going forward?

Administrator Bolden:
Congressman, I’ll get you the exact amount for the record, but I think we have an adequate amount. We have funded our portion toward startup again of plutonium that would take care of missions that we envision we will be doing in the foreseeable future.

Rep. Fattah:
This production effort is in concert with other agencies, right? You feel comfortable with in terms of where you are, right?

Administrator Bolden:
I’m comfortable where we are, other than the fact that no one wants to spend money. If you ask me, I’d rather see some other agency pay for it all, but that’s not going to happen. So, I’m satisfied that we have been asked to pay our fair share. I will get the exact numbers on that.

Rep. Culberson:
Administrator Bolden, I’m sitting here listening to the testimony and am quietly grieving for our country. I’m a native Houstonian, grew up with the Apollo program and got my first telescope when I was 12 and have been an amateur astronomer since I was a boy. NASA has been an important part of my life and an important part of life for this country. When a major public opinion firm did a private poll for former NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe, it discovered that NASA had one of the highest positive images among the public.
And, I could not agree more strongly with the comments of my good friend, Rep. Schiff, that the President’s FY 2013 budget is clearly putting the best days of our planetary exploration behind us. It’s just visionless, and I grieve for NASA and my country. All the men and women who have put their heart and soul into exploring other worlds and to put men and women into space need to know that the Congress stands behind them, even though the President doesn’t have any interest in our space program. The Congress is here to support you, sir, who we know is here to carry the message from the Administration. I know you’re sort of trapped, and you’re probably not as able to speak as freely as you’d like. I know you’re probably not thrilled in your heart of hearts with this budget proposal.

And we face a terrible dilemma in this country with the size of the debt. The budget that we in the House are likely to pass, and necessarily so, is going to have to reduce spending below even what the President has suggested. And, our Subcommittee is going to have a terribly tough decision to make as well, but we are arm in arm in agreement here that you are among friends. We are all passionate for our support of NASA and the space program.

However, as Rep. Schiff said, just because you say it, doesn’t make it so. The cuts to the planetary mission are devastating and it walks away from America’s leadership role in planetary exploration. Essentially it just cancels the Mars program. I think it comes from OMB and the Administration. The cancellation of the joint program is going to make the Europeans deeply distrust us in the future. There is no way you can say the Mars program survives. There is no way you can say the planetary mission survives.
So, I want to circle back to a fundamental fact, the Congress makes the laws and set policy in so many different areas, and it’s the President’s job—as chief executive—to execute the law and to ensure that it is carried out. Statutory law enacted by the Congress, says quote, “NASA shall implement the recommendations of the most recent National Research Council Planetary Decadal Survey and shall follow the Decadal Surveys decision rules regarding program implementation, including strict adherence to the recommendation that NASA include in a balanced program a Flagship class mission, which can be executed in cooperation with one or more international partners, if such missions can be appropriately descoped, and all NASA costs in the mission can be accommodated by the overall funding levels appropriated by Congress.” The law is unambiguous. This is not optional. This is not a recommendation by the Congress, it is mandatory. What do you recommend? What should this subcommittee do? What amendment should Rep. Schiff and I put together? What portion of NASA funding should I withhold to ensure you follow the law as the Chairman had to do with the heavy lift launch vehicle?

Administrator Bolden:
Congressman, I think we are following the law. What you just read said we shall follow to the best extent possible the recommendation of the Decadal Survey and cooperate with our international partners together, if the missions can be descoped. That’s exactly what we are trying to do.
I’ll give you an example of incremental descoping. The original 2018 mission was an American lander and European lander. That I knew right away we could not do, neither of us could afford that. We descoped and said let’s do one lander that you guys provide and we’ll provide in the lander system. We are continuing to try and descope what was the ExoMars mission into what would be a series of strategically planned, incremental missions that will lead to a Flagship mission to do a sample return. That has not gone away. We are still working towards that.
I’ll say two things:
Marines are never surrounded, and I don’t feel surrounded.
Second, I need people to understand that I am excited about this budget. I don’t take direction from any other agency; I take direction from the President. So people who think that OMB or OSTP tells me what to do, that does not happen. I go in and argue just like any other head of agency or Secretary, and we come out of meetings with our priorities. Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose. But if I ever won every argument then something is wrong with our system of government. We are not trailing any other nation in exploration, contrary to what some people may feel.

Rep. Culberson:
I sincerely appreciate your service to this country and the problem you find yourself in, but the language on the Decadal Survey that is signed into law makes it mandatory that NASA follow the recommendations of the Decadal Survey. You’ve got a plan for planetary exploration; it’s called the Decadal Survey. Congress has formally adopted it as the future vision for the nation.
The Decadal scientists get together and pool their talent and resources and make an opinion and recommendations that NASA has always flown, by the way, among those recommendations the flagship missions, in each decade’s Decadal Survey. This is not optional. I understanding about the descoping, that’s being done. This Subcommittee is well aware that the planetary missions are being descoped, and have been descoped within affordable levels and within the confines of what has always been the Planetary Science budget.
What does the Subcommittee need to do to make NASA follow the law here?

Administrator Bolden:
Fund the President’s budget request.

Rep. Culberson:
But the President’s budget request walks away from the Decadal Survey.

Administrator Bolden: No sir.

Rep. Culberson:
Well, of course it does. Rep. Schiff is right; you can’t say it and make it so. You’re walking away from the Decadal Survey.

Administrator Bolden:
Congressman, we have an effort underway with the Mars planning group that is trying to find a method to restructure our Mars robotic and human exploration program to put synergy in our exploration program that we have never had before. To find a number of smaller missions that we can mount and accomplish the scientific objectives that a Flagship mission would have done, so that when the funding is available for a Flagship mission we can mount that speedily and bring samples back to earth. That is what we are trying to do.

Rep. Culberson:
That’s just not consistent with reality, I’m sorry. These are unacceptable cuts to the planetary missions, and I find it very disheartening.

Administrator Bolden:
Congressman, you and I just respectively agree to disagree. I disagree; I don’t think we are walking away from anything.

Rep. Culberson:
We want all the men and women who serve at NASA who may be following this hearing to know that the Members of this Subcommittee are united arm in arm in support of America’s space program and we are going to be sure to restore the vision and excitement that the program has always had, despite the best efforts of this Administration to throw a wet blanket over it.

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