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26–233PDF 2017

AN OVERVIEW OF THE NATIONAL AERONAUTICS 

AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION BUDGET 

FOR FISCAL YEAR 2018 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON SPACE 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND 

TECHNOLOGY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

JUNE 8, 2017 

Serial No. 115–16 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY 

HON. LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas, Chair 

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois 

BILL POSEY, Florida 

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky 

JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma 

RANDY K. WEBER, Texas 

STEPHEN KNIGHT, California 

BRIAN BABIN, Texas 

BARBARA COMSTOCK, Virginia 

GARY PALMER, Alabama 

BARRY LOUDERMILK, Georgia 

RALPH LEE ABRAHAM, Louisiana 

DRAIN LAHOOD, Illinois 

DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida 

JIM BANKS, Indiana 

ANDY BIGGS, Arizona 

ROGER W. MARSHALL, Kansas 

NEAL P. DUNN, Florida 

CLAY HIGGINS, Louisiana 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon 

ALAN GRAYSON, Florida 

AMI BERA, California 

ELIZABETH H. ESTY, Connecticut 

MARC A. VEASEY, Texas 

DONALD S. BEYER, JR., Virginia 

JACKY ROSEN, Nevada 

JERRY MCNERNEY, California 

ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado 

PAUL TONKO, New York 

BILL FOSTER, Illinois 

MARK TAKANO, California 

COLLEEN HANABUSA, Hawaii 

CHARLIE CRIST, Florida 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON SPACE

HON. BRIAN BABIN, Texas, Chair 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

BILL POSEY, Florida 

JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma 

STEPHEN KNIGHT, California 

BARBARA COMSTOCK, Virginia 

RALPH LEE ABRAHAM, Louisiana 

DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida 

JIM BANKS, Indiana 

ANDY BIGGS, Arizona 

NEAL P. DUNN, Florida 

CLAY HIGGINS, Louisiana 

LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas 

AMI BERA, California, Ranking Member 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

DONALD S. BEYER, JR., Virginia 

MARC A. VEASEY, Texas 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado 

CHARLIE CRIST, Florida 

BILL FOSTER, Illinois 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

June 8, 2017 

Page 

Witness List ............................................................................................................. 2 

Hearing Charter ...................................................................................................... 3 

Opening Statements 

Statement by Representative Brian Babin, Chairman, Subcommittee on 

Space, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives ........................................................................................................... 4 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 6 

Statement by Representative Ami Bera, Ranking Member, Subcommittee on 

Space, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives ........................................................................................................... 8 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 10 

Statement by Representative Lamar S. Smith, Chairman, Committee on 

Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives ..................... 12 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 14 

Witnesses: 

Mr. Robert M. Lightfoot, Jr., Acting Administrator, National Aeronautics 

and Space Administration (NASA) 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 16 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 19 

Discussion ................................................................................................................. 30 

Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions 

Mr. Robert M. Lightfoot, Jr., Acting Administrator, National Aeronautics 

and Space Administration NASA) ...................................................................... 58 

Appendix II: Additional Material for the Record 

Statement submitted by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, Ranking 

Member, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of 

Representatives .................................................................................................... 76 

(1) 

AN OVERVIEW OF THE NATIONAL 

AERONAUTICS 

AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION BUDGET 

FOR FISCAL YEAR 2018 

THURSDAY, JUNE 8, 2017 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON SPACE, 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY, 

Washington, D.C. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:04 a.m., in Room 

2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Brian Babin 

[Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding. 
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Chairman BABIN. The Subcommittee on Space will come to order. 

And without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare recesses 

of the Subcommittee at any time. 

Welcome to today’s haring entitled ‘‘An Overview of the National 

Aeronautics and Space Administration Budget for Fiscal Year 

2018.’’ I now recognize myself for five minutes for an opening statement. 

NASA is a critical national investment in our future. Our nation 

has never faced a more challenging, relevant, or promising frontier 

than the vast reaches of outer space. I am very proud that this 

Committee clearly recognizes and demonstrates that U.S. leadership in space is a bipartisan priority. 

The recent passage and enactment of the 2017 NASA Transition 

Authorization Act this March is concrete proof of the bipartisan 

and bicameral commitment to NASA. This budget reflects the Administration’s commitment to the continuity of purpose described 

in the recent authorization. Honoring our commitments in space 

and maintaining a balanced portfolio are the surest ways for us to 

enjoy the full benefits of our space investments. 

The numbers in this request are lower than the amounts in the 

enacted budget, which causes some concern. However, the preliminary budget blueprint was released before Congressional appropriations. Therefore, the lower request does not necessarily reflect 

a reduction in Administration support for NASA. In fact, the current request is in line with recent levels appropriated by Congress. 

This goes a long way to fixing problems that have plagued NASA 

programs over the last eight years. This budget request is refreshing in that it does not propose slashing priority programs year 

after year. This will allow NASA managers to execute programs in 

an efficient manner. 

I want to reiterate the Committee’s commitment to NASA’s longterm goals, as described in law. Mars remains the first interplanetary destination for humanity. NASA is encouraged to carry out 

any necessary intermediate missions, particularly to the Moon, provided that those missions advance future interplanetary exploration. 

Closer to home, the future of the International Space Station is 

a top concern. Currently, the ISS will operate until 2024, but the 

role of the ISS beyond 2024 must be addressed soon. Similarly, I 

am also interested in understanding what NASA’s plans are for future space suit work. 

Turning to NASA’s scientific exploration, this budget request restores balance across NASA’s science portfolio and supports critical 

work across the entire science directorate. Work continues on the 

James Webb Space Telescope, which I am very proud to say is currently in our home district at the Johnson Space Center for testing 

where I was yesterday, along with Acting Administrator Lightfoot 

and our Chairman of the main Science Committee, I’m very proud 

to say, along with the Vice President of the United States, meeting 

our 12 new astronauts of class 2017. 

But back to the budget. The budget supports a range of small, 

medium, and large science missions, including the flagship Europa 

Clipper and Mars 2020 rover missions. During the Obama Administration, the pipeline for outer-planet missions was allowed to run 
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dry. This budget returns support for a robust planetary exploration 

program, which is a national priority. U.S. leadership in space 

science is critical in part because it supports so much of NASA’s 

broader mission. 

Under this budget, NASA Aeronautics will continue its work on 

innovative technologies, including a low boom supersonic flight 

demonstrator and hypersonic flight. These programs continue to 

benefit our civil and military aeronautics efforts. 

NASA’s work in the Space Technology Mission Directorate will 

be critical in future space exploration. Work on space technologies 

like laser communication, in-space propulsion, and power systems 

will allow human exploration to complement the robotic exploration 

of Mars and other celestial bodies. 

NASA has many exciting projects and missions across its portfolio. Indeed, NASA may be on the threshold of one of the greatest 

inflection points in the history of space exploration. Soon, SLS, 

Orion, Dragon 2, and Starliner vehicles will take their first flights. 

The James Webb Space Telescope will see its first light. Human 

presence in low-Earth orbit is maturing, and the ISS will begin 

evolving to the next phase of its life. And soon, NASA will begin 

construction of the Deep Space Gateway, the first permanent 

human outpost beyond low-Earth orbit. Of course, this era of excitement will also be a time of high risk. But with Congressional 

and Administration budgetary and political support, the next decade could very well mark a new golden age of space exploration. 

And I want to thank Acting Administrator Lightfoot for his testimony and look forward to his discussion. 

[The prepared statement of Chairman Babin follows:] 
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Chairman BABIN. And now, I’d like to recognize the Ranking 

Member, the gentleman from California, Mr. Bera, for an opening 

statement. 

Mr. BERA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Good morning. Welcome to Acting Administrator Lightfoot, and 

thank you for your dedicated service to NASA over the many years. The fiscal year 2018 proposal for NASA is $19.1 billion, a nearly 

three percent reduction from last year’s fiscal year budget. And, in 

the context of the overall federal budget, you know, $19 billion does 

suggest a recognition of the importance of NASA and, you know, 

both from the Administration perspective as well as ours. But there 

are a few things that give me pause when I look at the detail of 

the budget. 

Part of our goal—being a child of the space race—is education 

and inspiring that next generation, and one thing that I do worry 

about is the cut in the education budget, and I certainly want to 

hear from Administrator Lightfoot how we might go about continuing to inspire that next generation, our children, and that next 

generation of astronauts, especially in such a vibrant, exciting time 

with regards to space, when we think about the multiple missions, 

when we think about human space travel potentially to Mars and 

back again, when we think about the existential questions like the 

search for life, are we alone, and what does that look like the rapidity by which we are discovering planets that potentially could 

house life. 

The Chairman talked about the missions going to deeper space. 

I thought the second half of the 20th century was a super exciting 

time for space, but I truly believe the coming decades are going to 

be much more exciting. You’re seeing the rapid entry of the private 

sector into space, the commercialization of space, the amount of 

venture money that’s going into space. And I truly believe that this 

has the ability of inspiring the next generation of scientists, of engineers, et cetera, as they see that, and I want to make sure we 

continue that. 

There is about a nine percent cut to NASA’s exploration budget. 

That does give me a little bit of pause as well, again, at a time 

where I think we’ve got to continue U.S. leadership in space. Space 

in the 21st century will be an international endeavor, as other 

countries get engaged. That said, I still think U.S. leadership and 

American ingenuity with regards to space is going to be incredibly 

important. 

The last thing is, as we look at the multiple missions, what we 

discover in space also helps us understand our own planet much 

better and Earth, and I do want to make sure that the Earth 

sciences mission is also protected. NASA obviously has a critical 

role in the Earth sciences mission, and I certainly want to hear 

from the Acting Administrator. 

That said, NASA is a source for many of us of national pride. It 

is certainly something that, you know, we think leads the way. And 

I think NASA also, as we look at international diplomacy, how we 

work with other countries around the world, space, and the International Space Station is a model example of how the world can 

work together, especially as these discoveries are not just for the 

United States, they’re for all of humanity. 
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So with that, I look forward to hearing from Mr. Lightfoot, and 

I’ll yield back. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Bera follows:] 
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Chairman BABIN. Thank you, Mr. Bera. 

I now recognize the Chairman of our Full Committee, Mr. Smith 

from Texas. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And welcome, Acting Administrator Lightfoot. As Chairman Babin said a minute 

ago, it was good to see you at Johnson Space Center yesterday. I’m 

still amazed that you got up here in time to be at this hearing 

today. 

Mr. Chairman, this Committee has consistently demonstrated 

that U.S. leadership in space is a bipartisan priority. The 2017 

NASA Transition Authorization Act, signed into law in March by 

President Trump, is a clear demonstration of that. A key concept 

in the current NASA Authorization is continuity of purpose. Over 

the years, erratic direction and changes in mission have repeatedly 

led our space exploration effort astray. 

The fiscal year 2018 NASA budget shows that Congress and the 

Administration both support a consistent, focused space program. 

The amounts requested in this budget for not only the Space 

Launch System and Orion crew vehicle and the commercial crew 

and cargo programs reflect this. These requests are much closer to 

past appropriations and are realistic and reasonable, providing an 

increased level of stability and continuity of purpose for two of 

NASA’s main initiatives. 

This year’s Authorization Act also declares that NASA’s goals include extending human presence throughout the solar system. Accordingly, NASA continues to focus on Mars as its first interplanetary destination for human exploration. NASA should conduct 

missions to intermediate destinations on the way to Mars, such as 

the Moon, so long as those activities support subsequent journeys 

to Mars and beyond. 

Previews of NASA’s Deep Space Gateway program architecture 

have given us a peek at NASA’s plans. We look forward to reviewing the Human Exploration Roadmap on how NASA plans to pursue its human space exploration goals in coming decades. 

It’s good to see that the NASA budget request ends the previous 

Administration’s ill-conceived Asteroid Mission. The 2017 NASA 

Transition Authorization Act clearly reflects the concerns of both 

Congress and NASA’s Advisory Council about the utility and costeffectiveness of that mission. Instead, other and more needed technologies will be developed under different programs. 

Likewise, within the Science Mission Directorate, the budget promotes a much better balance among NASA’s many scientific endeavors, especially for planetary science. And it starts to reverse 

the significant growth in earth science. The Obama Administration’s fiscal year 2017 earth science request was 42 percent higher 

than its request for planetary science, and that’s 75 percent higher 

than the amount requested for earth science in 2007. As a reminder, there are many other federal agencies involved in earth 

science research, but only one agency that promotes space exploration. This budget reflects the idea that while NASA can continue 

to develop state-of-the-art Earth-sensing programs, it is not a piggy 

bank for funding climate activities already addressed elsewhere in 

the Federal Government. 
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The James Webb Space Telescope, which I saw under construction yesterday at Johnson Space Center, continues on budget and 

on schedule after NASA and Congress worked to correct for overruns and delays. We continue to expect a launch in October next 

year. NASA science supports other activities, too. The 

Transitioning Exoplanet Survey Satellite and the Wide Field Infrared Space Telescope will increase our understanding of exoplanets. 

And I want to emphasize that the recent authorization bill directs NASA to, quote ‘‘search for life’s origin, evolution, distribution, and future in the universe.’’ The James Webb Telescope, Wide 

Field Telescope, and Exoplanet Survey Satellite will certainly advance this priority. 

Congress has the responsibility for setting the top-level direction 

and missions for NASA and has done so with the 2017 NASA Transition Authorization Act. NASA is responsible for providing a compelling plan and executing it. Now that we have received the budget request, it is Congress’ next responsibility to ensure NASA’s 

budget is prioritized and funded. Of all the non-defense, non-security agencies in the Federal Government, NASA has received the 

most favorable proposed budget. And I am sure that this Committee will continue to support American leadership in space. 

Thank you again, Mr. Chairman, and yield back. 

[The prepared statement of Chairman Smith follows:] 
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Chairman BABIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The Ranking Member of the full Committee is not here yet, so 

we’re going to go on to introductions of our guests. Mr. Robert M. 

Lightfoot, Jr., our witness today, Acting Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. His permanent title 

is Associate Administrator for NASA. 

Before serving as Acting Administrator, Mr. Lightfoot was Director of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, where he managed propulsion, scientific, and space transportation activities. 

From 2003 to 2005, he served as Assistant Associate Administrator for the Space Shuttle Program at NASA’s headquarters right 

here in Washington where he oversaw technical and budgetary 

oversight of the annual budget and initial transition and retirement efforts for the space shuttle infrastructure. 

From 2005 to 2007, Mr. Lightfoot was responsible for overseeing 

the manufacture, assembly, and operation of the primary shuttle 

propulsion elements such as the main engines, solid rocket boosters, and reusable solid rocket motors. 

Mr. Lightfoot received a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Alabama. He was also named distinguished departmental fellow from the University’s Department of 

Mechanical Engineering in 2007 and was selected as a University 

of Alabama College of Engineering fellow in 2009. 

And I would like to recognize Mr. Lightfoot for five minutes to 

present his testimony. 

TESTIMONY OF ROBERT M. LIGHTFOOT, JR., 

ACTING ADMINISTRATOR, 

NATIONAL AERONAUTICS 

AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It’s great 

to be here. I want to thank you and Chairman Smith for being in 

Houston yesterday. It was a very exciting event, and we appreciate 

your support—— 

Chairman BABIN. Absolutely. 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. —the team. Mr. Chairman and Members of the 

Committee, I’m pleased to have the opportunity to discuss NASA’s 

fiscal year 2018 budget request. We appreciate the Committee’s 

support and especially your bipartisan commitment to the constancy of purpose for NASA. The Transition Authorization Act for 

2017 and the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2017 are concrete 

contributions to this vital continuity, and we appreciate the Committee’s hard work on NASA’s behalf. 

NASA’s historic and enduring purpose can be summarized in 

three major strategic thrusts: discover, explore, and develop. These 

correspond to our missions of scientific discovery, missions of exploration, and missions of new technology development in aeronautics 

and space systems. NASA is focused on these missions, but we 

never lose sight of the other contributions that our unique achievements make possible. NASA’s missions inspire the next generation. 

They inject innovation into the national economy, they provide critical infrastructure, information to national challenges, and they 

support global engagement and international leadership. 
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The fiscal year 2018 request of $19.1 billion supports a vigorous 

program that leads the world in space and aeronautics. And while 

we had to make some difficult decisions in regard to earth science 

and education, this remains a great budget for NASA. 

With this budget, we will advance U.S. global leadership in aeronautics by developing and transferring key enabling technologies. 

In fiscal year 2018 we’ll award a contract for detailed aircraft design, build, and validation of a low boom flight demonstrator. This 

low boom X-plane will demonstrate quiet overland supersonic 

flight, opening a new market to U.S. industry. 

NASA will also use 20 spaceborne missions to study the Earth 

as a system. The request supports two new missions by the end of 

2018, the GRACE Follow-On mission, which will track water across 

the planet by precisely measuring Earth’s gravitational field; and 

ICESat-2, which will measure ice sheets, clouds, and vegetation 

canopy heights. We supply earth science data for weather forecasting, farming, water management, disaster response, and even 

disease early warning. 

In September, Cassini will make a final series of 22 daring dives 

through the 1,500-mile-wide gap between the planet and its rings 

as part of its grand finale end-of-mission maneuvers. The OSIRIS– 

REx mission will conduct a search for elusive objects known as 

Earth trojan asteroids on its journey to the asteroid Bennu. 

We’ll also launch Mars InSight lander in 2018 to study the interior structure of Mars, and we’re on track to launch the next Mars 

rover mission in 2020. 

James Webb continues on schedule for its 2018 launch. That will 

be our next giant leap forward in our quest to understand the universe and our origins. 

NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite or TESS will 

launch in 2018 as well, extending the pioneering discoveries of the 

Kepler Space Telescope. 

In heliophysics, we’ll also launch the recently named Parker 

Solar Probe on a mission to fly closer to the sun than any previous 

mission. That’ll join 18 other missions that are dedicated to studying our closest star. 

It’s vital that NASA continues the investment in transformative 

space technology. In 2018, we’ll continue to work in deep-space optical com, high-powered solar propulsion technologies, and advanced materials. 

The International Space Station, our first step on the road to 

deep space exploration, is delivering the knowledge and technology 

we need to keep astronauts safe, healthy, and productive on deep 

space missions of increasing duration. 

Working with our commercial crew partners, NASA plans on returning crew launch capability to American soil in 2018. We’ll also 

continue the development of the SLS rocket, the Orion crew capsule and the ground systems, and the technologies and research 

needed to support and deploy critical life-support and habitation 

capabilities leading to crewed missions beyond the Earth-moon system. 

In 2019, we’ll plan a launch of the un-crewed Exploration Mission 1 using the new heavy lift launch vehicle SLS and Orion on 
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a mission to lunar orbit. Shortly after that, no later than 2023, 

we’ll have a crewed mission of EM–2. 

With your continued support, we look forward to extending 

human presence into deep space, exploring potential habitable environments around the solar system, and deepening our understanding of our home planet. We look forward to pushing our observations of the universe back to the time when the first stars were 

forming and opening the space frontier. While the future benefits 

of discovery are always difficult to predict, we are confident that 

the resources we are requesting represent an investment that will 

deliver significant return to the nation. 

Mr. Chairman, I’d be pleased to respond to your questions and 

those of other members of the Committee. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Lightfoot follows:] 
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Chairman BABIN. Thank you, Mr. Lightfoot. I appreciate it. 

Thank you. 

The Chair recognizes himself for five minutes for questioning. 

And again, thank you for being here. We really appreciate you. 

The GAO recently found that both of the commercial crew contractors are likely to be delayed into 2018 into 2019. Under normal 

contracting mechanisms, there would be a penalty associated with 

not meeting schedules. My understanding is that under these contracts the penalty is simply not receiving payment until the work 

is completed. 

GAO also recently found that the SLS and Orion programs would 

also face schedule delays. Conversely, under those contracts, my 

understanding is that the contractors could face the loss of award 

fees. Can you explain which model provides the government the 

best tools to procure a system or service in the most timely and 

least costly manner? 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Yes, sir, great question. We have—you know, 

both groups continue to make great progress, and when we did the 

commercial crew program, we tried a new acquisition strategy approach with fixed-price contracts where, when they slip, we do simply just pay when they make their milestones. We have had success with both processes. If you look at TDRS, which we fly today, 

it was a fixed-price contract as well. 

And what we do internally in the agency is we make an assessment from an acquisition perspective which way is the best way for 

us depending on the amount of development. If there’s a lot of development, we figured—we feel like cost-plus is the way to go because we may not have the perfect requirements nailed down. We 

felt pretty confident in our requirements when we went to the commercial crew guys and we felt we could go fixed-price. 

So that’s really how we assessed it. We have what’s called an acquisitions strategy process that allows us to make an assessment 

which way we’re going to go as we move forward. So that’s how we 

did this one, and we think both are options that we should always 

consider when we do this. 

Chairman BABIN. Yes, okay. Thank you. And then regarding 

science, the decadal process plays a significant role in how NASA 

prioritizes and how Congress funds scientific missions. This budget 

proposes cancellation of several earth science missions that were 

never recommended by the decadal process, specifically, PACE, 

OCO–3, RBI, and DSCOVR, EPIC, NISTAR, and NISTAR instruments. 

With the next earth science decadal survey forthcoming, the request also rightly proposes cancellation of the CLARREO Pathfinder. CLARREO could potentially cost in excess of $5 billion, and 

it is in the early stages of development. Decisions about the mission would be well served by more information from the community. All of this begs the question, why are we funding missions 

that were not prioritized by the decadal process? 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Well, Mr. Chairman, we have always looked at 

the decadal process as our guiding principle from that perspective, 

but there’s other things we can do outside of the decadals. When 

we got the budget for this year for the 2018 budget, we went back 

to our principles of decadals and we said—we used kind of a three- 
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tier process. We said what’s in the decadals, what’s in the—what 

are the—is this the best science value for return for what we’re 

doing, and then how are they performing? So some of the issues 

like RBI we were having some performance issues associated with 

that. And so that’s how we came up with a list of ones that we proposed coming back to you guys for the fiscal year 2018 budget. 

Chairman BABIN. Okay. And Mars is often referred to as a horizon goal for human space exploration. However, if we are careless 

in our planning, Mars exploration could become unsustainable, perhaps even a dead-end. So how would the Deep Space Gateway 

make exploration to Mars more sustainable and help NASA to 

achieve its mission of extending human presence throughout the 

solar system? 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. We believe that what we need is an infrastructure throughout—from low-Earth orbit to get to Mars we’re going 

to need some infrastructure along the way. And the Gateway concept, which is just a concept at this point, actually provides us kind 

of a steppingstone approach, and we figure that’s the better way 

to do it if you go from a stepping—if you take it one step at a time, 

we think we can actually get there in a more efficient way. 

It also gives an opportunity for public-private partnerships to 

come into play, and we think there’s a good mix that we can do. 

And if you do it in the steppingstone way, you’re not committing 

to the final answer first. You’re doing it in a pretty measured way 

that I think is consistent with the budgets that we have. 

Chairman BABIN. And one last question. The Administration has 

expressed interest in public-private partnerships. When used appropriately, funded Space Act agreements are very useful—a useful 

tool to advance partnerships. NASA’s current policy limits the use 

of funded Space Act agreements to cases where contracts, grants, 

and cooperative research and development agreements cannot 

achieve agency objectives. This ensures that there is proper oversight of the use of funded Space Act agreements. Does NASA intend to keep this policy in place? 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Yes, sir. We think we got—we use the entire 

suite of tools we have for acquisition, and I think we can—we’ll 

keep that policy in place. 

Chairman BABIN. Okay. Thank you very much. 

And now, I’d like to recognize the Ranking Member of our Subcommittee, Mr. Bera. 

Mr. BERA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Just continuing on Chairman Babin’s line of questioning, with 

Mars as a longer goal and thinking about that and looking at the 

budget for Space Launch—for SLS and the Orion crew vehicle— 

and it does look like it comes in for Orion about $164 million under 

fiscal year 2017 budget, as well as $212 million for SLS relative to 

the fiscal year 2017. How does this impact our ability to get to 

Mars if our goal is still, as many of us on this Committee have 

said, by 2033? So—— 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Yes, I think the budget we’ve proposed has got 

the systems we need in 2018 to keep making the progress we think 

we need to make on all the different systems we have. Clearly, we 

think we’re going to need something commensurate with inflationary growth or economic growth going forward as we move for-
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ward, but for ’18 for this budget, we think we’ll make the progress 

we need to make on all the systems to get us to our goals of the 

Moon and Mars down the road. So—— 

Mr. BERA. And also, you know, there’s a proposed termination of 

the Asteroid Redirect Mission. Part of the thought there was also 

when that mission was in place was the next generation of propulsion systems, particularly solar electric propulsion. I’d be curious, 

with the proposed termination of that mission, how’s that going to 

impact solar electric propulsion? 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Yes, this budget keeps solar electric propulsion 

in there. One of the things that we discovered in the work on the 

Asteroid Redirect Mission is that’s a pretty big enabler for us on 

some of the things we can do, especially in the infrastructure we’re 

going to need around the Moon. 

Mr. BERA. Right. 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. So we’re proposing to keep that and we’ll continue developing that in space technology and use it as part of 

something like a power propulsion bus that we’ll use around the 

Moon as the core for some of the infrastructure we need. 

Mr. BERA. So you’ll continue to work in that direction—— 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Yes, sir. 

Mr. BERA. —if you’ve got the resources? And last thing in my 

opening comments I talked about the importance of inspiring the 

next generation of astronauts, our kids and grandkids. How does 

NASA, you know, again with the current budget that’s being proposed for the coming fiscal year propose to continue its education 

mission? 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Yes, so we’ve been working on that for a while 

with—internal to NASA in terms of the better way to actually deploy our educational activities that we do in a more efficient way. 

So that was one thing we were working before this came out. 

The other thing that we truly believe is that our entire budget 

is for inspiring the next generation. I mean, if you think about yesterday’s event with the astronaut candidates, I mean, it was just 

really awesome to see the excitement around that and excitement 

it generated. The emails I’ve got today from just people I know, 

public I know that they said this is really neat. And that wasn’t 

an education event; that was us talking about our missions. And 

I think our missions are what inspire people, and I think as long 

as we’re doing the missions we’re doing, we’ll continue to inspire 

the next generation. 

Mr. BERA. And do you feel within the current budget you’ll have 

the ability to go out to schools and continue to do some of that direct education stuff? 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Yes, what we’ve done is we’ve got a baseline 

services activity we’re doing inside the agency to sync—better sync 

up our education activities with our outreach activities so make 

sure that they’re better aligned we go out, and we absolutely think 

we’ll continue those activities. 

Mr. BERA. Okay. And then also, obviously, these are multiyear 

missions, multiyear strategic planning as we’re looking at longerterm goals. You know, the Chairman brought up the International 

Space Station and we’ve committed to funding through 2024. Obviously, that’s one thing we’ve certainly been meeting with folks, 
33 

chatting with folks at NASA, as well as others, the potential possibility as more commercial entities get into space, as other institutions see this valuable asset and the academic sector and others, 

the potential of life after 2024. And I’d be curious in NASA’s longterm planning how are you guys thinking about the ISS in longerterm? 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Well, as you said, we’re approved till 2024—— 

Mr. BERA. Right. 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. —and what we’re working on now is what are 

the transition indicators as we would call them? There’s very technical reasons you can go into, science, technologies we can do, but 

there’s also the question of that is a destination—— 

Mr. BERA. Right. 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. —for a lot of folks, you know, other than just us, 

and it’s an enabler frankly of the commercial industry. So we’re 

looking at that now. We’re not planning on going past 2024, but 

we’re actually talking about what would it do. And I think as a policy for the United States, we have to decide whether, you know, it’s 

a symbol of our leadership up there, too, right? 

Mr. BERA. Well, now’s the time to do that planning, right? So we 

don’t—— 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Yes, that’s what we do. 

Mr. BERA. —start that conversation in 2023. 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Yes, agreed. 

Mr. BERA. Right. Thanks. I’ll yield back. 

Chairman BABIN. Thank you, Mr. Bera. 

I now recognize the Chairman of the full Committee, Mr. Smith 

from Texas. 

Chairman SMITH. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Lightfoot, I’ve already commented on the budget, so let me 

ask you some general questions, but let me preface them by pointing out the obvious, and that is the American people are absolutely 

fascinated by space. They’re fascinated by space exploration, they 

are fascinated by the night sky. I think there is a real good reason 

why the Air and Space Museum here in DC. is the most popular 

museum in America. It’s not an art museum in California, it’s not 

a history museum even in D.C., it’s the Air and Space Museum. 

And we had an indication of interest in our space program yesterday when we were at Johnson Space Center, and we had twice 

as many people as ever before apply to be an astronaut. And it is 

absolutely incredible to me we had 18,000 applications for 12 spots. 

And that comes out to I think one to every 1,500 applications, probably the hardest job to get in America without any question, but 

on the other hand, they are our real heroes today and will be tomorrow. 

When we think about space exploration and how inspired the 

American people are by it, another example would be the discovery 

of what, in just the last 12 years of 3,500 exoplanets, several dozen 

Earthlike planets, and every time there’s any kind of discovery in 

space, it makes the front page of the papers, it leads the news at 

night, and so forth. 

But my general question is this: What do you think are the most 

exciting things happening in space today? What is going to seize 
34 

the imagination of the sixth-grader walking to school or the adult 

in their homes? 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. I think you kind of nailed it with your preface 

there. To me I think there’s—anything that we do with humans is 

one piece of that. When you can actually see another human doing 

something in space, it really is—— 

Chairman SMITH. Yes. 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. —in our DNA to explore and I think people feel 

part of that. But on the science side and the aeronautic side if you 

look at the discoveries we’re making from the science standpoint, 

when we found TRAPPIST–1, the seven exoplanets—you know, potential exoplanets around the star, four billion hits on our social 

media, four billion in all our different platforms that we have. 

That’s incredible. I mean, that’s the kind of region interest that 

people have in what we’re doing. And I think—again, I think it’s 

just the fact that people are—they’re inspired by anything we discover, right, because you’re challenging things that we thought we 

knew. And I think that’s what—so as long as we’re doing the good 

missions and the big missions like we’re talking about, I think the 

inspiration will be there. 

Chairman SMITH. Okay, good. Let me ask you a more specific 

question and a leading question, and it’s a subject that I’m fascinated by. And that is that sometime what may be in the next five 

to ten years we’re going to have the capability of analyzing the 

spectra of Earthlike planets and being able to determine, for example, whether there is methane or oxygen in the atmosphere, and if 

so, that is very strong evidence that there is something alive on the 

surface. It may be vegetative, it may be sentient. we don’t know. 

But what do you think we might discover over the next few years 

that will possibly be the biggest space news in a century? 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Wow. From my crystal ball perspective, I 

think—really, I don’t know what that discovery will be. You know, 

I don’t think ten years ago I could’ve told you we’d have had 3,500 

exoplanets—— 

Chairman SMITH. Yes. 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. —right? But I think what we’re doing is we’re 

working on the systems that allow us to make those civilizationlevel discoveries, the kind that really impact us as humanity. If you 

look at WFIRST, the Widefield telescope we’re going to put up, 

we’re working that to have a starshade that goes front of it so that 

we can actually see even more—— 

Chairman SMITH. Yes. 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. —of these potential planets throughout the universe. That’s exciting. And then we can make some plans, right? 

You know, not in my lifetime but we can make some plans on how 

do we reach out to those locations. And so I think if we could—to 

me, you know, our goal at the agency and the science community 

has always been is their life out there, and if so, what is it and 

where is that, right? 

Chairman SMITH. Exactly. 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. If we find that, that’s a civilization-level impact 

I think. 

Chairman SMITH. Yes, I agree completely. You also make a good 

point, and that is it’s hard to predict. And sometimes our imagina-
35 

tions can’t even conceive of what might happen in the future. A 

good example of that would be of course that it was only 50 years 

before the Wright brothers flying the sort of contraption 60 seconds 

about 30 feet above the ground, 50 years between that and putting 

six astronauts walking on the surface of the Moon, so we really 

don’t know what the future holds. We only know what will be fascinating and inspiring. 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. And the research we’re doing on the International Space Station, you never—that could—— 

Chairman SMITH. Same thing. 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. If we find something, we just—you know, that’s 

what we’re working there for. 

Chairman SMITH. Right. Thank you, Mr. Lightfoot. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Thank you, sir. 

Chairman BABIN. Fascinating questions, thank you. 

Now, I recognize the gentleman from Oklahoma, Mr. Lucas. 

Mr. LUCAS. Pass, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman BABIN. Okay. All right. Let’s see, you know what, I 

went to the wrong direction. I’m sorry. I apologize. The gentleman 

from Virginia, Mr. Beyer. 

Mr. BEYER. There are so many people down there; I understand 

it completely. And I’m going to just begin by thanking Chairman 

Smith and Chairman Babin for holding this and also just for the 

shared bipartisan enthusiasm that we have for space. 

And, Mr. Lightfoot, I just think about following up on Chairman 

Smith’s—with what you’re doing with James Webb, with Mars, 

with the ISS, with the Pluto stuff which was so exciting, and we 

got a chance to visit with the heliophysics people out at Goddard, 

which is terrific, the hearings we’ve had on SETI, and especially 

thank you for the investments in Wallops. In Virginia we very 

much want to be part of space. 

And by the way, I’d like to suggest to Chairman Smith, if you 

can find hyperspace and find ways to overcome the distance problems that we have in space, that would be terrific for NASA to do. 

It’s not yet in your mission but—questions: Your budget proposes 

total elimination of the $100 million for the Office of Education. 

And I understand reading the stuff that there are issues with 

strategy and outcome-related data and you need to rethink it. I’m 

concerned about the complete elimination of that Office of Education when everything we hear is that we need a lot more scientists, mathematicians, and engineers, that STEM education has 

to be the heart of education moving forward. So how do we reconcile this tremendous need for more mathematicians, scientists 

with eliminating this office? 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Yes, sir. I think one of the things that we 

worked on was trying to—as I said earlier, try to—trying to integrate our education outreach a little better from the overall formal 

program. I think the important thing to remember is we still do a 

ton of education within our mission directorates. In aeronautics, for 

instance, we have the university innovation and challenges activity 

where we actually fund undergraduate research and graduate research to do some of our technical challenges. We have the STEM 

science activation activity in science is still there. We have the 
36 

NASA space technology graduate research—research fellowships 

that are still there. There are several programs still running in the 

missions that actually—we actually engender folks to actually come 

help us solve some of the technical challenges we have. So that’s 

another way that we actually invest in the STEM workforce for the 

future for us. So—and that’s still in this budget as we go forward. 

Mr. BEYER. Our Chairman said—I’m paraphrasing—that NASA 

couldn’t be the piggybank for climate change research that could be 

realistically done by other agencies. And I looked just at the five 

that are going to be eliminated, the Plankton Aerosol Clouds and 

ocean Ecosystem, Orbiting Carbon Observatory, the Climate Absolute Radiance and Refractivity Observatory, the Radiation Budget 

Instrument, and Deep Space Climate Observatory. All those are 

out in space. Is there really any other institution of the Federal 

Government that could do those? 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Well, I think for us, right, the spacecraft that we 

build and the ones that we put up are all part of what we think 

we do for earth science, which is inform the decision-makers on the 

risk to the planet, right? There are other agencies that we work 

complementarily with. We build the spacecraft for NOAA, for instance, and then we hand them over once they get them in orbit 

and get them operational. We work Landsat with USGS. These are 

missions that we do together. The 20 remaining missions we have 

in the agency for earth science we think provide the data that 

NASA should be providing to the decision-makers going forward. 

So I think we have a very robust earth science program right now 

going forward and will still provide the data that we can provide. 

Mr. BEYER. Is the theory that these five out of the 25 are the 

least-high priority? 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Yes, what we did is we did an assessment based 

on—if you look at the Earth, we kind of—I’m an engineer, not a 

scientist, right, so we took a risk management approach the way 

we looked at these missions and what we’re going to go do, and if 

you look at the Earth as a system—and it is; it’s an ecosystem that 

has a ton of different things that engage in what we do and how 

the Earth lives and operates—we took a look at that, we took—and 

we looked at the science value, where can we get the data that 

these missions were going to get, maybe not at the resolution or 

the degree we wanted, what’s in the decadals, and then how are 

they performing from a performance—from a cost, schedule, and 

budget performance perspective? And that’s how we came up with 

the list that we came up with. 

Mr. BEYER. Great. Thank you. In the five-year budget it’s fascinating how completely flat it is. It’s $19,092,000 all the way out. 

But you figure with inflation—I think our data said 2.3 percent— 

it comes to a cumulative loss of $4.5 billion in purchasing power. 

So, you know, if you look at it just a little askance, it looks like 

the NASA budget is actually shrinking every year over this fiveyear period of time. So how do we—how can we argue that this is 

a long-term budget that truly reflects our robust commitment to 

space? 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Yes, the—we have concerns about the out years 

as well. The ’18 budget is good for us, and we’ll be working on— 

in the ’19 proposal process to work the—out—the flat-year thing 
37 

because it is—that’s exact calculations we’ve had is $4.5 billion in 

loss of buying power over the next five years. So we’ll work that 

in the next budget cycle going forward. 

Mr. BEYER. Well, I’m hopeful that this will be something bipartisan we’ll be fighting for your increased budget, too, over these 

next five years. Yes, thank you. 

Mr. Chair, I yield back. 

Chairman BABIN. Sir, thank you, Mr. Beyer. 

And I now recognize the gentleman from Oklahoma, Mr. 

Bridenstine. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, Mr. Lightfoot, for being here. And I think from both 

sides of the aisle up here, we’re very grateful for your leadership 

at NASA for so many years and of course going through this transition and the continuity that Chairman Smith talked about is important. You’ve provided that, and we’re all very grateful for your 

leadership there. 

I wanted to bring up to start some of the processes related to 

earth science. You mentioned in the budget that you went through 

a process, you started with the decadal survey and then the science 

value and finally performance. And from that you were able to determine that these were the missions that were the most important 

and more in keeping with the budgetary constraints that NASA 

has to adhere to. 

I think on both sides of the aisle we all want to make sure we 

know what’s happening to the planet. We can disagree about the 

policies that need to be implemented from Congress, but we all 

want to know what is happening to planet Earth. Can you assure 

us, given this budget, that we’re going to have the science and the 

data necessary to know what’s happening to the planet? 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Yes, we believe so. And I think the other thing 

that I haven’t mentioned yet that I’ll share is we have the next 

earth science decadal comes out in 2017, right? And we’re—— 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Okay. 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. And for the one we’re living to, it’s 2007. Clearly, 

there’s a lot of information since then, and so for us, it was a good 

opportunity to say, okay, let’s see what the decadal says for—when 

it comes out, and we’ll use that data actually to inform us in our 

next cycle if we need to make any changes on there. But I believe 

so in terms of how we’ve assessed where we can get all the data 

we need within the—again, looking at the Earth as a system—— 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Right. 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. —and all the pieces of the system, where can we 

get the pieces of data that help us assess that, the Earth as a system? 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Okay. Fantastic. My second question, there 

was a lot of excitement in Congress, a lot of excitement throughout 

the entire nation, I think a lot of excitement at NASA when you 

made the determination that we were going to study whether or 

not we are going to put humans on EM–1. And earlier, you mentioned how important it was that when the American public and 

in fact the world, when they see humans in space doing stunning 

achievements, that that inspires the next generation, and I think 

there’s broad agreement here as well. Can you go through the proc-
38 

ess that you went through to determine whether or not to put humans on EM–1? 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Yes, sir. We—you know, we talked to the Administration when they came in, and this is one of the things they 

asked us to look at. We looked at it before obviously, but we hadn’t 

looked at it in a while. And what we did is we put a team in place 

to do—ask them to look at the feasibility, you know, could we technically do this. And the teams were—they were very—just like you 

said, very energized what they did. 

The approach we took was go back two or three years to when 

we made this—when we made the decision to not fly crew and look 

and see what things we’ve done that we would have to back up and 

back out of to redo because now we’re going to put crew. That’s one 

example of the technical pieces. We asked the schedule, how much 

extra schedule would you need and then how much extra budget 

would you need going—to do all this? 

It was a fascinating exercise just because it energized our teams, 

it provided us some insight in some areas we did not know people 

had concerns about necessarily, and so we’re going to pull some 

testing forward. But at the end of the day when we had the discussion around this, we were going to increase the cost, we were going 

to slip the schedule a little bit, and we were going to accept some 

more technical risk than we had. And so it really just confirmed 

that the plan that we were on—that we had in place was actually 

a good one for us and the right one for us to go do. In the meantime, we’ll go do some work on the heat shield for Orion. We’ll 

probably advance an ascent abort test, move it forward, and some 

other testing that we found in the process. 

But it really got the teams focused on what we need to do to get 

there. And so I—it was a good exercise, and I think, you know, we 

had to deal with the—there was some disappointment that we’re 

not going to go try to do this, but I think people recognized at the 

end of the day that it actually focused us even better to try to get 

there. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’ll yield back. 

Chairman BABIN. Yes, sir. Thank you. 

And now, I’d like to recognize the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. 

Foster. 

Mr. FOSTER. Yes, thank you, Mr. Lightfoot. And first, I’d like to 

congratulate you in general terms on your management of the 

whole unmanned science program and, you know, this is—you’ve 

been doing this in very trying times and have had to make a lot 

of our decisions, but I think, you know, as a—I guess the only 

Ph.D. scientist in Congress, I’m really excited to just think about 

what the James Webb Space Telescope is going to mean. It’s—you 

know, people believe it’s going to be a Hubble-like step in our understanding of the universe, and so I know that I am—probably almost all scientists on Earth are excited to see what that will reveal. 

I’m less sanguine about the goals of the manned space program, 

you know, in particular the whole concept of having Mars as a horizon project as you say because, you know, when I look back at the 

fraction of GDP that was associated with actually paying for the 

Apollo program and, you know, the fact that it was paid for basi-
39 

cally by having, you know, more than 80 percent marginal tax 

rates at the time on the wealthy, you know, then you have to imagine—you have to—for Congress to start planning that and to start 

preparing the public for it, we have to have some sort of zero-order 

cost estimate for that. 

And so, you know, you can imagine going to Mars with different 

strategies. The traditional low-cost one is a massive heavy launch 

vehicle, which has traditionally been the low-cost way of doing 

things. You can imagine the infrastructure approach that you’re 

talking about, step-by-step, and then you have to deal with the 

challenges of the operating cost for these things for which we I 

think have pretty good data now from the ISS of just the order of 

magnitude of those. And then there are more speculative things 

like the robots-first approach to going to Mars, which is one I’m 

personally a fan of. 

So the question is have you gone through those exercises to get 

even a broad range of cost estimates for that? Because I think it’s 

very destructive to an organization, you know, in my experience 

managing things to give a group of people orders that are impossible to execute. And I view going to Mars on a flat budget as an 

example of that. And so in order to make sure we have a consistent 

overall plan here, I think it would be very valuable to even have 

a very broad range of cost estimates for different things that tells 

you, among other things, how aggressively you should pursue new 

technologies if that’s the only way you can get to a plausible budget. And so I was wondering, have you gone through those exercises 

even in rough terms for—if you had to write down the plan today 

with today’s technology and with specific technological innovations, 

what are the rough cost estimates for our manned mission to Mars? 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Yes, so we’ve kind of come at it from a different 

direction, so let me push on this. We’ve looked at this as what’s— 

we’re not expecting an Apollo-like injection of funds, right, so what 

we told our teams is just you need to assume what we call current 

services, which is basically our baseline budget that we have today 

plus a rate. And what we’ve talked about is—we call it the ‘‘and’’ 

proposition. It’s not just the heavy lift, it’s not just infrastructure, 

it’s not just public-private partnerships. It’s all that. 

It’s also not just robotic or human; it’s both, right? Think about 

it. We’re on Mars today with rovers, and you know that all too 

well. And the next rover that’s going in 2020 is actually part of our 

human spaceflight planning because we’ve put an instrument on 

there to allow us to see if we can actually pull oxygen out of the 

atmosphere. 

So what we’ve been doing for the past couple years is really integrating the science and human missions to say that any time we 

go anywhere is an opportunity for both sides, human or science, to 

actually get a benefit out of it instead of stovepiping the way we’re 

thinking about that. So it’s a sustainable process. And where we’ve 

come from is—or the way we’ve been approaching it is assume 

what you have today and then let’s see where the technologies 

come in, where does private industry coming in? I mean, you see 

a lot of folks that really want—are really bringing systems into 

play in the private world. 
40 

Our international partners, we are engaging with our international partners on what they can bring because we think going 

to Mars with humans is going to be—is definitely going to be a 

global effort. Is not going to be just us. We’d love to lead it. We 

want to lead it and we are leading it, but we’ve met with the international partners twice now since I’ve been in this role and looking 

at their niche areas to come forward like they did for the International Space Station. 

So that’s how we’ve done it so far. When we bring the plan in 

in—there’s a plan I think we’re deliverable here in December— 

you’ll see the pieces of that that come back—— 

Mr. FOSTER. Will that include a zero-order cost estimate for the 

whole endeavor with a given target date? 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Yes, we’ll—— 

Mr. FOSTER. I think that’s fundamental to—you know, we have 

to plan—— 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Yes. 

Mr. FOSTER. —how to convince the public to write a great big 

check to do this. And so we need a zero-order cost estimate. And 

also, as I mentioned, it’s fundamental to the choice of technologies 

you are developing. 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Absolutely. And we have for those technologies, 

but it’ll come in. And again, our cost estimate will be based—it 

won’t be we need this. It’ll be based on this. This is what we think 

we can do and when. So, I mean, that’s what you’ll see. 

Mr. FOSTER. Yes, and you mentioned escalation. In my experience managing technical projects, that’s—inflation for technical 

projects was—generally ran above CBI inflation. And what number 

do you actually use internally for that? 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. We’ve been using 2.3. 

Mr. FOSTER. All right. 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Yes. 

Mr. FOSTER. Okay. 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. But we’ve also I think—real quick, and I know 

we’re over on time, but one thing I want to add is if you look at 

the GAO report recently on high-risk projects, we’ve actually gotten—we’ve actually shown improvement. We’re not going to break 

our arms patting ourselves on the back here, but we’ve shown a 

tremendous amount of movement with our program project techniques and estimates that we’ve done and within the agency to actually be better at predicting the performance of these things going 

forward using a lot of lessons learned. We’ve had some—for some 

issues that we’ve had in the past, so I feel pretty confident that we 

can bring a number that we can stand behind. 

Mr. FOSTER. All right. Thank you. 

Chairman BABIN. Thank you very much. I’d now like to recognize 

the gentleman from California, Mr. Knight. 

Mr. KNIGHT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, Administrator, for being here. 

You know, I’m going to talk about the big A because I always do. 

There are several things that are happening today, and I appreciate everyone talking about space exploration, and I wish Congressman Perlmutter was here so he could raise up his bumper 

sticker saying 2033. And all those are great and laudable goals, but 
41 

we are doing great things that are near-term and can change our 

economy. 

You brought up the low boom supersonic demonstrator. I think 

there is probably nothing bigger that’s happening right now for our 

near-term that could change our economy. And remember, as you 

know, for the last 60-plus years we’ve been flying across the country at .8 Mach, and we’ve been doing it a lot safer and economical, 

and we have been doing everything to make engines cleaner and 

all of that. But now, it’s time to go faster. Let’s get across the country faster. And I think the low boom supersonic demonstrator is 

that key that will get us there very quickly. Also, the X–57 is now 

moving very quickly into its stage of maybe changing flight over 

the future and making that a lot cleaner and maybe for the folks 

to get an airplane in their yard. 

But one of the things I wanted to bring up is the education budget because education to me for NASA is accomplishments. If you 

show something to that 8-year-old, that 8-year-old wants to be an 

astronaut. There is no doubt about it. If you give him a coloring 

book, they might, but if you show them something, they will. 

There’s no doubt. So as I think that education is a huge part of 

what NASA does, the more accomplishments you do, the more 

you’re going to get. And I think that is a good indicator of what 

the Chairman brought up of how many people we’ve got applying 

to be an astronaut today is just because they want to be involved. 

And also what’s been happening with Hubble over the last couple 

days have been huge accomplishments. So that’s just my advertisement for what NASA is doing, and I thank you. 

So my questions are more about aeronautics. The budget has 

changed. We think that the budget is going in a better direction for 

aeronautics, but it is still a very, very small part of the NASA 

budget, and so we’re still under four percent. I think we’re at about 

3.6, somewhere in that range. Do you see that as a good spot? And 

it could be as a good spot for where aeronautics could be or should 

be. Or some of these programs that we could bring on board that 

could be funded by NASA, do you think that may be a little bit 

more money into aeronautics could get us there? 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Yes, I think with the goals we have, New Aviation Horizons, for instance, that our aeronautics team has laid out 

which has so many fascinating, exciting missions in there, I think 

when you look at what we’re trying to do with low boom, as you 

said, with X–57, just getting our teams back into the business of 

X-planes again has just reenergized them in a big way. 

And we think this budget is actually pretty good for us for ’18. 

We’ll look and see what kind of energy we get around low boom, 

and we’ll look at future—potential future—should we accelerate 

other things, but when you want to tap into a $2.5 trillion global 

economy, you know, of aviation, the U.S. needs to be in the middle 

of that, and our researchers are ready to go to that and I think 

that’s what we’re going to be doing. So I’m excited about what the 

guys have done from an aeronautics perspective. You know it just 

as well as I do because I know you meet with the guys a lot. 

And I think the energy—we talk about the energy around human 

spaceflight. The energy around having an X-plane program is just 

enormous. It doesn’t get spouted as much because it’s not human 
42 

spaceflight, but when you talk to our teams, you know, the ones 

at Armstrong in particular, they’ve been beating on me for five 

years to get some X-planes—— 

Mr. KNIGHT. Good. 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. —so we finally got one, and so they’re excited. 

Mr. KNIGHT. And I appreciate you, you’ve been a good voice and 

a good leader in that aspect, and I appreciate that. 

And then the last thing I’d like to talk about is NASA as a whole, 

we’ve kind of looked at everything that’s happening, whether it be 

James Webb, whether it be our space exploration, whether it be 

aeronautics. Do you see that as a very healthy position right now, 

in other words, from the budget standpoint? Because I know the 

Chairman of this Subcommittee and the Chairman of the complete 

Committee on Science, Space, and Technology will always talk 

about the budget and where we are, are we healthy moving forward, are we accomplishing the goals? Because now, we’re into a 

different realm over these last few years where the public is doing 

a lot of these things. They’re doing low-Earth orbits, they’re doing 

things that NASA kind of paved the way so that they could do it, 

but now they’re taking over some of the things that NASA maybe 

doesn’t do or doesn’t have to do. So are we healthily moving forward? 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. I think we’ve got a good balance. I think—and 

I think we’re doing it with a risk management process that allows 

us to understand that balance in a good way. You know, it’s exciting to see American industry be so interested in the innovation 

that comes with that because that’s what makes this country great, 

right, the American innovation that comes in. We can enable that, 

and then what we’re trying to do is decide where that line is where 

we need to own it and we’d let industry take off. And I think we’re 

still learning that, but I think we’re at a good balance. I feel very 

comfortable with the balance we have right now. 

Mr. KNIGHT. Very good. And I appreciate your leadership. 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Thank you. 

Chairman SMITH. Would the gentleman from California yield for 

a minute? 

Mr. KNIGHT. I will. I don’t have any time, but I will yield to the 

Chairman. 

Chairman SMITH. I thought I’d point out for fun since we’re 

among friends today something that not many people know about 

you, and that is that Congressman Knight has a special interest in 

space, particularly speed and space, which was indicated by his 

first question because his father set the record for speed that 

lasted, I think, for several decades—— 

Mr. KNIGHT. Still—— 

Chairman SMITH. —as—still—— 

Mr. KNIGHT. —50 years ago this year. 

Chairman SMITH. Oh, my gosh, 50-year record and counting then 

as far as the speed of a manned aircraft. So we appreciate Congressman Knight being on the Committee and particularly his personal interest in this subject. 

And I’ll yield back. 

Mr. KNIGHT. Thank you. 
43 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. [Presiding] And I would second those comments, Mr. Chairman. Pete Knight is a hero to many of those of 

us who fly. 

So I’d now like to recognize the gentleman from Louisiana, Mr. 

Abraham. 

Mr. ABRAHAM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And let’s continue the 

speed discussion and talk a little bit about hypersonics. Of all the 

things that we have to worry about for national security, we seem 

to be focused now, rightly so, on ballistic missiles of North Korea, 

Iran, those nefarious countries that want to do us harm evidently. 

But hypersonics are the weapon of not just the future but they’re 

weapons of now. And I know NASA has some great research going 

on with the X–43 and other X-planes that will become critically important for national security because, unfortunately at this point, 

we can’t intercept a hypersonic vehicle like we can a ballistic missile. So if you’ll expound on that a little bit as NASA’s roles in 

hypersonics and national security issues, please. 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Yes. I think what we do in hypersonics, it’s—for 

us, the part of hypersonics we’re very interested in and we think 

we have the skill set to support from a national perspective is kind 

of the fundamental research where there’s materials, where there’s 

guidance, navigation, and control, propulsion, those kinds of areas 

that are basic in our—kind of our capabilities we have. And then 

there’s a piece of it called the systems analysis where you can do 

the analysis around all those as a—when they become a system. It 

becomes a flight demonstration system. So that’s where NASA’s 

strengths are in hypersonics. We have some facilities that are very 

unique, and we have people that operate those that clearly have 

the intellectual capacity to understand all the history there. 

So what we’ve done is we’ve partnered with DARPA and DOD in 

that area, and so what we do is we help them from just a fundamental research perspective, bringing the systems analysis in, and 

we think we’re a part of their team. They’ve been very open to having us participate with them, and so I think that’s where we think 

we bring—we bring to bear in that particular situation. Their job 

is the military side of that. Our job is the fundamental research. 

And the reason we’re interested—I want to be real clear. The 

reason we’re interested is because at some point down the road you 

could actually potentially use hypersonic technology for—to get to 

orbit, right? 

Mr. ABRAHAM. And to explore—— 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Absolutely. 

Mr. ABRAHAM. —where we can’t go yet—— 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Yes. 

Mr. ABRAHAM. —literally Star Trek-type technology. And you alluded to it a little bit with the intellect. We all in this room certainly understand that NASA has always employed the best and 

the brightest. What is NASA doing to continue that evolution of 

pulling those students and those young people in so that we can 

stay ahead of our competitors and near peers in the global security 

world? 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. I think what—well, several things. We have several programs I mentioned earlier that each mission directorate 

has, whether it’s Science STEM activation, whether it’s the univer-
44 

sity activities that Aeronautics is doing. Space Technology has 

graduate fellowships that they do—or research fellowships that 

they do. So that’s the direct piece of it. 

The other thing that we’re doing I think is really important is 

we’re taking a hard look at the capabilities we think we should be 

stewards for for the nation, whether it’s propulsion, mechanical 

systems, you know, guidance navigation control, materials. Where 

do we need on that and where does industry have that that we can 

go take advantage of? And so we’ve spent the last couple of years 

really saying these are the technical capabilities we should be stewards of. 

Mr. ABRAHAM. Are you guys actively recruiting in the universities—— 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Oh, yeah. 

Mr. ABRAHAM. —or are you waiting for the students to collect the 

18,000 applicants for 12 slots of astronauts? 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. No, we are actively recruiting. We don’t have— 

that is an area where we do not have a challenge. We get a ton 

of applications—and you heard 18,000 for astronauts. We get a lot 

for any engineering position that pops up. And we are—we—our 

brand does well in the universities, and so we’re pretty successful 

there. 

Mr. ABRAHAM. And we’re glad it does, I assure you. 

One last question. Previously, we in this Committee have been 

told that I think maybe 80 percent of NASA’s infrastructure is beyond design life. And I’m assuming that’s still true considering that 

the budget has remained fairly flat. How critical is that right now? 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Well, we—it’s pretty critical, and what we’ve 

done is we’ve put in place a pretty extensive process to look at duplication and overlap in facilities and capabilities to make sure 

when we give you that number that that number is not a bunch 

of the same stuff, right? And so we’ve spent the last three years 

going through that and defining what the center role should be so 

that we know where to target to get out of some of the older infrastructure that we have, and we’ve been very successful in that so 

far. 

So the teams are doing a good job depending on each other. Instead of being nine different centers across the United States, we’re 

an integrated system. And so that’s what we’re trying to do to get 

that down. We won’t—the biggest way to get rid of the backlog of 

maintenance is to tear the old stuff down and build new stuff, 

right? And so that’s the way we’re looking at it, and we’re actually 

being very strategic about how we go doing that— 

Mr. ABRAHAM. Good. 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. —in terms of attacking the higher-maintenance 

things first. 

Mr. ABRAHAM. Thank you. We appreciate NASA. 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Thank you. 

Mr. ABRAHAM. I yield back. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. The gentleman from Florida, Mr. Dunn, is recognized. 

Mr. DUNN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, 

Mr. Lightfoot, for being here. 
45 

Let me, if I can, stay on the subjects of aeronautics, science, and 

strategy just a bit. We’ve had a lot of talk about the Deep Space 

Gateway. Can you elaborate a little bit on how that impacts the 

strategy for our country going forward and maybe discuss just a little bit for everybody how that works? 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Yes. So when we talk about leaving low-Earth 

orbit, we think we need an infrastructure, kind of a backbone that 

allows us to do that. So what we’ve been looking at is a way to very 

affordably—not a large system that we have to maintain, to the 

earlier question. What are the—what is the actual minimum capability we need around the Moon to allow us to start testing these 

systems out? 

So what—we talk about a gateway, we talk about an infrastructure, and it’s in the concept phase. We still—we’re still working 

with the Administration on what that will look like at the end of 

the day. But we believe it includes a power propulsion unit that’ll 

be built off of what we did for the ARM mission, Asteroid Retrieval 

Mission. We think we’ll have a habitat. We’re working right now 

with five different potential vendors on our NextSTEP BAAs to do 

habitat systems, habitat concepts. And then we’ll have an airlock 

on there, and you’ll be able to move this around and you can operate telerobotically on the Moon. You can use it as a place that you 

actually take off and go to Mars from there with a different system. 

It’s almost a node if you want to call it that. So— 

Mr. DUNN. Does it impact cislunar missions as well? 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Oh, yes, absolutely. It would allow us to move 

around the Moon and do multiple types of missions around there. 

Mr. DUNN. All right. Thank you very much. So what other countries are in that space besides us? 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. In the cislunar space? 

Mr. DUNN. Yes. 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Right now, no one’s there—the Chinese. I should 

say the Chinese are going to the Moon; we know that. But what 

we’ve been doing is we’ve been talking to all our international partners, the same ones we have on the International Space Station 

today, about where they would like to participate in those exploration plans as we go forward. So we continue to share with them 

what we’re thinking, and they bring in their niche areas that would 

be good for them. They actually bring—I mean, several of them 

bring very good capabilities to us. 

And so as we look at a global effort in a resource-constrained environment, you know, those partnerships, whether they’re international or whether they’re public-private here in the United 

States, are all for us things that we can use. 

Mr. DUNN. And last, I’d like to ask you to talk a little bit about 

the CubeSats that have become so popular, the smaller mission 

satellites and the launching clusters. And I know we’re now assembling those on the Cape—— 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Right. 

Mr. DUNN. —in the center, and maybe talk to us a little bit 

about how NASA is going to be interacting in that space. 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Yes, this is an exciting area I think, a very exciting area. As CubeSats have gotten—CubeSats and SmallSats have 

gotten—we got—we’re able to control them better. We’re able to get 
46 

actual science data. We’re actually using them for communications. 

It’s a very interesting area. We have an initiative in this budget 

that does—a SmallSat/CubeSat initiative. Their science is actually 

going to look at a way to get some of the data that we’ve been getting with big missions. Can you actually get the same kind of data, 

close data from a capability perspective using CubeSats because we 

can launch them as part of another mission, right? You’ve seen 

that. We take them up to space station and we launch them from 

the space station out of the Japanese module. 

So we’re learning more and more about that, and we’re also getting better with the systems. I mean, the systems are getting 

smaller and smaller. It’s amazing what you can do with these 

CubeSats now in terms of controlling their attitude and propulsive 

maneuvers on orbit. So that’s what we—we think that’s a big opportunity for us, and that’s why it’s in the science budget this year 

to— 

Mr. DUNN. And are those CubeSats, are they hardened in an 

EMP sense, are they hardening and stuff? 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Oh, I don’t know. I don’t think we’ve gotten that 

far yet to think about that but— 

Mr. DUNN. That’s your task. 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Yes. 

Mr. DUNN. Thank you very much, Mr. Lightfoot. I enjoyed your 

testimony. 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Thank you. 

Mr. DUNN. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. POSEY. [Presiding] The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 

Indiana, Mr. Banks. 

Mr. BANKS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And, Administer Lightfoot, just a brief statement, not a question 

for you this morning. My district in northeast Indiana is one of the 

largest manufacturing districts in the entire country, building everything from RVs to military hardware. We have some companies 

as well that specifically support NASA programs, including the designing and building of sophisticated satellite payloads for national 

and international weather observations. 

One specific program important in my district is called the Radiation Budget Instrument. It will leapfrog current technology by accurately measuring the impact of the Sun’s energy on the Earth 

and the Earth’s own energy than the current generation of sensors 

that we currently utilize. The technology advances are critical to 

researchers to help improve longer-term and seasonal weather forecasting, such as seasonal tornado and hurricane forecasts. There 

are many parts of the country, including Indiana, which will benefit from these breakthrough technologies. 

I understand the agency must make priority calls, but it is my 

understanding that the program is 80 percent complete, is on track 

for an on-time delivery, and has solved all major technical challenges. Looking forward during the budget process, I would like to 

work with you and my colleagues to ensure that we don’t discard 

investments that we’ve already made in these next-generation technologies and lose the opportunity for greatly increased seasonal 

forecasting, which will help our emergency managers, and in our 

agriculture and energy sectors, among many others. 
47 

So I look forward to working with you and having those discussions in the future. I appreciate your testimony today. 

With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. POSEY. The Chair will now recognize himself for five minutes. 

Mr. Lightfoot, I’ve heard that there might be some challenges at 

KSC due to a shortfall of funding for ground systems. Could you 

comment on that for me, please? 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. I think ground systems is okay from a perspective of what they’re trying to do. We have some of the money that 

normally would be in the ground systems budget is actually in the 

construction budget. When you add them together, it’s the money 

they need to get the job done. 

Mr. POSEY. Okay. We both know that if everything’s a priority, 

then nothing’s a priority, and so I’m curious about a roadmap to 

Mars and our ability to stick to that roadmap, subject to funding 

of course. 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Well, I think—I mean, we have a report due 

back I think to this Committee in December 1 that’s going to show 

the plan. I believe we were asked to provide a plan of getting to 

Mars by 2033. And so we’re working on that, and I think you’ll see 

why we think it’s actually a sustainable plan based on the budget 

that we’ve got. So I think if you look at the series of missions we’re 

planning on doing in the 2020s with the SLS Orion combination, 

the missions we’re talking about doing with our commercial partners to actually, you know, provide the supplies for what we’re trying to do, I think you’ll see that there’s—it’s a sustainable plan and 

it’s actually doable if we had—to your point, if we’ll just stick with 

it. 

Mr. POSEY. Okay. If you had one percent of our budget instead 

of just a half a percent or if you could have like four percent during 

Apollo or something, what would you do? 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Wow. I think what—so I think the way I would 

answer that question is that you see what we do today with the 

budget that we get—— 

Mr. POSEY. Yes. 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. —right? And I think you would just see more 

contributions to the scientific discovery, the exploration, the pushing humans further into space. But I also recognize that we’re part 

of bigger federal budget here, and I think that balance has to be 

maintained. And, you know, that’s for—to me, that’s for you guys 

to decide where that balance is for us. 

Could we do more? Sure, we could do more, but within the other 

constraints we have as a nation, you know, that to me is—I think 

we have a good budget for what we need to go do. 

Mr. POSEY. Okay. Could you comment on the Administration’s 

decision not to put crew on the first flight? 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Yes, sir. I—as I said earlier, I think that was as 

much our decision as it was theirs. We worked with them directly 

on that. We just felt that the addition of the technical risk, the addition of the cost risk, and the addition of the schedule risk actually showed that our plan was—that we had to start with was actually probably the right one and the right way to go. And I think 

to me it was—it was a—when we got—when the teams brought all 
48 

the information, as excited as we were about possibly doing it, it 

actually confirmed we should be doing what we’re doing from an 

overall perspective. 

Mr. POSEY. It hasn’t been very clear in the press, but, you know, 

China has been quite active on the Moon, and I wonder if you’d 

comment on that. 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Well, I think the Chinese have—you know, I 

know as much as you do from a press perspective, but you can see 

there—they’ve got their first piece of what would be their space 

station on orbit now. They’ve gone to the Moon. They’re talking 

about going again. They’ve made some announcement this week 

about that in terms of a sample type return from the Moon. So 

they’re very active. 

You know, I think, you know, for us we have to decide some— 

at some point what’s going to be our interaction with them from 

an overall perspective as a Federal Government, how we’re going 

to deal with them. Their—the stuff we’ve worked with them on has 

been mostly scientific in nature going forward, and I think we just 

should keep paying attention to what they’re doing and make sure 

we’re not ceding leadership from that perspective. 

Mr. POSEY. I think that’s very important. Do you see any militarization of the Moon by the Chinese? 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. I don’t. That’s probably for somebody else to answer so I haven’t—not in my world. 

Mr. POSEY. Do you think we’re still ahead of them on efforts to 

go to the Moon again? 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. I think so. I think the systems that were put in 

place are—I think we are, but I don’t have any insight into their 

systems as much as I do ours, so I’m pretty confident in our ability 

to do what we want to go do, and I think that’s where we—I think 

we’re okay from that standpoint. 

Mr. POSEY. Okay. Thank you very much, Mr. Lightfoot. 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Thank you. 

Mr. POSEY. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Louisiana, 

Mr. Higgins. 

Mr. HIGGINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Lightfoot, thank you very much for being here. This is fascinating conversation. I was born in 1961. I have a very nostalgic 

memory of NASA as I grew as a young lad and observed the Moon 

landing, and for my entire life I’ve looked forward to our return to 

space and our return to dominance in space, which we certainly 

seem to have lost that clear dominance as a nation as we explore 

beyond our planet. 

The history of NASA is replete with the smartest guys and 

women in the world, doing more with less, and I’m happy to say 

that the current budget, as requested by the President, cuts 

NASA’s budget, it’s the lowest of any nondefense or non-securityrelated part of the executive. And because this is a discussion 

about budget and NASA and what you can do and we recognize 

that, certainly on this Committee from a bipartisan perspective, we 

recognize that if we’re to be first on Earth, we must be first in 

space, and yet we must protect the people’s Treasury. 

One of the projects that I’ve followed through the years which is 

a fascinating success is Cassini. In your written testimony you stat-
49 

ed that after 13 years orbiting Saturn our Cassini spacecraft has 

begun a series of 22 daring dives through the 1,500-mile-wide gap 

between the planet and its rings as part of the mission’s grand finale. That’ll be in September of this year, 19 years from launch. 

This mission also included a lander on Titan, Saturn’s largest 

moon, which sent back fascinating data. And it’s important to note 

that the success of Cassini and the Titan lander was reflective of 

25- to 30-year-old technology, 1980s and early ’90s technology. 

So my question to you would be considering the fact that this 

technology and the success of Cassini is that old, is predigital—we 

should note that the iPhone was introduced in 2004—what do you 

expect from Cassini’s September end-of-mission controlled crash 

into the surface of Saturn, and what might we expect from missions developed with current technologies as we move forward and 

as that relates to NASA’s historic ability to do more with less? 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Yes, I think—so I’ve gotten—I’ve been in this 

business long enough and in this agency long enough to not speculate on what we might see because we always get surprised with 

what we learn. If you look at the recent images from Juno that 

went around Jupiter, I mean, just stunning. 

Mr. HIGGINS. Right. 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. And that’s newer technology still, you know, 

when we launch a missile, a little older, but I think what you’ll see 

with Cassini is—this is why we’re doing the dives. We want to see 

what’s there, what’s in there. We’ve already learned even from 

some of the initial passes. To me what’s happened, the reason we’re 

able to do more with less is because of the advances in technology, 

right? If you look at the miniaturization—like you said, your 

iPhone—if you look at the miniaturization of sensors, propulsion 

systems, all the things that are happening, you try to pack those 

into a spacecraft that’s going to go make these incredible discoveries, that miniaturization actually helps us, right? It helps us to 

be able to build these spacecraft because they’re—to get them off 

Earth is the hardest part of this, you know, getting there. 

So I think the technologies we’re working on, whether they’re 

new detectors, new sensors, that’s what we have in our budget 

from a science standpoint and the technology standpoint. Both of 

those mission directorates are working on those kind of things to 

allow us to get that even better kind of data that we get. New Horizons is another great example of when it went by Pluto and did 

stuff that we got back there. So technology is a critical piece of this. 

That’s why we think the Space Technology Mission Directorate and 

the technology that the Science Mission Directorate does is actually 

beats forward into the next mission. The starshade, for instance, 

that I talked about earlier is another technology we’d love to get 

on orbit and again be able to use those technologies to just do better discoveries and more discoveries. 

The thing that I’ve learned is every question we answer causes 

more questions, right, and that’s what’s so exciting about what we 

do from a science standpoint. And that technology helps us to actually move forward. 

Mr. HIGGINS. Thank you for that answer. Just briefly, could you 

address regarding the budget as it currently begins to manifest for 
50 

NASA, what’s the general morale within NASA? It seems to be an 

exciting time of rebirth. And please address that briefly. 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Yes. You know, we’re the best place to work in 

government for the last five years, and I think that probably says 

it the best. That’s our workforce filling out the governmentwide 

survey. People are excited. I mean, the Chairman was there yesterday at Johnson. Goodness gracious, people were just—it’s—they’re 

excited about what we’re doing, and they’re excited because we’re— 

if you look at the cadence of discoveries—we make a lot of news, 

right, and it’s usually good news, you know, usually. And I think 

that inspires our teams to actually do even more. So, yes, I think 

the morale is good, very good. 

Mr. HIGGINS. Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Chairman BABIN. Thank you. 

I now recognize the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Webster. 

Mr. WEBSTER. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Mr. Posey was asking about the money constraints, and you laid 

out a time frame of how you could work out a trip to Mars. Isn’t 

that also constrained by timing? It seemed like we had testimony 

before about the fact that there are certain good times and they 

come around not so often. 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Yes, there is a—it’s a—you look at 2031, 2033, 

for instance, they are very good times for us to go to Mars based 

on the orbital mechanics of where Mars is located and where the 

Earth is so—— 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. I just like ’23. 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. I know. I almost brought the bumper sticker, sir. 

Anyway—but I do think that there are more optimal times because 

the crew transit time, if you have crew, you want to take those 

shorter—that’s why 2033 is probably one of the—I think it’s a ninemonth transit—I probably got that wrong but that’s what we’re 

looking at. 

Mr. WEBSTER. You mentioned nodes, and are there ways that we 

can advantage ourselves with those nodes in other places like the 

Moon and maybe launch from there? Does that change any of that? 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Yes, that’s one reason we’re looking at that, that 

kind of gateway concept that I talked about. It would be a place 

where you can actually operate down at the Moon if you wanted 

to, but you can also take whatever system you want to take to 

Mars and launch from that location. 

Mr. WEBSTER. So wherever you get to, you’re advantaged by the 

fact you’re there as opposed to having everything in one hub, which 

would be the Earth. 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. And you go—with the way we look at it is you 

go back and forth from that node to Mars, and then you come from 

that node home with a different system so—— 

Mr. WEBSTER. Would the funding that you have proposed or 

you’re going to share and the timescale and all of that, would that 

include taking stuff with you? 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Taking stuff? 

Mr. WEBSTER. Okay. So let’s say it’s 2033, and you’re saying if 

you were to launch from there, from that node, isn’t your plan not 

only to get there but also take things that would facilitate a future 

launch maybe from there? 
51 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Yes, that’s the goal, right, would be to set that 

infrastructure up so that you can go do that. But we’re also looking 

at ways that we can live off the land when we get there. It’s called 

in situ resource utilization. Today on the International Space Station we process all that moisture into water that these guys can 

drink so I don’t have to carry it. Water is pretty heavy. I don’t have 

to take it with me. 

We’ve also been doing 3–D printing in space. We have a 3–D 

printer on the International Space Station that we’re thinking is 

kind of a precursor to what you might take with you when you go. 

And if something breaks—— 

Mr. WEBSTER. Can you manufacture things there? 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. You can do your part—we’re doing parts today 

on station using the powders that we’ve got. So it’s pretty exciting 

from that standpoint. That’s the kind of way we’re looking at it, so 

it’s going to be a combination of what do we need to take but what 

can we also have with us? 

Mr. WEBSTER. And I guess that advances as technology moves 

forward? 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. 

Mr. WEBSTER. Great. I yield back. Thank you. 

Chairman BABIN. Thank you so much. That’s fascinating. 

I now recognize the gentleman from Colorado, Mr. Perlmutter. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. Mr. Lightfoot, as always, it was music to my 

ears to hear about 2031, ’32, ’33. So let’s just remember we can do 

this and we will do this. And I know that a lot of the morale is 

high because you really are beginning to, you know, really expand 

your reach and go farther and put all that talent that you have 

within NASA really to work on so many different, you know, exciting projects. So thank you for that. 

So how are we doing budgetarily in terms of putting the pieces 

together to get us to Mars by 2033? 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Yes. I think the ’18 budget that we’ve proposed 

here actually keeps the progress going—— 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. Okay. 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. —on what we need to do to do that. For us, the 

process is pretty simple. It’s use the International Space Station to 

the maximum extent possible to develop those systems. That really 

is our jumping-off point. We’re putting systems up there now. 

We’ve got Bigelow up there that, you know, is an expandable module. We have technologies we’re taking up there constantly that we 

think will be used for future parts of this. And then we’re doing 

the human research that we need to understand what happens to 

the human body, right? So we just—the data coming back from 

that is going to actually help us with—as we take these longer missions to Mars. 

And then we think we—then, we’re going to establish some infrastructure around the Moon in cislunar space, and then that will be 

our jumping off point as we start going to Mars. So that—this— 

the ’18 budget continues those systems. We think we’re pretty confident in that. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. Good. Are you working with outside companies, with other nations? How’s that going? 
52 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Yes. We—so let’s start with—we think there’s a 

lot of opportunity for public-private partnerships. We do—we’ve 

seen a great deal of interest from a lot of the industry in this country and how they want to participate and where they’re going to 

bring things to bear for us. So that’s been very positive, kind of 

building off what we do with commercial cargo and commercial 

crew, right—— 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. Good. 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. —using that model. The other piece is the international piece. We’ve had several—as mentioned earlier, I’ve had 

a couple of heads-of-agency meetings with my counterparts internationally. Mostly the ones that we deal with on the International 

Space Station, they’re very interested in participating with us on 

this journey. It’s going to be a global journey; we know that. And 

I think—because when we get there, that’s going to be a civilization-level impact, right, just like when we landed on the Moon. And 

I think that’s the—to me, that’s going to be a we did it, we as a 

globe, you know, not just the United States, not just NASA. And 

I think that’s what we’re going to have to do. But we’ve got a ton 

of interest from them as well. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. All right. So let me switch to a couple smaller 

programs that are particularly important to Colorado. NEOCam, 

something that we had talked about earlier that—I was looking for 

it in the budget but I’m not sure that I saw it in there. Can you 

tell us about NEOCam and where you are? 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Yes, so we—NEOCam was part of a recent set 

of selections, and what we decided to do was we were interested 

in the technology associated with NEOCam. It went a little bit further than we thought we needed from a planetary defense perspective, so we’ve asked them to go back and say, okay, if you—just as 

a planetary defense satellite, could you do this? We continue to 

identify the potential hazards, asteroids, you know, in this—that 

we’re required to go do. 

We think NEOCam is a tool we could actually bring to bear, but 

it had a science piece in it that we really wanted to go back to use 

the planetary defense from a focus standpoint. So we’ve kept the 

guys going to develop that technology, come back, and we expect 

to hear—I think in about a year they’re coming back from a formulation perspective to tell us where they are. And it can be a tool 

that gets added to our tool chest because we think there’s also 

other ways to do it may be with a SmallSat, something like that 

to get the same data. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. Okay. And then—I mean, so it’ll fall in the 

planetary defense category, but even at some point maybe we put 

some science money into it, too, if that were—— 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Well, the planetary defense budget is in science 

so that’s good. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. But, I mean, you’ve got certain categories that 

fit nicely in that one so let’s just make sure we keep pursuing that. 

The last one—last question I have is on CLARREO, which University of Colorado is very interested in. And I think it was taken 

out of the budget. Can you explain that, please? 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Yes, the CLARREO Pathfinder mission—— 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. Yes. 
53 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. —which was going to fly on the International 

Space Station, that was some precursor work we were doing associated with a bigger CLARREO mission. The CLARREO mission— 

the bigger mission estimated out about $1 billion overall. So what 

we wanted to do was we wanted to wait until the decadal was 

done. There’s a decadal in 2017 for science to see where—while 

that ranked—while the bigger mission—not the Pathfinder mission 

but the bigger mission ranked on the 2007 decadal, we wanted to 

see what would happen on the 2017 decadal, and so that’s why we 

did what we did. That was choice we made before we made that 

next big investment. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. So we’ll know over the course of next year? 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Yes, well, we’re canceling Pathfinder. We’ve proposed to terminate Pathfinder. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. Okay. 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. And what we’ll do is when the next decadal will 

come out, we’ll see where those particular science objectives— 

where they rate and relook at the whole portfolio from earth 

science. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. All right. Thank you for your testimony and 

thank you for your service. 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Thank you. 

Chairman BABIN. Thank you. 

And now I recognize the gentleman from California, Mr. Rohrabacher. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I 

apologize, going back and forth between hearings, so if I ask a repetitive question, I apologize. 

We just heard that we are spending money for the tracking and 

characterization of near-Earth objects. Is there anything in place if 

we do discover a near-Earth object heading towards us, do we have 

a procedure in place that would then be activated in order to some 

way deflect that near-Earth object if it threatens the planet? 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. We don’t have anything that we’re building to 

deflect it at this point. We’ve got a defense coordination office, you 

know, that does all the notifications to everyone if we see something coming, but I don’t—I mean, we’d have to see what we would 

do after—at that point. We’re not building anything related to that. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay. I would suggest, Mr. Chairman, one of 

the things we need to do is to insist that we actually have—if a 

near-Earth object is spotted coming to the Earth, could kill millions 

of people, if not even worse—that we should demand someone, 

whether it’s NASA or whoever, to actually have a system where 

you say punch the red button, it’s time to go on this particular 

emergency. We need to do that. 

Now, let me ask you about space debris. We know that we’ve 

got—there’s lots of examples. I mean, the debris shield, was it last 

March it had floated away from the space station. It was a debris 

shield, so we know that debris is actually causing some problems 

already. We know the space shuttle was postponed a couple times 

for space debris accumulation. Do we have anything in place where 

we have planned that will in some way deal with that problem 

meaning to remove space debris? 
54 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Yes, this—so obviously, micrometeorite debris 

and other debris up there is actually our number-one risk for our 

human spaceflight mission in terms of—— 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Right. 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. —the area where they are. And we—so we track 

it. We have a great system for tracking it, as you would say. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Right. All right. But—— 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. But what we’ve been working on in the agency 

is simply—we haven’t worked on these systems to get removed; 

we’ve been working on some of the technologies that might be able 

to do it, but it’s a very low-level effort. I don’t want to imply that 

it’s a big effort—— 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Yeah. 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. —but that’s what we’ve been doing. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I would suggest that it threatens the viability 

of our entire system. By the way, what is the—going to be the cost 

of the SLS rocket in the—per rocket? 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Let me get back to you on that number. We 

just—only because we just finished an activity that they’re briefing 

me on next month. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Is it going to be over $1 billion or—— 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. I haven’t seen the number, sir, honestly so—— 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. All right. Okay. Well, let me just note that 

my guess, if we’re spending several billion dollars a year now, that 

these rockets are going to be phenomenally expensive. I would hate 

to think of a little bit of space debris coming along and negating 

$2–3 billion worth of spending on an SLS rocket. So whether it’s 

planetary defense, we ought to have a system in place. We ought 

to get serious about space debris before space debris starts hemming us in so much that it’s put costly restrictions on our own 

space program. And I would think that this should be an international effort. And have we had any type of international meetings on space debris? 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. I think there’s several things in place that we’re 

required to do like de-orbiting second stages and things like that 

that are discussed internationally. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. But we haven’t had a—some sort of a major 

meeting where people get together and say what can we do to clear 

space debris as an international effort? 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. And—not that I know of unless we’ve done something through the UN COPUOS stuff. I’d have to—— 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. All right. 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. But I’ll get back with you on that one. I’ll certainly take that one—— 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. All right. 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. —for the record and let you know. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. All right. And finally, let me just note about 

earth science. There are so many other people that can analyze 

what’s going on in the Earth. I don’t see any reason why we 

should—I love the Hubble telescopes and the various things that 

are aimed outward, but I have no reason to believe that people in 

NASA have any more expertise at trying to study what the Earth 

is about. They’re supposed to be out studying what the universe is 

about, and I would think that we should, Mr. Chairman, move 
55 

away from funding of earth science missions and start focusing on 

the real mission of NASA, which is the missions we are aiming into 

space. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman BABIN. Thank you for that line of questioning. 

Mr. Veasey, the gentleman from Texas, I call on you. 

Mr. VEASEY. Thank you. Thank you very much. 

And I wanted to ask a question about human space exploration. 

And under the funding level proposed for exploration habitation 

systems, when could NASA expect to have a habitation system 

operational for use on an exploration mission? And what will that 

habitat actually be used for? 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Yes, so I think the way we’re looking at now 

we’ve got a process in place called our NextSTEP BAAs that are 

looking at what habitation systems could be available for us from 

some—we’ve got five people that are—five different companies that 

are working that with us. The habitation model—module based on 

our current plans, you know, would fly roughly in the middle of the 

2020s. It would be located somewhere around—or in the vicinity of 

the Moon so that we could actually use that area there going forward. It would have the systems in it. We would help outfit it with 

the systems that we would need for a longer-term journey so we 

can test the systems out there as well. So that’s what we’re looking 

at. 

Mr. VEASEY. Okay. As far as the CASIS key accomplishments for 

this year regarding broadening the use of the ISS national laboratory, can you just go over some of the—what you think some of the 

key accomplishments are? 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Well, I think CASIS has done a great job in 

terms of bringing some of the critical research, whether it’s rodent 

research, you know, that we do to understand the effects of medications or space travel on rodents that I—the CASIS team has done 

a great job working with researchers there. They’ve been bringing 

different CubeSats up, different things that they’re working on to 

give us more scientific data when we actually deploy from the 

International Space Station. They’re just—they’re continuing to 

really develop that market if you want to call it that, the people 

that can actually come up there, whether it’s scientific research, 

medical research, or just the other deploying of CubeSats from the 

station. So they’ve done a really good job as a partner for us on 

that. 

Mr. VEASEY. Oh, good. Good. What about progresses you think 

NASA has made in just helping, you know, retire and mitigate 

some key risks that are associated with human exploration in deep 

space? 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Yes, I think the—to me that—those key risks 

kind of fall in two categories as the risk on the human and it’s the 

risk on the systems that we need. So we’re continuing to work in 

our Space Technology Mission Directorate on some of those key 

technologies, whether it’s entry, descent, and landing, whether it’s 

radiation protection, those kind of activities. On the station itself, 

we’re utilizing the systems that we have. If you think we did— 

Scott Kelly did the one-year mission, right, to understand the impacts of somebody being on the station for year as opposed to six 
56 

months. So we’ve got a list of human research, things that we 

would like to do on the International Space Station before we start 

pushing out further, and we’ve got some technical things with lifesupport systems, radiation protection that we’re working on. And 

we continue to work on those, and they’re supported in this budget. 

Mr. VEASEY. How do you think adding the fourth member aboard 

ISS will help mitigate some of those risks? 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. I’m super excited about that because we get—by 

having four members doing the research that we do, we expect to 

really increase the production, you know, because operating station 

takes some of their time. Now, we’ll have somebody that can really 

be focused on the research. And we’ve got lots of research up there. 

Because of the resiliency of our transportation systems now with 

the commercial cargo guys, we’re getting a lot of research up there 

for these guys to do. And so having an extra crewmember will be 

outstanding for that. 

Mr. VEASEY. Do you think that NASA is confident that all of 

human exploration health risks will be retired before the ISS is decommissioned in 2024? 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Well, all is a big word. I don’t know if we’ll ever 

have all our risks retired on anything we’re doing. I think we will— 

the way we look at risk is we manage it. From a perspective of the 

critical ones, I think we will have—I don’t think we’ll have the critical risks retired, but we’ll know what we need to do when we’re 

in cislunar space to mitigate those risks going forward. 

Mr. VEASEY. Okay. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Chairman BABIN. Yes, sir. Thank you very much. 

And I want to ask one quick question here, Mr. Lightfoot. Should 

NASA be responsible for regulating private sector planetary protection standards? What would you say about that? 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. I think we would like to be engaged in a conversation. I think we have some expertise that we can bring to bear 

there. I don’t see us so much as a regulatory agency as one that 

should be consulted is the way I look at it. 

Chairman BABIN. Yes. So that’s kind of a yes? 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Yes. Yes, I think as long as we’re—we would 

love to play a consulting role in that particular activity. 

Chairman BABIN. Okay. All right. Thank you very much. 

I want to thank the witness today for his testimony, very valuable, very interesting, and thank the members for their very insightful and interesting questions as well. 

The record will remain open for two weeks for additional comments and written questions from Members who may want to ask 

something additional. 

So with that, this hearing is adjourned. 

Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman BABIN. Yes, sir. 

[Whereupon, at 11:42 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 
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Appendix I 

ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS
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ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS

Responses by Mr. Robert M. Lightfoot, Jr. 
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Appendix II 

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL FOR THE RECORD
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STATEMENT SUBMITTED BY FULL COMMITTEE

RANKING MEMBER EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON
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