and i'm sure will be a great contributor to the committee as we move forward we all want to welcome him this past week mr pinski and his edwards graciously resign their seats on the technology and innovation in energy and environment subcommittees to make room for m and let me before we conclude this let me just give you a little overview and your mind has really thirty four years public service before he comes to us in the house of representatives he was reelected the insurance commissioner and most recently was a governor as you can see he's had a hard time holding onto a job we hope will have him here a little bit longer but interestingly he is not the only public servant in their family he and his wife married and then went to the peace corps for eight years was in the clinton ministration as director of the u s peace corps and she continues her public service as the deputy secretary of california business transportation and housing agency and is now the assistant manager at the california exposition and state and as most all of us here know that congress is a team sport  make sure that we're able to provide such quality information to the congress and the american people on this hearing is the latest in a series that the subcommittee and the space and aeronautics subcommittee has convened over the past several months on the critical ministration and the congress to consider when we make our decisions on the future direction and funding for nasa and in particular for nasa human spaceflight and next ration activities we decided to hold these hearings including last week's hearing on human space flight safety because it's so important for the white house and for congress to understand truly what's at stake i personally believe that a great deal is at stake not just in the near term but certainly for decades to come and i believe that we need to keep a long term perspective front and center when we look at the potential impact of the work force and the space industrial base on pending decisions for nasa future because it's not just a question of jobs although each and every one of us who serve in the congress and are responsive to our constituents know that jobs are vitally important but it's really the quality of jobs that we need to be paying attention to as well as we will here today aerospace jobs are high tain they're high quality jobs international leader these are jobs that we would like to have more of and they're certainly the kinds of jobs that we don't want to see go away and this is already happening across the country and i think that from to our witnesses today finally these are the kinds of jobs that can excite inspire our young people to pursue careers in science and engineering something that this nation needs to have happen if these jobs go away even for a while to be very very difficult to get back these jobs and that's really the health of the workforce and of the space industrial base which is so important so just let me just make sure that moamar is no that contract with the commercial sector account for more than eighty percent of nasa's budget those contracts and compass work done by large established aerospace firms we're going to hear from some of those folks today but also work done by merging companies that offer the promise of new capabilities to meet the agency's needs and products and services provided to nasa by non aerospace companies both large and small given that it is clear that support for nasa is also support for this commercial sector and for the jobs that this sector creates and the innovations that make it possible the president this congress does have serious decisions to make in the coming weeks in the coming months we need to decide whether we as a nation are finally going to provide the resources nasa needs to carry out the important missions that the nation has given it or not we decide whether or not we are going to maintain our commitment to a robust program of exploration involving humans and robots to use the words of the fiscal year two thousand and ten nasa budget request a program that successive congresses have authorized and funded or not and if the president would recommend some manner of course change we collectively would need to figure out how to make any such change in a way that protects the americans taxpayers dollars preserves crew safety and maintains america's position as a world leader in space make no mistake about it decisions we collectively make about the future of our space program will have a lasting impact on our workforce and our standing in the world several of our witnesses today are going to discuss investments in our space program our converse cutbacks in our space and vestments and that ripple effect that will have on both large companies and small companies as well as a chairman i also serve on the armed services committee where we have healthy discussions about what workforce impacts will mean to the defense of our nation the perfect action of our country and of course to our industrial base as well just in closing you know often times is a little bit cliche i guess we look at the quote behind the proverbs that where there is no vision the people will perish this is profound and it's something that we as members of congress know is very important  impossible to put back together they have unique skills unique institutional knowledge and so i compliment you on having these very important  olson if you have at least we would welcome that certainly being in the heart of the nasa workforce i'm sure that you have again you have a unique knowledge there well thank you as chair would have a brief opening statement i appreciate your recognition and thank you for call this voice hearing that says we make on the future direction and funding of that is a topic of mendis importance to our nation the state of the economy and jobs have been out of the forefront of this congress since we convened in january attempts to stem the tide of rising double digit unemployment have not worked and against this backdrop we're facing decisions about nasa which will have a profound effect not only on jobs but also on the critical knowledge skills and production capabilities need to maintain our aerospace and defense capabilities into the twenty first century this sector of our current employees over two hundred sixty thousand men and women and accounts for about sixty percent of our total exports i'd like to thank our witnesses for their parents here today i realize that each of you has spent a considerable time and effort preparing for this hearing for a hearing for you so that our subcommittee have the value of your expertise today we focused on the impact of nessus funding levels on the current workforce which i am particularly interested in but also the enormous scope of the challenges facing the aerospace industry as a whole there are many issues a workforce approaching retirement without the opportunity to teach the next generation of scientists engineers technicians and program managers hot a highly skilled contractor force at risk of lose their jobs as a result of the human spaceflight gap number three decreased opportunities for future engineers and scientists which were deuce entrance in the critical stem education field in a perverse way that could only come from washington we're concerned about a shortage of engineers and scientists we're concerned about attracting high quality students to the aerospace field we're concerned about america losing important strategic manufacturing capabilities and yet we're pursuing policies that many ways may be exacerbating these very problems in the debate about job creation the intent was to create high quality jobs that pay good wages and reward important skills those are the very jobs that are the norm in space industry the automotive industry has been decimated last week aviation week included an article about how the automotive industry is looking toward aerospace for the displa is where making a washing have affects far beyond the obvious i've stated repeatedly that we must stay continue to stay the course with the constellation program and not just because of the job loss that would follow we to cancel it stopping and starting a major program is not how you develop a technical workforce attract workers inspired engineers or stabilize a local or national economy companies and communities are watching this but so too are impressionable young students who may go into science engineering fields if i may the grass for just i like to tell one story from the campaign trail knocking on doors in the clear lake area where i he's not very presentable looks like you've been some boxer shorts a robe some flip flops and but he was he was a young man who worked at the johnson space center and very concerned about the future of human spaceflight and what i remember about him as  a young engineer he was to actually take care of his young daughter very typical of the people we want to attract to the aerospace industry is employees this young man had grown up wanting to be part of the next effort to put human beings back on the he was inspired by what the aerospace industry what nasa had done in the past we can't forget that if we aren't willing to commit the astronautics he will discuss key trends and issues in the aerospace work force and the industrial base from the perspective of major aerospace professional society and he's also president and c e o of orbital welcome mr thomson very pleased today we have with us marion blakely who is president and chief executive officer of the aerospace industries association she will provide the subcommittee information on the industry perspective on key issues for the u s aerospace workforce and the  industrial base and we're very glad to have you this morning mr thomas young who is executive vice president of lockheed martin corp mr young is retired now but he will provide perspective based on his extensive industry and government experience in leading major space projects welcome mr young and finally mr richard brecht who is vice chairman vice president of strategy and technology at movie incorporated and he will provide the subcommittee his perspective of an aerospace company welcome all as our witnesses you know you will each have five minutes for your spoken testimony or written testimony will be included in the record for the hearing and when you have completed your spoken testimony will begin with questions and and each member will have five minutes to to answer and get responses to their questions and we hope to have a healthy discussion today so i'd like to begin the discussion with mr thompson s air space sector and to the nation as a whole as president of the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics for the two thousand and nine two thousand and ten year i'm proud to represent a constituency of more than thirty six thousand aerospace engineers scientists and other professionals as well as thousands of aerospace students from all fifty states and from many overseas locations indeed for nearly years has been the principal professional society for aerospace engineers and scientists in america and around the world on behalf of a double a i would i would like to express our appreciation to this committee for its leadership in space and aeronautics policy and for its interest in the aerospace work force and industrial base i'm pleased to respond to the three questions that you have asked relating to the effects of nasa is direction and funding on the country's airspace sector your first question asked about the most significant concerns regarding the airspace workforce and industrial base response to this question is followed your space systems are of considerable importance to us national security economic prosperity technological vitality and global leadership aeronautical and space systems protect our citizens armed forces and allies abroad they connect the farthest corners of the world with safe and efficient air transportation and satellite communications and they monitor the earth explore the solar system and study the wider universe the u s air space sector also contributes in major ways to america's economic output and high technology employment aerospace research and development and manufacturing companies generated approximately two hundred forty billion dollars in sales in two thousand and eight or nearly one point seven five percent of our country's gross national product they currently employ about six hundred fifty thousand people throughout our country u s government agencies and departments and gauged in aerospace research and operations add another one hundred twenty five thousand to the sector's workforce bringing the total to over seven hundred seventy five thousand people including an include in this number are more than two hundred thousand engineers and scientists one of the largest concentrations of technical brainpower on earth however the us air space workforce is now facing the most serious demographic challenge in its one hundred year history simply put today many more older experienced professionals are retiring from or otherwise leaving our industrial and governmental aerospace workforce early career professionals are entering it this imbalance is expected to become even more severe over the next five years as the final members of the apollo era generation of engineers and scientists complete forty or forty five year careers and transition to well deserved retirement in fact around fifty percent of the current aerospace workforce will be eligible for retirement within just the next five years meanwhile the supply of younger aerospace engineers and scientists entering the industry is woefully insufficient to replace the mounting wave of retirements and other departures that we see in the near future in part this is the result of broader technical career trends as engineering and science graduates from our country's universities continue a multi decade decline even as the demand for their knowledge and skills in aerospace and other industries keeps increasing today only about fifteen percent of u s students earned their first college degree in engineering or science well behind the forty or fifty percent level seen in many european and asian countries due to the dual you'll dual use nature of air space technology and the limited supply of bailable to highly qualified non us citizens our industries ability to hire the best and brightest graduates from overseas is also severely constrained as a result and less effective action is taken to reverse current trends the us air space sector is expected to experience a dramatic decrease in its technical workforce over the next decade your second question concerns the implications of a cutback in human space flight programs on this is as follows while u s human spaceflight program director we employ somewhat less than ten percent of our country's aerospace workers its influence on attracting and motivating tomorrow's aerospace professionals is much greater than it's a media employment contribution for nearly fifty  excitement and challenge of human spaceflight have been tremendously important factors in the decisions of generations of young people to prepare for and to pursue careers in the aerospace sector this remains true today  indicated by hundreds of testimonies members have recorded over the past two years a few of which i'll show in brief video interviews at the end of my statement further evidence of the catalytic role of human space missions is found in a recent study conducted earlier this year by mit which found that forty percent of current aerospace engineering undergraduate cited human space programs as the main reason they  chose therefore i think it can be predicted with high confidence that a major cutback in u s human space programs would be substantially detrimental to the future of the aerospace workforce such a cutback would put even greater stress on an already weakened strategic sector of our domestic technology workforce your final question centers on other issues that should be considered as decisions are made on the funding and direction for nasa and congressional leaders should also consider the collateral damage to the space industrial base if human space programs were substantially curtailed due to low annual production rates and highly specialized product requirements the domestic supply chain for space systems is relatively fragile many second and third tier suppliers in particular operate at marginal volumes today so even a small reduction in their business could force some critical suppliers to exit this sector human space programs represent around twenty percent of the forty seven billion dollars in total u s space and missile system sales from two thousand and eight accordingly a major cutback in human space spending could have large and highly adverse ripple effects throughout commercial and scientific space programs as well potentially triggering a series of disruptive changes in the common industrial supply base that our entire space sector relies on thank you for the opportunity to address these important questions this morning i look forward to your additional questions and now i'd like to let you hear from several of my a important opportunity to address the future direction funding for nasa and what it will mean for the u s workforce aerospace and i'm just all base our members are deeply concerned about these issues so i'm delighted you're taking a serious review of your decisions regarding massa's programs will undoubtedly affect our current and future workforce and the industrial base according to nasa there are about forty five thousand work here acquittal of contractors for the estimate that nasa indirectly supports one hundred fifty one thousand contractors under current plans for the shuttle's retirement and the transition to the constellation program the current number of contractors will by over four thousand by the year twenty thirteen the resulting impacts we believe have to be carefully considered aerospace talent loss to other industries may be unrecoverable new workers take years to train moreover if we lose certain facilities that manufacture high tech technologies it may take years and additional resources to bring them back another crucial relationship nasa has with the aerospace workforce is the agency's ability to attract and educate your workers the state of education for young people i don't think i have to tell this committee is alarming this is a proper ations of silence technology engineering  mathematics known as the stem field low graduation rate in those fields especially when you compare it to other nations and a lack of interest in stem fields overall the latest national test scores show that in math professions i thought this was interesting and a study done by raytheon most middle school students said they would rather do one of the following the do their math homework get this claim their room eat their vegetables go to the dentist or take out the garbage then do their math homework tells us all back in paris and india and china respectively graduate six to ten times more engineering students each year if this continues the u s runs a real risk of losing its educated engineering edge over other nations one of the reasons for the lack of interest in aerospace and defense could be the uncertainty surrounding funding for nasa programs a commitment to a robust human spaceflight program we believe will help attract and retain such workers a reduction of programs consequently would be highly detrimental both aerospace  and for a national security just as a recent what the recent wall street crisis turned young people away from financial careers a lack of job security and aerospace the light of attraction young people seek out companies with exciting opportunities for example lucky martin was hiring for the crew exploration vehicle and they had ten highly qualified resumes for each of a level job some of  our other member companies are doing exciting work space x as dawn of the i s s commercial resupply service contracts for example and these kinds of contracts are going to be magnets for young people because they are inspiring to help spur and for the aerospace industry itself is innovative one of our exciting dollars is the team america rocketry challenge or talk for middle and high school students but dissipating in target is inspirational and we've gathered more than a few stories about our young people who now work in aerospace as a result of that talk experience while nasa vigorously engaged in the supply side big question it's the demand side that has to be addressed by congress to provide resources needed for the aerospace projects these projects provide young people exciting programs on which to work a robust and sustainable space exploration program is key to  workforce maintaining our workforce depends on continuing stable and robust funding for our nation's space programs space programs don't just come off the shelf they take years to develop and build fluctuating budgets and delayed programs adversely affect the scheduled production and maintenance of a skilled work force budget shortfalls deeply impact agencies like nasa that have been asked to take on many water projects simultaneously a space industrial base designs develops produces and supports spacecraft satellites large systems support infrastructure these systems are often produced of small or even single numbers we need to keep the base healthy therefore in closing i want to say that we ask congress to remain mindful that interruptions of cancellations negatively impact large companies and they can be catastrophic to small firms who are often the only entity with the unique abilities to produce small but critical component which the larger have to structure the period the united states has enjoyed preeminent sonera space in great part due to our space program that leadership is now in danger while congress considers the future of nasa spending in direction we must continue to assure our continuing leadership in space exploration by investing and i young people and providing cutting edge programs to attract them i believe the eliminates most problems for some areas such as software test program is unrealistic requiring the use of an independent validation approach in some special circumstances such  a slight deviation from the disciplined approach can be the most damage unfortunately failure reports are populated with deviations with names such as faster better cheaper trying to put into a five pound bag others are in response to the criticism that we are too conservative and need to take more risk and others are associated with the premise that commercial thank you for this opportunity to address the committee the thing i'd like to do this morning is to illustrate what they very specific example the long term effect of the nasa programs i'm with got about buffalo new york and i spent most of my forty year career as an places that it's applied primarily on the nasa launch vehicles is steering the the rocket engines so if you see the shuttle want to launch you see it comes up and sort of rolls over what were the guys at the back end that are moving the rocket engines to be able to steer it to a spirit in a launch phase similarly when the shuttle is landing you have to move the flight controls are there i draw like actuators that move those that's the specialty that we developed in that time period based on that knowledge and heritage and experience that we had with that we later then took that and evolved it for both commercial aircraft as well as military aircraft so it's referred to today as fly by wire flight controls what does that mean you have a computer that just connects with a wire to the actuators and because of all of the  concerns in terms of safety and reliability on these these are very complicated redundant systems and it's all our position and that all started with the work that we did with nasa in the one nine hundred sixty s in the last ten years we have won all the major contracts around the world fly by wire flight controls were doing complete flight control system on the f thirty five for the deal we won the all of the contracts for the seven eight seven at boeing doing a complete flight control system there and one of the i think is more significant as far as your consideration here is is that we want the same contract on the a three fifty airbus this is the first time the air bus has gone outside of europe for this kind of technology why is that because the very best fly by wire flight control technology is in mars science lab and on the other mars missions so we've been developing similar kinds of technologies so one of these when you have a satellite data be able to position the antennas on the solar rays and as you see the animations of satellites when they're already see the small thrusters that activate orbit that's what we do supply all of sort of precision motion control in those satellites and again this started with our work with nasa in the one nine hundred sixty s today where the world's leading company for supplying those sorts of things to the d o d for all of their  satellites all of the commercial satellites around the world where the supplier to all the p the europeans to the indians to the japanese for all of that sort of hardware the same way that we've had the evolution of that  from the nasa technology we see the same thing going on today what it does is it gives you the opportunity on the nasa programs to develop the core technologies and the core knowledge and as a couple people it indicated already knowledge is not a matter of drawings and documents and reports that's not where the knowledge of the knowledge is in the people who develop it and they have the ability then to be able to say ok here's another problem coming in for a military vehicle what are we going to do with all that you all go back to the  technology we developed to begin with the core for doing all of that so that's how we've been able to develop this this kind of position we have worldwide but it's not just us we literally have hundreds of suppliers for that kind of hardware we supply for nasa and the same way that nasa pushes us to find new technical boundaries and to push beyond blow up all the time we do the same thing with our suppliers so that leverage that you get out of this is not just a couple of companies with us it's literally hundreds of companies that advanced  technologies and for many of our suppliers their nasa work is only maybe one or two percent of their sales but it accounts for a probably eighty percent of the technology advancement comes out of the sort of work that they do on the on these nasa programs and it's not just us i can see upstream and downstream from where we are in these systems and as to suppliers of those sort of hardware but i follow their technology as well and they've seen the same kind of effect so i would suggest that our experience with the nasa programs is not a singularity we see it all the way through the suppliers and all the other companies that are around the other point that i would make is that other people around the world understand this model of using space programs to lead the technology the europeans  clearly done it when i first started with mold in the one nine hundred sixty s worked in europe and this was right when their bus was getting put together you say why did the europeans put airbus together they looked at it and they said we really can't compete with the u space given where they were at that point in time but they wanted to have a program to lead their companies to develop better technologies so they chose to do it in commercial aircraft because they couldn't keep pace with the u s on the on the a manned space program so you follow that that that whole history forward and looked recently at what the chinese are doing why the chinese have a manned space program for exactly the same reason that the u s had a manned space program the one nine hundred sixty s they're looking for that to increase the quality and the competency of the of the companies in china to the same sort of model so i would suggest that the congress at this point time is a critical choice point the constellation of programs clearly the next chapter in our history and in space and you have a choice you can either adequately funded and consistently fund it so you can maintain a sort of base that we have to be able to not only do the work for nasa to be able to take in continuously leverage this and to maintain the u s leadership in space technologies and aerospace technologies applied to all kinds of aircraft military commercial business jets satellites all of that at all is going to come from the consistent funding of the of the constellation program a couple people have indicated you can have ups and downs very critical set of decisions to make here in terms of are you going to consistently and adequately fund the constellation program because i think if you do we can maintain a sort of world leadership in our technology we want to very significant number of the contracts already on the tolerance for failure and all of that that's a really really hard problem what that does attract the very best and the very brightest engineers bright engineers attract other bright engineers and that's how we've built the company in the space shuttle and the apollo program they're about to retire and the thing we're looking for the constellation program to be is the transition to the next generation of people and to do the mentoring that you need for those people to get the maximum benefit out of the  capability that we have built and we should not underestimate how hard it was to build and how hard it will be to rebuild how significant it is what if we unique capabilities and technologies such as move utilizes in fact also support that fragile national security supply chain and when the programs are not there they simply cannot maintain them and maintain any kind of integrity to their shareholders so this is this is a significant issue another issue that i think is important is that this country sees itself as a spacefaring nation but at the same time we know those of us who are following this closely that it is very likely that the next boots on the moon will be chinese we know that we have very definite competition for the leadership in space from a number of countries india as well as china russia we can you know this is very well documented and the resources are being applied there but when you look back at it our country does see itself that way and that's important to our national psyche back during the apollo program the numbers were around fifty fifty five percent in terms of public support for the u s role in space those numbers in a recent poll this was two thousand and five but not when we were trying to go beyond low earth orbit when seventy seven to set so retain tomorrow's specialized workforce which underpins all sectors of a vibrant industry a robust credible and long term commitment by the united states government to our future human spaceflight program is indispensable as the august commission pointed out human exploration of space  will inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers and will in a very tangible way contribute to the broader development of the future workforce that our country needs in a variety of sectors all supported by science engineering and technology thank you but one thing we've been working very hard on in the text allegation is to identify viable sources of increased funding for nasa and one of those we think would be entirely appropriate given what was passed for is the economic stimulus plan that was have to help mitigate anticipated human spaceflight deficiencies and the resulting loss to aerospace workforce we are very interested in and flexible use of the tarp funding stimulus funding we do see that there is certainly a enormous support for some of the purposes of that money to give th kind of support to infrastructure and infrastructure is a broad word but space is certainly a vital part of our infrastructure and we believe that those kinds of resources could be very appropriately applied  agree while a double a has not yet taken a formal position on your question i believe our individual and corporate members would be highly supportive of the actions that you suggest blakey's comments these are exactly the jobs that that stimulus package was supposedly passed to produce high quality high tech jobs that stimulate ensure america's future and in this case ensure our dominance nations assuming this cooperation means utilizing the capabilities from other nations have them play a larger role larger mission role supply mission work how would this be bals with the administration's priority to save and create jobs that's for everyone life certainly would make the case that this is a question of growing our activities that in the long run the pie becomes larger not small it's not a question of dividing it up into little pieces it really is a question as a shared mission is there and we see the compelling work let's just use the work at the at a national space station alone because there we're finding that after all the investment multi nation investment and contributing to again we're now beginning to see some of the fruits of that and this is in areas where cultural biology experiments that are doing on dressing problems that we share across the globe salmonella is one of them you know this is this is something that affects the globe as a whole staph infections now you know that pharmaceutical companies will find that this is an area they additionally we'll be happy to put resources into as we begin to pay off so i do believe it's a question of additional jobs multi leveled that you could see from this kind of international cooperation space center monday of this week and addressed seven hundred sixth graders in an attempt to along with some former astronauts to encourage them in the stem fields and also attended earlier this week a  forum that was put together including the space foundation and where there was an effort to norm augustine was the speaker and also emphasized the need for education in these areas in order to keep things moving forward as well as the shared information between manned space exploration and our department of defense and national security issues so much of what you all have said is very familiar to us and as committee members i think required ingredients for described as u s preeminence and we all agree i believe on this committee that it's necessary for us to do that for a lot of obvious reasons my concern is that the gap if the shuttle the manifest is completed in two thousand and ten or even early twentieth that we will have as much as perhaps a five year gap before we can pick up again on human space exploration and during that time period will be relying on the russian soyuz how seriously do you see this gap with regard to the inspiration that we've described as being necessary to attract the next generation but also at the same time that gap with regard to the industrial base and the potential loss of opportunities for the industries that help us to make not only the manned space exploration but it is you describe the commercial and infrastructure necessary to be successful at it so if you any one of you may answer that question number one is the gap and the russians are astronauts to the international space station and number two is the gap with regard to the industrial production process in our case because we have the constellation contracts already started we've transitioned a lot of the people who were supporting the shuttle program are now working on the constellation program so for us it's not that much of a problem i guess my question to answer a part of a workforce an industrial base question but my question the big one if we have a five year gap how do we inspire what is the what is the best way that we can inspire the next generation to be engaged in space exploration if in fact we've handed off our delivery of our astronauts to the space station to the russians how do we say to the next generation the kind of inspiration that we saw mr thompson among your folks how do we how do we get that to happen during this fall i mean you know everyone said yes you know we had a very successful launch early stage on our new program at the same time that is very exciting work that's being done commercially well  doing some excellent work that i think people understand it's a commercial opportunity to resupply the space station so there's a lot that can happen in the gap and i hope that we don't focus entirely on the fact that it's a russian fleet that's recognizes that we have had a gap in the past i personally believe that we will get through to get a future vision and a program for the future now that you're well arcanite is a very distinguished mr ehlers thank  chair have a deep interest in this subject devoted something like fifty years of my life to trying to teach them to future elementary school teachers my colleagues who love to teach the advanced courses that i was crazy because i also would have loved to teach the advanced course but i felt an obligation to don't get to make some generic if you don't get them excited about math should do that i think is one of the stupidest errors that ever occurred in spaceflight and elementary so i would hope that you would encourage the and revitalization taskforce which did find work and reported on and i know you're involved in that can you give me a summary and perhaps others could as well what impact  parts if you will we feel very strongly that the time has again congressman allies to have a interagency group that really should at the highest level we believe the white house should c this and it should be for all those agencies that have responsibility for space programs that they come together and you really do begin to look at the impact that they are having and the ways that redundancies as well as  can develop and it will have a huge impact we think on stem issues because again there are a lot of resources out there but they all need to be pulling in the same direction but we do have a president too interested in science generation of engineers scientists and leaders for whom nasa is actually a platform really for other kinds of technology and research and so that's where the investment really pays off throughout our industrial base and not just specifically focused in the space program in september of this year i hosted a gathering actually in this room of women and minority businesses  entrepreneurs really and invested in and interested in the commercial space industry and their role in it many of them young who had just come out of undergraduate and graduate school and were starting their own businesses where the space program is what led them to their creativity and innovation back in the back of the room in the last year rose were young people african american and latino students in our local schools girls and boys  who sat you could see the inspiration happening in their eyes as they listened to business leaders as they listen to researchers as they saw and took photographs with with the astronaut and so  i think that we have a great opportunity right now to in some ways reinvent our our space and space exploration for this latest generation and so i'm interested to hear from you where you think there are opportunities both for the agency to reach out to communities and schools and inspired this next generation and opportunities for the private sector to do the same because my experience in the county that's the home to the goddard space flight center it's sort of like it's getting better but goddard is kind of over there and the rest of us are outside and we need to bring those two things together we need to bring it together through the private sector but also through the agency itself and so i wonder if any of you have any comments about leads from a policy perspective how we can perhaps i could provide part of the perspective there from and a point of view we have advocated for for some years now that the administration with the support of the congress adopt policies that would be that would be specifically focused on increasing the country's scientific and engineering workforce at several levels  one of those levels would be would center on providing incentives for colleges and their students to expand their educational programs in the relevant technical fields a second recommendation was more focused on companies particularly those that work under government aeronautics and space contracts to provide incentives for workforce development so that we can reduce the attrition once a young engineer or scientist comes into our industry that that today results in about half of those in tree level technical professionals not staying in the industry for the majority of their career and finally despite our best that alone will not be sufficient to fully address the problem that our country's going to face over the next decade or so and so we further advocate a reexamination of  immigration laws and visa levels so that we can more effectively attract from around the world the best and brightest young people that want to come to our country and build their lives and namely technology and engineering i think we are farther behind in those areas or we risk falling farther behind in those areas than we perhaps do in the bracketing letters of science and math all are important but as we look out over the next decade the challenges in engineering and technology may even be worse more severe than the challenges in the basic sciences and math thank you and i'm sure we could go on but  i don't think we're going to be able to meet the needs from a technology technological staffing standpoint unless you open up the immigration people from all over the world would love to come to the u s and work on these programs this is where it's happening but they just can't get the visa certainly we have a critical stage in human exploration aeronautics research in space research and technology i do have a couple questions the first one really is probably more common cited that sixty nine percent of eighth graders are below the level in mathematics the department of education just came out with numbers that indicate in my district in the city of cleveland that number is ninety two percent ninety two percent of eighth graders are below the proficient level in mathematics i hear often because we have a lot of high tech businesses in our area and we talk about immigration we talk about a number of things but i just have to say not necessarily for response but that if this country knows we have those kinds of problems we know what needs to be done we just need to have the will to get it done because i believe every child will talk so i don't think that we need to focus all of our attention on trying to bring somebody in here to take care of the short term but to teach young people coming up through the system so that we have our own base to do the kinds of things that need to be done i'm going to go to just a couple questions i  participate in this challenge selected we encourage every school in the country to be a part of it we put out information c d s we send a great deal out to all of the schools and we also asked the national association of rocket which literally these are rocket scientists to reach into their folks in their own communities because they're employed in both government as well as our company facilities around the country and go to the school and say look i'd like to work as a mental on this program that's the way it's taught it has a very low injury cost to get involved these are small rockets and not hard to build in theory but to understand the physics of the engineering and all of that that's the trick so there's not a great barrier to entry we're trying to get all over the country we bring a hundred of them here in many out to the plains on a saturday to shoot off their rockets to compete against each other and frankly the fact that we've also to get other countries and france are now competing against us in the international rocketry contest also gets kids really juiced about this because they know look you know we do really well we get an opportunity to go to the big air show in london this year so there's a lot to it in addition to a lot of prizes we're trying very hard to have this permeate schools everywhere in your district that might to some aid i'd love to talk to you about it i'd love to talk with you about it as well and this question is for any member of the panel aircraft systems have major environmental and environmental consumption implications and specialized skills are needed to assure low emissions reduce noise and increase the performance of the aircraft engines what policy and funding decisions are needed to make certain that the future workforce of nasa of industry and universities can provide the needed advances for engines with low emissions low fiel consumption and utilization of alternative  fuel has adopted as one of our three strategic imperatives for at least the next half decade the advancement of technology specifically focus focused on improving  critical to the future growth and prosperity of the world's air transportation network we advocate that the administration and congress not lose sight even during times of economic downturn moved about six million people every day along with something like one hundred thirty five tons of cargo during every twenty four hour period generating roughly half a trillion dollars in worldwide revenues so this is a very vital part of nasa's research program one that double a rect commands to the congress  around education as well to build upon what a few of my colleagues have discussed today when we had some of the national leadership here before the committee back in may i asked a lot about a program called must mentoring under served in science technology program that i feared during the budget discussions that would not get the support that it should we talk about the importance of retaining and building the workforce of exposing young people that are in the stem fields in college to getting the scholarship opportunities and getting involved in nasa programs to provide for job opportunities down the road and i would certainly hope that that's a program that we would be able to advocate together for the importance of this purple the funding and expanding this program specifically to see what we can do to try to attract more individuals into these fields are there any programs that you are working on or that you have with then the structures of your organizations to mentor teachers to bring teachers in to teach them science technology engineering mathematics to take those experiences during summer months back to school district and traditional school districts where they have three months off in the summer where there may be employment opportunities or educational in your footsteps and interesting program that is underway at los alamos national laboratories where ph d s physicists engineers professionals of all types with a modest investment are giving some other time to be able to bring these teachers in during the summer months in school districts that we saw serious problems with under performance especially in mathematics where these kids are turning around and have some of the highest math scores in the state now almost one hundred percent turn around and it's because we brought these teachers in to show them what they could show these kids and to show these kids that they could go to them that they could design the next most fuel efficient vehicle whatever it may be and so to see what more we can do in each of these areas where we can have these public private collaboration and make sure that we're making these investments in our kids so that you have the workforce that you need griffin i came out of chair i think appreciate the effort in the educational community it's been a discussion going on for three decades the space program however will be either successful or non successful within the next to our scientific community mr augustine said it best when he said or get out it's unfair to the astronauts it's unfair to the scientific community and to those children who have an interest  of diplomatic effort and i would love to see that but basically this is research and development america represents five percent of the world's population ninety five percent live somewhere else contracts that we have on the on the constellation program we've hired about one hundred new engineers and technology technicians in buffalo to support this program if there's a break in the program we're going to have to lay off a substantial majority of those people and so what message does that pass passes the message along is that we're not serious about doing this and trying to hire other people on later on people would not be interested so i think you as i said at the end of my testimony you had a very very critical decision point probably more critical than it had been in the last fifteen or twenty years because the decisions have been made in the last fifteen or twenty years about we kind of work out a little bit and we delay it we work out a little more and when to lay out and you come to the end with the space shuttle in terms of what you can safely chairman we seem to have reached something resembling a dead end in the space program right now and it's going to take us years to figure out how to go in a different direction i think the augustine report is an effort to try to simply figure out what direction that ought to be and i'm wondering how we reach this point sometimes it's the best way to figure out how to go forward is to take a look back so i'm going to ask each of you this question the question is what should we have been doing for the last thirty five years in the space program that would have led us to a better position than we're in right now a position where we're looking at the loss of thousands of jobs in central florida and a loss of important skills that will be difficult to replace m that's a that's a very tough question i would i would point out that despite the challenges that we face today that the path that the country has followed over the last several national security space sector which collectively are much larger than our civil space sector so while the programs of the past with the benefit of today's hindsight may not have been ideal  they were effective at developing the applications of space technology originally pioneered by nasa during the one nine hundred sixty s such that space today influences the everyday lives of virtually every american whether it takes the form of the time and timing signals on an automatic teller machine when we go to the bank or credit card verifications at the gas station or directions navigating us through traffic from satellites much of the underlying technology in the devices that we now take for granted traces its original arjun's back to investments made several decades ago by government space programs and so while the path perhaps hasn't been ideal it has produced an unexpected benefits for the economy and for the everyday lives of virtually all americans the space shuttle was only supposed to was going to be a very large incremental funding in order to be able to do this next generation vehicle and the same thing happened again in the in the middle late ninety's there was another study program that went on and again same decision we're going to walk away from it so in terms of looking at your question looking at the past i would suggest that both of those were just gigantic mistakes the shuttle is is one nine hundred sixty s technology you look at any of the things that's in there and it's it's incredible that it's had fewer problems that it has had question i think there are really two areas which we dropped the ball one transition from one system to another system to a national security every one of our national security programs station  many of the programs that i have seen does not have that diversity and that continues to concern me because that means that is going to be the brain bow which is going to be the brainpower so we might as well let them in and and  it is so essential no nation will ever progress all remain free without this research and so we've just really got to do it if i had a choice today which means food stamps and science that go aside because in the future it will offer us so much that we might need food stamps but i know each of you and i know you r passion and your interest and i just want to play for you that i'm going to do everything i can i have seen right here in this room on this committee people that don't have the appreciation go they don't know what it does as a matter of fact when i first came here the person who fought nasa and space exploration the most was made is now the geometers committee and so we've got a long ways to go inside and i hope we can get there and sometimes i feel like i have to preach his sermon but i education must start with well in order to have a good background and they have to be nurtured and monitored and encouraged to keep on that  thank you so much mr johnson as we've heard both have been called and so i would like to thank again our panelists for coming and testifying today today's hearing is not to be the last time that we look at these issues but it is an important time it's the last time for members of the full committee and the subcommittee to really get a better feel of what you all are facing out there on the front lines of this national decision and frankly i believe it's a national crisis we had a chance to pick your brains we had a chance for you to provide us information i would like to state that the record will remain open for two weeks for additional statements from members also for answers of any questions that the committee may ask of witnesses but i also understand that some of the panelists will have additional information that they would like to provide to the committee and we would welcome that information as well with that the witnesses