the hearing will now come to order good afternoon everyone so pleased that we're all here having an opportunity to talk about this very important issue but i'm also excited because this is the fortieth anniversary of the launch of apollo eleven mission to the moon there are a whole series of commemorative advance planned for this week and for next week and it is clear that apollo is still considered one of the most exciting if i can achievements of the u s space program and i go beyond that and say of all of mankind it's of course fitting that we pasta honor those who blazed a trail that leads out beyond low earth orbit both the brave astronaut who undertook those hazardous expeditions to the moon and the countless individuals and organizations who enabled those expeditions to succeed yet by definition our civil space program is about the future not about the past and if our space program is to have a sustainable and productive future it also has to be relevant that is america's space program must be relevant to our in the broad national needs if it's going to continue to be supported by members of congress and by the american people yet as the national academies review the science found in space foundations annual report and the nasa authorization act of two thousand and eight all make clear we can and should do more to enhance the relevance of the civil space program so we can continue to be an important contributor to the nation strength and well being in the years and the decades to come by that i don't mean that nasa and our space program should just be about spinoffs as important as the past ones have been to our economy to our science into our society instead what i'm saying is that our space program is important to americans scientifically technologically economically and geopolitically and we should recognize and nurture that reality so that we can maximize the benefits we accrue from america's space program into the future i think the national academies panel put it pretty well i quote a preeminent u s civil space program with strength and capabilities aligned for tackling widely acknowledged national challenges environmental economic and strategic is a national imperative today and will continue to grow in importance in the future that is an imperative that both congress and the white house will need to come to grips with if we are to have a productive future in space exploration yet that is only half of the equation you've all heard the old conundrum if a tree falls in the forest and no one hears about it well we face a similar conundrum with our civil space program if we have an incredibly exciting and relevant space program but the american people don't hear about it don't understand it and don't know about it is it really that relevant to the american people because it's not an academic exercise our space program is incredibly important to this country's future well being but we can assume the public will just take the assertion on faith we need to be able to demonstrate it so today's hearing is a part of that process is really a first step in that process and i can think of no better way to honor the achievements of those who lead america to the moon and create a space program that has been the envy of the world that to have a hearing like this today in closing i want to welcome our witnesses today's hearing and i now recognize mr olson for his opening comments when thank you so much for call this afternoon's hearing i'd like to take thank the witnesses for coming today to give us your type and your expertise thank you i would for discussing how congress and the executive branch can collaborate to better enhanced public perception of the contributions that nasa and the civil space industry provide our nation's economy and our quality of life my thanks to our panel the expert witnesses again for taking the time of your busy schedules to appear before the  subcommittee your unique perspectives are greatly valued by the members of this committee thank you again for coming today you know madam chairwoman i'm holding this hearing today but slightly discouraged that we have to hold it at all i assure you that this hearing would not out of bed one that would have occurred on this day back in one thousand nine hundred ninety four two years ago today apollo eleven lost on a journey that changed mankind's perception as to what was possible scientists and engineers to develop never before used technologies to said humans on a mission that captivated the world's attention and stirred humanity's collective imagination that alone made it relevant i'm not sure it's possible to replicate that feeling today that sense of achievement that sense of unlimited possibilities without an equally challenging goal but that does not mean that other critical discoveries and new technologies nas developing or currently working on are not equally compelling our landing on the moon was the beginning of a journey not the end of one and sometimes i feel like we've forgotten that let us look at some of the issues that are critical to our days at this time securing our economic future strengthening our education system developing alternative energy sources to ease our dependence on foreign oil improve our health care system and protecting our environment of these all these rate is high concerns among the american public when polled nasa scores high ratings when it stands alone for public support but suffers when put in a list of priorities with other competing goals this in part because many americans aren't familiar with the wide breath of space and earth related research that nasa conducts and the spinoffs that have been developed from those experiments to improve we need to ensure that we have a worthwhile and challenging human spaceflight goal that is adequately funded and we also have to effectively convey that america's space program provides concrete solutions to a wide array of societal problems the members of the pat are uniquely qualified to do that general wiles recently chaired a study that addressed many of these subjects his report look closely at the overall challenges facing our civil space program this is smith the space foundation among other things have published the space report two thousand and nine which includes a host of invaluable information but my mind the data provided about the space academy is  remarks thank you mr olson i think we all agree with your comments i'd like to take a moment to introduce our witnesses first well we have general lester lyles who's testifying as chair of the national research council committee on the rationale and goals of the u s civil space program next we'll hear from ms patti gray smith who is a member of the board of directors of the space foundation and we'll hear from miss deborah adler meyers who is a general manager of the science channel at discovery communications and finally we have mr miles o'brien who previously acted as c n n s chief technology and environment correspondent now works as a freelance journalist and i can personally say is probably the most passionate citizen when it comes to the space of we're glad to have you here mr o'brien and for all of our panelists as well welcome as our panel should know we're going to require that we keep to around five minutes of testimony i know that'll be hard but i'd like to just get your testimony out we'll have the written testimony of course but then we're going to open it up to questions and really looking date to have this particular hearing and to talk about this very very important topic as you stated my name is a lesser liles i'm a retired united states air force four star general in during my thirty five years in the united states air force i've had the opportunity to involved in numerous space programs as a commander of the air forces space and missile systems center and in los angeles as director of the illicit missile defense organization now called the missile defense agency as the vice chief of staff of the united states air force and then finally as a commander of the air force materiel command today however i speak to you as the chair of the national research council as committee on the rationale and goes of the united states civil space program which recently last week released a report america's future in space aligning the civil space program with national needs my committee the committee that looked at this particular topic contained fourteen members we had distinguished experts in science and engineering economics political science public policy national security and of course space systems and space exploration and with your permission madam chairwoman i'm going to submit my prepared testimony for the record and like to just summarize if you will  very important topic this is not a topic sponsored by some other agency nasser or any other organization this was the academy's opportunity to him to address a subject they thought was very important for the twenty first century and for our country and what they test us do want to take a broad look at identifying the key key goes in critical issues for the twenty first century for the united states civil space policy and civil space programs they asked us to address overarching goes identify areas of national interest and to agenda five hopefully solutions to some of the issues that we might encounter and even though we were asked to take a look or told to take a look at specific program medic things we were asked specifically a state a strategic level don't get down in the weeds and describe how to build a rocket or one rocket solution versus another but to look at the big strategic goals for the country and for the civil space program in general we started out by taking a very broad definition of civil space most people i daresay even in this room of learned experts in the space arena when you say civil space they made only think of nasa our definition of civil space was much broader it included noah the national science foundation it included commercial space opportunities it included academia it included everything except national security space or intelligence space though we obviously had to touch upon those two entities because of the common ground and common themes and certainly common industrial base shared by each one of those different entities so a scope was rather broad and we think we we did as best we could to encompass all of the different arenas and everybody we possibly could to ensure we got a broad chairwoman our overall conclusion is that we have a preeminent united states civil space program and it's been that way in the past it is that way today and it should stay that way for the future and the strengths and capabilities of that civil space activities we think are vastly available and vastly able to contribute to broader national challenges beyond just space exploration including dealing with issues of climate in climate change environmental economic challenges strategic and leadership opportunities the economy etc and i'll term you quoted it also is that there is a national imperative to make sure that our civil space programs are aligned to do those kind of things that it can contribute solutions to so and such a broad broad sense our civil space programs to be preeminent in the sense that it can influence by its example other nations and their use of space but also give us an opportunity to maintain strategic leadership and use our space programs to help international cooperation wherever we possibly could i was very very pleased to see an op ed published a day before yesterday by congressman ralph hall which he talked about this very very topic and we thought it was a very very appropriate i agree with everything that congressman hall stated in his report the only thing different is that from our perspective we think that civil space program alignment doesn't and for foundational elements we think a critical the first go is to reestablish leadership for the protection of earth and its inhabitants through the use of space research and technology you could call their stewardship of the earth we think it's a very very important go and should be one of the major things for civil space to sustain and expand our leadership in science seeking knowledge of the universe and searching for life beyond to expand the frontiers of human activities in space to provide technological economic and societal benefits where space technology he's in space capabilities can contribute solutions to inspire current and future generations and to enhance u s global strategic leadership those of our goals in our recommendations sort of revolve around that i won't obviously get into that for new years as a time be more than willing to answer any questions about them but i think it's important very quickly mention for foundation elements that our report thought were absolutely critical to be addressed by the administration by the congress and by others if those goals are to be achieved one is greater coordination through whatever means possible a national space council some other leadership forum where all the agencies involved in space can do a better job of integrating and coordinating their space activities the need for a competent technical workforce to address that from a broader sense than perhaps is being done today to effectively size and structure the infrastructure for space with the organizations that are involved in space activities and probably very very critical to one of the comments you mention to look for priority investment or reinvestment in technology in innovation and again i can elaborate on each one of them i'd like to just very close very quickly in talking about inspiration i grew up here in washington d c madam chairwoman and i was inspired when president kennedy made his announcement about we're going to the moon and we're going to bring in human back i was not about to just about to enter high school actually a few years from entering high school here in washington d c and that statement that go that far reaching opportunity expressed by the president for the united states inspired me to seek out a technically math and technology related high school and a district and not go to the part of the district where high school that i was supposed to go to which is known mostly for basketball players and criminals but the so i chose another place too because i was inspired by what the president stated i chose engineering at howard university because of the inspiration of the apollo program today however when i look at my own children my four children one doctor one lawyer one business woman one businessman they're very very successful they're inspired by things like the space launch yesterday but on a day to day basis what inspires them is what can be done to solve the economic problems in our country the environmental problems the energy problems in our country and i am just very very enthused to think that they can be educated amongst us many others in the hallways and in the public and the nation could be better are educated by understand how the civil space programs can contribute solutions to those big challenges that most people worry about on a day to day basis mabyn sure thank you for being here i am fus about the subject very very pleased that the committee asked me to testify thank you generalize miss smith pl we're going to have you push your buttons so we can there we will go good afternoon chairwoman giffords ranking member on another distinguished members of the subcommittee my name is patty gray smith and i am a member of the board of directors of the space foundation on behalf of myself and the space foundation c e o pullum i want to thank the subcommittee for providing the space foundation the ana to sit in front of you to talk about enhancing the relevance of space to address national needs i applaud the subcommittee for taking today to hold this hearing on the fortieth anniversary of apollo eleven lifting off the pad on that's a stark mission to the moon before i began to address the questions the subcommittee asked me to discuss i'd like to provide you with a little background on the space foundation our mission is simply to advance space related endeavors to inspire enable and propel humanity the space foundation was founded march twenty hundred three as an i i r s five zero one c three organization to foster development promote among the citizens of the united states of america and among other people of the world a greater understanding and awareness of the practical and theoretical utilization of space on behalf of the benefit of civilization and the fostering of a peaceful and prosperous world as the global space community has evolved so has the space foundation embracing all facets of space to commercial including telecommunications and other satellite based services civil and national security outside of colorado springs is based on day sions largest presences in washington d c where our government affairs teams and our research and analysis team are reside the research and analysis team works year round of producing white papers and most prominently the space report which we submitted for your review this is our flagship publication and the space report is a snapshot we think of a global space economy now that i provide some information for those of you may be new to the space foundation and what we do i will begin to address the questions how relevant is space to addressing important national needs what noteworthy benefits have been achieved as a result of past space related investments let me just say right off the top space is very relevant it is so relevant that without it many of us would be at a loss in conducting our our daily lives space influences so many things and benefits so many parts of our universe of our daily lives space is the bedrock of americans economic and strategic power according to the space report two thousand and nine the global space economy has grown to two hundred fifty seven billion dollars that is not an insignificant number two hundred  fifty seven billion dollars in the macro sense the space report thousand and sites in depth has space and they both a variety of important needs national meet national security is enabled by space the us military could not fight as effectively and efficiently as it does without the aid of space systems of the nation seek to emulate what we do with space because they recognize the power and the benefit that it gives with each new generation of military space systems troops father down the chain of command are given access to powerful space and able technical capabilities that were once only available to senior commandments governments in the area of governance policymakers need accurate data accurate data that they can rely on on a variety of issues ranging from climate to urban planning to resource monitoring remote sensing from space has provided this data and will continue to do so as long as the investment is made in new space systems for this purpose take hurricane katrina of the past satellite communications are often the only way for emergency responders to coordinate their efforts in the absence of terrestrial infrastructure they could not have done  the job without the space assets technology developed to detect stresses in the frame of the space shuttle has been adapted for use on earth and is now helping to monitor the structural integrity of bridges and other structures to ensure public safety as far as the economy goes financial systems rely on g p s satellites for accurate timing of transactions satellite based internet connectivity offers a practical way to bring rural populations into the internet age and join the information economy one of the administration's goals transportation i personally know that space is integral to the next generation air transportation system being implemented by the f a a which will enable cleaner safer and more efficient air travel on a local scale metropolitan authorities and several cities have implemented systems like the one now in place for d c s metro service which allows passengers to check on the internet or by telephone to see when the next bus will ar innovations like this encourage the use of public transportation thereby reducing pollution and traffic the space report highlights a number of specific areas it's not an exhaustive list where everyday space plate space products services and are realized and we must understand that space influences other parts of our economy and businesses that it touches as it embraces the service it provides to our citizens i would pass it to the subcommittee that a day without space a day without space generated benefits for american consumers would be shocking if not traumatic experience for most americans and i see the red light so let me wrap up quickly let me just say that in terms of how we maximize the benefits to realize from the nation's space activities and the relevance of those basic tities i want to first commend president obama on his decision to review the entire u s space policy we welcome that review i think that the activities are pretty well aligned with our national goals and objectives in fact many of our goals and objectives depend on and are unable by space assets having said that however i feel i must touch on a larger problem in order to address this question in order for the u s government to maximize the benefits of this investment and we all a citizens want to maximize the benefits of our investments in space it must improve the acquisition of those systems currently we are facing a number of gaps across the entire range of the civilian and national security space systems from human spaceflight to solar radiation detection to next generation g p s to missile warning to climate and weather monitoring they are and soon will be gaps in coverage and capability that will our ability to derive benefits from space and the gaps will eventually a force that we don't to be more reliant than we already are on foreign space systems and that would be not a good thing i don't think f need to modernize the export control regime that is an area that's been begging attention for some time the space report two thousand and shows that the commercial sector now makes up sixty eight percent of the global space economy sixty eight percent so regulatory changes such as export control have the potential of generating considerably more r and d funds than direct investment by the government is an inspirational absolutely it's essential all you had to do  be in the desert of mojave in two thousand and four and see the thousands of people who assembled there young and old from all over the country all over the world to see their lot their eyes light up with the first flight of a private human space t vehicle to know how exciting it it is and to see how the younger generations the gen gen y generation are so excited so passionate about engaging in space in a different way look at the work force that space x has put together in california largely made up of gen ys and they have there because they feel that we are on the brink of something really exciting they want to be a part of it so finally how well does the public understand not very well and i would suggest that we need to look at the tools that the younger generation uses to communicate they are not the traditional tools that that we used or others like us they are facebook they are other forms of technology that they are very very adept at it has become their new telephones they communicate messages groups like netroots and others around the country are communicating all day in cyber space and can carry messages that we cannot carry otherwise so that is an area that i'm very very concerned about very interested in and we need to move away from audiences that have space on the agenda speaking to space choirs we've got to broaden that audience to a broader public so with that let me stop here and just say to paraphrase harry out of the box of c e o johnny's look call when he said recently launches speak louder than words we've got to get on with it that will tell the story better than anything will i welcome any of your questions at the end of this man q thank you ms smith ms meyer please thank you so much for inviting me here today it is a great honor since we're a media company today i'm going to be sharing some video clips with you says we can help bring the discussion to life our audience loves space programming and i think it's because space captures that imagination and allows people to dream really to think outside themselves and marvel at the unknown discoveries the brainchild of john hendricks who twenty four years ago believe that americans would watch a network devoted entirely to programming that captures people's innate sense of curiosity of the world he was personally inspired by a lifelong fascination and a love of space well today discovery communications and especially the team i'm proud to lead as general manager of the science channel is rallying around president obama's call to restore science to its rightful place that call to action was absolutely music to our ears there's a barrier simply in the word science many of us struggled with science classes as children and the clich that we struggle against constantly is that science is dry and it's boring and the key to developing a larger audience is igniting people's imagination and encouraging them to be endlessly curious because science really is creative improves your life every single day so here on the science channel were experimenting with brand new ways to immerse and make people excited about science and to create content and programs that immerse people exactly what you were saying on air online in facebook on twitter bringing all this great content to where people will consume it and connect and explore it we're developing alternate reality games and we're even bringing this content into our classrooms we're calling the science three sixty in space is the really important part of this we have hosts and we have experts that include stars in their field like dr james garvin who's the chief scientist at nasa goddard and dr michio kaku who's the co creator of the string theory there are popular hosts and people love the programming when they bring this space sciences and physics to life and we also have a campaign that i'd like to share with you called the brains of science and it features role models like astronaut buzz aldrin who seek to inspire a whole new generation and get them excited about why they choose their careers especially just buzz as an astronaut take a look sixty one we made a commitment to go to the moon and that was a very exciting advancement when you landed on the moon in apollo we inspired a whole group of people a lot of the ideas about what the future for space exploration might be like you are in the process of changing the private sector could probably get to mars twenty years i'm buzz aldrin and i'm a champion advocate for the future of human spaceflight our job is to find great science communicators and space and science and help them bring their message to life but on talk about we're also seeking out a list celebrities who have a passion for science in the can bring even more people to the genre because they bring in a larger be goldberg for example who is passionate about inspiring a love of food science and learning in women and young girls she's creating a science game for our on air and online and we reach out to science organizations that have traditionally worked in their own silos and we're working to bring them together for example we came to nasa with big idea academy award winning actor morgan freeman has this lifelong passion for space and he is fascinated by the great mysteries of the universe so this new alliance between morgan freeman and nasa is resulting in an eight part series that we're very proud to be launching in april in this is executive produced and hosted by morgan freeman space programming is one of our most popular genres that we run on the network and we sprinkle this content into a lot of our programming when we cut back on space coverage we hear about it immediately from our viewers and boy are they vocal in fact so many people crave this information that we devote an entire week event in our annual space week which rates highly on air and online and people writing in twitter and tell us all the time now it's also played a critical role in discovery education three m young scientist challenge they this year's annual middle school competition and this is a wonderful challenge that's designed to inspire the next generation of great science communicators will smith is the producer of our special on the young scientist child salinger and he personally produced this spot to run across our schools take a look look around you look all around you this is it people this is our world how did we get here and where are we going it was my dramatic voice you like it think about this for one minute one hundred years ago there were no airplanes sixty years ago there were no televisions thirty years ago no home computers no video games in ten years ago it was no such thing as i am now think about how people in inventors and scientists have changed everything around us now let me ask you some what's next for you bold enough to think it in next big idea that you say yes i want you to check this out w w w dot young scientists challenge dot com or search a young scientist challenge now this year the science channel is going to bring the challenge to you because science is the truth i was going to be a scientist you know that's why i make special effects movies many people know that he was accepted to mit he wanted to be an engineer and he is passionate about face and engineering and finding new ways to get young people involved in considering that it's cool to be smart in ways to go into careers in space and in science we also bring original content directly into our school nationwide through our discovery education division discovery education streaming offers classrooms thousands of science videos and digital content the teachers can easily integrate right into their classroom lectures and they're able to customize the way that they're able to teach kids to hear what are they better to learn through hearing or reading or bringing things to life it's a wonderful tool so science and space it's alive it's optimistic and it is the future so i want to express my sincere thanks for allowing science channel and discovery communications to show your passion for space and all genres really of science we're proud to answer the call and be a champion for this critical movement to bring science back to its rightful place in the united states thank you and i'm happy later on to answer any questions because there's so much more to tell you about thank you thank you ms miers appreciate that well speaking of new media and twittering in my space i'm blogging one of the best space technology folks are going to hear from next  been covering space for more than seventeen years now i'm a pilot in an airplane owner and i come to the space speed as an enthusiastic supporter of all things that fly well maybe not mosquitoes i have i appreciate the adventure that is inherent in exploring a frontier in fact i spent several years trying to convince nasa to give me a ride in the shuttle to the space station and i did have a deal that we would have announced about a week or so after the safe landing of columbia in february of two thousand and three unfortunate that was a different story in all i've covered about three dozen shuttle missions including john glenn's flight with no less than walter cronkite as my co anchor and i got to ask him a lot of important questions like would you like a little more cream and that actually when i first met him we were talking about how we would cover this mission together and i made the mistake of telling him he didn't need to worry about the shuttle that i would handle that and all he had to do was regale us with tales about the mercury seven days he was visibly upset and he asked me to get him a report on every shuttle mission all the who what when where and why whether the mission succeeded or not and i asked him if he wanted that for all ninety four missions at that time and he he was his eyes were wide open he said there are ninety four missions and to paraphrase and and johnson if we've lost walter cronkite we've lost the nation now some of this has to do with novelty limburg flight was news when i flew the atlantic in a little plane a few years ago no one cared for my wife john glenn's first mission was news and certainly the intrepid crew of apollo eleven was the obvious lead story for days forty years ago today but i just flew in last night from covering the launch of the hundred twenty seventh shuttle mission and this room of course is the choir but who outside of this room knows what they're doing or who is aboard the space shuttle right now or that there is a mission at all no part of the problem is nasa has served up a mission that seems monday night i emphasize seems no more interesting than watching airliners departed national airport and in fact the shuttle was sold to congress with the promise that it would make space travel cheap and as easy as airline travel and as if to make it all seem real even though it wasn't the agency sort of went out of its way to make it look hohum then of course challenger happened in the story changed but there's also another factor at work here apollo is nasa's greatest accomplishment to be sure it's also its biggest curse in a sense it was a story that sold itself and in fact the media frenzy at the time was so great in those heady moon race stays that the agency really had to build some walls and boats and hire p r people who are more like the palace guard and unfortunately a lot of that culture remains in place and that is a good abetted by the astronauts who live in the palace and only open the doors and let us in for brief audiences usually on their own limited terms now the sad irony is these people are some of the most amazing people i've met there's even twin commanders on the shuttle here and if they would just get out of the palace and let the public in a little more i think they would sell the program better than any piece of hardware we're latching on to the space station which leads me to the guys and gals who make the hardware the engineers god love them they make the magic happen but they just don't get the communication thing the public affairs mission is simply not a priority within nasa matter of fact it isn't even on the list of requirements for missions forty years ago they were fighting to keep the cameras off the apollo spacecraft after all they they simply just add weight there was nothing in the mission requirement for it now imagine if that thinking had prevailed might not a prevail but that same kind of debate wages on as they are designing the arriving capsule public affairs always be a mission requirement and a high priority requirement and i know that this committee is recognizes nasa nasa authorization bill of two thousand and eight gets into this issue a participatory exploration of how important that is we've got it we've got to take that first step and go further with it you know the t v cameras are worth their weight in gold because they let the public participate in the exploration and let's not forget who's paying the bills here you know you leave the public behind there won't be any missions much less requirements for missions which brings me to some of the places where nasa is doing a good job in in the public you know i think of those little rovers spirit and opportunity still on mars making the energizer bunny look like a piker now this is an example where the scientists and engineers have natural common ground with the p r folks the images from the other worlds feed the scientists as well as the public interest and it happened simultaneously how brilliant is that you know this all started you recall with pathfinder years ago the first big internet web again if you will average people could see the images as they came down from mars as the same time the same time as the scientists at the jet quickly it was the idea of a former colleague of mine veronica mcgregor she's at j p l now she got the idea from where else for kids as a way to let people know about the landing during the memorial day weekend it happened on a sunday memorial day she just thought it might be one way to make sure people knew what happened well she got a tiger by the tail the thing went viral tens of thousands of followers tons of detailed questions from space geeks the world over but it  beyond the choir very quickly and that's the magic of this new media is that in an exponential fashion friends tell friends and on it goes and suddenly the public is again engaged in a mission they may not have heard anything about  and were interested with questions that are on a cup frankly said were better than she got from the mainstream media i must confess now to their credit in houston they saw this and they saw how potent it is an astronaut became the first person to tweet from space in between space walks to fix the hubble space telescope now that's a giant leap for webb kind and speaking of hubble the granddaddy of all missions where science is also a good r message could happen when nasa tried to cancel a mission to repair hubble engagement led to anger and ultimately activism and it changed things so that brings me to my final point the agency is dispersed geographically by centers of expertise by geography it doesn't really speak with one voice doesn't have a cohesive public relations strategy public affairs here washington needs to have more authority to direct these far flung p r operations which kind of answer to their flowcharts in a balkanized fashion and frankly p r public affairs here in washington needs a budget the current budget is zero right now and you get what you pay for there's no doubt the mission is the message ultimately and nasa needs to be taking us to places where we haven't been before and that will capture the fancy of a jaded public but the message is also part of the mission and it should never be an afterthought thank you for inviting me thank you mr o'brien and at this point we're going to bring regain our first round of questions and the chair will recognize yourself for five minutes i will keep my question actually down to one because we have several represented a majority that represents nasa centers so let me be brief it was not by coincidence that we had our first two panelists to talk about the how and the why why this is such an important aspect of who we are as americans and who we are as in terms of policy makers and people that really care about our national interest the second part of our panel we heard about the how do how do we attempt how do we do a good job for hopefully do a good job getting that message out to the american people so my question is in terms of members of congress specifically what what are the things that we can and should be doing besides someone like myself a single member who room a few hours ago and saw the tyra banks show on television switched it to the nasa station to make sure that my my fellow members could watch the coverage of the fortieth anniversary instead of watching the tyra banks show while we were in between votes and also the white house what are the steps of the white house can be doing we talked a little bit about that but in terms of really making this relevant to the american people and generals will start with you better chairwoman let me i'm glad you asked a specific question i'd like to sort of piggyback off of  miles comments and also debbie's one of the major things i think the congress could do almost immediately is to make sure that the soviet space agencies and particularly nasa understand that communication that r that public affairs that marketing are ok that to some extent their form of communication they are certainly a form of education and both of those to me are seeds for inspiration let me give the context of why i say that i serve nasa advisory council and for the last two or three years the advisory council at different times in conversation with the nasa administrator almost begged the administrator the administrator and the agency to find ways they can better get the word out about everything that nasa does and the immediate response was congress has told me i can't do that there's language probably appropriated language that precludes nasa from spending any money on anything that looks like marketing i take a broad definition of the word marketing because to me it doesn't quite to communication and education and all the things that debbie and miles were talking about i think one immediate thing is to look to see if there are restrictive language even if it's a perception a restrictive language there precludes from doing the kind of things that miles so actually pointed out i think that would be very very helpful if you simply i definitely think that the public affairs in the messaging is extremely important i think having been in a government agency myself i think that one of the things that agencies often a conflict it about is specially those that are regulators such as f a a the conflict exist about how can i carry out that message as a possible to carry out that message and at the same time promote and encourage the industry that i'm responsible for and my old office the of the commercial space transportation i would say did an excellent job in drawing the the bright line between safety and promotion but recognizing that in order for us to foster the further growth and development of our industries we have to promote them and there's nothing wrong with a government doing that as long as it understands what its principle mission is and in our case it was to to protect the un involved public i also think that in terms of what congress can do one of the challenges that i faced in that row was talking to members of congress and their staffs who very straightforwardly and honestly said you know this is not necessarily a bread and butter issue for me i don't hear from my for my constituents on it in the same way i think that congress has an obligation to make that message come alive and to recognize that if it affects the economy and the national security of our nation then yes it is a bread and butter issue so ways to bring it right down front for the constituents and i think looking at where we are right now in the world of space in the united states we really are at a crossroads i think the need for real clarion call that takes us forward into the into the future and we all have a role to play in that congress has a role the executive branch has a row we as citizens have to have a role in those who are business people in the industry to carried that message forward so i think first and foremost making it a bread and butter issue if it affects you in your daily lives it's a part of our national economy and national security carrying that message forward in a more prominent way i think will go a long way to engage those constituents who are very very interested in this but communicate how beneficial nasa has been to our society from a technological from a national security spec perspective and from an inspirational perspective and you all talked about what congress and the government can do but one thing i find what i mean with constituent groups we just had a group up here yesterday from all the nasa centers you know some employees and they all ask what can i do what can i do to help you or to help make sure that the american public understands how important this is for a future brown like to give you the first crack at that what can we tell our constituents what can they do to make a difference i'm sorry part of this is really underscoring the importance of matching a national agencies with private businesses private sectors so that we can figure out together how do we tell these great stories so it's putting those partnerships together and encouraging those partnerships to happen so that we can help work with people to understand what the stories are about and how best to share that with the public depending on the goals depending on the type of stories it's hero stories it's talking about people who well into space and the dangers that are there that makes them stronger and braver as heroes it is trying to find a way to make it relevant into people's lives it's the it's when you have all this great information it's that partnership with the people and the companies and the agencies and the journalists and the talent that can help bring that to life another part is to find great science communicators we've started an experiment called talent school where we've gone out and we've worked with different agencies in space science and we found people that are really smart they have the twinkle in the eye they have a great stage presence about them but how do we take what they do and teach them how to connect with viewers at home and teach them how to put that language into ways that resonates with everyday people everyday people care about it so i think it's it's inspiring people inspiring people to to work together with companies and with broadcasters and with journalists that can help tell their story in the best way possible because they're great stories you know i think the irony is of forty years after the launch of apollo eleven nasa sub suffers from a bit of timidity when it comes to unleashing the message now they have a natural legion of foot soldiers evangelize ers everybody i meet who is involved in space is deeply passionate about what they do love what they do they're committed to their jobs in ways most people are not and unfortunately if they attempt to blog about it or tweet about it they get shut down this happens all the time because the concern is that they'll be off message it's important to empower the agency and thus its foot soldiers to know that they can they can be a part of this effect if it's like control who wants to tweet and let her social network in on what's going on inside mission control assuming we're not you know in some sort of mission critical situation that would cause danger to somebody why not empower her to do that but instead the message is you can't so i think what congress can do is to the extent they can streamline the rules for nasa and make it easier for them to do marketing but also to the extent that they can avoid the tendency to get on the phone every time something comes across the bow that might might offend somebody and somebody is constituency because what that does is it cows the agency and they need to be empowered to because if you if you unleashed the power of that work force and allowed them to spread the word we could just stand by and watch them when the country over influenced or had some benefit coming from space we look around this room every piece of electronic gear would have a little nasa sticker on it and somehow we need to communicate that to the general public and i appreciate your time thank you congressman think we are suffering from that right now on our space program from huntsville alabama took care of many of the space scientists that that work amen from germany so we have a real dedication there mr hendrix we are grateful to in no uncertain terms in the sixty's you could cut the tension in america with a knife i see the young people here we were not allowed to wear army uniforms on the street we would get stoned are spit on  we stayed committed to a space program through the death of john kennedy one thousand nine hundred sixty eight we lost robert kennedy in one nine hundred sixty eight we lost martin luther king our society was questioning itself but we stayed with the commitment to space we are seeing a challenge today on our space program we must remain strong aries one aries five is not an option it's essential to the united states we represent six percent of the world's population in order for us to maintain our superiority in order for us to maintain what we know we can achieve space is absolutely essential it is the high scientifically whether we want to know what's in the valley than alan feels or whether it's essential for us to maintain our military superiority i certainly agree and appreciate the panel  you can tell i'm fascinated and dedicated to space i'm an oncologist by training what has happened in space has allowed our c t scans our m r i the miniaturization of our instruments the development of drugs our next front here we have to do this it is no longer an option so when we hear it discussed as with can we for that yes we have to afford it so thank you for being here i really appreciate it i have one question for mr o'brien you said on our blog that you are tired of hearing that we cannot sustain our space program during hard times the truth is that eighteen billion nasa gets a fraction of one percent of the u s budget chump change i used to tell people it is about what we spend collectively on coffee each year appreciate you both if you stay with it in your opinion what's what should we be doing to let tax payers know that the return on investment from our investment in space is absolutely huge we have to market this so maybe we should put the meat dog that starbucks latte what do you think that's what we get starbucks but no bucks for the stars you know something like that i don't know i think the more the more we remind people of what we spend and really in the context of all that has transpired in this country in recent months when you consider the size of these  bailouts the nasa budget is just seems so tiny it really does and shouldn't nasa get a bailout too and it doesn't need much to keep going it really doesn't and you know it says it to in a sense it's a testament to the success and the fact that there is a natural interest in this that people assume we spend all this money on space and on nasa it gets a tremendous bang for its buck and it's very difficult to quantify it's value to our society in the way it inspires our children in the way it provides high tech jobs and in the way it ensures national prestige look india would love to have a manned space program per capita annual income in india and the great danger here is that we're going to be sitting in our living rooms with our feet propped up in our gym and tonic and the nasa touchdown or the space touchdown on the moon or c thank you madam chairman and i appreciate everyone who's here today kennedy space center is in my district and i have become a very vocal and outspoken cheerleader for space i've always as i tell my constituents i live about thirty miles up the river from kennedy space center and i've seen the shuttle launches from every imaginable place whether it's a rooftop or a boat or the the top of a car we've seen the beach anywhere you can imagine seeing one we've seen them but  since being elected to congress i've had the pleasure of having a little greater view and i want to say that i have been preaching in my district very much the same kinds of things that you all are talking about today that we are missing an opportunity to ensure that the next generation is inspired by what we do in space and that they understand the significance of that and so i'm i'm again i'm part of the choir that you're preaching to and now i'm preaching back to you but at the same time i think it's important that we do put a focus on how important this is to our lives and to our and to our national security i'd like your comment general wiles that communication and education are seeds for inspiration and i think that's a really good quote to use i also appreciate what the space foundation does and i love the evy what i had envisioned at some point was that someone would do a commercial like what you're talking about and literally take it from a average person's life today and withdraw one by one it's kind of the counter to putting us the car on something is just a take away one by one all of those developments that have been created as a result of our interest in science and technology that began with our space exploration and see what's left because i think the next generation would be shocked to know how sparse  many things would be many many arenas would be so that's just my one two cents worth i've been working very hard as i said within my district to ensure that the people there are working in the school systems that we're stem programs and that we're doing all of those possible opportunities of bringing astronauts into the schools and everything to do this we also the chairwoman and i have taken a codel of our congressional delegation of our fellow congress people to kennedy space center to see a launch unfortunately it was scrubbed but we had a really good opportunity to tour the space center and for others to in this body who  provides the opportunity for nasa to do what it needs to do for them to get a firsthand feel for how exciting it is how challenging it is and how inspirational it is so i have anointed myself as the cheerleader within congress along with the chairwoman to make sure that we bring along our colleagues in order to see the importance of it i had one question i again i really appreciate all the comments here but this is for mr o'brien and it has references a comment that you made also on a blog in the time period when the shuttle retires errors in the orion becomes operate time between those two things known as the gap the only symbol of u s human spaceflight will be the international space station and in may two zero zero nine you did a blog about human spaceflight in the hubble and you said sadly most americans do not fully appreciate the amazing accomplishment that the international space station is they overlook its incremental role in pushing out the front here and they see it more like a big public works project and i think you know we've talked a lot about the shuttles and the launches but we haven't talked a great deal about the international space station the investment that the united states has made in that fabulous front here could you suggest to me some ways in which you think we might be able to advance the recognition of how significant that is aside from sending me there i want to go to you let's go together ok a big great story here and i you know i think we don't know the story the space station yet because it just finally got a six per crew imagine that there could be thirteen people on that space station for the next couple of weeks the toilets better keep working on that right it's it's very exciting after all these years you know i've been rember looking at the this the sketches for freedom in the mid eighty's and to finally see it looking like those sketches is very exciting to me why that hasn't resonated with the public you know it's you know who likes to watch buildings being built you know six year old kids right it's a lot like that it's been very slow incremental process an amazing engineering challenge which in many respects some would argue exceeds on an engineering level what was accomplished in apollo that's an amazing thing but it it's still only two hundred fifty miles above us and it's difficult and it requires a little bit of nuance to explain the people why that's important when you're talking about looking at new horizons new worlds and exploring the solar system but it is all part of the picture i don't think that messages come through very clearly that could be some of the media's fault it could be a little bit of nasa's fault it could be that the public is kind of jaded you know some of this is they go to see a movie they go to see star trek and they expect nasa to have warp drive you know or you know they still think there's an anti gravity room at the johnson space center so in some respects hollywood is better a terrible  of the reality because it pales by comparison the real thing is awfully darn hard but that's what kennedy challenged us to do in september of sixty two at rice university do it because it is hard but thank very much for that answer do i have any time ms miers would you like to go i just want to add on top of that to now if you can get us to be able to capture the stories on the space station of all these people living together and hands on here they're doing their work and see it and feel it and it's real and it's real people real passion real stories it's like a smart version of big brother that's going on so again make it relatable to people open it up so that they can twitter and talk to us make it real make it alive these are heroes these are great stories we're going to be captured don't make it so sanitized bring it to life well that would require overcoming th happens after twenty sixteen currently the budget plans for the space station run out for the united states at twenty sixteen so the fact that this race has been declared a former national laboratory as a possible test bed for great science and there are great science experiments that are possible up there with the infrastructure currently on the space station if something isn't addressed about how to extend it beyond twenty sixteen which obviously includes budgetary then none of the possibilities are going to be realize that's one of the things the human spaceflight commission is going to be looking at but it's more than a story what it is it's a story what it could be and should be i completely agree with you there and i hope we're able to assist and extending the time period budgetary early yes  i think that that also requires engaging all of government in this endeavor and what i mean by that is the fact that the space station allows experimentation scientific experiments to go on maybe this is something that and i need to be more aware of and to identify parts of this budget that could be allocated to increase the number of experiments on the space station we have got conditions that we are trying desperately to solve and space provides a ready opportunity a laboratory for experimentation that i know as a public member of a board that is not being exploited the space station as an opportunity to conduct  experiments thank you very much madam chairman thank you would expect to hear from congresswoman edwards who represents god thank you madam chairwoman and thanks so much for holding this hearing you know that it's a passion of mine to tell the nasa story i spent several years and goddard space flight center working on the space lab project and feel really passionately about the story that nasa can tell i think one of the challenges has always been and i think part of the reason that i ended up actually at goddard was because not because i was an engineer by training initially but because i was an english major and because they needed people who could communicate all of the wonderful technical work that was being done to the rest of the world and and so i'm glad to have been able to share in that experience and you know having grown up also on the space you know with the space program sort of in bedded i feel that passion but i'm not sure that it is a passion that is widely felt across the united states and you hear that from our colleagues and i think this is part of the challenge that the chairwoman expressed among our colleagues who you know with a lot of other national priorities and needs of the american public often stack that against the space program program and say what do we get out of it well our job nasa is job really is to share with the american public what it is that we indeed get out of the program and i know apart from my work experience at goddard space flight center that what we get is we get laws that are saved and changed when i was in a car accident four years ago  for nasa's airbags in my car i don't know that i'd be sitting here today and i think that we have to tell that story in a real way to the american public and so i share the passion that each of you as expressed in very different kinds of ways w acknowledge discovery communications i know that half of the building is in the fourth congressional district in maryland of discovery communications that's an interesting block in but i want to say also in just ask you to respond to it is  t we have the challenge at nasa of exploration and science and risk taking and i'd like you to focus on that risk taking because that requires a lot of investment and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't it's the nature of exploration and science and we tend to in the public we can highlight the failures when it doesn't work and not how we build on that in science because we build toward the next success and i'd like you to share with us ways in which you can even communicate some of those failures in the most positive way for the public to understand why the investment is needed and sometimes why it works and it doesn't work yes share the risk is what i would say we have an entrepreneurial new space community that is galvanized to be a part of the future of space nasa has an excellent example of how it has approached it and its cops program where the risk is shared because if the company if the private company does not meet its goals it doesn't get paid i don't think that the government needs to take on all of the risk when it has such a willing partner what would happen if lord forbid were turned over to the entrepreneurial community to the new space community and nasa could get on with its exploration mission that current question a question in need of an answer but also in a way that galvanizes the entrepreneurial spirit which has been so much a part of our nation in a real way in a beneficial way share the risk is myers i wonder if you could comment on that in terms of the way we communicate with the public i think people can relate to you learn more in failure sometimes than you learn in success and that science is a journey and exploring and growing is a journey and i keep bringing everything back to how do you make it relatable how do you tell these great stories that go on and i think it's the honesty of their big goals that people are out to do and that nasa is out to accomplish and it's sharing those stories so that when it fails you explain it you see people go through ok we're excited that we think this is all going to happen and when it fails you tell those stories what did you learn from failure that can push that out it's getting people invested in their minds in ways that they can relate to and in their hearts so that they become something that you feel invested and i think if you go back to the space program of the sixty's we were all rooting along we were all invested in there these were our heroes and how do we make those stories how do we make those risks relatable i think connect to it and i think that's part of it different spin journalistically than to capture people's imagination and take them along for the ride the successes as well as the failures what you learn from it because science is about question and when you have those questions that are out there you get the answers that leads to more questions and if you don't keep experimenting you don't move forward well thank you very much and  ohio unfortunately i don't have a nasa center in my district but we certainly do have nasa glenn in ohio and i was just amazed when i was selected and actually look started learning more about nasa glenn and what really happens  the amount of jobs that have been generated throughout our state the amount of research and the very things that i just sort of took for granted as a lifelong ohio resident that those were not i didn't know they were connected and i think that's was talked about earlier and so mine is a question of one of the gentleman said he thought it would be a good idea that everything that was generated from nasa research would have a little nasa sticker on it that's the best idea i've heard along that and i think it's very good i think i like i like the idea because really so many times even those of us who live in ohio and have been around that segment all of our lives don't realize the intensity in our lives that has gone on there so how do we do a better identification or a better education if you will congressman i'm going to be a little parochial myself since i commanded air force material command wright patterson air force base in dayton ohio i had the same problem in the united states air force with all the technology programs we were involved in and particularly i would use ohio as an example we never did a good job of communicating communicating to the public in the state that you had glenn research center you had right patterson air force base the center of all technology for the united states air force but nobody ever talked about it and it was sort of self imposed we don't we did not have great communicators who could tell the story for people like  debbie and where we did have communicators we didn't do a good job of educating them on the facts so they could get the story out and utilizing their great communicator skills to me i've always used one three word term for great management is communicate communicate communicate and somehow if we could take that seriously and do a better job of bringing all the right people to get the word out i think we can do a far better job in ohio and the other forty nine states and even the world for that matter you know i attended the fifty year celebration last fall and it was in helping cleveland and it was amazing the amount of people and certainly the astronaut sort of come the heroes that have come from ohio but yet it doesn't all connect and i think i think that communicate communicate communicate is a big part of where we need to be thank you followed each other's career for so long now and and i congratulate you for all the wonderful things you've done and the rest of them as well and turn space let me however put a little bit a different twist on communicate communicate i think i see that when i was young reporter one of the first stories i covered as a young reporter was when senator calling for his name now he was it would come to me  in california and he was only one term so i knew i don't need to remember him but he was indoors same does space shuttle and anyway when i went there there was only a couple reporters  showed up and it was there in downey where they had to mark up the space shuttle and i went and there were five p r man there ready to meet my every need would you like a cup of coffee houses and the like sandwich how about this big packet of information pictures which i get a picture here that is up five of them i was making two hundred dollars a week and i think they were making five hundred dollars a week each i think nasa has a lot of money that it spends on promotion it does mean i even to this day i'll look at the nasa channel there's a lot of promotion going on i think where we're weak is not communicating i think where we're weak is not focusing on specific things that we can do in space and we can show specifically how they impact on the lives of our people and there is such an array now of things that we depend upon from space space based assets i used to only be able to call my grandparents when i was a kid like once a month at most and i was a five dollar call you could barely hear it had to go through operators who hated you for bothering them and because our space based assets that called that's five dollars in those days and in this  money it would be like twenty five dollars and we brought down the calls where people can call up their or their loved ones and communicate a space based assets and go through the whole thing now our space based app is assets have made such a significant change in our lives i don't believe the american people understand that it's not necessarily communicate communicate but looking specifically at what things are the change like not some guy where they see the guy taking a space walk and we had all sorts of pictures of the guy taking the space walk and it looks like fun but how does all of our lives change how will our lives change in the future i was just i have this question for general lyles do you see the personal i see the private sector playing a much greater role now than what it did in the past and do you see the commercial space and efforts will actually play a greater role as well in the future of this trend toward having commercial enterprises rather than just government run enterprises in space constant or baucus going to see again and the answer is absolutely one of the recommendations key recommendations of our national research council study was the need to look at the infrastructure and strategies and how  people are involved in a space activities and it wasn't so much to imply that there shouldn't be leadership and expertise at the nasa centers but the nasa centers need to figure out a way they can open up the aperture if you will to allow commercial entities academia and others to sit at the table and to provide solutions to help solve the problems today the perception is everything is nasa centric that may or may not be true but commercial entities and certainly academia feel they've been left out in some cases as our report points out and we think just changing the way you approach business and the way you approach allowing people to work the solutions will go a long way towards achieving that we're not talking about major new expenditures we're talking about making sure we open up the way we do business so that people who are on the outside of the circle can now get involved and they're already involved in some ways but expanding that one other question about this to get the u space and the potential of space we're facing a huge roadblock that nobody seems to want to face and that is space debris and i personally of course focused a lot of my activity in this committee on near earth objects which are coming down and space debris i just asked and to the committee in general shouldn't we be focusing on that effort to clear that space debris so that will open up new opportunities without having to worry about a bolt coming through somebody new a space station up and our space project what my answer is i think there is a tension greater attention now to that particular problem and something i think again our report points on there's a need for greater integration in coordination amongst the different agencies particularly the civil space agencies in d o d on how you address common problems and problem is what do you do about space debris is sort of a global commons if you will the international interest in this this is an opportunity to bring a lot of different players to the table certainly as a marshall international partnership  etc i think it's sort of a ripe sort of example for people to tackle as an enterprise that is exactly right general we can bring people like the russians and other people and the europeans would make us an international effort that would clean up the sky so that we can use those  movie in the theaters right now called moon have you seen it the premise of the movie is that there is a manufacturing operation on the moon that mines helium three and send it back to earth for using fusion reactors on earth i'm not going to ask you for a movie review but it does raise an interesting thought which is what are the possibilities for actually using space for economic purposes at this point historically we only have one successful model in that regard and that satellites satellites are a viable business that provide economic benefit that exceed their costs and therefore has functioned as a business over the past couple of decades we're starting to see the beginnings of a second business like that called tourism space tourism and over the course the next decade we'll see how that pans out but it looks like there is the possibility that will be able to again provide goods and services that exceed the cost of production and therefore have a viable business model what i'd like to know from all of you in my three minutes and fifty three seconds remaining is what other potential models you see in the future what models can be viable economic uses of space the next twenty years or even the next fifty years let's start with you ms smith certainly there are companies that are looking at other uses of space for business purposes one such company v galactic consulting with them and while their core business will continue to be space tourism they are looking at non space tourist markets solar energy atmospheric testing using the white knight captive carry a vehicle which has the capacity and the ability to provide itself as a test bed for other kinds of testing as a business bigelow aerospace with its space habitat is already offered a number of business opportunities services to other countries who want to do astronaut training on platforms when our space station is not available other parts of the world  look at that as a business opportunity so i think that people who are in this hall and many of the companies that i worked with in the past and continue to are looking at playing at full out all the way out exploring all of the opportunities that exist in space for business purposes but also to benefit mankind well some of the other opportunities that have come up over the years but that haven't reached fruition yet are other forms of energy production for about that zero gravity high precision manufacturing that's one that's come up from time to time occasionally biotechnology applications i want to know what you think are the cutting edge the ones that are most likely to come to fruition what about you miss myers would like to do a little bit more research on that get back to you ok general congressman i hear you're talking mostly about commerce and business in space and utilizing space and i've also always wanted to focus on commerce as a result of space technologies the best example of that of course the g p s nobody could have envisioned when a g p s program was started by the air force where it would lead to in terms of all the services and i think when you look at the technologies that will come out from energy perspective with the electric propulsion for satellites advanced materials even greater than ones we have today lighter more durable etc those technologies generated as a result of space activities i think will change the way we do things around the world in so many different ways it's commerce as a result of space not in space but to me that's just as valuable and just as valuable it's it seems like we have a number of different alternatives here they're all possibilities what do you think that we can do to try when you start looking at the numbers and you start comparing it to say building another nuclear plant on the ground it's not that far off and one way that you could get that going is there are certain applications specifically at the pentagon for example where there is a need to get remote power to remote installations and in order to keep an encampment in a hostile part of the world going can be very expensive and very risky as you convoy and fuel and whatever you need wouldn't it be nice if the government perhaps started looking at some maybe some seed money to think about small space based solar power applications that could that could take care of forward bases for the pentagon they certainly have a lot of money right well it's a very interesting subject of my time is up thank you chairman thank you mr grayson what i think about how we may and space more relevant to americans and really make making nasa relevant to all americans and you know i mean from my vantage point a member of the committee we look out and we see you but we also see the portraits of former chairs of this committee and you look around you and you see all the chairman they look surprisingly similar similar in many ways and i know that obviously mike masse i mean it was the first astronaut to twitter from space but now we have the first astronaut to twittering in spanish in space and that of course is jose hernandez and you know it's true yes isn't much better job recruiting astronaut to train astronaut that don't aren't all the same type of american but i'm not convinced that we're doing a good enough job reaching out  to a more diverse audience of kids and of just helping the panelist could talk about ways that we could do that either from an educational standpoint or a marketing standpoint or from what nasa is able to do with minors this is the i'm very passionate about it's making reaching out to kids in school reaching out to make it come to life reaching out to empower kids that it's cool to be smart because for so many years the smart kids didn't feel empowered to be smart especially in the inner cities so that was why we turned to a will smith who's a role model and said you were smart you did it you grew up in philadelphia be a role model and inspire kids that to get excited about science space innovation capture their imagination and to make it so i'm proud to be involved in and to empower teachers to give them the tools that they need because kids learn differently they learn as individually as individuals in different ways and it's a new generation that grows up with video games and twittering and on the net and they watch t v differently than any generation so empowering those teachers with the tools to be able to capture kids imagination and i think we all have to do a better job of getting kids excited about what careers exist because we don't tell the stories of the people and what lights them up and what's gets them excited about their jobs and when you talk to people in the space program and you have a conversation of why did you get into this or tell me what you really get excited about at the end of the day or what are you working on they become childlike and it's contagious we have to do a better job of getting those messages to kids so that they see a bigger array of jobs to choose from and we get them excited that they can change the world and that's an important subject let me just touch in on something i was speaking with a woman astronaut a couple days ago about how many women there are in the high seas congress and our percentages are actually very similar the women in the astronaut corps and the women and congress and while i think for men going into politics there's this  a sense of well i'm the best person for the job of course i should get elected i can't say whether or not the same of someone who goes through the rigorous aspects of what it takes to be an astronaut but i know as a woman in politics for me it was meeting another woman and see realize she can do it i can do it so wasn't so much even having the information it was and again i think that's a story that you'll hear for women that tended to go into this area so i'm just curious whether or not the messages also should be different for a different audience whether it's different gender or with different ethnic background whether or not those messages should be different to reach out to those large populations we have in this country it's that relatability factor is so important that we need those role models and  change to whoever we're trying to appeal to and speak to present those role models and make it real make that connection come to life absolutely you're right i think nasa should really go out of its way to put those role models forward i mean i really do think it's important to hear from those members of the astronaut corps and make sure they're from the center that's to be a very should be a very high priority when it comes to any public affairs campaign and just when you talk about you know engaging kids you know it's really important that they also have a sense of participatory exploration i'm on the board of directors of the challenger learning centers which i know you're all familiar with my first experience there was bacon they act like a kids they act like kids you know and i walked in there and they're in this mission control center and get the camera getting the camera in their face and they're like get away from me we're trying to save the space station right now i thought wow this is magical imagine that this is something that really has engaged kids you know that that's how kids learn they didn't know they were learning they were having a ball and who knows how many of those kids you know i'm convinced one of those kids will be on mars one of these days you know probably went to a challenge learning center and i was just at one recently the lower east side of manhattan and it was in the midst of astronaut scott parazynski recently someone at mount everest and i was part of that project helping him tell his story in you know viral web two dot away i never got to leave my laundry room he got to go to everest in any case i brought down we did kind of a two way conversation with these kids using skype with you know this astronaut everest to a group of kids across all ethnic origins and social economic you name it and kids or kids they were fascinated by the whole thing and there was nothing about it i didn't detect a barrier nobody in that room said i can't do that as a matter fact that it's like wow this is cool i want to be a part of this so that it really isn't rocket science it but it does take money and it does take effort and you know the kind of science teaching i got unfortunately kind of the activities and and facilities there and there on the wall of one of the buildings was a poster i've never seen before and was a poster they had very small pictures of all the astronauts obviously imagine the number of astronaut so the pictures had to be very small but it immediately jumped out at me of how diverse we are already have in our action our core but we don't do a good job of spreading the word of getting the word out about that we certainly need to do more i absolutely believe in that but let's take advantage of what we currently have tell that story it just blew my mind away to look at that poster and see the diversity that already exists and that astronaut corps which could be role models of so many different kids so many different inner city places and around the world for that matter that's  space organizations do you envision this entity being a governing body that would chordate the actions of the very space agencies and direct their programs to comply with the consensus of the group or would it be strictly an advisory role congressman i think it's probably more on the lines of an advisory role the last thing that nasa or any of the other civil space agencies or even d o d for that matter do the space needs is another bureaucratic layer in between their activities and what what jobs they have to get done what we see the need for is better coordination and integration of the various space agencies to look for those common grounds look for those things that they need to work together to to leverage the resources and capabilities of the various agencies and probably more than anything else a common theme this afternoon to educate each other on what they're working on what they're involved in what the challenges are so we can take advantage of lessons learned best practices from from each of the different agencies  specifically said that the president should charge to senior executives in the administration we specifically mention the national security adviser in the head of always t p to figure out the right policy and process we stop short process needs to be it is the law institutionalized sort of organization to make that happen thank you for that answer and i'd like to just make one closing comments sort of follow up on everything we've all been talked about about what we need to do  inspire america's youth and one little story and some of you may have heard this before but it is just a great story i love it our youth the love of space and human spaceflight is in it and i saw it firsthand i watched the s t launch back in march with sixty kids at a third grade elementary school in sugarland texas now as you can imagine those kids they came in about twenty five minutes before the launch and a seven and eight year old would do they just sat down talked a little bit about what was going to happen what they were expect to see and opened up for questions these kids grilled me i mean they grilled me for twenty four and a half minutes and good questions and you know we got down to twenty five seconds left in the cast and they cut to a camera that had the big mission clock in the zero with the front of the shuttle and of course i didn't see this coming but you know anybody else room could have those kids started screaming out the countdown at the top there lawyers you know twenty five twenty four and they're howling and i haven't a ball but then the most the best part of it the most inspirational thing happened right down as a countdown got down about five and the main engine start to come to life and then the solid rocket boosters fired and she left the pad and when she did that every kid in that room was quiet and just stared at that t v watching that shuttle climb up into orbit in the space nasa has the power to inspire it's out there and we just need to find a way to tap it thank you all for coming today thank you mr olson you know it wouldn't be a space subcommittee hearing if we didn't have a chance to even bad to look at great witness group here and i'm sorry and i did get to read some of the opening statements i didn't get to hear the questions but i really thank you because what you tell us is things that we need to know for the future and i think i'm sure i have an idea of what you said but what we're all saying is i don't know about what part of the our in the that we are entitled to or we get but we need just a little more of it because we need to close that for y gap in there some way and i tell this story and i told it the gentleman who's heading up the study the former c e o of norm augustine that my kids hate for me to tell him stories about the depression and world war two but i make them listen and sometimes i tell him a story and then i wait about ten minutes now start all over telling it again and there ali and so click it want to know you know hit one another against japan we had one and one carrier that was really fighting shape we had another care that it was to take seven months to repair it to worry it could leave the port of honolulu  admiral nimitz went aboard and that was on a monday and after his speech to he told us that that carrier was going to go along with the other carrier they were going to be at a certain spot northwest of midway waiting for the japanese to attack we've broken their code we knew they were going to when you were they were coming from he said this ship will be ready no matter what it takes and that's what i want somebody to say it's money and if we can't close in on it for years either from one side using the bird we have and i don't know any better way to put it than and robin off of the other two but to make it safe which we can and get two years and a mate to two years that we could encourage the completion of our of our goal it has to be no we don't have any choice we can't be subject to russia's whims and we can't lose japan and all those other people is as partners as they are now we got so much to lose nasa is great but i don't think they've been great enough to let the word go forth of how great they really are and what they really do for us and what they've done for people my age and and then the fallout from help  we simply have to have our space station and we need to accept nothing less and that we just got to fight in battle and scratch for it i think everybody here feels that same way i do about it and i certainly thank you all for your testimony thank you mr yeah i just would like to make sure that there's one point that and he's to be on the record at least and that is i think that inspiring young people is more than just fluff and a lot of times when we take p r approaches that it turns out to be just fluff and young people you know people can see through that and as i say when i went to that first press conference and five p r men for nasa and all focused on the fluff and here's the pictures of the astronauts having fun in the space walk that's less inspiring than to have a nasa being involved in projects that really are going to affect the lives of the people on this planet and that we fully capable of if we are going to spider young people we need that we need substance and we've got that the potential for substance is there we have now reached a plateau where we've got so much in our foundation intellectually that the it's almost unlimited what human kind will be able to do in the future because of what we plan to we've already reached if we are going to have young people again this last point the young people are not going to be inspired if engineers and scientists are not paid as much as lawyers when it's a simple as that right now you're back inspire young people to get involved in engineering and scientific endeavors if they know that engineers and scientists drive around in old jalopies and the lawyers drive around and sports cars and live in beautiful homes and the engineers can barely afford to pay their rent we've got to make sure our engineers and scientists are paid well and which to do that i know this is going to organise and raise grain we should not be bringing in engineers and scientists from india and china and elsewhere to lower the amount of wages that will be paid to our own people we need to build our own capabilities up make sure that when someone becomes an engineer and sort of sort of bringing down the pay level by bringing people from overseas we should be paying more money to our own engineers and scientists that starts right in education we have to pay our teachers who teach science and engineering more money than we do those teachers who are teaching history i'm sorry i'm a history major but there's lots of people want to teach history we need the scientists and engineers teaching our kids and the kids need to know they're actually we reward someone because we need those skills we need to pay the teachers who teach that more money than somebody teaches basket weaving or gym or history or whatever so those things we are going to inspire people let's be serious about it that's where you start by making sure the kids know they're going to their own lives are going to be able to be better by earning more money by getting into those professions and i've said thank you thank you mr rohrabacher is mister one of the things that the space foundation is not timid about at all is going into sales situations such as failed school districts with space programs to revitalize to inspire and encourage students to get into them to math and science we recently stood up such a project in colorado and a failed school district and using space as a curriculum there i think that that as we look at k through twelve where does it need to to start and whether it's appropriate of twelve or or later in the school system i think that it's appropriate for it to start wherever it starts and that we have got to galvanize the antecedent students get them more excited then they haven't been about math and science and the potential and the possibilities that space other thing i found that galvanizes and incentivize and motivates engineers and scientists is having great things to work on last week i was that as part of the augustine commission we're out in space x and talking to ilan musk his team out there much of young engineers and scientists every one of them said they exactly the same thing they're not there for the pay right now the pay is not there there's too early beginning stages of their organization they are all there for the excitement of what they can possibly do to contribute to the space program i've seen the same thing in the air force is you know we don't pay our civil servants a great deal of funds but they're all there because of the excitement of what they can do and the possibilities of technology they can get involved in so that's another way we need to try to is for you and looking at your report of the comments made there was an observation that nasa is in adequately funded to pursue many of its responsibilities and the agency's being to asked to accomplish too much with essentially too little the  report language says a coordinated sustainable set of strategies should ensure that responsibilities are realistically matched to available resources such a match does not exist today for example nasa has a central role in civil  yet by any reasonable measure it is in adequately funded to pursue many of its responsibilities it goes on to say that report that rather than requiring that a broad ambitious program should be fit into an arbitrary can to strain budget as been the case in recent years a sustainable strategy would first define the program of a nation is committed to undertake and then realistically to find the resources that are required to accomplish that program would you please elaborate for the committee how you were able to reach that conclusion and what exactly you meant well matter chairwoman i think just looking at all the things that are on the plate for nasa and again our study was a broader civil space activity but we in that particular case we're looking at at nasa all the things that are on the plate for it for the agency all the missions that they're being asked to do all the visions if you will for what we would like to have out of nasa whether it's space exploration whether it's the first a nasa aeronautics and they're heavily dependent upon to contribute to the aeronautical domain for the f a a and others if you will that the resources do not match all of the things that they are tasked to do and our recommendation was that we take sort of a another look if you will not have taken away any of the missions because i don't think any agency is better equipped or better stated for doing the things that we've asked nasa to do but figuring out how can we set the strategy for when some of those those things get accomplished i was part of the president bush's implementation commission for the space vision the aldrich commission back in two thousand and four and one of the things we recommended and even taken on the broad exploration mission was a statement we call go ways you can pay recognize that the resources may not be there to do everything we want to do and the timeframe but structure programs so you can have successes and move forward and get closer to your goal even within the available budget but don't give up to go so that was sort of the notion for why our study sort of came up with that or that particular statement but figure out what should be to pace what should be the structure what should  be the model stones that we're cheap with available resources if we can't get more to add to the mission i think i can speak for on behalf of the entire subcommittee in the full committee that were anxious lee awaiting the report from the augustine commission money and if they're throwing money away like they are right left and said wait why can't they put it somewhere where it really means something to everybody from k to twelve to graduation from college and to brilliant people like you for telling we need that we want to start a riot and right today arjun that four hundred fifty billion dollars land up there somewhere out that first eight hundred million and we just need three or four or maybe four or five talking about versity we're going to have incredible new team for the obama administration that begins today and i think reflected from many of the members still here this the tremendous concern our national economy our energy resources what's happened in health care what's happened in terms of global terrorism and in terms of i believe representing the best foot forward that our country can make it was having a strong space program and that is something that i know that we're go on so i want to thank our panelists for being here today our witnesses for helping us remind the nation this great promise and the great potential that nasa brings to us and they believe to communicate that greatness to america and to the  world that is the end of our hearing and i would like to remember to know that the record remain open for two weeks and if there are additional statements be made by the members they can submit those questions follow up questions to the subcommittee to our witnesses and the witnesses are now excuse and the committee is unsur