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ASTRONOMY, ASTROPHYSICS, 

AND ASTROBIOLOGY 

JOINT HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON SPACE & 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND 

TECHNOLOGY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

July 12, 2016 

Serial No. 114–87 

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 

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., 

Wisconsin 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois 

BILL POSEY, Florida 

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky 

JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma 

RANDY K. WEBER, Texas 

JOHN R. MOOLENAAR, Michigan 

STEPHEN KNIGHT, California 

BRIAN BABIN, Texas 

BRUCE WESTERMAN, Arkansas 

BARBARA COMSTOCK, Virginia 

GARY PALMER, Alabama 

BARRY LOUDERMILK, Georgia 

RALPH LEE ABRAHAM, Louisiana 

DRAIN LAHOOD, Illinois 

WARREN DAVIDSON, Ohio 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland 

SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon 

ERIC SWALWELL, California 

ALAN GRAYSON, Florida 

AMI BERA, California 

ELIZABETH H. ESTY, Connecticut 

MARC A. VEASEY, Texas 

KATHERINE M. CLARK, Massachusetts 

DONALD S. BEYER, JR., Virginia 

ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado 

PAUL TONKO, New York 

MARK TAKANO, California 

BILL FOSTER, Illinois 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON SPACE

HON. BRIAN BABIN, Texas, Chair 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

BILL POSEY, Florida 

JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma 

STEVE KNIGHT, California 

WARREN DAVIDSON, Ohio 

LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas 

DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland 

AMI BERA, California 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado 

MARC A. VEASEY, Texas 

DONALD S. BEYER, JR., Virginia 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY

HON. BARBARA COMSTOCK, Virginia, Chair 

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois 

JOHN R. MOOLENAAR, Michigan 

BRUCE WESTERMAN, Arkansas 

GARY PALMER, Alabama 

RALPH LEE ABRAHAM, Louisiana 

DARIN LAHOOD, Illinois 

LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

ELIZABETH H. ESTY, Connecticut 

KATHERINE M. CLARK, Massachusetts 

PAUL TONKO, New York 

SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon 

ERIC SWALWELL, California 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

July 12, 2016 

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 Donna F. Edwards, Ranking Minority Member, 

Subcommittee on Space, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, 

U.S. House of Representatives ............................................................................ 8 

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

Statement by Representative Barbara Comstock, Chairwoman, Subcommittee 

on Research and Technology, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, 

U.S. House of Representatives ............................................................................ 12 

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

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

Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives ..................... 16 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 17 

Written statement submitted by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, 

Ranking Member, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. 

House of Representatives .................................................................................... 20 

Witnesses: 

Dr. Paul Hertz, Director, Astrophysics Division, NASA 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 23 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 25 

Dr. Jim Ulvestad, Director, Division of Astronomical Sciences, NSF 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 31 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 33 

Dr. Angela Olinto, Chair, Astronomy and Astrophysics Advisory Committee 

(AAAC), and Homer J. Livingston Professor, Department of Astronomy 

and Astrophysics, Enrico Fermi Institute, University of Chicago 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 39 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 41 

Dr. Shelly Wright, Assistant Professor, University of California, San Diego, 

Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences, Breakthrough Listen Advisory 

Committee 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 48 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 50 

Dr. Christine Jones, Senior Astrophysicist, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory,President, American Astronomical Society 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 59 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 61 

Discussion ................................................................................................................. 73 
Page

IV 

Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions 

Dr. Paul Hertz, Director, Astrophysics Division, NASA ....................................... 94 

Dr. Jim Ulvestad, Director, Division of Astronomical Sciences, NSF ................. 115 

Dr. Angela Olinto, Chair, Astronomy and Astrophysics Advisory Committee 

(AAAC), and Homer J. Livingston Professor, Department of Astronomy 

and Astrophysics, Enrico Fermi Institute, University of Chicago ................... 134 

Dr. Shelly Wright, Assistant Professor, University of California, San Diego, 

Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences, Breakthrough Listen Advisory 

Committee ............................................................................................................. 139 

Dr. Christine Jones, Senior Astrophysicist, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, President, American Astronomical Society ...................................... 144 

Appendix II: Additional Material for the Record 

Documents submitted by Representative Brian Babin, Chairman, Subcommittee on Space, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. 

House of Representatives .................................................................................... 156 
(1) 

ASTRONOMY, ASTROPHYSICS, 

AND ASTROBIOLOGY 

TUESDAY, JULY 12, 2016 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON SPACE & 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY, 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY, 

Washington, D.C. 

The subcommittees met, pursuant to call, at 10:11 a.m., in Room 

2318, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Brian Babin [Chairman 

of the Subcommittee on Space] presiding. 
2 
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4 

Chairman BABIN. The Subcommittees on Space and Research 

and Technology will come to order. Without objection, the Chair is 

authorized to declare recesses of the subcommittees at any time. 

Welcome to today’s hearing entitled ‘‘Astronomy, Astrophysics, 

and Astrobiology.’’ And now, I recognize myself for five minutes for 

an opening statement. 

The science of astronomy, astrophysics, and astrobiology expands 

mankind’s understanding of the universe. It seeks to answer fundamental questions as to the nature of our universe, our place within 

it, and whether there is life beyond Earth. 

NASA has a long history of space-based astrophysics and astronomical science. Since the 1960s, NASA has operated space-based 

observatories. Among the most famous of these are the Hubble 

Space Telescope, which has produced some of the clearest images 

of the universe to date. The Hubble Space Telescope became the 

first of NASA’s four Great Observatories, which aimed to observe 

the universe over the entire electromagnetic spectrum and would 

go on to include the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, the 

Chandra X-ray Observatory, and the Spitzer Space Telescope. 

Looking to the future, the James Webb Space Telescope or JWST 

is set to launch in 2018. This will be the most powerful space-based 

observatory to date and will be used to search for planets outside 

of our solar system that could harbor life. 

In my own district at Johnson Space Center, in Houston, NASA’s 

historic Chamber A thermal vacuum testing chamber will be used 

for end-to-end testing of JWST’s optics in a simulated cryo-temperature and vacuum space environment. I’m proud to represent 

the hardworking men and women at the Johnson Space Center 

who have contributed and are contributing to JWST, our nation’s 

next great space-based observatory. 

In fiscal year 2016, NASA was appropriated approximately $1.35 

billion for astrophysics and astronomy. This investment of our tax 

dollars funds the operation and development of NASA’s spacebased observatories and the science that’s it’s produced. And while 

I believe that this is a worthwhile investment, I also have an obligation to ensure NASA’s programs are administered wisely. 

To that end, this Committee continues to closely monitor major 

NASA programs such as JWST and the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite or TESS. As JWST and TESS progress through the 

critical integration and testing phase this year and next, I expect 

regular updates from NASA on progress made and the information 

about any potential issues well in advance. 

The science priorities for NASA’s astronomy and astrophysics activities are strongly informed by the National Academy of Sciences’ 

decadal surveys. The priorities selected for the decade of 2012 to 

2021, as outlined in the New Worlds, New Horizons in Astronomy 

and Astrophysics decadal survey, were to search for the first celestial bodies created in the universe and seek out nearby Earth-like 

planets suitable for habitation, and advance our understanding of 

astrophysics and the laws by which the universe operates. We are 

roughly halfway into the prescribed decadal and look forward to 

hearing about the progress we’ve made toward achieving these very 

goals. 
5 

Since the 2012 decadal, there have also been numerous scientific 

achievements that continue to inform NASA’s astrophysics and astronomy programs. Perhaps one of the most remarkable achievements of the last several years is the discovery of Earth-like 

exoplanets orbiting distant suns. A little over two decades ago, the 

only planets known to mankind were those within our solar system. In the past decade, scientists have confirmed the existence of 

nearly 3,000 exoplanets throughout the universe, with at least 

eight of these exoplanets being roughly the size of Earth and residing in a habitable range of their stars. 

This hearing also allows us an opportunity to inform the next 

decadal survey for astronomy and astrophysics for which NASA has 

already initiated studies. Outside organizations have already begun 

to discuss possibilities as well. And with the aforementioned discoveries of exoplanets and the likely operation of JWST in the coming 

years, there appears to be many areas ripe for future investigations. 

It is also important to acknowledge the numerous scientific contributions made by private citizens, amateur astronomers, and nongovernment organizations. Citizen scientists conduct observations 

and analysis of vast astronomical data sets. This is a good thing 

because citizen science enhances public engagement and helps inspire the next generation of young students to pursue careers in astronomy, astrophysics, and astrobiology. 

I want to thank today’s witnesses for joining us as we discuss 

these very important issues, and I look forward to hearing each of 

your testimonies. 

[The prepared statement of Chairman Babin follows:] 
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Chairman BABIN. And now, before I recognize the Ranking Member, I would like to ask unanimous consent to enter into the record 

two letters relevant to the hearing submitted by the Association of 

Universities for Research and Astronomy and the Arecibo Science 

Advocacy Partnership. Without objection, I so order. 

[The information appears in Appendix II] 

Chairman BABIN. Now, I recognize the Ranking Member, the 

gentlewoman from Maryland, for an opening statement. 

Ms. EDWARDS. Thank you very much. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate that you’re holding this hearing this morning on 

astronomy, astrophysics, and astrobiology. I want to also welcome 

our distinguished panel of witnesses this morning, and I apologize 

for our delay. 

You know, throughout human history we’ve looked to the stars 

to measure the passage of time, to navigate our ships, and to decide when to plant our crops. While the study of the night sky has 

practical benefits to society, its real value is far less tangible but 

not less important. Astronomy opens our eyes. It offers a new way 

to look at the world. And when Copernicus discovered that the 

Earth orbits the sun, it started a revolution. And when astronomers discovered that stars are made of the same elements as we 

are, it deepened our connection to stars and galaxies that are unimaginably far away. 

The recent explosion in exoplanet discoveries has brought us 

closer to finding out if life is common or rare throughout the universe. Many fundamental questions remain, and it’s our job to ensure that scientists have the tools they need to address them. 

In February this Committee held a hearing to celebrate and 

learn more about the first-ever detection of gravitational waves. If 

we learned anything, it’s that investing in science, even when there 

is no foreseeable concrete benefit to society, does indeed pay off. 

Large telescopes like the James Webb Space Telescope and Wide 

Field Infrared Survey Telescope, the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, are critical to the next generation of astronomers. 

We often express our support for science, engineering, technology 

and math education, but those efforts are wasted if we don’t make 

decisions now to ensure the development of researchers, facilities, 

and missions that will enable them to do their work. Astronomical 

discoveries resonate with the basic human drive to understand our 

surroundings. The awe they inspire is perhaps the reason that astronomy is one of the most accessible fields of science to the general public. Astronomy serves as a gateway for students who may 

not otherwise enter a science discipline. And every year nearly 400 

students receive bachelor’s degrees in astronomy. Many students 

who start out studying astronomy go on to pursue careers in medicine, engineering, and data science. 

In addition to attracting more students to study science, astronomy inspires members of the public to pay attention and even to 

participate in astronomy. The Hubble Space Telescope made a huge 

impact on the public’s engagement in astronomy. It is often called 

‘‘the people’s telescope’’ because its beautiful images brought the 

awe-inspiring sights of the cosmos into classrooms and living rooms 

around the world. 
9 

Citizen science has deep roots in astronomy. Amateur astronomers have discovered supernova, comets, and asteroids and even 

exoplanets. With the advent of the Internet, an even broader group 

of the public is now able to contribute to research efforts led by the 

astronomy community. 

This morning’s hearing will give us a chance to discuss the compelling questions astronomers have dedicated their careers to answering, as well as the programs, facilities, and missions that are 

necessary to enable their investigation into those questions. 

We live in an era of multi-messenger astronomy. We can see the 

universe with light, with particles, and now with gravitational 

waves. And as we look ahead, we must acknowledge that the measurements that are required to advance future astronomical investigations are rapidly evolving. We need to plan ahead to ensure 

that development of cutting-edge detectors and analysis software 

keeps pace with the needs of scientists. 

We have the chance to speak to the leaders of the astronomy 

community today and to find out where astronomy is going. And 

one thing is clear. We in Congress need to provide the resources 

needed to ensure that all areas of science, including astronomy, can 

continue to carry out groundbreaking discoveries in the years to 

come. 

And again, I’d like to thank our witnesses for being here, and I 

look forward to your testimony. 

And I also want to acknowledge by my side today are staff Sara 

Barber who is a fellow with us and has about six weeks, and I told 

her how lucky she was that, as an astronomer, she gets to be at 

this hearing. 

And so thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Edwards follows:] 
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Chairman BABIN. Yes, ma’am. Thank you. 

I’d like to recognize one of my interns out there, a student from 

Texas A&M University from my hometown of Woodville, Texas, 

and that’s Miss Sarah Reese. Good to have you, Sarah. 

Ms. EDWARDS. Both Sarahs. 

Chairman BABIN. That’s right. 

Now, I’d like to introduce the Chairwoman on the Subcommittee 

on Research and Technology, Mrs. Comstock, the gentlewoman 

from Virginia. 

Mrs. COMSTOCK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I also welcome 

your A&M student. I have family down in Bryan, Texas, so a great 

university there. 

Since 2000, seven of the eight people to receive Nobel Prizes for 

astrophysics work have been American scientists. The United 

States has had tremendous achievements in astrophysics and 

astrobiology research. Taxpayer-supported grants from the National Science Foundation fund much of this groundbreaking research. In fiscal year 2016, NSF will spend over $246 million to 

support the astronomical sciences. That money goes toward an incredible variety of projects, from funding facilities like the Green 

Bank Telescope in West Virginia, to small research grants given to 

faculty and students at universities around the country. 

It has been a productive year for federally funded astrophysics 

research. The biggest achievement was the detection of gravitational waves at the LIGO Observatory, this past September, proving part of Einstein’s theory of relativity. Just a couple of weeks 

ago, LIGO announced a second discovery. This amazing project was 

able to detect ripples in space-time caused by a collision of black 

holes 1.3 billion light years away from fields in Washington and 

Louisiana. LIGO and its predecessors have been funded by NSF for 

over 30 years, and its top scientists will almost certainly receive a 

Nobel Prize. 

Some of NSF’s most interesting astronomy projects are still in 

the works. The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, or LSST, will 

produce an incredibly detailed picture of the full night sky every 

three nights for a decade. It will make its findings available to the 

public as it goes along, resulting in the world’s largest public data 

set. And I think this is particularly exciting when you look at all 

these projects and how the public can participate, how all of our 

online capacity can bring this into every classroom, every part of 

the country, really every part of the world, wherever there might 

be some kind of device that can view it on and interact. And that’s 

a really exciting aspect of it. 

The Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope is another important upcoming project. Scheduled to start operating in 2018 in Hawaii, it 

will produce the most detailed images of the sun ever by a groundbased device. NSF-funded astronomy programs are among the largest sources of international collaboration for American scientists. In 

particular, the Gemini Observatory and the Atacama Large Millimeter Array are multinational projects which each involve at least 

five nations and would not be possible for any of them to accomplish individually. 

Still, NSF’s astronomy program faces questions going forward. 

The Arecibo Observatory, long one of the premier sites it funds in 
13 

Puerto Rico, is nearing the end of its lifecycle. NSF needs to decide 

what it will do with the facility, which many in the scientific community believe can still contribute to furthering scientific discoveries and providing education opportunities. 

It is in our nation’s best interest to continue our commitment to 

researching the fundamental nature of the universe. Breakthroughs like the detection of gravitational waves inspire the next 

generation of scientists. 

For the American economy to be successful in the 21st Century, 

we need to have that skilled labor force and workforce that understands innovation and emerging technologies and leads. 

And I wanted to particularly note today I’m very pleased to see 

the balance of women here in our panel. Having passed the INSPIRE Act here earlier on this Committee, it’s really—actually, 

you’re outnumbering the men today, so that’s particularly exciting 

also. So we’re really look forward to you inspiring the next generation of leaders, and I look forward to hearing from this panel of accomplished witnesses this morning, one of whom directs all astronomical science projects at NSF. So thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mrs. Comstock follows:] 
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Chairman BABIN. Thank you, Chairwoman Comstock. 

Now, I’d like to recognize the Chairman of our Full Committee, 

the gentleman from Texas, Chairman Smith. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Chairman Babin. 

The science of astronomy goes back millennia and is one of the 

oldest of the natural sciences. Astrophysics, the application of physics to understand the nature of the universe, is a relativity new scientific field that has blossomed in the last few years. 

Space-based observations from telescopes like the Hubble Space 

Telescope have amazed us for decades, and the James Webb Space 

Telescope is only a couple of years away from launch. Recently, we 

have seen amazing discoveries of planets outside our solar system 

and the detection of gravitation waves. This is just the beginning. 

Many more amazing discoveries await us. 

NASA’s Chief Scientist, Dr. Ellen Stofan, recently testified before 

this Committee that ‘‘with future technology and instruments currently under development, we will explore the solar system and beyond, and could indeed—perhaps in as little as 10–20 years—discover some form of life, past or present.’’ 

Since 1995, over 3,000 exoplanets have been identified, with several found to be in the ‘‘habitable zone’’ where a planet with sufficient atmospheric pressure can maintain liquid water on its surface. The Kepler spacecraft discovered many of these exoplanets 

and led scientists to estimate that as many as 11 billion rocky, 

Earth-sized exoplanets could be orbiting in the habitable zones of 

sun-like stars in the Milky Way alone. 

Kepler’s successes in hunting exoplanets will continue with the 

launch of the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite in 2017 and be 

augmented by the capabilities of the James Webb Space Telescope, 

the Wide Field Infrared Space Telescope, and ground-based telescopes such as the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, or LSST. The 

LSST may be able to peer into the atmospheres of these exoplanets 

and conduct spectroscopy to determine the composition of their 

atmospheres. 

While partnerships between the private and public sector in astronomy are well established, these ties need to be strengthened 

when it comes to exoplanet surveys and exploration related to 

astrobiology. Private sector groups like the Breakthrough Listen 

project provide funding opportunities to leverage limited government funding to maximize discovery. 

Going forward, I hope that NASA, NSF, and academia will expand public-private partnerships to advance optical laser transmission surveys, as it is a promising and exciting field of inquiry. 

Mr. Chairman, I look forward to our witnesses’ testimony today. 

With representation from the NASA, the NSF, the Astronomy and 

Astrophysics Advisory Committee, the American Astronomical Society, and the Breakthrough Listen Project, we have the opportunity 

to hear a number of perspectives on the subjects of astronomy, astrophysics, and astrobiology. 

Thank you and yield back. 

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

Now, I’d like to recognize the gentlewoman from Maryland for a 

statement on behalf of Ranking Member Johnson. 

Ms. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Just for the record, we’ve entered the Ranking Member Eddie 

Bernice Johnson’s statement in the record today, and she regrets 

that she is not able to be here today. She is attending the memorial 

service in Dallas today. Thank you. And I yield back. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Johnson follows:] 
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Chairman BABIN. Thank you. Now, let me introduce our witnesses for today’s hearing. And our first witness today is Dr. Paul 

Hertz, Director of the Astrophysics Division at NASA. Dr. Hertz is 

responsible for the agency’s research programs and missions necessary to discover how the universe works and explore how the universe began and developed into its present form and to search for 

Earth-like planets. Dr. Hertz received a B.S. degree in both physics 

and mathematics from MIT followed by a Ph.D. from Harvard University in astronomy. 

Our second witness today is Dr. Jim Ulvestad. I hope I pronounced that right. 

Dr. ULVESTAD. Ulvestad. 

Chairman BABIN. Okay. Ulvestad. Is that it? 

Dr. ULVESTAD. Ulvestad. 

Chairman BABIN. Ulvestad, okay. Jim Ulvestad, Director of the 

Division of Astronomical Sciences at NSF. In this role he leads a 

staff of 25 and oversees an annual budget of $246 million plus 

major observatory construction projects with an additional budget 

of $100 million in fiscal year 2016. He earned a bachelor’s degree 

from the University of California at Los Angeles and a Ph.D. in astronomy from the University of Maryland. 

Our third witness today is Dr. Angela Olinto, Chair of the Astronomy and Astrophysics Advisory Committee, or AAAC, and the 

Homer J. Livingston professor in the Department of Astronomy 

and Astrophysics at the Enrico Fermi Institute at the University 

of Chicago. Dr. Olinto is the principal investigator of the Extreme 

Universe Space Observatory on a super pressure balloon mission 

and a member of the international collaboration of the Pierre 

Auger Observatory. She received her bachelor of science in physics 

from the Pontificia Universidad Catolica of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil 

and her Ph.D. in physics from MIT. 

Our fourth witness is Dr. Shelley Wright, member of the Breakthrough Listen Advisory Committee and assistant professor at the 

University of California in San Diego. Dr. Wright has extensive experience working with optical infrared instrumentation with a particular focus on imaging cameras and spectrographs that operate 

behind adaptive optics systems on large telescopes. She currently 

serves as project scientist for the first light instrument or IRIS for 

the future Thirty Meter Telescope. Dr. Wright received her bachelor of science in physics at the University of California in Santa 

Cruz and her Ph.D. from UCLA. 

Our final witness of today is Dr. Christine Jones, who is President of the Astronomical American astronomical Society and senior 

astrophysicist at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. 

Throughout her career, Dr. Jones is worked on a variety of research topics, but most recently her research is focused on x-ray 

studies of the hot gas and galaxies and galaxy clusters using the 

Chandra X-ray Observatory. Dr. Jones earned her A.B., her M.A., 

and her Ph.D. degrees in astronomy at Harvard University. 

So thank you all, distinguished witnesses, for being here today. 

And I now recognize Dr. Hertz for five minutes to present his testimony. 
23 

TESTIMONY OF DR. PAUL HERTZ, DIRECTOR, 

ASTROPHYSICS DIVISION, NASA 

Dr. HERTZ. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Members of the Committee, I am pleased to appear before you 

to discuss the current and future astrophysics programs at NASA. 

How did our universe begin and evolve? How did the familiar 

night sky of galaxies, stars, and planets come to be? And are we 

alone in the universe? These are the enduring questions that humankind has been asking since we first looked up at the sky, and 

now, for the first time, we are able to answer those questions scientifically. We’re probing back in time with the Hubble Space Telescope detecting faint infrared signals from galaxies that formed 13 

billion years ago, only 400 million years after the Big Bang. 

Hubble and the Chandra X-ray Observatory are working to gather to study supermassive black holes showing how they formed in 

the early universe and how they triggered birth of stars and galaxies. And NASA is developing two new space observatories to further advance our understanding of the cosmos: the James Webb 

Space Telescope, which will launch in 2018, will detect the light 

from the first stars and galaxies that formed after the Big Bang; 

and the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope, or WFIRST, will 

launch in the mid-2020s and help us understand the mysterious 

dark energy that is propelling the acceleration of our universe. 

Understanding the origins of galaxies and stars leads us to an 

understanding of how planets formed, including planets capable of 

supporting life. Our knowledge of planets outside of our solar system, exoplanets, has exploded in the last 20 years. Thanks to the 

pioneering discoveries made with ground-based observatories followed by the Kepler Space Telescope, we now know that planets orbiting other stars are common. For four years Kepler measured the 

light from 150,000 stars staring at them 24 hours a day, seven 

days a week, 365 days a year and discovered at least 5,000 

exoplanet candidates around those stars. 

The exoplanets discovered so far are astounding in their diversity. One is a rocky hot planet locked by gravity with one side always facing its star, wild swings in temperature that hint at a surface bubbling with rivers of lava. Another is a scorching alien world 

where it rains glass sideways with winds of 4,500 miles per hour. 

And another is half the size of Jupiter but speeds around its star 

in only four days instead of the leisurely 12 years that Jupiter 

takes to orbit our sun. 

Hubble Space Telescope has detected the most distant exoplanet 

known and has measured the atmospheric composition of many 

exoplanets using the parent star’s light filtered through the 

exoplanet’s atmosphere. And the Spitzer Space Telescope has 

probed the temperature and atmospheric composition and even 

weather on distant exoplanets. 

But the most compelling search is for the rocky planets that, like 

the Earth, might be capable of supporting life. To date we have 

found nine roughly Earth-sized planets located in the habitable 

zone of their parent stars, but this type of planet lies at the limits 

of what we can discover using our current generation of space telescopes. The Webb telescope will examine the makeup of known 
24 

exoplanets through both transit spectroscopy and direct imaging. 

And the new observatories coming online will discover new 

exoplanets for study by Webb: the Transiting Exoplanet Survey 

Satellite test and the previously mentioned WFIRST. 

Now, one thing that Hubble, Chandra, Spitzer, Webb, and 

WFIRST all have in common is that they were recommended by a 

decadal survey. As the time approaches for the next decadal survey, NASA has initiated mission concept studies to inform the next 

decadal survey’s deliberations. 

Following the recommendations of our advisory groups, we have 

identified four large mission concepts to study. What type of 

science might we expect from future NASA space observatories? An 

x-ray surveyor might discover the first generation of supermassive 

black holes and explain in the early universe and determine the influence of dark matter on the evolution. A far infrared surveyor 

might find biosignatures in the atmospheres of exoplanets and explain the origins of the dust and molecules that serve as the prerequisites for life. An ultraviolet visible infrared surveyor with a 

large mirror might capture the first starlight in the early universe, 

detect water worlds and biomarkers on distant Earth-like planets 

and image the icy plumes from moons of giant planets in our own 

solar system. An inhabitable exoplanet imaging mission might 

search for signs of habitability in the atmospheres of planets orbiting stars in our Milky Way galaxy. 

We’re fortunate to live during a time when grand scientific 

quests are possible and in a country that values the curiosity and 

discovery as inherently noble pursuits. And at NASA we’re thankful to Congress for its continued support. 

So thank you, and I’ll be pleased to answer any questions the 

Committee might have. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Hertz follows:] 
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Chairman BABIN. Thank you, Dr. Hertz. 

Now, I’d like to recognize Dr. Ulvestad for his opening statement. 

TESTIMONY OF DR. JIM ULVESTAD, DIRECTOR, 

DIVISION OF ASTRONOMICAL SCIENCES, NSF 

Dr. ULVESTAD. Thank you, Chairman. Chairman Babin, Ranking 

Member Edwards, Chairwoman Comstock, Chairman Smith, and 

members of the subcommittees, we thank you for the opportunity 

for the National Science Foundation to discuss the exciting 

progress in astronomy, astrophysics, and astrobiology and the outlook for the future. This remarkable progress is the product of sustained taxpayer support through representatives such as yourselves and the long-term effort of the basic research community 

represented here on my left. 

For millennia, humans have viewed light from the sky to learn 

about the universe. Today, we observe across the electromagnetic 

spectrum from radio waves to gamma rays and are ready to look 

at the universe in new ways. Particles such as neutrinos and cosmic rays provide a different view, and gravitational waves give yet 

another. 

In this new era of multi-messenger astrophysics, NSF has a leadership role. The sixth Astronomy and Astrophysics Decadal Survey 

was delivered in 2010 by the National Academies. The survey 

stressed the importance of supporting individual investigator research, as well as developing forefront observatories. 

Three principal science areas were identified: cosmic dawn, 

searching for the first stars, galaxies, and black holes; new worlds, 

seeking nearby habitable planets; and physics of the universe, understanding scientific principles. These scientific areas represent 

enduring human quests. Take new worlds as an example. The 

Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, ALMA, was recently completed by NSF and its international partners. 

[Slide.] 

You see before you the recent ALMA image of the star HL Tau 

450 light-years away, which shows rings of gas and dust circling 

the star. The gaps in those rings indicated by the dashed lines are 

swept out by planets just as Saturn satellites sweep out gaps in its 

famous ring system. 

NSF and NASA are collaborating on a new instrument to measure the velocities of stars precisely and detect motions influenced 

by planets having masses similar to Earth’s. This instrument will 

be installed on the university- and NSF-supported wind telescope 

in 2018. Finding and characterizing Earth-like planets is an important step in understanding how planetary systems form and evolve 

and ultimately whether they can host life. 

NSF and its awardees also are constructing two major observatories recommended by decadal surveys and funded by Congress. 

The Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope, which you see before you— 

that’s an actual image, not an artist’s conception—is being built on 

the island of Maui. Its observations will provide a deeper understanding of the sun’s processes. Those processes lead to the activity 

that we call space weather, which has the potential to significantly 

impact communication and navigation systems in space and on the 

ground, power grids, and astronaut safety. 
32 

NSF, with DOE and private partners, leads the construction of 

the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, LSST. LSST is the highest 

priority ground-based recommendation of the last decadal survey, 

and it will revolutionize modern astrophysics. LSST will discover 

thousands of potentially hazardous near-Earth asteroids. It will enable contributions by citizen scientists who will use its data sets to 

participate in the excitement of astronomical discovery. 

NSF has also responded to another decadal survey recommendation by initiating a midscale innovations program. This initiative is 

an ideal hands-on training ground for young scientists and instrument-builders who will participate in the great observatories of the 

future. 

When I left graduate school, we did not know that the expansion 

of the universe was accelerating, that there were thousands of 

other solar systems, or that we would detect gravitational waves 

from merging black holes. Those discoveries relied on many years 

of support for individual investigators on spectacular computer simulations and on frontier observatories. 

With NSF observatories such as ALMA, the Laser Interferometer 

Gravitational-Wave Observatory, and the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, we are moving rapidly into an era of multi-messenger 

astrophysics. NSF is proud to work with our many partners and 

the broad community of scientists. We are poised to continue a 

journey of discovery on behalf of the American public, and we 

thank you and all U.S. taxpayers for your support. 

This concludes my testimony and I’d be happy to answer any 

questions. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Ulvestad follows:] 
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Chairman BABIN. Thank you very, very much. 

And now, I recognize Dr. Olinto for five minutes to present her 

testimony. 

TESTIMONY OF DR. ANGELA OLINTO, CHAIR, 

ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS 

ADVISORY COMMITTEE (AAAC), 

AND HOMER J. LIVINGSTON PROFESSOR, 

DEPARTMENT OF ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS, 

ENRICO FERMI INSTITUTE, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 

Dr. OLINTO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman Babin, Chairwoman Comstock, Ranking Member 

Edwards, Ranking Member Lipinski, Members of the Subcommittee, and Chairman Smith, thank you so much for having us 

come here today and it’s a pleasure for me to share findings of the 

Astronomy and Astrophysics Advisory Committee. I’m Angela 

Olinto, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University 

of Chicago and the current Chair of the AAAC, which is a FACA 

committee of 13 scientists charged to assess the coordination of astronomy and astrophysics programs of the NSF, NASA, and the 

DOE. And also we assess the status of the activities relating to the 

priorities of the decadal surveys of the National Academies. 

Over the last few decades, astronomers and astrophysics have 

revolutionized our understanding of the universe, our place in it, 

and the fundamental laws that govern its evolution and the systems within it. These impressive achievements are a direct result 

from the long-standing national investment in basic scientific research. I thank the Committee and its role and continuing support 

for basic science. 

This year, the world celebrated the historic breakthrough of the 

first observations of gravitational waves by LIGO. This landmark 

discovery discussed here in February demonstrates the power of 

long-term investment in basic research by the United States 

through the NSF and the ability of scientists worldwide to work together in the challenging and fascinating quest to understand nature. 

This new window enables direct observations of the most extreme 

events of our universe including the earliest moments of the Big 

Bang. Primordial gravitational waves may soon be discovered by 

the studies of cosmic microwave backgrounds, while a future gravitational wave space mission reached an important milestone this 

year, the success of the LISA Pathfinder. 

Gravitational waves add a new dimension to traditional astronomy, which is based on the broad electromagnetic spectrum. Together with cosmic rays and neutrinos the multi-messenger universe is now observed with frequencies spanning 35 orders of magnitude. If we translate that to music, it is equivalent to a piano 

with 116 octaves instead of the usual seven, which would be 83 foot 

piano, twice the size of this room. We need a lot of hands and 

bright minds to play such an instrument. 

Astronomy and astrophysics contributes to astrobiology in many 

areas, most prominently in the study of new worlds or exoplanets, 

one of the three main science things of the 2010 decadal survey. 
40 

The diversity of the discovered new worlds have surprised us all. 

They are much more numerous and diverse than the most creative 

science fiction imagined. 

An active program to characterize exoplanets, their services and 

atmospheres, uses both ground and space telescopes. The launch of 

JWST and TESS in the next two years will strengthen the effort 

further. JWST, the most powerful telescope, as mentioned here before, will be taking spectra of transiting exoplanets, while TESS 

will be searching for nearby Earth-like planets, providing great targets for JWST. 

In the next decade, the highest decadal priority, WFIRST, will 

inaugurate space-based direct imaging and reflected light and pave 

the way to a future flagship mission that might image Earth-like 

planets. 

The AAAC finds the U.S. investment in astronomy and astrophysics continues to support an outstanding portfolio of preeminent 

research facilities and the coordination between NSF, NASA, and 

DOE has been exemplary. These discoveries have captivated the 

public and inspired new generations of scientists and engineers to 

continue to expand our knowledge and secure our future leadership 

in science, technology, and space. 

However, the AAAC is concerned about the balance of the portfolio. At both NSF and NASA, competed grants and midscale programs are being squeezed by flat or declining budgets. These programs form the new generation of scientists and ideas. Success 

rates have declined in the last decade from 30 percent to 20 percent, and this is affecting the morale of the community. As we plan 

for a future with the U.S. leadership, investment in the next generation of scientists and ideas is crucial. 

I was born in the United States because my father came here to 

do his Ph.D. before returning to Brazil. Twenty years later, I 

dreamed of doing the same thing. I applied to U.S. graduate 

schools in spite of being bed-bound. I was very lucky because I 

have my health back and also the opportunity given to my generation by those who built the great U.S. research institutions in the 

past. 

Since then, I have mentored many students at Chicago who are 

now following their dreams in academia, national labs, and industry. Of my graduate students, 73 percent have been women, including the first African-American to get a Ph.D. in our department. I 

would like to ensure that the diverse and brilliant young talent in 

this country will also have the great opportunities we have. 

My one message today is to strengthen the base program that 

needs help after the past years of constrained budgets. Let’s support the next generation as past generations have supported us. 

Thank you for listening. I’ll be pleased to answer any questions. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Olinto follows:] 
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Chairman BABIN. [Speaking foreign language.] 

Dr. OLINTO. [Speaking foreign language.] 

Chairman BABIN. Thank you for that. 

I now recognize Dr. Wright for five minutes to present her testimony. 

TESTIMONY OF DR. SHELLY WRIGHT, 

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, 

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, 

SAN DIEGO, CENTER FOR ASTROPHYSICS 

AND SPACE SCIENCES, 

BREAKTHROUGH LISTEN ADVISORY COMMITTEE 

Dr. WRIGHT. Thank you, Chairman, and esteemed Committee. 

Thank you for the opportunity to discuss the scientific pursuit for 

finding other intelligent life in the universe. 

I’m an assistant professor in physics at the University of California San Diego. I spend my time teaching astrophysics, researching galaxies, and building new instruments for the world’s largest 

telescopes. I am also one of a few SETI researchers worldwide. 

The search for extraterrestrial intelligence, SETI, is a scientific 

pursuit of detecting technological transmissions from other intelligent life in the universe. In particular, SETI searches for a signal 

purposely sent or accidentally leaked from an advanced civilization. 

We are in the midst of a dramatic paradigm shift. Only in the 

last few years, thanks to NASA’s successful Kepler mission, we 

know that one in every five sun-like stars in our galaxy harbors an 

Earth-like planet. This greatly encourages our search for life and 

intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, but given the lack of sustained academic funds for SETI, few opportunities exist for researchers and students to engage in this field. Yet many believe 

there is no single discovery that will more fundamentally change 

humankind’s view of our place in the universe than to discover E.T. 

Since the search in 1960, SETI is predominantly conducted at 

radio wavelengths. Numerous SETI programs have made use of the 

largest U.S. and international radio telescopes. Still, SETI radio 

searches have barely scratched the surface for detecting faint interstellar signals. Thanks to constantly improving technology, the 

coming years still promise new, more sensitive SETI searches. 

Breakthrough Listen, a ten-year, $100 million SETI initiative 

sparked by philanthropist Yuri Milner began operations just this 

year in January. Breakthrough Listen is using the Green Bank 

Telescope in West Virginia, the Parkes radio telescope in Australia 

to attempt a radio search that is 50 times more sensitive and covers 10 times more sky than all previous SETI searches before. 

Just this month, the Chinese have finished final assembly of the 

world’s largest radio dish at 500 meters in diameter. Chinese scientists have slated this dish to be used for very sensitive SETI program, thus adding significant international competition to the 

SETI field. 

The radio regime is just one small portion of the electromagnetic 

spectrum. It has been suggested for decades that other wavelengths 

may be just as viable for interstellar communication. The discovery 

of laser technology opened a new realm and offered several advan-
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tages over radio. Lasers can be narrowly beamed, thus transmitting power efficiently, and its beam can be packed with more information per energy used. 

Using our laser technology today, humans would have the capability to transmit a signal that would be easily detectable thousands of light-years from Earth encompassing millions and millions 

of stars. Our group has constructed SETI instruments at Lick and 

Leuschner Observatories to search for fast-pulsed optical laser signals that have a burst within nanoseconds or shorter period. In 

parallel, team from Berkeley searches for continuous laser signals 

using high-resolution spectra from Keck Observatory. 

Breakthrough Listen also supports an optical SETI program that 

seeks laser signals and optical spectra at Lick Observatory, but another promising area for SETI is infrared wavelengths. Infrared detectors have been rapidly improving only recently making an infrared pulse laser SETI search possible. In fact, sending a laser signal 

in infrared is more advantageous because it’s less diminished by 

interstellar dust and gas. 

Our team designed and constructed the first-ever near infrared 

SETI experiment. This program has been superb for training undergraduate and graduate students and postdocs. Our team and 

others are now working to design and seek funding for new SETI 

experiments. 

Enthusiasm is ever-increasing for SETI but resources are scarce. 

A huge disparity exists between the enormous public and scientific 

interest and whether we are unique in the universe and resources 

that are actually allocated to SETI research. Since 1977, there has 

been roughly a flat rate of refereed publications about SETI with 

a number of worldwide dedicated SETI research levels at a mere 

two dozen. Even with the much-needed catalyst of funds recently 

provided by private foundations, leveraging private and public sectors is vital for creating a sustainable and growing community of 

SETI researchers. 

Two decades ago, unknowns about astrobiology and extrasolar 

planets discouraged government funding for SETI. Today, thanks 

to successful NASA, NSF, and national supported missions, former 

concerns about the value SETI research no longer apply. While 

there’s much to learn about the universe, the relevance for advancing SETI is stronger today than ever before in the history of humankind, so thank you for your consideration and listening today. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Wright follows:] 
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Chairman BABIN. Thank you, Dr. Wright. 

I now recognize Dr. Jones for five minutes to present her testimony. 

TESTIMONY OF DR. CHRISTINE JONES, 

SENIOR ASTROPHYSICIST, 

SMITHSONIAN ASTROPHYSICAL OBSERVATORY, 

PRESIDENT, AMERICAN ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 

Dr. JONES. So Chairman Babin, Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Edwards, and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the 

opportunity to testify today on behalf of the American Astronomical 

Society, the professional society of our discipline in the United 

States. 

We’re very fortunate in the United States to have a robust fleet 

of space- and ground-based observatories that allow us to make exciting new discoveries about our universe. Congress has long been 

a strong supporter of these programs at NASA and NSF, and for 

that our community is extremely grateful. 

I hope to give you just a snapshot of the exciting research, technology development, and education and outreach activities that astronomers engage in. As you know from these other testimonies, 

not very long ago the only planets we knew about were in our solar 

system. Dark energy had not been discovered and supermassive 

black holes were not known to be common in the centers of galaxies. A lot’s changed since then thanks to significant public and 

private support. 

Today, we discovered almost 3,000 exoplanets have another 2,500 

candidates. NASA’s Kepler mission found an exoplanet orbiting two 

suns, colloquially known as Tatooine after the double star system 

in Star Wars. Just last week, a U.S.-led team using the European 

ground-based telescope announced the discovery of an exoplanet 

with three stars, one better than Tatooine. 

Thanks to ground- and space-based observations, we now know 

that normal matter, the sort of stuff we deal with directly every 

day, makes up only a small fraction of the mass in the universe. 

The rest of the mass is dark matter or dark energy, which isn’t 

even matter at all but it is driving the accelerating expansion of 

the universe. 

Although as President of the AAS, I speak on behalf of all the 

astronomical scientists. I’m also an active researcher. My research 

focuses on the effect supermassive black holes have on their host 

galaxies. These black holes have occasional very large outbursts 

that prevent new stars from forming in their galaxy. It’s amazing 

to think that something so relatively small in size has an impact 

across the galaxy many tens of thousands of light years in size. 

This research has more than pure academic value. The technology that we developed to explore the universe transfers beyond 

our field. I want to mention just two examples. Much of the time, 

as you’ve heard, when astronomers want to study objects, they’re 

very, very faint. They can be distant galaxies. They can be very 

faint objects in our own solar system. To study such faint astronomical objects, we need both large telescopes and very sensitive 

instruments. Although the first CCDs were made for data storage 

devices, astronomers recognized that they could be modified to 
60 

function as core components of highly sensitive, efficient, and stable imaging devices. 

Astronomers, working with industry and the government, helped 

improve CCD detectors so they’re part of the workhorse of instruments on ground and space-based telescopes. Variations of that 

technology transferred beyond astronomy and are now the crucial 

components of innumerable digital imaging systems, including the 

camera that you probably have in all of your cell phones. 

And technology originally developed for observing x-ray sources 

in space is also used for security screening. The company American 

Science and Engineering where Nobel Prize-winning astronomer 

Riccardo Giacconi worked also developed and built the first x-ray 

scanners. The next time you put your bag through the 

Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum’s scanner, take a moment to 

look at the AS&E label that’s on the side. 

But perhaps the most important technology transfer of all is the 

technically trained people. Astronomy is really a gateway science 

that brings people into STEM fields, and astronomers love sharing 

what we do with the public. Undergraduate Astro 101 courses enroll approximately 250,000 students each year nationwide and are 

taken by about ten percent of all college students, making it one 

of the most popular general education courses. 

NASA and NSF have very active and successful education and 

outreach programs. This includes the Hubble program that brings 

formal science education to students in half of the public middle 

schools in the United States. Programs at NSF like the research 

experiences for undergraduates play an important role getting undergraduates from diverse backgrounds exposed to doing forefront 

research. 

But even with these programs, most scientific fields including 

ours have a long way to go on the path toward being fully inclusive 

of underrepresented minorities. There are no easy answers or quick 

fixes, but our community is committed to doing better with the 

help of our colleagues at NSF and NASA. 

In closing, the mission of the AAS is to enhance and share humanity’s scientific understanding of the universe, where it came 

from, and where it’s going. It’s a challenging mission, and what we 

do resonates with the American people. Discoveries grace the front 

pages of major newspapers and people filled Times Square to watch 

Curiosity land on Mars. The public wants us to uncover more of the 

mysteries of the universe and to share those results with them. 

That is what astronomers do, and it is what funding from Congress 

facilitates. 

It’s a delight to participate in this effort as a researcher, an 

honor to serve as the President of the AAS, and I look forward to 

answering your questions here today and in the future. 

Oh, and I couldn’t help but notice that there are seven members 

of the Full Committee from Texas, including Chairman Smith and 

Ranking Member Johnson, who’s not here right now, and it turns 

out that 2017 is the year of Texas for the AAS. Please accept my 

personal invitation for you or members of your staff to attend the 

society’s conferences next year. In January we’ll be in Grapevine 

and in June we’ll be in Austin. Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Jones follows:] 
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Chairman BABIN. Thank you very much, Dr. Jones, and I hope 

that my scheduler will take note of that. And I’d love to be there. 

Anyway, we certainly thank all of the witnesses for your testimony. And now the Chair recognizes himself for five minutes. 

The JWST thermal vacuum testing will be conducted at the 

Johnson Space Center’s Chamber A, which is the largest high vacuum cryogenic optical test chamber in the world. Chamber A was famously used for Apollo testing. 

And, Dr. Hertz, if you can speak to how this unique facility supports astronomy and astrophysics missions. 

Dr. HERTZ. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for that question. One of the 

lessons that NASA has learned over the years of launching many 

successful space missions is that a thorough testing on the ground 

is the key to making sure they work the first time we turn them 

on in space unlike ground-based observatories. We can’t send our 

technicians in to fix them if that turns out to be—if we don’t get 

them working right. 

Chamber A is the only place in the country where we could do 

a full end-to-end test of the James Webb Space Telescope. The 

Webb telescope is being assembled right now at the Goddard Space 

Flight Center, and early next year we will be shipping it down to 

Houston to put it into Chamber A where we will spend a good fraction of the year doing the end-to-end test with the flight telescope 

and all four flight instruments inside the chamber to make sure 

they work as a complete system. 

Chairman BABIN. Thank you very, very much. And we’re looking 

forward to observing some of these tests. 

My next question is for Dr. Olinto. One of the reasons the Hubble 

Space Telescope is so successful is that it can be serviced by the 

space shuttle. How could a deep space exploration vehicle like 

Orion impact future astronomy and astrophysics missions? And 

how would future astronomy and astrophysics missions benefit 

from being capable of crew servicing if they are reasonably within 

reach of the SLS and Orion? 

Dr. OLINTO. Just repeating what Paul just said, it is really important to make sure it works perfectly before you launch—— 

Chairman BABIN. Right. 

Dr. OLINTO. —because it’s obviously a very difficult thing to do. 

We are very proud that the Hubble was serviced and it is so capable of doing gorgeous things, including my scarf. But going to, for 

example, L2 to service JWST would be a much harder job just, you 

know, it’s much further away. So I think this is a challenge that 

I’m sure that if we are willing to spend a lot of money on it, we 

should be able to do it. 

But in terms of priorities I think the best is to make sure it’s 

really working on the ground. So servicing things far away is really 

challenging. On the other hand, we need to keep this capabilities 

developing for future missions which might become more affordable 

to go service something in L2, for example. So I imagine that for 

very far away robotics would be the way to go first so that we make 

sure our astronauts come back healthy. 

Chairman BABIN. Okay. Thank you. Absolutely. 

Now, a question to really everyone concerning the SLS. How will 

the capabilities of the Space Launch System impact future astron-
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omy and astrophysics missions? Some of it’s been addressed already. And how should the next decadal survey account for these 

capabilities? Who would like to address that first? 

Dr. HERTZ. I’ll start off, Mr. Chair. The SLS offers a number of 

capabilities that could be used by future space-based observatories. 

Primarily, it’s the large mass that’s capable of launching into space 

and the large faring that will have compared to some of the current 

generation of launch vehicles. 

As many of the witnesses have testified, the frontiers of astrophysics require us to image things which are very far away and 

very faint, that means very large mirrors in order to collect enough 

light for us to make scientific deductions about what we’re looking 

at. Large mirrors are both large and heavy, and the SLS can help 

us solve both of those questions. 

As I mentioned, we have ongoing right now four studies of potential future NASA missions to will help inform the next decadal survey, and so all those studies will lay out what are the requirements 

for those future observatories. And if those requirements can be 

best met by an SLS instead of some other launch vehicle, that is 

certainly one of the tools that would be available for realizing a future observatory. 

Chairman BABIN. Okay. Thank you. Anybody else want to take 

an answer to that? 

Dr. OLINTO. Just echo that large mirrors are definitely a must 

for us, the larger the better. 

Chairman BABIN. Okay. Well, that completes my line of questioning and thank you very much. 

And now I would like to recognize the gentlewoman from Maryland for her questions. 

Ms. EDWARDS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And thank 

you so much to the witnesses for your testimony. You just make 

me so excited just to be here. And I don’t do astronomy but I’m one 

of those kids that went to the planetarium and laid down on the 

beach at night looking up at the—at stars in the sky and wondering what was out there. And so thanks for your testimony 

today, inspiring new generations. 

I was recalling with our staff here—we were going back and 

forth that both the Hubble Space Telescope and Kepler both at various times in their development and operation were on the chopping blocks here in the Congress. There was a time when the 

Hubble was the butt of late-night jokes every night on nighttime 

television. And Kepler was once described as being, you know, 

raised from the dead or something because it was under threat. So 

I can’t even imagine what our world and your world as professionals would be if we didn’t have, you know, at least those instruments in developing and building on them for the future generations. 

And so I wonder if you could comment about the role of the 

decadal survey in terms of informing what it is that we do and 

how—and the importance of staying true to it even in the face of 

challenges because we know that each of these programs is very, 

very complicated and they will face significant challenges. And it’s 

sometimes tough for us on this side to really understand that we’ve 
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just got to weather those challenges. So I’ll just—that’s like a 

freebie, anybody wants to take it. 

Dr. OLINTO. I can go first because I am very proud of that process, so much so that my project in the last decadal survey was 

ranked number four on one panel and didn’t make it to the end. 

So I got to be chopped, and I still think this is the right process. 

So, you know, I think we need to always prioritize based on the 

available resources and also the available technology to be able to 

be always successful. So we don’t want to waste anybody’s money, 

no taxpayer’s money. 

And this is a huge effort within the community. We spent a lot 

of time trying to tell our colleagues, and I think the format that 

we set up, which is really, you know, merit-based and having our 

reviews by colleagues of what we are proposing, a really good way 

to sort out the priorities—the top priorities for large programs. And 

some of us that don’t get to get their project in have to be conscientious that that was the right process. And I think we have had 

great success exactly for that because if we weren’t following that, 

we would be in a much harder situation. So I think it’s a brilliant 

process. 

Dr. HERTZ. I’m pleased to—well, first of all, Representative 

Edwards, I want to say that I bet every single one of us were kids 

who laid on the beach and looked up and observed the night sky 

and were excited by it. 

I’m pleased to say that at NASA in astrophysics all of our missions—our mission decisions are driven by the recommendations 

and priorities of the decadal survey. Our large missions are those 

missions which are prioritized to be done first in the most recent 

decadal survey, and our smaller missions are selected through open 

competitions, which was also a recommendation of the decadal survey. 

And so, you know, by following the decadal survey, we are assured that we are realizing the highest priorities of the science 

community and addressing the broadest possible range of science. 

Ms. EDWARDS. Thank you. And can you add to that, you know 

what is the—and, Dr. Ulvestad, if you would comment, what’s the 

challenge of, you know, trying to figure out not just what the priorities are but trying to project what some of the challenges might 

be so that we get closer on the money front because I think that’s 

where we get held up. 

And then—and add to that, what is—what are the threats to 

U.S. leadership if we don’t engage in a process right now? 

Dr. ULVESTAD. So first, I’ll say that we, too, subscribe very rigorously to the decadal survey in setting priorities for ourselves. And 

one of the challenges we face is we—as you alluded to is that the 

decadal survey committee has to make assumptions about what future budgets are going to be, going out 5, 10, 15 years. And so they 

gave us a—they give us a program, a set of priorities based on 

some projection. 

And as you may know, the decadal survey came out in 2010 right 

about the time that there were difficulties in the banking community and so on. And so we haven’t realized the budgets that were 

recommended or that were sort of believed by the decadal survey. 

So a really important part of the decadal survey is that they not 
76 

give us a laundry list but that they give us priorities, and that way 

we’re able to adjust to circumstances that are not exactly what 

they assumed. 

So decadal surveys should always be aspirational. They should 

always reach for the stars that we all laid and looked at. And we 

won’t be able to do everything they recommend, but by them recommending a compelling program and by them doing a good job of 

prioritization, that really is one of the best ways that we can react 

to budget circumstances that are inevitably different from what 

they assumed. 

Ms. EDWARDS. My time’s up. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman BABIN. Thank you. I’d like to now recognize the Chairman of the Full Committee, the gentleman from Texas, Chairman 

Smith. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me direct my 

first question to Dr. Hertz and Dr. Wright. And it seems to me that 

one of the most promising fields of discovery right now may be detecting optical transmissions from other worlds. And I was going to 

ask each of you if you could give us an update on what’s going on 

in that field and what our hopes are. And, Dr. Hertz, if you’d like 

to go first. 

Dr. HERTZ. Well, I’m going to defer to Dr. Wright. 

Chairman SMITH. Okay. 

Dr. HERTZ. This is not an area that NASA is currently pursuing, 

and I don’t consider myself an expert at all in this area. 

Chairman SMITH. Okay. Well, one, I regret NASA’s not pursuing, 

but, Dr. Wright? 

Dr. WRIGHT. I spoke a little bit about the programs on the optical 

SETI and the infrared study front. Radios had, you know, 50 years 

to get a stronghold in the SETI community—— 

Chairman SMITH. Right. 

Dr. WRIGHT. —while I would say the optical SETI community or 

laser SETI in particular is still in its infancy. We’re still trying to 

make use of the technology that’s on hand. There are many things 

that we can do and there are many scientists that are interested 

in doing data mining on all the astronomical data sets that are already there from the very large array to the Arecibo to Hubble 

Space Telescope, even Kepler, and that involves getting software 

engineers involved, other astronomers to think creatively about 

how they can actually go in there and data mine unusual signals. 

And so one promising area where people want to move to is look 

at existing data sets and try to see if we can get optical transmissions. 

Our team and others are designing a new all-sky/all-time optical 

SETI and infrared Wide Field Infrared SETI experiment which 

we’re seeking funds to, and we have a meeting coming up in August to go talk about the next phases for this. 

Chairman SMITH. Okay. Thank you, Dr. Wright. And, Dr. 

Ulvestad? 

Dr. ULVESTAD. So I just wanted to mention we talked about the 

Large Synoptic Survey Telescope earlier. 

Chairman SMITH. Yes. 

Dr. ULVESTAD. That telescope will see of the order of 10 million 

transient sources per night. That is a source that isn’t there in a 
77 

catalog but is brighter or fainter or wasn’t there at all. And I think 

given the power requirements of lasers, people aren’t going to be 

pointing their lasers to us all the time, so when that telescope 

comes up, I think its ability to survey large parts of the sky rapidly 

and compare them to the existing data sets will be very powerful, 

but it will require the kind of data mining that Dr. Wright just referred to understand what might in fact be a laser-related signal. 

Chairman SMITH. Okay. My next question was for you, Dr. 

Ulvestad, and that is what discoveries do we expect in, say, the 

next five to ten years when it comes to exoplanets? 

Dr. ULVESTAD. So there’s a couple things that I expect we will 

see over the next few years. I mean, discoveries by their very nature are not easily predictable, but we build capabilities and we 

can sort of understand what kinds of discoveries those capabilities 

can be sensitive to. So one is with our partners at NASA we’re 

working on this very high-resolution spectrograph that will go on 

a telescope in Arizona and be able to measure masses of planets 

similar to Earth, so I expect we will get specific mass measurements of some more Earth-like planets from that over the next five 

to 10 years. 

A second is with our Gemini Observatory we have an instrument 

called the Gemini Planet Imager, which enables us to image planets like Jupiter in Jupiter-like orbits around stars and actually to 

get low-resolution spectroscopy at the same time. So I think we’ll 

be learning more about the atmospheres of some of the extrasolar 

planets. And those observations will drive theoretical understanding of formation and evolution of planetary systems. 

Chairman SMITH. Okay. Thank you. 

And, Dr. Olinto, is there sufficient coordination between NASA 

and the National Science Foundation when it comes to 

astrobiology? 

Dr. OLINTO. I think the answer is yes. And I was at the AAAC 

as a member in 2003 to 2006, and at that time I don’t think the 

two gentlemen next to me, the equivalents, would have each other’s 

cell phones and before the testimony today were joking that they 

could exchange and give each other’s testimonies. So I think the coordination has been really wonderful. 

One of the things we are looking into in terms of the coordination 

is near-Earth objects because LSST has the capability, per the 

decadal survey recommendations, to search for near-Earth objects, 

which is a mandate for NASA to implement. 

Chairman SMITH. Okay. 

Dr. OLINTO. So these things will need to be coordinated, too, so 

we’re looking forward to that upcoming coordination between the 

two. 

Chairman SMITH. Good enough. Thank you. 

And, Dr. Jones, thank you for the invitation to the conference. 

Since I represent part of Austin, I will be there next June. 

Dr. JONES. Thank you. We will welcome you. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you. I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman BABIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I now recognize the gentlewoman from Oregon, Ms. Bonamici. 

Ms. BONAMICI. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank 

you to all the witnesses. We really appreciate your expertise. 
78 

I want to ask you a little bit about international cooperation, 

which is something that we discuss a lot in this Committee. Dr. 

Hertz, I understand that NASA was not able to lead the large-scale 

x-ray and gravitational wave missions recommended by the decadal 

survey. What is the status of the NASA partnership with the European Space Agency on the ATHENA and L3 missions which will 

address those areas? And I wonder if you could talk a little bit 

about how important it is for the United States to be involved in 

those missions. 

And also I want to bring in Dr. Wright because you mentioned 

something about the FAST telescope in the SETI work. And can 

you talk about the potential for collaboration? While we still need 

to of course maintain our U.S. leadership, are there some areas 

where we’re competing rather than collaborating? Dr. Hertz? 

Dr. HERTZ. Thank you. That’s a great question. I’d love to speak 

on that topic. Pretty—probably 80 percent of all of NASA’s astrophysics missions are international partnerships, which is most— 

virtually all of them, and all of our future large missions are envisioned to be partnerships with our international partners. 

In order to make the kind of breakthrough discoveries that we 

look forward to in the future requires large and therefore expensive 

observatories in space, and we’re beyond the place where the different space agencies want to put up competing and similar observatories. So we are constantly coordinating with each other on what 

our future plans are and looking opportunities to partner. 

The James Webb Space Telescope is a partnership between the 

United States, the European Space Agency and the Canadian 

Space Agency. We are in discussions with a number of space agencies about partnerships on the WFIRST Observatory for the 2020s. 

And we have talked to the European Space Agency about 

partnering on their next two large astrophysics observatories, the 

ones that you mentioned, the ATHENA x-ray observatory, and we 

have a very mature understanding of what NASA is likely to contribute to that observatory as it goes through the European process 

of being approved. 

And then in—further out in the future the Europeans have made 

a decision to lead a space-based gravitational wave observatory, 

which is a high priority of both of our communities. We have expressed a strong interest in partnering in that. We are under—we 

are engaged in discussions about what our role might be and for— 

and we have been for the last number of years investing in technology development here in the United States to make sure that 

we have developed unique technologies that we can bring to such 

a partnership and make a U.S. involvement in such an observatory 

a win-win for both partners. 

Ms. BONAMICI. Terrific. Thank you. 

Dr. Wright, on the SETI work is there room for progress on that? 

Dr. WRIGHT. Yes, I’ll just—I’ll comment on the FAST telescope 

in China. There is a collaboration going on with Berkeley right now 

to help with the receiver. So as I said, the dish is already made 

but they have to work on the electronics and the antenna to actually detect it. 

There is—the frequencies for which they cover it are slightly different than Arecibo, so there’s some—there’s competition on par-
79 

ticular frequencies but on others there are not. And it’s not clear 

to me yet or I don’t think I could comment on whether the Chinese 

scientists want to collaborate with the SETI work and how we 

would work together within it. 

I’ll also add just one statement that the group—a group in Italy 

has been trying to push on optical SETI and trying to collaborate 

with us and get our understanding of the technology there as well. 

Ms. BONAMICI. Terrific. And, Dr. Jones, I want to ask you, in 

your prepared statement you note the importance of making observations publicly available no more than a year after they’re obtained, so can you elaborate a bit on why that’s so important to advancing the science, and perhaps following up on Ms. Edwards’ 

questions about how we talk with our constituents and the public 

about why it’s important to invest in astronomy and astrophysics 

and science especially with, you know, long-term planning that’s so 

needed might—making observations publicly available help in communicating the value of your work with the public? 

Dr. JONES. Sure. I mean, the archives are tremendously important not just to astronomers but to anybody who wants to look at 

the observations. There are large archives of the Hubble, of the 

Chandra, of all of the major missions, as well as the ground-based 

missions. NOAO has archives of the 40 telescopes I think we’re— 

which are archived since 2004 and NRAO also has large archives 

of the radio observations. 

Ms. BONAMICI. Just in the remaining time, are there some examples of where observations conducted with federal funding are not 

made publicly accessible and available? 

Dr. JONES. No, I think they’re all made accessible on a timescale 

no longer than a year. Some are made sooner, but it’s a tremendous research. So much of what, you know, people have discovered 

they’ve discovered from the archives not because they were looking 

to propose to do something but they find it in the archives. And 

that’s—— 

Ms. BONAMICI. Terrific. And I see my time is expired. I yield 

back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman BABIN. Thank you. I now recognize the gentleman 

from Oklahoma, Mr. Lucas. 

Mr. LUCAS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And, Dr. Wright, when 

the general public focuses on SETI we live in a time where it wants 

immediate gratification, things happening right now, but in some 

ways isn’t this kind of like a junior high dance? We’ve been making 

noise on this planet now for—since Mr. Marconi—a century probably? So the noise wave is, what, 80, 90, 100 light-years out? If 

you’re past that point, then there’s no indication that we’re here to 

the rest of the universe. Fair statement? Therefore, part of the 

challenge of finding something—— 

Dr. WRIGHT. Well, so—— 

Mr. LUCAS. —is someone looking for us, too? 

Dr. WRIGHT. One of the interests for NASA mission and NSF 

missions are for extrasolar planet atmospheres. So there are other 

means to detect whether there are biosignatures in the atmosphere 

to know whether there’s life there. So they may know we’re here, 

whether they’re beyond listening to I love Lucy 90 light-years out. 

But we’re just still in our technological infancy, right? This is—— 
80 

Mr. LUCAS. Exactly the point I was trying to make. 

Dr. WRIGHT. So the standpoint for SETI is that hopefully we 

maintain our technology and civilizations much longer, and they 

would be advanced thousands or hundreds or hundreds of thousands of years longer than us so they would have other means for 

this. 

Mr. LUCAS. Along that line, that means that we have to maintain 

our basic investments in not just technology but people. But, Dr. 

Wright, to you and Dr. Olinto, discuss for a moment the nature of 

the astrophysics research programs in American universities. How 

many are there? How do we compare to 10 or 20 years ago? What 

kind of facilities do they have to work with, that next-generation 

who will come after all of us in this room? Where are we in this 

country right now? 

Dr. WRIGHT. I think we’re doing quite well. I think that there’s 

been no greater interest now than for astronomy and astrophysics. 

The facilities we have, we have many ground-based observatories 

that we use through universities, small-based facilities that have 

been excellent for trying to test innovative new instrumentation on, 

which is very important before we bring them to larger groundbased telescopes or we give them to NASA to put on space-based 

telescopes. 

There’s heavy student involvement. In fact, the enrollment is 

even higher for astrophysics bachelor’s degrees. Those programs 

have spread through academia. And there’s a greater interest within Ph.D., which I think has already been commented by the panel. 

A Ph.D. in astrophysics is a great springboard to any of the STEM 

fields. 

Mr. LUCAS. Dr. Olinto? 

Dr. OLINTO. Thank you for that question. I agree it’s really wonderful times, and the number of students and interest is just growing. But as I mentioned in my statement, one of the challenges of 

flat budgets is that the facilities which we really love to build and 

want to use do keep growing because, you know, they have to be 

constructed, operated, there’s inflation. So it’s much harder to protect the grants program and the midscale program, which is where 

the new ideas and the new people get formed. 

So this is the big challenge right now in trying to make sure that 

the future will be as wonderful as the present is to really find a 

way find a way to protect this most flexible part of budgets, which 

is the individual grants program. 

And I was just visiting her institution, and on the board there 

is the plot that we wrote in the AAAC with the proposal pressure 

going high, the pressure is so much higher that much fewer grants 

are being able to be funded. 

So I think this is the challenge we are facing now that we should 

keep an eye on that because it obviously doesn’t come in as a flagship mission. It’s always sort of the small programs, but those are 

really where the new blood comes in. So—— 

Mr. LUCAS. But you’re confident the blood exists—— 

Dr. OLINTO. Oh, definitely. 

Mr. LUCAS. —if the resource is available—— 

Dr. OLINTO. Yes. 

Mr. LUCAS. —there for them to do their work? 
81 

Dr. OLINTO. Exactly. 

Mr. LUCAS. It does exist? 

Dr. OLINTO. Yes. 

Mr. LUCAS. Dr. Hertz, you mentioned the nine Earth-like planets 

so far. What’s the range in light-years away closest to farthest, just 

rough numbers? 

Dr. HERTZ. Yes, I certainly don’t know that off the top of my 

head. I’d be glad to take that question for the record and get back 

to you. 

Mr. LUCAS. That’s a fair response. Thank you. 

I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman BABIN. Thank you very much. 

Now, I’d like to recognize the gentleman from New York, Mr. 

Tonko. 

Mr. TONKO. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and welcome to our panelists. 

Can—and this is a question for any of you. Can you characterize 

the current representation of women and minorities within the astronomy and astrophysics communities? 

Dr. JONES. I can start with that. The numbers are growing but 

the numbers are still very small. Having three of us here does not 

represent that there are a large number of women in astronomy, 

but the numbers are growing. The number of underrepresented minorities is not as large. 

We’ve had an REU program at Smithsonian for the last 20-something years. I’ve been PI of that. We take 10 students each year. 

This last year we had 300 applications. We’ve always had at least 

half of them are women, and we have a few—not as many as we’d 

like—of underrepresented minorities, but I think those NSF programs are tremendously important for bringing in women and 

underrepresented minorities. 

Mr. TONKO. Yes. To any of you—and yes, Dr. Ulvestad—is there 

something that can be done in a targeted way that will improve 

those numbers? 

Dr. ULVESTAD. Yes. So in—I’m not an NSF lifer. In my pre-NSF 

life I chaired the decadal surveys demographic study group, and 

Dr. Jones was actually a member of it. So I think on the gender 

side we see substantial increases in the number of women in the 

physical sciences and astronomy. I think that the numbers, if you 

look at the undergraduate level in astronomy, are approaching 40 

to 50 percent. And one of our challenges is the—as you get to the 

higher levels in academia, those numbers tend to get smaller. And 

so a challenge us to us as a society is really how to maintain the 

interest of the people who are coming in as undergraduates. 

On the underrepresented minority front, I think the physical 

sciences in general have not done very well. We have specific programs in our division, in our materials research division in NSF, 

but I’ll point out that NSF-wide NSF has just started a new initiative called INCLUDES—and it’s a long acronym; I don’t remember 

exactly what it stands for—that’s specifically aimed at underrepresented minorities. 

We recently had our first round of pre-proposals for that and got 

over 600 pre-proposals that will be winnowed down to full proposals that will be invited. So I think NSF as an institution is trying very hard to sort of get these programs going. 
82 

I think that one of the issues for NSF is that we can address 

things at sort of the college and postgraduate level, and a lot of the 

issues relating to representation start much earlier in careers. 

Mr. TONKO. Thank you. And the—to Dr. Jones and perhaps Dr. 

Olinto, what’s the impact of low proposal success rates on the nature of the projects that get funded? In this high-pressure environment is there a sufficient support for the more long-term investigations that don’t have a clearly defined result within a couple of 

years? 

Dr. JONES. I—the low proposal rate makes it very hard for people. They’re just—you know, when only one proposal in 10 roughly 

is being accepted I think it’s discouraging. The funds that usually 

come in because those proposals are successful are usually the ones 

that support graduate students and postdocs so it makes that—you 

know, you can’t support as many of the younger people who are 

coming up. So, you know, it is very—you know, it’s hard and it’s 

discouraging for members of the community. 

You know, in theory the best science, the very top ten percent 

is getting done, but much of the science is really excellent and 

should be supported. So—— 

Mr. TONKO. And Dr. Olinto? 

Dr. OLINTO. To add to this, it’s difficult in many respects and especially because it used to be 30 percent and now it’s 20 so the 

change makes, you know, people propose more because they used 

to get grants. So folks that had support stop having support and 

new folks coming in will then have to fight even harder. 

And what happens is you have excellent reviews that don’t mean 

funding. So when you write an excellent proposal and you get no 

funding, then you don’t know what to do the next year because, you 

know, how can—they can’t go better than excellent. So if we leave 

excellent proposes on the chopping block, that is a problem. 

If we—you know, we don’t have a perfect number, but the—historically, the 30 percent seemed to have been a very healthy way 

to keep excellent and very good science and, you know—because 

when you’re squeezing the excellent out, you’re also squeezing the 

risk, right, because we know that those three will probably be 

okay. This one which takes a little more risk will not. You know, 

we probably don’t fund that because we don’t know. And that’s not 

how science should be done, right? We should really gain from a 

little bit of high-risk investment, obviously not all of it of the portfolio. So it’s very difficult right now because of the decrease. So 

anyway—yes. 

Mr. TONKO. Well, my time is expired. Let me thank you all for 

participating today. 

And with that, Mr. Chair, I yield back. 

Chairman BABIN. Thank you. I now recognize the gentleman 

from California, Mr. Rohrabacher. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and 

thank you to our panelists today. It’s been very thought-provoking. 

I’ve always supported astronomy. I’ve been here 28 years, and I 

buy on and I bought on to the idea that astronomy helps us with 

a basic understanding of the universe not just out there but down 

here as well and expands our fundamental knowledge base, which 

are two very laudatory goals. 
83 

But number one, doing this is an expensive proposition and it’s 

an expensive proposition that benefits all of mankind, not just 

Americans. And so I was heartened to hear the efforts that are 

being made on international cooperation, and I think that that 

should be expanded. 

I didn’t hear any cooperation with Russia. Is our current relations with Russia, which are very dicey right now—is that preventing us from having the type of cooperation in this area that 

could be beneficial to both our countries? 

Dr. HERTZ. Thank you for the question. No, I don’t think so. I 

mean, Russia is a very strong partner on the International Space 

Station with NASA, and we’re very pleased to have their partnership on that project. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay. Well, that’s the answer. Thank you. 

I’m glad to hear that. I think sometimes we need to—when we 

have adversaries, we need to find ways of cooperating that can actually lessen the tension between people who have different points 

of view and countries that have different points of view. 

One of the underappreciated services provided by astronomy and 

by this area of science that we’re talking about is an early warning 

system that could alert us to objects coming from space that could 

cause enormous damage of if not the ultimate damage to the Earth. 

And that is something that is an immediate payback. Rather than 

just expanding knowledge, we’re actually getting a warning that 

could be utilized—which we have not yet put the system in place— 

to deflect an object that might be coming from space. 

One of the prerequisites in order to set something like this up, 

which has been a long project of mine, one of the assets that we 

would have is the Arecibo telescope. And Dr. Ulvestad, there’s been 

some statements that you’ve made that indicate that Arecibo, we 

were in the initial steps of mothballing it. Do we have other assets 

that can spot an object that far out and actually chart its course 

so that if ten years out there’s an object there that would be hitting 

the Earth—I understand Arecibo provides that service. Do we have 

other ways of providing that service intact now? 

Dr. ULVESTAD. So, first, I’ll say we haven’t made any decisions 

about what the future of Arecibo is. We’re studying a variety of options. But in terms of detecting objects far out, what you really 

need for that is a survey telescope with a very wide field of view, 

which Arecibo is not. So Arecibo’s radar can be used to characterize 

the properties of an object, say an asteroid that is already known 

about that you can point out. 

In terms of the NSF investment, the LSST, which can survey the 

sky and as we said would detect—— 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Is that already in place? 

Dr. ULVESTAD. No, that’s being built. That will be—— 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. That’s not in place so we don’t have something in place that would—if we mothball Arecibo this year that 

would be immediately taking over that particular threat and handling that? 

Dr. ULVESTAD. Well, Arecibo, as I said, is not a survey telescope 

so it can only do radar characterization of asteroids that—— 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. But also—— 

Dr. ULVESTAD. —are already known about. So—— 
84 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Radar calculations, by the way, of where it 

would actually threaten the Earth? 

Dr. ULVESTAD. No, what they actually do is they do radar assessments of what the composition of the object is because if it’s like 

a rubble pile versus a solid iron mass, that will have a very different impact. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. The Arecibo telescope is not involved with 

charting the actual potential of an object to hit the Earth? 

Dr. ULVESTAD. It’s involved with tracking. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Yes. 

Dr. ULVESTAD. It can also be done with optical and infrared telescopes. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. It could be done? 

Dr. ULVESTAD. Yes and is done. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Is being done? 

Dr. ULVESTAD. Yes. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. So your testimony today is that Arecibo is 

not providing at this time a service that is not being provided by 

someone else? 

Dr. ULVESTAD. So as I mentioned, the radar characterization is 

unique to Arecibo, the characterization of the properties of an asteroid. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Right. 

Dr. ULVESTAD. Now, NASA also has a radar at Goldstone, but 

that’s a smaller dish so the distance is not as far. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Right. So being able to determine, as you say, 

what the composition is is not something that tells us whether or 

not that is a threat to the Earth? 

Dr. ULVESTAD. It tells us something about whether it’s a threat 

to the Earth. I think that it doesn’t tell us uniquely about its path. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay. Well, Dr. Hertz, could you give us your 

answers to that? 

Dr. HERTZ. I certainly agree with everything Dr. Ulvestad said. 

He mentioned the Goldstone radar that’s part of our deep space 

network. It’s also used for radar characterization of asteroids. And 

unlike Arecibo, it can be pointed. Of course Arecibo cannot be 

moved sitting in a valley the way it does. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. And, Dr. Olinto, do you agree with—— 

Dr. OLINTO. Yes. I think there are many survey telescopes that 

are working now, Pan-STARRS, Dark Energy Survey, other survey 

telescopes of the type that LSST will be another huge next-generation improvement on what we already have. So there is a menu of 

things that one can do, but LSST will certainly add a huge amount 

to this issue. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Yes. Now, again, I’m really looking at—and, 

Mr. Chairman, what’s important is not what we are planning to do 

but what we have. And quite often, for example, when I was Chairman there in your seat, we passed a bill called the Pete Conrad Astronomy Awards Act, which gave people awards for discovering the 

biggest Earth object out that might threaten the Earth. 

And, you know, it’s just a very small amount of money, but, 

we’ve never appropriated the money for it. So it’s one thing to have 

a plan and say, well, Arecibo won’t be needed because we’ve got 

this other group telescope and it’s on the way. Until it’s there and 
85 

until it’s appropriated and actually put in space, we have to calculate on what capabilities we have at this point. 

And while I agree with you that the decadal study should show 

what’s important, what’s really important is making sure our 

Earth isn’t destroyed by some space object and all of us die. And 

if there’s any other priority, I think that would have to be the top 

priority. And we need to make sure that we don’t have holes in the 

system as we are putting—we’re planning to put something up. 

Let’s make sure we keep Arecibo and other assets until those alternatives—— 

Chairman BABIN. Okay. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. —are in place. 

Chairman BABIN. Thank you. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman BABIN. Thank you. The gentleman’s time is expired. 

Okay. Mr. Beyer from Virginia. 

Mr. BEYER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And, you know, we’ve 

had—America’s had a sad week, a rough week, so thank you so 

much for coming here with so much optimism and so much energy, 

so much belief that we’re doing a lot of things really well. 

And by the way, I have two of my interns here today, Alexa and 

Max, but I bring up Max because his favorite movie is Interstellar 

so he’s thrilled to be here. 

So, Dr. Wright, Fred Drake 1961 came up with the famous Drake 

Equation that was going to predict how much intelligent life 

there’d likely be in the universe. That was before we had all these 

very cool telescopes. Based on all the research we’ve been able to 

do, you know, looking much deeper into space, how has that equation changed? What does it predict now? 

Dr. WRIGHT. So I think the key one especially back at that time 

was understanding the number of extrasolar planets. At that time 

it could have been one in a million or it could be 100 percent. We 

actually had no idea. And with this increase, we basically have 22 

percent, right, it’s one in five, that says every sun-like star has another Earth-like planet. I always tell the students count in fives. 

Go up and count five stars; there’s another Earth-like planet staring back at you. That’s huge. 

But as Carl Sagan pointed out and the Drake equation it’s L. It’s 

the lifetime of a civilization that really makes the big factor on the 

number of communicating civilizations. And so really it’s how long 

a civilization we last. The lifetime of the universe is very long, billions and billions of years. Life here on our planet has been here 

for 3 billion years, but our civilization has only been here for 

10,000, so it’s a sliver of time. 

I just—SETI takes time, patience, and diligence and understanding, and projecting where our technology will go. 

Mr. BEYER. Great. Great. Thank you very much. 

Dr. Jones, I’ve always been fascinated by the oscillating universe 

model. It’s going to expand until it gets—and then it will contract. 

But now that we know that the universe is accelerating, what does 

that suggest for the oscillating universe model? 

Dr. JONES. I think we will probably—this will be a one-way trip. 

We will be expanding and we will not be collapsing again so, sorry. 

Mr. BEYER. We—— 
86 

Dr. JONES. It’s not—it’s sort of not the optimistic view but—— 

Mr. BEYER. So we’re back to linear time then? 

Dr. JONES. Yes, I’m afraid so. 

Mr. BEYER. Darn. 

Dr. JONES. Yes. 

Mr. BEYER. Dr. Hertz, were you like born to be a physicist with 

that name or—— 

Dr. HERTZ. Either that or a car rental agency. 

Mr. BEYER. So, Dr. Hertz, one thing I haven’t heard today is 

whether we’re making any progress on understanding why matter 

in the universe is so asymmetrical. Why is there so much more 

matter than antimatter? 

Dr. HERTZ. Yes, I’m going to pass that to Dr. Olinto—— 

Dr. OLINTO. All right. 

Dr. HERTZ. —because that’s one of her areas of research. 

Dr. OLINTO. I’m itching to reply. So that’s a very hard question 

why there’s matter and not antimatter in this room, and we’re very 

lucky that that’s the case. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be here because 

matter and antimatter annihilate. And this has to do with fundamental physics, which a previous member also mentioned. And I 

think that is why these broad—you know, this large piano that we 

use can address issues that relate to the early beginning. 

So one of the big questions is how did gravity separate from the 

other three forces and how that process which we—you know, is 

beautiful to talk about, you know, with family, at parties but it’s 

also something we can measure. And so that’s to me the most exciting part. So many answers to the questions, the fundamental questions you’re having have to do with, you know, what is dark energy, including the future. If dark energy the case, we might heat 

up again so we can choose fire again maybe between fire and ice. 

But the early moments of the universe we can address by looking 

at the microwave background. And this is one of the many areas 

of research that, you know, the portfolio of the decadal survey is 

considering and also investing on. And it is an interagency—both 

NASA, DOE, and NSF, the three agencies we oversee, are investing 

very heavily on looking at these primordial microwave background 

patterns. By looking at the polarization of this light which comes 

from the Big Bang we can tell some properties of gravity at the 

time. And then that will connect to the fundamental physics that 

separated matter and antimatter, for example, so it’s all a very interesting pursuit also. 

Mr. BEYER. Is all this tied together, Dr. Olinto, while you have 

the microphone, because you’re looking at dark matter also and 

dark energy. 

Dr. OLINTO. Right. 

Mr. BEYER. All related? 

Dr. OLINTO. We don’t know. So we don’t know. We have a very 

good way to try to detect dark matter directly, and this is a huge 

effort. DOE and NSF are involved. Dark energy we are measuring 

as well as we can. It’s much harder to detect. It would be easier 

if we could get out of our universe. Then we could measure it from 

the outside, but the inside is really, really challenging. 

It is—there are theories that connect the two and that would 

make sense since there are two unknowns. Maybe they have some-
87 

thing to do with one another. But it may be that nature, just like 

in exoplanets, are much creative and we don’t really know the answer. 

Mr. BEYER. Okay. Thank you all very much. Mr. Chair, I yield 

back. 

Chairman BABIN. Thank you, Mr. Beyer. 

Now, I recognize from the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Hultgren. 

Mr. HULTGREN. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you all so much 

for being here. Thank you for your work. And this really is an exciting and important hearing for us all to learn about and hear 

about the state of astronomy, astrophysics, astrobiology research in 

the United States and also internationally. These are certainly 

some of the toughest fields requiring the best and brightest to devote lifetimes to their field with no guaranteed or big economic payoff. It takes a passion and it’s inspiring for me to watch your work, 

and I want to thank you for your work. 

In the Committee, we will certainly continue to follow the recommendations of the decadal survey. And there are countless big 

ideas or future projects we could be discussing, but we all know 

that none of this can be ever even impossible if we’re not inspiring 

the next generation to follow in your footsteps. Often that takes 

just a small spark in a young person’s mind, maybe a burning 

question, a first telescope, robotics competition, simple reassurance 

from a parent, a friend, or a mentor that this is something you can 

do. And we need you to do it. 

So I want to just ask, and I’ve asked this before in other committee hearings, but I’ll start with Dr. Jones and maybe if we can 

just go down the line. It’s helpful for me because you certainly are 

some of the best and brightest in your field, but I’ve noticed for experts in the STEM field that there is no single pathway to get to 

where you are. So just some simple questions. I wonder if you have 

any thoughts. 

When did you know that this was something you wanted to do? 

Who inspired you? Feel free to give a quick shout-out to a teacher 

or mentor. They always could use the credit and recognition. So if 

you could maybe just let us know kind of your path if there was 

someone that inspired you and what it was, that maybe first spark, 

that idea that, hey, this is something interesting and something I 

could do. 

Dr. JONES. I’ve been lucky to have a number of mentors. I think 

beginning—I grew up in—near Dayton, Ohio, everybody likes Dayton. Good. Good. There was an honors seminar in metropolitan 

Dayton, and I went to that. We had weekly lecture. Kids from different high schools came in. 

And for me some of the most exciting were on the neutron stars, 

these spinning pulsars and the lectures were given by scientists at 

Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. And I worked when—then when 

I was in college I worked for a summer or two with somebody at 

Wright-Pat for those summers and it was terrific. So that’s how I 

started. 

Mr. HULTGREN. Dr. Wright? 

Dr. WRIGHT. I think I knew as a little girl that I was addicted 

to the stars and the universe and trying to understand it. Probably 

the most formidable experience was in middle school. My science 
88 

class, they decided to play the Cosmos series by Carl Sagan, and 

I was hooked by watching those. And then I, too, have had many 

mentors thankfully. When I went and did my physics degree at the 

university, I had exposures to telescopes, scientists, instrumentation, working in labs, and I think having that hands-on experience 

was vital for me. 

Dr. OLINTO. I started more interested in physics than in the universe because understanding how things move, how things drop 

and the basic laws of physics to me was so much easier than 

human beings. But very soon after getting interested in that I realized how the universe is the best place to actually learn more about 

physics because it has all kinds of systems. It takes everything to 

the extremes. So it’s been a wonderful path. 

And I have many other interests high school but certainly high 

school teachers were really important, also my parents. My father 

always challenged me for all kinds of math quizzes. So the Cosmos 

series, which aired in Portuguese in Brazil. So the outreach is really broad in that sense. So I think for all this production that happened here. And also the Apollo missions made a big impression for 

me as a kid. 

Dr. ULVESTAD. So I was really good at math, and when I was in 

high school in my physics class, not knowing what I wanted to do,I 

remember a visiting professor from the University of Southern 

California, and it pains me to say that as the UCLA graduate, but 

that professor came and talked to us about cosmology, and that got 

me really interested in astronomy. 

And then I took advantage—in Los Angeles they have something 

called the Griffith Observatory, which is in the largest public park 

in L.A., and you can’t imagine that you can see much of a dark sky 

from Los Angeles, but they had educational programs and a planetarium, and that really got me excited so that when I went to college I majored in astronomy. 

Mr. HULTGREN. That’s great. Thanks. Dr. Hertz? 

Dr. HERTZ. Well, I was a child of the ’60s and I grew up just loving to read about all the NASA missions that were going on. We 

lived in Atlanta and my father gave into my love by driving us 

down to the cape before the Apollo launches and we would camp 

out on the beach and wake up the next morning and watch them 

blast off to the moon. And so that set my path. 

Mr. HULTGREN. That’s awesome. Well, again, thank you all for 

your work. We appreciate it. Thanks for inspiring others as well. 

It’s so important and that’s our only hope truly is for our young 

best and brightest to be willing to follow in your footsteps. So 

thank you all. And I yield back. 

Chairman BABIN. Yes, sir, very fascinating. Thank you. 

Let’s see. I now recognize the gentleman from Colorado, Mr. Perlmutter. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. Thanks. And I just love those questions Mr. 

Hultgren asked and your answers. I mean, this is like coming to 

super science class for me, and I’m so surprised by my colleague 

here, Ambassador Beyer, and all that he knows about science. You 

know, me, I watched Star Trek so I worry—I think about the next 

generation is a character, the traveler, so the time traveler or the 

Q Continuum, you know, all-powerful, whatever. Or Heinlein, you 
89 

know, talking about multi-dimensions and multi-universes so that 

you actually could be in a different time frame looking at our universe. 

And I’m just so speechless by all of your testimony, and I just 

thank you for being here and I thank you for your optimism and 

your willingness to research and look into the future because that’s 

what this is about. 

So I’m just going to ask you a couple specific questions but you 

really have brightened my day and I thank you for that. 

Space weather, let’s—Dr. Ulvestad, let me—let’s talk about space 

weather a little bit. I am working with Congressman Moolenaar 

and a couple of the Senators on space weather legislation. I guess 

my question is, we had Dr. Baker from University of Colorado—so 

I’m obviously from Colorado. And we’ve recently been assigned by 

the NSF, the National Solar Observatory, and we do a lot of space 

weather and space activities in Colorado. Can you tell us how space 

weather future looks? 

Dr. ULVESTAD. So some of the members may know that we’ve recently developed national space weather strategy and a space 

weather action plan, and that was an interagency activity that involved NASA, NSF, not just the science research agencies but also 

people who might have to respond to space weather outbreaks and 

get early warnings out such as FEMA. So that, I think, was a really interesting process to develop this space weather strategy. 

As part of the space weather strategy, NSF actually has some 

deliverables. So there’s the long-term research aspects, and so I 

showed a picture of the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope earlier. 

We’re—really understanding the fundamental magnetic processes 

in the sun will be critical to us for eventually being able to predict 

space weather. I’m not going to guarantee that but understanding 

the sun means 10, 20, 30 years down the road we may be able to 

do better at that. And early warning systems enable satellites to 

shut down and point in the right direction and so on so they’re not 

damaged. 

Operationally, we right now run something called the Global Oscillations Network Group, which is run by the National Solar Observatory that, as you pointed out, is relocating to Boulder. And in 

our 2016 budget in our request we added money to make that a 

more robust system for predicting space weather. It’s a network of 

six telescopes spread around the world so that it can, assuming it’s 

not cloudy, observe the sun 24/7. And its data are actually used by 

the Air Force for operational space weather prediction. 

So I think we have a mix of both an operational role where we’re 

taking some of our research capabilities and transitioning them to 

operations and also the long-term research role. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. So I just spoke at a seminar and symposium 

on cybersecurity, and we were talking about electromagnetic 

pulses. So, you know, potentially manmade but more likely something coming out of the sun that—a flare of some sort that just 

fries, you know, our communications grid, our electrical grid, or 

whatever. So I hope—I mean, obviously, that’s what you’re talking 

in terms of the operational assistance that NSF is giving. 

Dr. ULVESTAD. Yes, so the NSF role in that is primarily the research role. We don’t have FEMA’s job, and we don’t have the DOE 
90 

job of sort of maintaining the electric grid. So our goal is to be able 

to produce the research that will enable us to do better predictions 

in the future, and the issue of like hardening the electric grid is 

kind of out of our realm. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. Just a closing thought—and, Dr. Hertz, I had 

a bunch of questions about this space shade that might help our 

telescopes—but I just want to congratulate the astronomers and 

the astrophysicists on—and somebody may have done this before I 

got here—on getting to Jupiter within one second and the engineers and the mathematicians and the technologists and everybody 

who helped on that. And my only question is how were we off by 

one second? 

That was rhetorical. I’ll yield back to the Chair. 

Chairman BABIN. Thank you, Mr. Perlmutter. 

And now, I recognize the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Davidson. 

Mr. DAVIDSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you all for 

being here. Thanks so much for the encouragement. And just an 

impressive amount of information. 

Growing up near Dayton, Ohio, near Wright-Patterson Air Force 

Base, one of the first field trips I took was to the Neil Armstrong 

Space Museum as a kid. And so it’s long been an interest. And I 

found that I would not be able to pilot any of these aircraft so I 

might just jump out of some of them so—here in our orbit, though. 

So turning away from—not to take anything away from all the 

great science we’ve just talked about, I want to talk a little bit 

about the science of project management. And so, Dr. Hertz, you 

mentioned about the JWST program and for 2016 the goal was to 

have the three main components—the scientific instruments, the 

telescope, and the spacecraft—completed. Is that project on track? 

Dr. HERTZ. The James Webb Space Telescope project is on track. 

It is executing the re-plan that was laid out in 2010 and for which 

Congress, thank you, has been appropriating the right amount of 

money in each year to allow us to make progress against that plan. 

We have not accomplished the things that you listed, but those 

were not planned for 2016. In 2016 we’ve assembled the telescope 

and the instruments together, and the spacecraft is being assembled separately in California. The telescope and instruments are in 

Maryland. The spacecraft is in California. At the end of next year 

we will be shipping the telescope and instruments to California to 

be mated with the spacecraft. 

Mr. DAVIDSON. Okay. Thank you. 

Dr. HERTZ. But we are on plan with our—on track with our plan. 

Mr. DAVIDSON. Okay. Thank you. Dr. Ulvestad, the telescope 

under construction in Maui, so thank you for the physical picture 

of it. It looks great, still in progress, but a bit over budget. Inspector General issued an alert warning for further cost and schedule 

risks to the project. I’m just curious what steps has NSF taken to 

address the concerns, and how confident are you that you will meet 

the new project deadline and budget? 

Dr. ULVESTAD. So we’re actually quite confident that we’re on 

budget so that telescope was re-baselined to a new budget in 2013 

because there was a two-year delay in access to the mountain due 

to environmental and cultural permitting issues in Hawaii. 
91 

So the Inspector General report made several recommendations. 

One of the concerns was the project schedule was working toward 

a completion in late 2019 but it was always known that that was 

the schedule without the risk associated. That was the schedule 

that had a six percent probability of being met. Okay. The schedule 

that had an 80 percent probability of being met was the middle of 

2020, June of 2020. So we are quite confident that we’re on schedule to meet that 80 percent date and actually to do it within our 

current baseline budget. 

Mr. DAVIDSON. Great. Thank you. I have a question again, Dr. 

Hertz, or any others that want to comment. NASA’s funding for 

large mission concept studies that will inform the 2020 National 

Academy of Sciences decadal survey, NASA anticipates that the 

survey committee will use these studies in formulating the recommendation for priorities of the missions following JWST and 

WFIRST. What does NASA intend to learn from these large-concept mission studies, and how may these studies influence the upcoming 2020 astronomy and astrophysics decadal study? Are these 

studies intended to influence the Academies’ review process? 

Dr. HERTZ. Thank you for that question. These studies are to put 

in front of the Decadal Survey Committee some options for 

prioritizing for missions that come in the next decade. So each of 

the study teams are made up of scientists drawn from across the 

country. Each of the studies will lay out a science case to lay out 

what amazing science could be done with that particular mission, 

to lay out a notional architecture, how big a telescope, what temperature, what orbit, what cameras, that sort of thing. And then 

we let the engineers take a look at it, and they’ll estimate how long 

it would take to build and how much it might cost. 

And that package that describes what such a mission might do 

and what kind of resources it might take, that can be put in front 

of the Decadal Survey Committee, and they can consider those as 

possible future missions or they can consider anything else they 

wish to consider as a possible future mission. 

Mr. DAVIDSON. All right. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Chairman BABIN. Thank you. Thank you very much. I want to 

thank the witnesses for their very valuable and fascinating testimony and for the members up here that have asked great questions. 

The record will remain open for two weeks for additional comments and written questions from members. 

And so with that, this hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:03 p.m., the subcommittees were adjourned.] 

(93) 

Appendix I 

ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS
94 

ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS

Responses by Dr. Paul Hertz 
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102 
103 
104 
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107 
108 
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112 
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Responses by Dr. Jim Ulvestad 
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122 
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Responses by Dr. Angela Olinto 
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Responses by Dr. Shelly Wright 
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Responses by Dr. Christine Jones 
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(155) 

Appendix II 

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL FOR THE RECORD
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DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED BY SUBOMMITTEE ON SPACE

CHAIRMAN BRIAN BABIN
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