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ASTROBIOLOGY: SEARCH FOR BIOSIGNATURES 

IN OUR SOLAR SYSTEM AND BEYOND 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND 

TECHNOLOGY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

DECEMBER 4, 2013 

Serial No. 113–57 

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 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

RALPH M. HALL, Texas 

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., 

Wisconsin 

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma 

RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

PAUL C. BROUN, Georgia 

STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois 

LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana 

STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas 

BILL POSEY, Florida 

CYNTHIA LUMMIS, Wyoming 

DAVID SCHWEIKERT, Arizona 

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky 

KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota 

JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma 

RANDY WEBER, Texas 

CHRIS STEWART, Utah 

CHRIS COLLINS, New York 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland 

FREDERICA S. WILSON, Florida 

SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon 

ERIC SWALWELL, California 

DAN MAFFEI, New York 

ALAN GRAYSON, Florida 

JOSEPH KENNEDY III, Massachusetts 

SCOTT PETERS, California 

DEREK KILMER, Washington 

AMI BERA, California 

ELIZABETH ESTY, Connecticut 

MARC VEASEY, Texas 

JULIA BROWNLEY, California 

MARK TAKANO, California 

ROBIN KELLY, Illinois 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

December 4, 2013 

Page 

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

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

Opening Statements 

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

Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives ..................... 7 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 8 

Statement by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, Ranking Minority Member, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives ........................................................................................................... 8 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 9 

Witnesses: 

Dr. Mary Voytek, Senior Scientist for Astrobiology, Planetary Science Division, National Aeronautics and Space Administration 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 10 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 13 

Dr. Sara Seager, Class of 1941 Professor of Physics and Planetary Science, 

Massachusetts Institute of Technology 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 18 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 20 

Dr. Steven Dick, Baruch S. Blumberg Chair of Astrobiology, John W. Kluge 

Center, Library of Congress 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 27 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 29 

Discussion ................................................................................................................. 35 

Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions 

Dr. Mary Voytek, Senior Scientist for Astrobiology, Planetary Science Division, National Aeronautics and Space Administration ..................................... 58 

Dr. Sara Seager, Class of 1941 Professor of Physics and Planetary Science, 

Massachusetts Institute of Technology .............................................................. 70 

Dr. Steven Dick, Baruch S. Blumberg Chair of Astrobiology, John W. Kluge 

Center, Library of Congress ................................................................................ 75 

(1) 

ASTROBIOLOGY: SEARCH FOR 

BIOSIGNATURES 

IN OUR SOLAR SYSTEM AND BEYOND 

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2013 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY, Washington, D.C. 

The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:05 a.m., in Room 

2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Lamar Smith 

[Chairman of the Committee] presiding. 
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Chairman SMITH. The Committee on Science, Space, and Technology will come to order. 

Welcome to today’s hearing titled ‘‘Astrobiology: the Search for 

Biosignatures in our Solar System and Beyond.’’ I will recognize 

myself for five minutes for an opening statement and then recognize the Ranking Member. 

The search for exoplanets and Earth-like planets is a relatively 

new but inspiring area of space exploration. Scientists are discovering solar systems in our own galaxy that we never knew existed. 

As we learn more about these new worlds, reasonable questions to 

ask are: what can we find on these planets? Do the atmospheres 

of these planets provide biosignatures that would indicate the presence of some form of rudimentary life? And what would be the implications of such a discovery? 

The discovery of even microbes on another planet would be the 

most newsworthy story in decades. It could affect the way we view 

our place in the universe and it could create increased interest in 

the core disciplines of astrobiology including chemistry, physics, geology and biology. 

The United States has pioneered the field of astrobiology and 

continues to lead the world in this type of research. The publication 

of scientific findings illustrates the field’s growth and growing popularity in the past 20 years. 

A sample of professional papers published in Science magazine 

between 1995 and 2013 shows significant growth in the field of 

astrobiology. For example, in 1995, fewer than 50 papers were published on astrobiology. By 2012, that number had increased to more 

than 500. In 1995, fewer than 500 scientific reports cited 

astrobiology, but by 2012, it was almost 12,000. 

Astrobiologists study the atmospheres of planets to determine 

whether or not some of these newly discovered planets possess possible signs of life such as microbes or some form of vegetation. Scientists believe that such planets would produce certain gases in 

their atmospheres. For example, when examined from a distance, 

Earth’s atmosphere contains large amounts of oxygen. When looked 

at through a large infrared telescope, the biosignature would be detectable from a distant point in space. 

Using the infrared camera on the Hubble Space Telescope, two 

teams of scientists from the University of Maryland, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, and the Space Science Telescope Institute announced just yesterday that they had found signatures of 

water in the atmospheres of five exoplanets. The planets are similar to what are called hot Jupiters, too large and gaseous to contain 

any form of known life. However, the techniques used in this case 

are also being used to examine the atmospheres of other planets. 

Future telescopes, including the James Webb Space Telescope, 

the Transiting Exoplanet Survey satellite, and the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope will help us discover more about the 

atmospheres of exoplanets and whether or not microbes or other 

forms of life could exist there. 

I look forward to hearing how research in astrobiology continues 

to expand this fascinating frontier. 

That concludes my opening statement. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Smith follows:] 
8 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN LAMAR S. SMITH

Chairman Smith: Good morning. The search for exoplanets and Earth-like planets 

is a relatively new but inspiring area of space exploration. Scientists are discovering 

solar systems in our own galaxy that we never knew existed. 

As we learn more about these new worlds, reasonable questions to ask are: What 

could we find on these worlds? Do the atmospheres of these worlds provide biosignatures that would indicate the presence of some form of rudimentary life? And what 

would be the implications of such a discovery? 

The discovery of even microbes on another planet would be the most newsworthy 

story in decades. 

It could affect the way we view our place in the universe. It could create increased 

interest in the core disciplines that fall under the umbrella of astrobiology, including 

chemistry, physics, geology and biology. 

The United States pioneered the field of astrobiology and continues to lead the 

world in this type of research. The publication of scientific findings illustrates the 

field’s growth and growing popularity in the past 20 years. 

A sample of professional papers published in Science magazine between 1995 and 

2013 shows significant growth in the field of astrobiology. In 1995, fewer than 50 

papers were published on astrobiology. By 2012, that number had increased to more 

than 500. In 1995, fewer than 500 scientific reports cited astrobiology, but by 2012, 

it was almost 12,000. 

Astrobiologists study the atmospheres of planets to determine whether or not 

some of these newly discovered planets possess possible signs of life, such as microbes or some form of vegetation. Scientists believe that such planets would 

produce certain gases in their atmospheres. 

For example, when examined from a distance, Earth’s atmosphere contains large 

amounts of oxygen. When looked at through a large infrared telescope, this biosignature would be detectable from a distant point in space. 

Using the infrared camera on the Hubble Space Telescope, two teams of scientists 

from the University of Maryland, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and Space 

Science Telescope Institute announced yesterday that they found signatures of 

water in the atmospheres of five exoplanets. 

The planets are similar to ‘‘hot’’ Jupiters, too large and gaseous to contain any 

form of known life. However, the techniques used in this case are also being used 

to examine the atmospheres of other planets. 

Future telescopes, including the James Webb Space Telescope, the Transiting 

Exoplanet Survey Satellite and the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope will help 

us discover more about the atmospheres of exoplanets and whether or not microbes 

or other forms of life could exist there. 

I look forward to hearing how research in astrobiology continues to expand this 

fascinating frontier. 

Chairman SMITH. The gentlewoman from Texas, Ms. Johnson, is 

recognized for hers. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and good 

morning, and welcome to our distinguished panel of witnesses. 

There is no denying humankind’s interest in establishing whether life exists elsewhere in the universe. People have probably speculated on that possibility since time immemorial. 

The question of whether there is life beyond Earth got increased 

attention this year following the Kepler Space Telescope’s discovery 

of Earth-sized exoplanets in habitable zones around other stars, 

and Curiosity’s finding of traces of water in the Martian soil. 

Astrobiology, as we will hear during this hearing, is an interdisciplinary field that makes use of many fields of science to investigate the possibility of life on other worlds. 

As might have been guessed, NASA has played a major role in 

astrobiology’s development as a formal discipline. NASA’s Viking 

missions to Mars, launched in 1976, included three biology experiments designed to look for possible signs of life. The scientific excitement generated by the Viking mission, new results from solar 

system exploration and astronomical research programs in the mid 
9 

nineties, and advances in the fundamental biological sciences led to 

the establishment of the NASA Astrobiology program in 1996. 

Today, NASA’s Astrobiology program consists of four elements: 

grant programs, technological activities aimed at the development 

of new scientific instrumentation, technological activities aimed at 

the field-testing of new scientific instruments, and the NASA 

Astrobiology Institute. 

In addition, astrobiology has become a cross-cutting theme in all 

of NASA’s space science endeavors. For example, rather than being 

standalone investigations, many planetary science and astronomy 

missions work together in their search for life in the Universe. 

Mr. Chairman, I would be remiss were I not to make note that 

continuing to provide adequate funding to NASA’s science programs is of critical importance if we are to continue to make 

progress in astrobiology as well as other important scientific fields. 

I hope that Congress recognizes the vital contributions of ongoing 

and future NASA space science missions in answering whether 

there is life in the Universe. This hearing is an opportunity to 

shine light on these contributions, and I look forward to hearing 

from our witnesses. 

I thank you, and yield back. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Johnson follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF RANKING MEMBER EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON

Good morning and welcome to our distinguished panel of witnesses. 

There is no denying Humankind’s interest in establishing whether life exists elsewhere in the Universe. People have probably speculated on that possibility since 

time immemorial. 

The question of whether there is life beyond Earth got increased attention this 

year following the Kepler space telescope’s discovery of Earth-sized exoplanets in 

habitable zones around other stars, and Curiosity’s finding of traces of water in 

Martian soil. 

Astrobiology, as we will hear during this hearing, is an interdisciplinary field that 

makes use of many fields of science to investigate the possibility of life on other 

worlds. 

As might have been guessed, NASA has played a major role in astrobiology’s development as a formal discipline. NASA’s Viking missions to Mars, launched in 

1976, included three biology experiments designed to look for possible signs of life. 

The scientific excitement generated by the Viking mission, new results from solar 

system exploration and astronomical research programs in the mid-1990s, and advances in the fundamental biological sciences, led to the establishment of the NASA 

Astrobiology Program in 1996. 

Today, NASA’s Astrobiology Program consists of four elements—grants programs, 

technological activities aimed at the development of new scientific instrumentation, 

technological activities aimed at the field-testing of new scientific instruments, and 

the NASA Astrobiology Institute. 

In addition, astrobiology has become a cross-cutting theme in all of NASA’s space 

science endeavors. For example, rather than being stand-alone investigations, many 

planetary science and astronomy missions work together in their search for life in 

the Universe. 

Mr. Chairman, I would be remiss were I not to make note that continuing to provide adequate funding to NASA’s science programs is of critical importance if we 

are to continue to make progress in astrobiology as well as other important scientific 

fields. 

I hope that Congress recognizes the vital contributions of ongoing and future 

NASA space science missions in answering whether there is life in the Universe. 

This hearing is an opportunity to shine light on these contributions. 

I look forward to hearing from our witnesses, and I yield back the balance of my 

time. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Ms. Johnson. 
10 

I will now introduce our witnesses. Our first witness is Dr. Mary 

A. Voytek. Dr. Voytek became Senior Scientist for Astrobiology in 

the Science Mission Directorate of NASA headquarters in 2008. Dr. 

Voytek came to NASA from the U.S. Geological Survey, where she 

headed the Microbiology and Molecular Ecology Laboratory. Dr. 

Voytek has served on advisory groups to the Department of the Interior, Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation and 

NASA including NASA’s Planetary Protection Subcommittee. She 

received a Bachelor’s in biology from Johns Hopkins University, a 

Master’s in biological oceanography from the University of Rhode 

Island and a Ph.D. in biology and ocean sciences from the University of California. 

Our second witness is Dr. Sara Seager. Dr. Seager is an Astrophysicist and Planetary Scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of 

Technology. Professor Seager chairs a current NASA Science and 

Technology Definition Team Study of the star shade concept for 

space-based direct imaging to fined and characterize other earths. 

Before joining MIT in 2007, Professor Seager spent four years on 

the senior research staff at the Carnegie Institute of Washington 

preceded by three years at the Institute for Advanced Study in 

Princeton, New Jersey. She is a 2013 MacArthur Fellow, winner of 

the Genius Grant; also, the 2012 recipient of the Raymond and 

Beverly Sackler Prize in the Physical Sciences and the 2007 recipient of the American Astronomical Society’s Helen B. Warner Prize. 

She received her Bachelor’s of Science in the Math and Physics 

Specialist Program from the University of Toronto. She also holds 

a Ph.D. in astronomy from Harvard University. 

Our third witness is Dr. Steven Dick. Dr. Dick currently holds 

the Baruch S. Blumberg NASA Library of Congress Chair in 

Astrobiology at the Library of Congress. He served as the Charles 

A. Lindbergh Chair in Aerospace History at the National Air and 

Space Museum from 2011 to 2012, and as the NASA Chief Historian and Director of the NASA History Office from 2003 to 2009. 

Prior to that, he worked as an Astronomer and Historian of Science 

at the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C. for 24 years. 

He obtained his B.S. in astrophysics and M.A. and Ph.D. in history 

and philosophy of science from Indiana University. 

We welcome you all and look forward to your testimony, and Dr. 

Voytek, we will begin with you. 

TESTIMONY OF DR. MARY VOYTEK, 

SENIOR SCIENTIST FOR ASTROBIOLOGY, 

PLANETARY SCIENCE DIVISION, 

NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND 

SPACE ADMINISTRATION 

Dr. VOYTEK. Thank you. Mr. Chairman and Members of the 

Committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear today to discuss the topic of astrobiology. 

For thousands of years, humans have looked up at the stars and 

wondered whether life exists beyond our home planet. This curiosity was renewed with the latest discoveries by NASA’s Kepler 

mission totaling 3,500 new candidate planets outside our solar system. With Kepler’s help, more than 800 potential worlds have now 
11 

been confirmed orbiting stars other than our sun, and at least five 

of these are Earth-sized and orbiting within the habitable zone in 

each of their stars. This reminds us just how important NASA’s 

work is to the understanding of the universe and the potential for 

life beyond our solar system. 

A companion question that every child wonders is, where did I 

come from? Astrobiology seeks to answer these enduring questions. 

What is astrobiology? Astrobiology is the study of the origin, evolution, distribution and future of life in our universe. It addresses 

three basic questions that have been asked in various ways for generations: How does life begin and evolve? Does life exist elsewhere 

in our universe? What is the future of life here on Earth and beyond? 

In striving to answer these questions, experts in astronomy, astrophysics, Earth and planetary sciences, biology, chemistry and 

many other relevant disciplines participate in astrobiology research 

to achieve a comprehensive understanding of biological, planetary 

and cosmic phenomena and the relationships among them. 

This multidisciplinary field encompasses the search for habitable 

environments in our solar system as well as habitable planets outside of our solar system. Astrobiology embraces laboratory and field 

research into the origins and early evolution of life on Earth, the 

search for evidence of habitability and life on Mars and other bodies in our solar system, as well as studies of the potential for life 

to adapt to future challenges both here on Earth and beyond. 

It is a cross-cutting theme in all of NASA’s space science endeavors. It knits together research in astrophysics, Earth science, 

heliophysics as well as planetary sciences. The NASA Astrobiology 

program is guided by a community-constructed roadmap that is 

generated every five years. The ongoing development of this roadmap embodies the composition of diverse scientists, technologists 

from government, universities and private institutions. These roadmaps outline multiple pathways for research and exploration and 

contribute to our decisions on how our investments might be 

prioritized and coordinated. 

NASA established its current Astrobiology program in 1996. 

Studies in the field of exobiology, a predecessor to astrobiology, 

date back to the beginning of the U.S. space program. We are 

proud of the results of our 50 years of cutting-edge research. 

In the 20th century, astrobiology has focused on a growing number of NASA missions. As mentioned earlier, with Kepler’s mission, 

we have been able to detect Earth-sized planets within the habitable zones around distant stars. These potentially habitable planets will expand our search for life beyond our own solar system. 

Mars also continues to be an area of interest with the Curiosity 

rover mission currently assessing the potential habitability of that 

planet. In fact, results from that mission have already shown that 

in the past, Gale Crater could have supported microbial life. 

However, since Earth is the only known example of an inhabited 

planet, the search for life in the cosmos begins with our understanding of life on Earth, so studying the origins and evolutions of 

life on Earth improves our ability to recognize and characterize life 

in its many imagined and yet potentially possible forms. 
12 

In 2010, astrobiologists found that a number of microbes from 

Earth could survive and grow in the low-pressure freezing temperatures and oxygen-starved conditions seen on Mars. Overall, 

astrobiologists have discovered life in numerous extreme environments on Earth such as volcanic lakes, in glaciers, sulfur springs. 

We have also found life in extraordinary forms ranging from bacteria that consume chemicals toxic to most life to microbes that live 

under high levels of gamma or ultraviolet radiation. These discoveries have taught us that life is tough, tenacious and metabolically 

diverse and highly capable to adapt to local environmental conditions. Knowledge gained through the astrobiology research reveals 

new possibilities of what else might be out there and how we might 

be able to find and recognize it. 

An example of astrobiology technologies that have proved useful 

for broader application is the Chemistry and Mineralogy instrument that was developed for the NASA Curiosity rover. CheMin is 

a highly sensitive instrument that can identify and quantify the 

minerals present in the Martian rocks and is currently being used 

in a commercial spin-off for a variety of purposes including hazardous-material identification, mineral prospecting, artifact preservation in museums, and even detection of counterfeit pharmaceuticals in developing countries. 

In conclusion, life is a central theme that unifies NASA’s Science 

program, the science of astrobiology aims to achieve a better understanding of our own world and the life that it hosts. After 50 years, 

we are now in an era that can finally provide data on whether or 

not we are alone in the universe. This is an agenda for inspiring 

the next generation of explorers and stewards to sustain NASA’s 

mission of exploration and discovery. 

Again, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Voytek follows:] 
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Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Dr. Voytek. 

And Dr. Seager. 

TESTIMONY OF DR. SARA SEAGER, 

CLASS OF 1941 PROFESSOR OF PHYSICS 

AND PLANETARY SCIENCE, 

MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY 

Dr. SEAGER. Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, we 

are truly at a unique time in human history. We stand on a great 

threshold in space exploration. 

On the one side, we now finally know that small planets exist 

and are common, but on the other side lies the possibility to find 

the true Earths with signs of life. The point I want to make is, this 

is the first time in human history we have the technological reach 

to cross the great threshold. And as already explained, to infer the 

presence of life on an exoplanet, we will search for biosignature 

gases, which we define as a gas produced by life that can accumulate in an atmosphere to levels that we can detect remotely by 

large telescopes. 

The example on Earth is oxygen, which fills our atmosphere to 

20 percent by volume, but without plants and photosynthetic bacteria, we would have virtually no oxygen. So our search for biosignature gases is a search for gases that we call it ‘‘don’t belong’’ that 

are produced in huge quantities that can be attributed to life. 

And I would like to just say briefly that NASA-supported 

astrobiology has been absolutely foundational in biosignature gas 

research by connecting microbiologists with astronomers and geologists and planetary scientists. 

The main point I want to make, a main point, is that we will not 

know if any exoplanet biosignature gas is produced by intelligent 

life, or if it is produced by simple single-cell bacteria. Right now we 

don’t have any planets we can study for biosignature gases. The 

Kepler planets, while small, are too far away and too faint for any 

atmosphere follow-up studies. 

NASA’s TESS mission, led by MIT and scheduled for launch in 

2017, is a two-year all-sky survey of more than half a million 

bright stars. Now, while TESS will not reach down to the true 

Earths, it will find dozens of rocky planets transiting small cool 

stars. 

The reason we are so excited about TESS is that dozens of the 

TESS rocky planet atmospheres can be studied by the James Webb 

Space Telescope and a few of these planets are likely going to be 

in the star’s habitable zone. So while the chance for life detection 

with the James Webb is very, very, very small, if life really is everywhere, we actually have a shot at it. 

Now, to up our chances of finding life on an exoplanet, we need 

to move to a different kind of planet-finding and characterizing 

technique, because the TESS/James Webb combination focuses on 

a rare type of planet, a transiting planet that has to be aligned just 

so, so it goes in front of the star as seen from Earth. That is actually the easiest way to find small planets right now, but it is not 

the best way because we need to be able to search all of the nearby 

sun-like stars. 
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So direct imaging is the starlight-blocking technique, and it is extremely challenging because our Earth at visible wavelengths is 10 

billion times fainter than our sun. Ten billion is such a huge number. This is a massive technological challenge. 

But NASA is studying two different direct imaging techniques. 

One is the so-called internal coronagraph, where specialized optics 

are placed inside the telescope, but the telescope has to be incredibly specialized to be exceptionally thermomechanically stable. 

The other technique is the starshade, that is, putting a giant specialized screen tens of meters in diameter and flying in formation 

tens of thousands of kilometers from a telescope. The starshade 

blocks out the starlight so only the planet light reaches the telescope. Now, the internal coronagraph is more mature, but the 

starshade is likely our best way to find Earths in the new future 

because the starshade does all the hard work. And we can have a 

simple telescope, relatively simple telescope, with a very high 

throughput. 

I wanted to just briefly give you my vision for how to proceed 

after the James Webb Space Telescope and the TESS mission and 

that is we need a small space telescope mission to prove the direct 

imaging technique and to deliver exoplanet science. We need to 

demonstrate both the internal coronagraph and the starshade because we don’t know which one will succeed on a larger scale and 

both actually may be needed. The internal coronagraph technique 

right now is under study for instrumentation on AFTA/WFIRST. 

We will be able to observe some giant planet atmospheres. The 

starshade and telescope system could be supported under a socalled probe-class category and could reach down on a couple of 

dozen stars for Earths. 

Now, here is the thing. If we want to really be able to find planets with biosignature gases, we need hundreds of Earth-like planets. We need to search thousands of sunlight-stars. So for the intermediate future, we will require a large visible wavelength telescope 

with a large mirror exceeding 10 meters in diameter. So that is a 

big thing for the future but that is what it will really take if we 

want to up our chances of success. 

So I just wanted to briefly say that the level of public interest 

in exoplanets has accelerated literally almost exponentially in the 

nearly 20 years I have been in this field. The number of people who 

approach me on a continual basis from high school students to MIT 

students to other university students to literally people all around 

the world to CEOs of small tech companies to retirees, these people 

aren’t just interested in exoplanets, they want to work on 

exoplanets. 

And so I will just close by leaving you with a vision, that this 

search for finding life beyond Earth is so revolutionary, it will really change the way that we see our place in the cosmos such that 

we believe hundreds or a thousand years from now, people will look 

back at us collectively as those people who first found the Earthlike worlds, and so it could be our greatest legacy. We just need 

to—you know, it is within our power based on our near-term decisions and investments to actually make this happen. 

So Mr. Chairman and Committee, this concludes my remarks. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Seager follows:] 
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Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Dr. Seager. 

Dr. Dick. 

TESTIMONY OF DR. STEVEN DICK, 

BARUCH S. BLUMBERG CHAIR OF ASTROBIOLOGY, 

JOHN W. KLUGE CENTER, LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

Dr. DICK. Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Johnson and Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify 

today on the subject of the past and future of astrobiology. I do so 

not as a practitioner in the field but as an historian of science who 

for four decades has documented the debate over life beyond Earth. 

In that role, I can say that this is a subject rich in history and 

promise and one that fascinates the American public. 

During my time as NASA Chief Historian, everywhere I went 

people wanted to know about life on other worlds, and they still do. 

Astrobiology raises fundamental questions and evokes a sense of 

awe and wonder as we realize perhaps there is something new 

under the sun and other the suns of other worlds. 

The key discoveries in astrobiology over the last decade have 

evoked that sense of awe and wonder. High on the list must be the 

discovery of planets beyond our solar system, those so-called 

exoplanets are the very first goal of the NASA Astrobiology Roadmap. 

Ground-based telescopes as well as the Hubble and Spitzer telescopes have all contributed to these discoveries, and NASA’s Kepler 

spacecraft has opened the floodgates. By the end of 2013, almost 

a thousand planets have been confirmed. Thousands more are 

awaiting confirmation. Smaller and smaller planets are being detected including Super Earths and Earth-sized planets. 

A second highlight is the continued search for life in our solar 

system—goal 2 of the roadmap. A fleet of spacecraft over the last 

decade has demonstrated that Mars had enough liquid water in the 

past to be habitable for life. Spacecraft have probed the icy moons 

of the outer solar system including the Jovian moon Europa and 

the Saturnian moon Enceladus. The still-ongoing Cassini/Huygens 

mission has found on the Saturnian moon Titan an atmosphere believed to be rich in prebiotic organic compounds and lakes of methane on the surface of that satellite. And just a few months ago, 

Cassini captured an image of Earth, a pale blue dot against the 

darkness of space. 

Another of the highlights over the last decade has been to demonstrate further the tenacity of life in extreme environments—goal 

5 of the Astrobiology Roadmap. Life has been found in hydrothermal vents deep below the ocean, kilometers below the ground, 

way above the boiling point of water, way below its freezing point. 

The point is that life is more tenacious than once thought and so 

may arise on planets under conditions once thought unfavorable. 

Genomic analysis of these microorganisms continues to shed light 

on how they function. 

Among the critical issues in the search for life in the solar system during the next decade will be a continued research program 

on past and present life on Mars, employing spacecraft such as 

MAVEN, which was just launched two weeks ago, as well as continued field and laboratory research on the origins, limits and fu-
28 

ture of life on Earth and other planets. Beyond the solar system, 

the challenge now is to classify and characterize newly discovered 

planets as well as the search for even smaller ones. Over the next 

decades, spacecraft such as TESS will search for rocky planets and 

stars, and the James Webb Space Telescope will further characterize those planets and their potential for life by searching for biosignatures in their atmospheres. This is goal 7 of the roadmap. 

I would like to say also that in my view, renewing the search for 

radio and other artificial biosignatures as part of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, SETI, would enhance NASA’s 

Astrobiology program and repair the artificial programmatic divorce that now exists between the search for microbial and intelligent life. No biosignature would be more important than a radio 

signal from another civilization on one of those newly discovered 

planets, perhaps, especially if they have something to say. 

In concluding, I would be remiss if I failed to mention that 

among the issues and challenges for the next decade are goals related to astrobiology and society. Indeed, the Astrobiology Roadmap 

recognizes as one of its four implementation principles a broad societal interest in its endeavors. Astrobiology raises profound questions with respect to the impact on society. What will be the effect 

on our world views, our philosophies and religions, if we discover 

microbial or intelligent life beyond the Earth? Are there useful 

analogies that will help us to evaluate societal impact? 

History indicates that the discovery, or the failure to discover extraterrestrial life, is likely to be an extended affair as in the debates over the Viking spacecraft results and the ALH84001 Mars 

rock controversy. These are the kinds of societal aspects of 

astrobiology that I am now studying as part of my time at the Library of Congress. Others are also studying these societal impact 

questions, especially in the last five years since the NASA 

Astrobiology Institute has supported a roadmap and a focus group 

on astrobiology and society. 

Finally, let me say that in my view, astrobiology embodies the 

most important ideals of discovery, exploration and inspiring our 

explorers for the next generation. No better hook exists in my experience to get students interested in science than the tantalizing and 

interdisciplinary questions of astrobiology. I always like to quote 

Nobelist Baruch Blumberg, the first Director of the NASA 

Astrobiology Institute and the inspiration behind the Blumberg 

NASA Library of Congress Chair that I hold now at the Library’s 

Kluge Center, which brings together scholars and policymakers. 

Astrobiology, Dr. Blumberg said, is in the best tradition of our species and in the best American tradition dating back to Lewis and 

Clark, to ask great questions, to explore our world and other 

worlds, to infuse our culture with new ideas, and to evoke that 

sense of awe and wonder as we discover the true place of our pale 

blue dot in the universe. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Dick follows:] 
29 
30 
31 
32 
33 
34 
35 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Dr. Dick. 

Let me address my first question to Dr. Voytek and Dr. Dick. 

First of all, this is an exciting subject, even an inspirational one. 

It is also, I think worth noting that space exploration, including the 

kinds of exploration we are talking about today, attracts bipartisan 

interest and bipartisan support. So, that is nice from the point of 

view of Members of Congress, and also the subject has literally 

caught the public’s imagination, and that is something to build on 

and something to encourage as well. 

But Dr. Voytek and Dr. Dick, you both mentioned the 

Astrobiology Roadmap. The last official roadmap was 2008. Supposedly there is one every five years. I understand the 2013 is actually coming out in 2014, May, June or thereabouts. But my question is this: when it comes to astrobiology, what should be our goals 

today if you could write the roadmap? Obviously it has changed a 

lot in the last five years but what should be our astrobiology goals 

today? Dr. Voytek? 

Dr. VOYTEK. So the current roadmap is being developed to 

align—well, to—— 

Chairman SMITH. What would be your goals? 

Dr. VOYTEK. My goals would be to better enable the search for 

life outside of Earth, which includes really pushing our knowledge 

base about what is possible for life in general. So to extend our research on extreme environments and push it to the limit in terms 

of what kinds of conditions to better establish habitability off the 

Earth. 

Chairman SMITH. Right. 

Dr. VOYTEK. And I believe that we also need to push hard in the 

area of synthetic biology to understand the basic building blocks of 

life to enable a better search strategy for the potential types of life. 

I anticipate that the first life we find is likely to be a microbial, 

relatively simple life form, and that it will be essential to know as 

life did on this planet, it made itself from what was around it. It 

is likely it will do the same on other planets, and so we need to 

be mindful of what other possibilities there are. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you. 

Dr. Dick? 

Dr. DICK. Well, aside from what has already been said, I would 

like to see a voyage to Europa to find out what is under the—— 

Chairman SMITH. I would too. 

Dr. DICK. —thick ice, what is swimming around down there perhaps, or also out to Saturn with Enceladus and to find out more 

about those water spouts that are shooting out of Enceladus. There 

might be biosignatures there. 

Chairman SMITH. I think Europa is already on the list but we 

will have to expedite that. 

Dr. DICK. Right. 

Chairman SMITH. Okay. 

Dr. DICK. Also, I would say, as I mentioned, that I think it would 

be great to repair this divorce between microbial—the search for 

microbial intelligent life by including a more robust program on 

SETI. 

Chairman SMITH. Okay. Good. Thank you, Dr. Dick. 
36 

Dr. Seager, I like your word ‘‘revolutionary’’ when it comes to the 

possible discovery of microbes or other interesting forms of life elsewhere on other planets. What I wanted to ask you, and you went 

into some detail as to how we might be able to detect these biosignatures, but could you give us a hopeful timeline when might this 

occur? I know that there are certain dates for the launches of these 

various telescopes, but some people think we might actually 

achieve some breakthroughs with the devices and the equipment 

we have today, but I just want you to speculate. Do you think in 

what time frame might we expect to find some evidence of, say, microbial life elsewhere in the universe? 

Dr. SEAGER. I always like to start by saying scientists never like 

to speculate. We always like facts. 

Chairman SMITH. But you always do. 

Dr. SEAGER. But we always do. Correct. 

So let us say our input is that every—just for argument’s sake, 

if every star has an Earth and every Earth has life, then we will 

find—we have a great chance of finding the first signs of it with 

the TESS/James Webb Space Telescope combination. It is likely 

that it is not that common. We see evidence already that not every 

star has an Earth-size planet in the habitable zones, but many do. 

In that case, we need to go to a direct imaging mission in space, 

and there is no plan on the books for that. We have lots of studies 

going on. If that one could be implemented, when it is launched it 

would take a few years. In that case, we also have to be lucky. If 

it is correct that one in five stars like the sun now has an Earth, 

and every one of those has life, then we would be able to find signs 

of life with that relatively small space telescope mission. 

My best guess, if you wanted the honest, very conservative answer, if I have to—— 

Chairman SMITH. Yes. 

Dr. SEAGER. —come back and be the one who has to hold the responsibility for this, I would say we need that next-generation telescope beyond the James Webb, the big telescope in space. So we 

need to invest in technology now so this can actually happen at 

some point. But once that one goes up, it would just be a matter 

of a few years to survey enough stars for planets and find them. 

So I have given you the most optimistic case, somewhat unrealistic, that the James Webb finds it. The least optimistic case, we 

need to find out how to put a large mirror in space to search 

enough to have a high enough chance. 

Chairman SMITH. Okay. Most optimistic then next five to 10 

years? 

Dr. SEAGER. Yes, the most optimistic is within a decade. 

Chairman SMITH. Okay. 

Dr. SEAGER. But I don’t want to leave you with just being optimistic because I don’t—you know, we really do need to invest in 

the future. 

Chairman SMITH. Right. I understand that. Thank you, Dr. 

Seager. 

My last question is for you all starting with Dr. Voytek. What 

can we do to expedite the process? And that is a pretty general 

question. Some of the answers have probably been given, the development of these various telescope, tests and so forth, but what can 
37 

we as Members of Congress do to expedite the process? I have a 

hunch probably the answer is going to be funding, but so be it. 

Dr. VOYTEK. Well, I was going to say continued support. Congress and the Administration has provided excellent support to the 

Planetary Sciences Division and Astrophysics and Science Mission 

Directorate in general, and so we need your continued support. I 

know that funding is tough but that is the best thing you can do. 

Chairman SMITH. Okay. If we make it a priority, we can achieve 

that five to ten year time frame perhaps. 

Dr. Seager? 

Dr. SEAGER. I would say that keeping our outreach abilities in 

the university system with the experts who are actually working on 

the field is so important. I think people don’t quite understand how 

often—you know, you think outreach happens maybe at the museum or elsewhere, but as individuals, we actually do a huge 

amount of this, and it is sort of inspiring the next generation so 

we make sure we have that pool of people to keep us not only at 

the forefront of space technology but in biology and keeping this interest moving along. I think that is the best investment we have. 

Chairman SMITH. Great. Okay. 

Dr. Dick? 

Dr. DICK. Aside from funding, I think just the idea that we know 

that Congress is behind the program including, for example, the 

SETI program. I think that we are still seeing the repercussions 

from 20 years ago when that program was canceled, and NASA is 

not forbidden from funding that but they realize that Congress has 

sort of discouraged that 20 years ago. 

Chairman SMITH. I think there is more interest today and more 

possibilities today with the discovery of all these exoplanets. Thank 

you, Dr. Dick. 

My time is way over. The gentlewoman from Texas, the Ranking 

Member, is recognized for her questions. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you very much. 

I guess this question is for all of you. To what extent are the 

interagency and international collaborations important to the 

astrobiology and what, if anything, is needed to facilitate that collaboration to maximize the progress and findings? 

Dr. VOYTEK. I will start with that. The Astrobiology program 

when we established the Institute, part of its charter was to explore means to enhance collaboration amongst all nations that are 

interested in the questions that are addressed by astrobiology, and 

we have been very successful in making affiliations and collaborations. Each government has brought their own resources to bear, 

and we try to facilitate work together because just as it is multidisciplinary, it is also a field of study that requires the entire expertise of the entire globe really to bring to bear on this. It is a 

bold question that we ask, and it requires everybody. 

Dr. SEAGER. I will give you just a very specific example, we try 

to collaborate where we can within ITAR for international space 

technology but we have a special example coming up, and that is 

the starshade technology. We may see a scenario in a very budgetconstrained environment where here in the United States we build 

the starshade. We are leading that technology right now. But we 
38 

get the telescope and launch from international partners. So that 

is a way that we could actually accomplish this in the near term. 

So in general, it is often challenging to work with other countries 

for a variety of reasons but in this case we may want to figure out 

how to do that. 

Dr. DICK. Yes. The NASA History Office has just come out with 

a new book on international cooperation with NASA over the last 

50 years, and it is really an important book, I think, because it 

shows what can be done if we do cooperate. I would have to agree 

with Sara that it has become more and more difficult to cooperate, 

especially because of ITAR, the ITAR regulations, and I have been 

told by people involved that the Cassini program, for example, 

today probably could not be done because of the ITAR regulations, 

which were not in effect during the time that Cassini was built. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you very much. I yield back. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Ms. Johnson. The Chairman Emeritus of the Committee, the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Hall, is recognized. 

Mr. HALL. Mr. Chairman, thank you, and I will tell you, as I look 

at this aggregation of witnesses, you have really done a good job. 

I don’t believe I have ever seen so much intelligence at one table 

and so much interest that we have, but I will warn you that when 

I was at SMU, you were the very type of people that I didn’t like. 

You ruined the curve for us ordinary people. But I always respected you. 

And Chairman, thank you. This is really interesting, and it takes 

me back about 15 years ago when we had a hearing on asteroids 

and found out during the hearing that an asteroid had come within 

15 minutes of us sometime during the 1980s and we didn’t know 

how many jillion miles that was but it sounded kind of threatening 

to me. 

But you have such an interesting study and you seem to be so 

interested in it. I appreciate that. 

I guess my first question is, how would you characterize the importance of astrobiology in the general area of STEM education 

that we have gone through and created and worked on and nurtured here? Second, how would you motivate students, how are you 

going to get them close to what the other witnesses asked? It really 

should be easy, I guess, to answer but how do you motivate students to pursue a career in astrobiology research? 

I guess Dr. Voytek, you might give me a quick answer to that. 

Dr. VOYTEK. I think that the topic of astrobiology is so exciting 

and encompasses so many different aspects of science, technology 

and inquiry that we almost have to do nothing but present the 

topic for people to be engaged and excited and kids to—I believe 

it is one of the most exciting areas of research for children, and my 

own experience has been, it requires almost no encouragement. It 

is an inspiration. 

Mr. HALL. Well, I think you have the same problem that we 

have, this Congress has had at the last probably three or four 

Presidents asking them for more money for the thrust in space, you 

know, and if we had had just X number of millions or billions, why, 

we might not be begging Russia for a ride there and back up to the 
39 

Space Station. But you must wake up every morning wanting to go 

to your work as exciting as it is and excited as you feel. 

Professor Seager, let me ask you this. You stated in your testimony that ‘‘As a Nation, we must continue to be bold in our space 

endeavors so as not to only inspire the next generation but also to 

keep a skilled workforce at the forefront of technology.’’ Do you feel 

that we are being bold enough or too bold in meeting those goals, 

or can we be too bold in meeting such an important goal? 

Dr. SEAGER. Well, since you said it first, I will say we can never 

be too bold. As we all know, China is headed to the Moon right now 

as we speak, and we see China as, you know, in the academic 

world, they are great at copying everything but we haven’t seen 

them really innovate. But you never know what the future holds. 

I will say that most of my students now—and I do work with a 

lot of engineering students—they do not go on in astrobiology or 

exoplanets nor do we want everyone to do that. Many of them go 

out to work in civilian space science or civilian industry or even for 

defense. So recruiting all these people through their interest, they 

want to work on really hard problems that have some impact, and 

you wouldn’t know how many of these people, they come to work 

on these problems because they loved Mars as a child or, you know, 

they like the idea of searching for life beyond Earth. No, I don’t 

think we can be too bold. 

And it is not only inspiring for the public but it draws in the people, those very people that, you know, make the curve higher. You 

want them to come and to work on our hardest problems for either 

science or for defense-related technology. 

Mr. HALL. I just don’t know how I am going to tell my barber 

or folks in my hometown about your testimony here, but you must 

really enjoy getting up every morning and going to work, and I 

thank you for what I call revolutionary study and presentation 

here. 

Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Hall. The gentlewoman from 

Oregon, Ms. Bonamici, is recognized. 

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

you to the witnesses. I concur with the comments about how inspirational this testimony has been. 

One of the issues that I discussed since I joined this Committee 

early last year was how we could do a better job educating the public about the benefits of space exploration and research, and I know 

you have touched on this somewhat, but I have to say that particularly now in a challenging budget time when all of these things we 

are talking about have a price tag, how do we do a better job? How 

do all of us do a better job with that education? 

And Dr. Voytek, I was pleased to read in your testimony about 

how astrobiology research has benefited everyday lives, and you 

talked about the technology used in the Deepwater Horizon accident. Also, there was a mention in the testimony about the Mars 

Curiosity rover, an instrument analyzing art that can help with 

causes of deterioration of artwork. What are some of the ways that 

we can go out and convince a skeptical public that we should continue these investments? Please, go ahead, and I would like to hear 

from all of you briefly and allow time for one more question. 
40 

Dr. VOYTEK. Just very briefly, I often discuss our advances and 

our approach to astrobiology and our big questions as the search 

for a cure for cancer. It is a big, extremely important question. It 

is research that has to be done, and even though we have made 

tremendous progress, we haven’t yet cured cancer. We haven’t yet 

found the origin for life on this planet or life elsewhere. 

But I think in the process, we have learned even more about ourselves that have led to other improvements in biotechnology and 

biomedicine, and the same is true for astrobiology because of the 

types of questions that we ask, and so in addition to the examples 

that you gave, we also have people working in synthetic biology 

that have come up with new, rapid—technology for rapid detection 

of HIV and hepatitis viruses, so there are a lot of advances in biotechnology. Our discoveries have revolutionized and made it possible for people to sequence the human genome. So there have been 

a lot of big payoffs as we move towards answering these very big 

questions. 

Ms. BONAMICI. Thank you so much. 

Dr. Seager and Dr. Dick, briefly. 

Dr. SEAGER. I will be brief. I think we need to keep hitting home 

the message that pure science leads to so many things like the 

laser, like the human genome, and we need to make that, you 

know, as clear as possible to as many people as possible. 

Ms. BONAMICI. Thank you. 

Dr. Dick? 

Dr. DICK. Yes, I have actually edited a volume called Societal Impact of Spaceflight, which I recommend to you, and another one 

will be coming out soon. 

There is a lot of talk often about spin-offs but it is not just the 

spin-offs that you have heard here and other places. It is also the 

satellite, the navigational satellites, reconnaissance satellites, 

weather satellites, communication satellites. All of those, of course, 

would not have happened without the ability to go into space. And 

then finally, I would say also I find that going around the country, 

people are very interested in how we fit, what our place is in the 

universe, and space exploration helps to solve that. 

Ms. BONAMICI. Terrific. And I want to follow up on some of the 

comments that have been made about inspiring and educating the 

next generation, and I know we have heard ‘‘inspiration’’ used a lot 

here today and ‘‘being bold,’’ and I know Mr. Hall mentioned, Dr. 

Seager, your comment about the skilled workforce on the forefront 

of technology. 

How do we continue to engage young people, especially at a 

young age? And I think if you looked at the panel today, most people would think that two-thirds of the women—two-thirds of scientists are women, which is of course not. So how do we continue 

to get young people involved? Can you recommend any changes 

to—I am also on the Education Committee—any changes to STEM 

education, efforts to maximize students’ interest? We are talking 

about things like incorporating arts and design, more hands-on 

learning. Do you have suggestions about how we can engage more 

students in STEM education? Dr. Seager, I would like to start with 

you. 
41 

Dr. SEAGER. This is such a huge topic, it would be impossible for 

me to articulate all my thoughts, you know, in the time that we 

have. So I may just say I would be happy to talk to you about it 

at another point. It is a big, big, big thing and we really need to 

do something new and different. 

Ms. BONAMICI. Thank you. 

Dr. SEAGER. I will just say that all children are born curious 

about the world, and somehow that ends up getting squashed out 

of them, and so we really have a problem. 

Ms. BONAMICI. Thank you. We will definitely follow up. 

Dr. Voytek? 

Dr. VOYTEK. I just want to say one thing, and I think Sara would 

agree with me, is that it is extremely important to start as young 

as possible. If you wait to bring science and technology to students 

that are in high school or college or even junior high, you have already missed incredible opportunities to develop their interest, 

their curiosity, and set them on the path in those sorts of careers. 

Dr. SEAGER. Yeah, I will just add one more thing. You know, 

children, we all know, we were all one at some point, they love dinosaurs. You know, often children love space and planets, and we 

just need to keep that alive and do a better job at it. 

Ms. BONAMICI. Thank you. 

Dr. Dick? 

Dr. DICK. A very specific recommendation would be more curriculum development. There are a few curricula on life in the universe, which, you know, it pulls in everything. One of the great 

things about astrobiology, astronomy, biology, chemistry, you can 

talk about almost anything, and the development of specific curricula that could be used in the schools I think would be a very 

good way to start. 

Ms. BONAMICI. Thank you so much. I see my time is expired. I 

yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Ms. Bonamici. The gentleman from 

Mississippi, the Chairman of the Space Subcommittee, Mr. Palazzo, 

is recognized. 

Mr. PALAZZO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I appreciate our 

witnesses and their testimony today. This is a very exciting subject, 

and I agree with everything that you all presented to this panel so 

far. 

Dr. Seager, I love your comments about we cannot be bold 

enough, and you are talking about investment, and we need to do 

a better job of investing in astrobiology. So could you expand on 

those two? Where would you invest, and if you have a limited 

amount of resources and you had to take from one area to put into 

another area, feel free to comment on that, but also, and I may 

open this up to everybody, is that when you have an agency that 

is so risk-adverse and you throw the word ‘‘bold’’ out there and 

being different, how do you reconcile those two? 

Dr. SEAGER. That is such a great question. I would like to have 

an opportunity to later on perhaps provide a written response. But 

I can try to answer it briefly right now. 

Okay. So in terms of being bold in space, there is a new huge 

thing happening, and that is, we call it CubeSats. They are tiny 

spacecraft that now people all around the world are building and 
42 

launching. Students can do this. So, you know, risk can change 

now because we can launch small things cheaply. It wouldn’t be 

very risky with something that is not that costly, and in that way 

you can kind of educate the university-level people, even down to 

some special high schools, in a very colloquial way—well, so you 

know, we have other ways we can do high risk and generate that. 

The other question I think was about moving money around. 

That one I can’t answer. I think I—— 

Mr. PALAZZO. You can’t or don’t want to? 

Dr. SEAGER. Like I said, I would have to give it some more 

thought. But one thing I do want to say is, what makes our Nation 

unique is just our ability to innovate, and that innovation is something that we—it is very hard to do because you can’t always put 

your finger on what actually it is. You can’t articulate it in a way 

that can actually be supported. But that is why we ended up, you 

know, being able to get to the Moon. That is why we end up being, 

you know, a leader in so many things, and so that is the thing I 

would try to however possible keep that alive, keep that really, 

really moving forward here in America. 

Mr. PALAZZO. And if Dr. Voytek or Dr. Dick would like to—— 

Dr. DICK. Let me just bring up human spaceflight. When I was 

a kid, I was told that we would be on Mars with humans by 1984. 

Obviously we didn’t make it. But I do believe that we should have 

as a long-term goal to go to Mars, or at least as an initial goal, the 

moons of Mars. The moons of Mars were discovered just a few 

blocks from the White House at the Naval Observatory so there is 

sort of a peculiar American interest in the moons of Mars, which 

are just a few thousand miles above the surface of Mars and would 

be a great reconnaissance sort of natural satellite space station for 

looking at Mars. So I believe we should push towards Mars, maybe 

the Moon first again and then Mars. 

Dr. VOYTEK. I would actually like to take an opportunity to focus 

mostly on missions and exploration. I think that the important 

thing of our research program in the Science Mission Directorate 

is that we actually are able to take risks because the investments 

aren’t on the order of millions and hundreds and millions and billions of dollars to do exploration. We can explore lots of these questions on Earth for, you know, a tenth of that cost, and we are bold 

and we do take risks and sometimes it pays off tremendously and 

sometimes we make mistakes, but we try because, again, this is a 

bold question, we are bold with our scientific portfolio and the research programs. 

Dr. SEAGER. I did think of one thing to add, and that is the sort 

of rise of the, we call it just the private commercial spaceflight 

world like SpaceX. I think the risk now can be transferred to them 

in a way, still with some level of NASA support, you know, when 

you are supporting them going to the Space Station and things like 

that. 

Mr. PALAZZO. Real briefly, I will try to get one more question out. 

You know, we talk about budgets up here on Capitol Hill. Our 

Nation is definitely in a financial crisis, and we continue to fight 

amongst each other over shrinking discretinary budgets when the 

largest driver of our deficit and our debt is mandatory spending. 

So we have to come to terms with that. 
43 

But when you have got such great programs like this in competition and national security doesn’t actually seen to propel Congress, 

or this Administration, to act in the best interests of the Nation 

anymore, what would you think would trigger us to focus more on 

exploring Earth-like planets and getting more engaged in 

astrobiology? 

Dr. SEAGER. Well, one thing that would help is making that very 

strong message that it is legitimate science now. You know, we are 

not like searching for aliens or looking for UFOs. We are using 

standard astronomy. We are using models that have been used for 

Earth’s atmosphere and planetary atmosphere. So I think making 

that message that it is really a legitimate field of research is one 

of the critical aspects. 

Dr. DICK. And just the very idea of exploration. I think 

astrobiology embodies the American ideal of exploration, and I 

think that really is a goal enough, to inspire the young people and 

the citizens. 

Dr. SEAGER. The one thing that sometimes is very hard to see 

and communicate is, it is really a long-term investment in our national security and we see it even in industry that civilian space 

science is like a way you can do stuff openly, and so that is—it is 

very hard to communicate very, very long-term investment but that 

is essentially what you are doing here. 

Mr. PALAZZO. I see my time is expired. I yield back. Thank you. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Palazzo. The gentleman from 

California, Dr. Bera, is recognized. 

Mr. BERA. Thank you, Chairman Smith, and I will reiterate what 

everyone on the Committee has already said, fascinating subject. 

As someone who trained in biology and then went to medical 

school, I think, Dr. Seager, you touched on, we are all born with 

this natural curiosity from the youngest of ages—where did we 

come from, where are we going, the origins of life, whether it is on 

the scientific realm, whether it is in our faith-based traditions, and 

so forth. It is naturally innate to who we are as human beings. 

So we don’t have to rediscover this. Our children have this naturally. What we have to do is grow that curiosity, and in order for 

that to grow, we have to dream big. I mean, for those of us who 

grew up in the 1960s and 1970s with the Space Race, there was 

a dream. We didn’t know how we were going to get to the moon. 

We didn’t know the technologies it would take us, yet we dreamed 

about going there. And we have got to recapture that American 

spirit, of dreaming big, of not knowing how we are going to make 

this discoveries but truly committing ourselves to making these discoveries so that our children, so those next generations of scientists 

have this natural curiosity. And we can’t be limited by saying, oh, 

we don’t have the money here, or yes, we have got financial limitations, but we still have to learn how to dream first and then we 

can work within those limitations to say what is the best way to 

use those resources. So that wasn’t a question. That was more of 

a comment. 

The question is, when we are looking at the origins of life, when 

we are looking at the future of worlds and how that affects our own 

planet, these are beyond country borders, these are beyond nationalities, these are beyond faith traditions. What can we do within 
44 

the context, you know, if another country happens to discover evidence of life on another planet? We are all going to benefit from 

that discovery, and it is going to propel us forward. 

What is the context where we can work together, because we are 

talking about big data sets. We are talking about analyzing major 

data sets. What context at the international level would you like 

to see in terms of collaboration in the search for life? Dr. Voytek? 

Dr. VOYTEK. I would say that we attempt with all missions that 

are being planned by space-faring nations that we can collaborate 

with them, either contributing personnel or instruments, so we 

have a very good relationship with ESA, and they have flown instruments on our vehicles and spacecraft; and the counter is we 

have flown as well so their ExoMars mission that is planned to 

launch in 2018, we have an instrument onboard. 

Our plan for 2020 is to bring back samples. We are already—we 

have been working with the international community to figure out 

how to share the results and participate together in the analysis 

of those samples. I think that, you know, we have ITAR restrictions 

but, you know, scientists—science is an area that crosses boundaries pretty easily. There is a natural curiosity, and our scientists 

are doing a lot of the work for us. 

Mr. BERA. Dr. Seager, let us say we do build this next generation 

of telescope. Again, we are going to—we will be bringing in massive 

amounts of data and it will take a lot of eyes and a lot of analysis. 

I know in other aspects, we have allowed those amateur astronomers and the public to go out there and look at this data. Again, 

that is a way of even getting high school students, elementary 

school students looking at this, imagining things. What are some 

contexts in which we can do that again, bring in the entire planet? 

Dr. SEAGER. Well, I would like to address it from a slightly different view, and I think it is great for scientists to interact internationally because we don’t have a political agenda as scientists. 

But I think when it does come to space technology, it is just—this 

is my personal opinion—it is so much more efficient because we 

don’t have this extra layer of bureaucracy and inefficiency to do it 

all ourselves here in America. However, if the budget realities and 

practicalities don’t allow it, then I support the international cooperation in space technology. 

In terms of the big data that is public like the Kepler data, for 

example, any one of us here, we can download the data, we can 

look at it all around the world. I think that is really great, and that 

does make the world come together in a unique way. 

Mr. BERA. Dr. Dick, did you want to add anything? 

Dr. DICK. I would just say that it very much depends on the scenario when you are talking about international cooperation, whether it is microbial life or intelligent life and the implications of finding that. There are various international organizations that can be 

worked through like the International Academy of Astronautics, 

and there is work being done on what we should do if—and what 

the impact would be if either microbial or intelligent life would be 

found. 

Mr. BERA. Great. 

Dr. VOYTEK. Let me say one more thing. I want to reiterate a 

point that you brought up, which citizen science is incredible. I 
45 

think it is a way to engage the public. I think we have shown in 

astronomy, in particular, how it is a tapped workforce that has 

done tremendous scientific work for us, and I think particularly 

with telescopic data that we will continue to use it in the future 

and maximize it. It has been awe-aspiring to me to see how people 

have just gotten involved and are planet hunters themselves. I 

think the public is dying to get involved even more. 

Mr. BERA. Great. Thank you. I yield back. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Dr. Bera. The gentleman from 

Florida, Mr. Posey, is recognized for his questions. 

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

witnesses. It is fascinating testimony, fascinating written testimony. I hated for it to end actually. I wish you could have added 

some more pages to your testimony. It is fun to read, very enjoyable. I think, you know, you pretty much indicated that life on 

other planets is inevitable. It is just a matter of time and funding. 

Clearly, that is it. 

If our species survives long enough and I wonder, a question to 

the three of you, what you see as the greatest dangers to life on 

Earth. 

Dr. DICK. Well, we have had the recent experience of the fireball 

over Russia. I would have to say that the asteroid impacts are a 

danger. There is a range of material coming in. We are in a pinball 

machine and we are in outer space. And you have all this material 

coming in and occasionally a larger one comes in, as over Russia, 

but it is entirely possible, as evidenced by some of the craters on 

the Earth, the ones that wiped out the dinosaurs, they happened 

over much longer periods but I believe that’s one of the motivations 

for human spaceflight is to get at least some of us off the Earth 

in case there is a catastrophic event such as that. 

Dr. SEAGER. Well, we do like to believe with, you know, sort of 

the—in the current—we do like to think with our current resources 

of monitoring asteroids that we will find something big before it 

finds us, but that is certainly an important area to keep up. 

If I can give my personal opinion, I think overpopulation of our 

planet is going to be our biggest problem. 

Dr. VOYTEK. I would say with all systems that resources, particularly essential resources, can be limiting and so I think as we look 

other places for alternative energy or other means to support a 

large population, that that is a threat to our planet. 

Mr. POSEY. Okay. You know, conditions on other planets are 

going to seem harsh at first, and we know in history conditions on 

planet Earth have been harsh. If we came here or explored Earth 

64 million years ago, we would say wow, it is too cold, and if we 

were 65 million years ago we might say wow, it is too hot. So I 

guess there is going to be windows of opportunity on the other 

planets too. Any comment on that? 

Dr. DICK. Well, it is one of the great things about this research 

being done just in the last two decades on life in extreme environments, just how tenacious life is, you know, in extreme temperatures and under the oceans in these hydrothermal vents at extreme 

temperatures and pressures. You find not only microbial life but 

these long tube worms. I mean, it is just amazing. It seems wherever conditions are possible and by conditions, I mean, a much 
46 

broader range than we used to have, that life does arise and arise 

fairly quickly. 

Mr. POSEY. Okay. 

Dr. VOYTEK. I would say that we talk about life in extreme environments, and I will note that it is mostly microbial, and it is mostly extreme by our own reference. So it is an anthropocentric definition of what is extreme because in fact we have had the capability 

to inhabit warm places, cold places because of our technology. We 

basically bring everything back to conditions that support a comfortable life for humans, and so exploration, colonization on other 

planets and harsh environments will require that we do the same. 

We are not going to suddenly develop the capability to live at, over 

the temperature of boiling water. We will have to make our local 

environment hospitable to ourselves, and we have that technology 

now. 

Mr. POSEY. Dr. Seager? 

Dr. SEAGER. I am going to defer on that question. 

Mr. POSEY. Okay. What do you believe was the highest historical 

temperature on the surface of Earth prior to the extinction of the 

dinosaurs, Dr. Dick? 

Dr. DICK. It is hard to say. That is not my area of expertise. But 

I can say that on Venus, for example, the temperature is now 900 

degrees Fahrenheit with sulfuric acid rain and very harsh conditions, and Mars, of course, is much colder now than the Earth. So 

one of the goals of astrobiology is to try and figure out how planets 

that seem to be so similar in the past have diverged. 

Mr. POSEY. Dr. Seager? 

Dr. SEAGER. One thing I always tell my students is that every 

day is like a Ph.D. defense. So I actually don’t remember that number off the top of my head. 

Mr. POSEY. Okay. Dr. Voytek? 

Dr. VOYTEK. Ditto. Except that, as you mentioned yourself, Earth 

has experienced extremes in environmental conditions from the 

early formation, and so certainly environmental conditions well beyond the limits of human life. 

Dr. SEAGER. But these changes do happen very slowly, and we 

believe that life will adapt. 

Mr. POSEY. Thank you all very much for your testimony. Mr. 

Chairman, I yield back. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Posey. The gentleman from 

Kentucky, Mr. Massie, is recognized. 

Mr. MASSIE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I find this topic fascinating. 

I have a question that I may ask all of you but I want to ask 

Dr. Seager first. If you were king for a day and could offer an XPrize for something in your field, what would it be? 

Dr. SEAGER. It would be for finding the nearest Earth-like planet, you know, around the star that is closest to our own planet. So 

I will try to answer that one more time in a more clear way. 

Mr. MASSIE. Yes. 

Dr. SEAGER. You know, we would like to know just sort of as a 

legacy for the future which of the very, very, very nearby sun-like 

stars have a planet that is like Earth with habitable conditions and 

surface liquid water required for all life as we know it. So I would 
47 

offer that prize for being able to find that. That would have to be 

a prize that was sort of on the order of billions, not just millions. 

Mr. MASSIE. Okay. And Dr. Dick, what would you—— 

Dr. DICK. I am going to stick with Europa, I think, because it is 

less than a billion miles away, and if we could offer a prize for 

somebody to get there and find a way to drill down below the ice, 

we don’t know exactly how thick it is but that would be a feat in 

itself if we could drill down through that ice and see what is below 

the ice. 

Mr. MASSIE. And Dr. Voytek? 

Dr. VOYTEK. I am going to pick Enceladus. I would like to offer 

a prize for somebody to go sample the plumes. 

Mr. MASSIE. Okay. Thank you. 

And so Dr. Seager, you mentioned a starshade, and this captured 

my attention and imagination. So is this something that would be 

deployed in space? Could you describe that just—— 

Dr. SEAGER. Yes. I didn’t mention that. Pretty much we do need 

to go up to space to get above the blurring effects of Earth’s atmosphere. Now, the starshade is something that has been in development for a number of years supported by NASA. The concept actually was first written down in the 1980s by a French physical optics researcher. So would you want me to just elaborate on the 

starshade? 

Mr. MASSIE. Yes, maybe 30 seconds. 

Dr. SEAGER. Okay, sure. So first of all, the starshade does have 

heritage from large radio-deployables in space, okay? Those are like 

20-meter structures that unfold into a parabolic shape. A starshade 

is a flat shape. It is not a circle or a square because that has—light 

will go around the edges and just cause problems. It has to be very 

specially shaped. It ends up looking like a flower. Okay. Now, demonstrations have been in the lab of how you would fold up the petals, how they would unfurl, and they have to be—the petals have 

to be made very, very precisely because remember, we have to 

block out the starlight to basically better than a part in ten billion. 

Now, the starshade would essentially just be like, you know, 

looking at a single light and blocking it with your hand, and the 

starshade would have to fly far away from a telescope. You could 

actually use any type of telescope. Now, this just can’t go in any 

orbit because formation flying is tricky and so you really want to 

get away from Earth, either in an Earth-trailing or Earth-leading 

orbit or at what we call L2. So the starshade is—it has been under 

development and it is ongoing. 

Mr. MASSIE. So you have to pick a light to block, Right? So you 

would—— 

Dr. SEAGER. Correct. 

Mr. MASSIE. —place some bets on a star? 

Dr. SEAGER. Well, so we are now in this Committee that I am 

chairing, the Science and Technology Definition Team, we are 

spending a lot of time on that exact question. And so the question 

really is, which stars are you going to go to, because you can move 

the starshade around the sky or around in space or the telescope 

can be moving around. You know, there is sort of a scenario where 

you send up two or three starshades. You always have something 

going on. There is a scenario where as the starshade is making its 
48 

way to another—you know, to line up with another star, your telescope is going to be like a very new version of Hubble and doing 

general astrophysics. So yes, that is a problem but it is not a limiting problem. 

Mr. MASSIE. And that would—you would be leveraging the 

Hubble so—— 

Dr. SEAGER. So we wouldn’t use the Hubble in this case, only because Hubble is in low-Earth orbit and Earth’s reflected light is a 

problem as is Earth’s gravity for formation flying. But we could essentially use even—I don’t want to use the word, you know, ‘‘any 

old space telescope’’ because it is still a problem, but the telescope 

doesn’t have to really be special in any way. It just has to be in 

the right orbit. 

Mr. MASSIE. And is there some sort of—I know in itself the concept is bang for the buck but is there within that a bang for the 

buck version of it that you could do that would prove its concept 

or give some quick results for—— 

Dr. SEAGER. I mean, this is something we have definitely thought 

a lot about and because of the scaling issues like, you know, showing it—okay. It is difficult to do anything in space except the real 

thing because to demonstrate on the scales required and to get, you 

know, that one in ten billion, really the real thing. However, there 

are many things that we can do just on the ground and that are 

ongoing and need to continue like we call it subscale, smaller 

versions, demonstrations in the lab. There is, you know, testing in 

the outdoors. You have to go many kilometers separated. So there 

are things that we can do. But the problem of finding Earth is so 

hard, there is really no easier, cheap way to actually do it. 

Mr. MASSIE. Thank you. 

And Dr. Dick, in my last few seconds I would like to touch on 

something that you mentioned in your opening testimony is reconnecting that gap between SETI and astrobiology, or it looks like 

astrobiology has kind of subsumed that space. What is the state of 

SETI right now? 

Dr. DICK. Well, objective 7.2 of the Astrobiology Roadmap does 

mention biosignatures of technology, which technically is SETI but 

I think the problem is that NASA does not really support that with 

funding based on the termination of the SETI program by Congress 

20 years ago. So if Congress would wish to get SETI going again 

with some, with even a little bit of funding, that would be an important addition, I think, to astrobiology because right now it is 

really an artificial separation. We are looking for microbes, but 

after that, we are not looking for intelligence with the NASA program. 

Mr. MASSIE. Great. Thank you very much. Yield back. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Massie. The gentleman from 

Texas, Mr. Veasey, is recognized for his questions. 

Mr. VEASEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I have a question for Dr. Voytek, specifically about oil and gas 

exploration, and your thoughts on—if you think that it is practical 

that some of the technology that is being adapted can be specifically used to detect leaks at great depths as it pertains to oil and 

gas exploration, particularly offshore. 
49 

Dr. VOYTEK. Yes. So one of the examples I gave in my testimony 

was a technology that was developed at Woods Hole Oceanographic, and it was a combination of an autonomous vehicle and a 

mass spectrometer that could detect hydrocarbons, and it was used 

to identify and map the leak from the Deep Horizon spill. Its original design for the Astrobiology program was to try to search for the 

source of biogenic gases and chemicals, so to identify the sources 

in the deep sea from hydrothermal vents and, say, the production 

of methane or hydrocarbons that were produced by microbes. So, I 

think that that was a great example of that technology being 

adapted to a very important environmental problem. 

Mr. VEASEY. Thank you. 

Do you want to add something? You looked like you wanted to 

add something, Dr. Dick? Okay. 

I did have a question for you, Dr. Dick, specifically about the 

emergence of astrobiology and how you thought that NASA’s early 

initiatives such as the Viking landers on Mars affect the evolution 

of research at NASA related to the search for life in the universe. 

Dr. DICK. Well, the Viking experiments had a great impact, I 

think. The biology experiments were three biology experiments, 

and one of them—one of the principal investigators to this day believes he found biology on Mars but the gas chromatograph’s mass 

spectrometer found no organic molecules on Mars which means you 

if you don’t ever get any molecules, you can’t have life. So that sort 

of put a damper on the Mars program for a while. I think it was 

something like 15 years at least before we went back to Mars with 

another spacecraft. So those kinds of things really can have an impact. But now with the rovers that we have, including Curiosity, 

are looking for those organic molecules. They haven’t found any 

complex organic molecules, maybe some very simple ones, but of 

course, we have only looked in very specific places. So those specific 

kinds of events in the development of astrobiology can have a great 

effect as in the case of the Mars rock ALH84001 in 1996. I think 

that gave a great spur to astrobiology, the development of 

astrobiology over much broader program than the old NASA 

exobiology program which was pretty much limited to origins of 

life, and that is the astrobiology program that we have today. 

Mr. VEASEY. And speaking of that, how does that history sort of 

inform planning for the next decade of astrobiology research? 

Dr. DICK. Well, I think if we find anything on Mars in the nature 

of organic molecules or other things like that, history tells us that 

that would have a great impact on funding for the future. So we 

are all hopeful that such things will be found aside from all the 

other interesting things that those rovers are finding. 

Mr. VEASEY. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Veasey. The gentleman from 

Illinois, Mr. Hultgren, is recognized. 

Mr. HULTGREN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you all for 

being here. This has been very helpful and very interesting. 

I also have the privilege of serving as one of the co-chairmen 

along with my colleague, Mr. Lipinski, who was unable to be here 

today, of the STEM Caucus, and all of us, every Member of Congress that I speak with, is passionate about how do we get young 

people interested in science and technology and space and engi-
50 

neering and mathematics, and clearly this field that you all are 

talking about is, I think, a great avenue to get young people interested. 

One question I would have for you of getting into that is when— 

looking back in your own history, when was the first time you really were interested in this and kind of made the decision, this is 

what I want to do personally? 

Dr. SEAGER. You know, my first memories are about the Moon 

and stars, but it wasn’t until much—so the seed gets planted early 

but it wasn’t until much later, maybe my late teens, that I realized 

it was a career choice. 

Dr. DICK. I grew up in rural southern Indiana, where it was very 

dark, so the night sky is what inspired me to start with it from a 

very young age and it just grew from there, and I would have to 

say also I was very much influenced by science fiction. One of the 

things I found when I worked at NASA is, a lot of people in NASA 

were inspired by science fiction, and those novels about, you know, 

life on other planets and that sort of thing. So for me, it was from 

a very early age. 

Dr. VOYTEK. And for me, my father was a physician and he gave 

me his medical school microscope when I was about seven, and I 

started exploring my backyard and the streams and the refrigerator and the food and saw that life was everywhere. Everything 

was moving. It was kind of scary for my diet but it set me off for 

my natural interest in how life persists on our planet. 

Dr. SEAGER. One thing you will find from most scientists is, there 

is one special individual who helped them along. In some of our 

cases, it was a parent. Let us face it: most kids in America, your 

parent is not a scientist or a doctor. And in that case, it is a teacher. So we need to have a better way to—I mean, we would all like 

to see teachers be like the best-paid people in the country to recruit 

the people who are really the very best, but we really need to find 

a way to reach the teachers. Our children are just spending, you 

know, so much of their waking hours in school. Everyone needs to 

encounter that one special person to enable them. 

Mr. HULTGREN. I absolutely agree, and that was really where I 

wanted to go next is, the idea is, much of this is sparked grammarschool age, so, you know, maybe up to 6th grade, 7th grade, 8th 

grade, maybe a little bit later in high school when you really see, 

hey this is something I could pursue. Part of the challenge is, I 

think a lot of teachers are intimidated, certainly when you start 

talking about astrobiology. That would be something for a 4thgrade teacher to have to inspire kids. That would be intimidating. 

And so any ways that we can be providing resources to teachers I 

think is so important, or even bringing in people like yourselves to 

be talking to young people to let them know how exciting this is 

and how their generation could be the generation that makes this 

great discovery. It could be one of them, and how exciting that 

would be to do that. 

So any way that—suggestions you have and really did want, Dr. 

Seager, to take you up on your offer of a follow-up of talking about 

education—— 

Dr. SEAGER. Yes. Well, I just want to offer three comments. The 

first comment is that unfortunately, our education system here in 
51 

America including universities is the same as it has been for hundreds of years. 

Mr. HULTGREN. Yes. 

Dr. SEAGER. Number two, children, as you know, they love 

their—the ones that have iPad or the Internet. The whole big data 

social media thing is something that could actually be big in 

schools where the teachers are not up on things. The third thing 

I keep repeating is, it is very hard for us here to have the longterm investment. The long-term investment is to change the culture for our university undergraduate educated people that they 

can and should be teachers at the elementary level. 

Mr. HULTGREN. Well, and I do think this is the type of thing— 

you know, again, there is a disconnect with, we want to have, you 

know, great education for our kids. We also struggle with limited 

resources that we have got, how do we figure out compensating 

teachers, getting the right people there, bringing people from the 

outside who aren’t necessarily certified but can inspire to be engaged in the classrooms while bringing business, bringing our laboratories, bringing NASA, every possible way whether through 

technology or otherwise. You are right, I mean, the door is open 

like it has never been before to get that into the classroom but we 

have just got to do it. 

Let me switch gears real quickly because, Dr. Seager, I want to 

ask you a little bit more about the— you mentioned the 

coronagraph—is that right?—and then also the starshade, and you 

also mentioned collaborating with the international community as 

a cost-savings measure on that. I wonder if there is any other countries that are doing work in those specific areas that we should be 

aware of and has collaboration on such projects already been discussed in the scientific community, and how can we encourage that 

or push it forward? 

Dr. SEAGER. Well, I would say that it is in ESA in Europe. In 

the past when we were supporting a so-called terrestrial planet 

finder mission, we did have an agreement with the Europeans. I 

forget the other part of your question. 

Mr. HULTGREN. Well, it was just if there is—so it sounds like Europe is open. Has that already started? 

Dr. SEAGER. So Europe has recently made their choice for their 

next big missions in the coming decades, and they did not choose 

anything in exoplanets. 

Mr. HULTGREN. Okay. 

Dr. SEAGER. I think that really just means the door may be open 

for an international collaboration. 

Mr. HULTGREN. Okay. Part of our challenge—I am way over—but 

I think it is frustrating when we have try and have these international collaborations when we are running on CRs, where we literally don’t know month to month if we are going to fund programs. Somehow we have got to get back to regular order. We have 

got to get back to, I think, specifically with science is pull it out 

of this year-to-year funding, worse, month-to-month funding. 

What I hear is, every other nation has five-year, ten-year, twenty-year fully funded science budgets. When we come and talk to 

them about collaboration, oftentimes they will laugh back at us because they know we don’t even know what is going to happen after 
52 

January 15th because that is when the C.R. expires. So we have 

got some big struggles, would love to have your help on all of these 

suggestions you would have for us to move forward. 

My hope is that you get a sense that there is a desire, that we 

are excited about this and we want to work with you and want 

your help to do this well. 

So with that, thanks, Chairman, for your graciousness, and I 

yield back. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Hultgren. The gentlewoman 

from Illinois, Ms. Kelly, is recognized for her questions. 

Ms. KELLY. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and going along with my colleague from Illinois, my question is, I started a STEM academy in 

my district, but my question, all due respect, Dr. Dick, how do we 

get more women and minorities involved? Because it seems like, 

you know, we need so many more women represented and minorities in the field, particularly African Americans. Are there any best 

practices anywhere? 

Dr. DICK. Well, I know that NASA Astrobiology Institute does 

have summer workshops both for students and for the teachers. I 

am not sure exactly how you encourage the women and minorities 

to get involved in that, but I am sure the program could be expanded and in that way you might get more, but I would have to 

think about it more. 

Dr. VOYTEK. Maybe I can speak to our programs. The 

Astrobiology program actually has a minorities program and we 

are working with the United Negro College Fund to teach the 

teachers, and a cascade effect of training and providing role models 

for students, so that they can see that this is something that I can 

do. So one of the things that we do is this minority institute program, which brings in scientists to work side by side with other 

astrobiologists, and they are encouraged to develop curricula to 

take back to their universities, and we work very closely with Historical Black Universities and other minority-serving institutions. 

We also have internships that focus on underrepresented groups, 

and I would be happy to share with the Committee all the work 

that we have done up until this point in astrobiology, both with 

missions and just within our own program, that target curricula 

development, workshops for teachers and how—the efforts that we 

have made to make astrobiology part of a STEM approach. 

Dr. SEAGER. I will just be brief and say we just need role models. 

You need children to be able to see people in their own community 

and schools that plants deeply in their mind, oh, I can be like that. 

I think that is a big thing. And then we need to change the culture 

at the higher institutions so that it is okay to be different initially, 

and then we need critical mass so there is no difference. 

Ms. KELLY. I definitely agree with that. We work with 6th, 7th, 

8th graders, and they don’t even realize what the possibilities are 

until we expose them to the possibilities, and they are so thrilled 

with what we are doing, but it is just that we have to move it from 

school to school. We can’t just keep coming back to the same students. 

Thank you so much. Yield back. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Ms. Kelly. The gentleman from 

Texas, Mr. Weber. 
53 

Mr. WEBER. Mr. Chairman, I have no questions. 

Chairman SMITH. Oh, well. 

Mr. HALL. Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask one question on behalf of the whole Republican and Democrats. 

Chairman SMITH. Of course. 

Mr. HALL. Do you think there is life out there? You know, are 

they studying us, and what do they think about New York City? 

Dr. SEAGER. Well, let me just say that in our own Milky Way galaxy, there are a hundred billion stars, and we now believe in our 

universe we have more than a hundred billion galaxies. So if you 

just do the math, the chance that there is a planet like Earth out 

there with life on it is very high. 

Mr. HALL. I didn’t do the math. There is three things about math 

I couldn’t do, and that is add and subtract. 

Dr. SEAGER. Well, if we had more time, we could work it out. But 

let us just say that the chance for life is very high. The biologists 

never like us to speculate in that way, but the real question really 

is, you know, is there life very near her in our neighborhood of 

stars, and that is the question that we are really addressing for 

real for the first time. 

Dr. VOYTEK. On behalf of the biologists, I think it is fine to speculate. We think that life takes over any chance it gets, and so we 

believe there is a high probability, and I think that one of the 

amazing things about our own planet is whether they are looking 

at New York or some small town in Indiana, the diversity of life 

here and the way that we have chosen to live our lives is just phenomenal, and I think it goes all the way down from humans to microbes. 

Dr. DICK. One of the great things about finding the other planets 

is that it corroborates what many of us have viewed as a guiding 

principle that what has happened here in our own solar system has 

happened elsewhere. A lot of people didn’t believe that for a long 

time until 20 years ago when we started to find the planets, and 

now we find that they are everywhere. So it is another step, of 

course, to life and an even bigger step to intelligence but I think 

the guiding principle holds that what has happened here will happen elsewhere in this huge universe. 

Mr. HALL. I yield back. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Hall, a good question to end 

with, and let me thank you all for being here today. This has been 

just—oh, I am sorry, the gentleman from Utah, Mr. Stewart. 

Mr. STEWART. I have been patiently waiting. Mr. Chairman, I assume you are yielding? 

Chairman SMITH. I recognized you, I thought. 

Mr. STEWART. Thank you, sir. 

Chairman SMITH. We will even give you an extra minute for the 

oversight. 

Mr. STEWART. Well, thank you, and it has been interesting, and 

Mr. Hall actually jumped on something that I wanted to maybe 

conclude with, and before I do, I thank the witnesses once again, 

the panelists. It has been—it is fun to hear something and not to 

leave a hearing frustrated or like you want to throttle the other 

side like we do in some of our hearings of course is overly politi-
54 

cized, and I appreciate, you know, the recognition that it is in our 

human nature to explore and to discover. 

I want to come back and just be more specific, if I could. Just 

very quickly, based on your experience, based on your training and 

kind of your gut, do you think it is even conceivable that there is 

not other life somewhere in the universe? Is it even possible? 

Dr. DICK. It is conceivable, but I mean, we really don’t know. 

This is why it would be such a great thing to find life on Mars because if you find even microbial life on Mars or that sort of thing 

at a low level, which is independent at the beginning at life, an 

independent genesis, that means that life began on two planets 

very close together where conditions were possible, and you can 

from that extrapolate out to the rest of the universe. But it is possible if we don’t find life on Mars and eventually over the years 

don’t find life anywhere else that it either doesn’t exist or it is very 

rare. Now, you can define ‘‘rare’’ yourself. If one out of a billion 

stars in our galaxy has life, then you still have 400 planets with 

life on them, so—— 

Mr. STEWART. Well, and I want to go kind of quickly on this because I am actually trying to get to a point. Do you believe that 

there is life out there, Dr. Dick? 

Dr. DICK. Yes, I do. 

Mr. STEWART. Okay. Dr. Seager? 

Dr. SEAGER. Yes. 

Mr. STEWART. Okay. 

Dr. VOYTEK. Yes. 

Mr. STEWART. Okay. I think most of us do. I mean, and you 

look—as you have indicated here, you look at the numbers, it is impossible almost—okay, forgive me for using ‘‘inconceivable’’ but it 

just seems essentially that there would have to be somewhere. 

And then kind of the presumption here of this hearing is that 

eventually we are going to discover each other whether we discover 

them or they discover us or however that process might be, and I 

think in a lot of these conversations we assume that the discovery 

might be that we find some basic form of life, something, you know, 

not at all like us, I mean, bacteria or microbes or whatever there 

might be, but it is possible as well, isn’t it, that we find a more 

sophisticated form of life? Is that true? 

Dr. DICK. Yes. 

Dr. VOYTEK. Yes. 

Mr. STEWART. Okay. Again, it would have to be at least possible. 

Dr. DICK. I will just say that my view is that microbial life would 

be more abundant than intelligent life because it is harder to get 

to intelligence, but on the other hand, you have these vast scales 

of time that have evolved also. 

Mr. STEWART. Yeah, exactly. 

Dr. SEAGER. There is a chance that intelligent life is very rare 

and not within our sphere to communicate with. 

Mr. STEWART. And that is actually my next question, and that 

is, what—let us assume that we find life. What do we do then? I 

mean, do we—do you have conversations about what the next step 

is? Are there any conversations about how we would attempt to 

communicate with life, or how does that change things for us in the 

way we view ourselves? 
55 

Dr. VOYTEK. I know that—— 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. We do that with Twitter. 

Mr. STEWART. No, this is intelligent life. 

Dr. VOYTEK. We certainly discuss what would be the implications 

for society, you know, what are the philosophical ramifications, the 

religious ramifications, and we have funded studies through the dialog on science and ethics and religion, through the AAAS, and so 

we think about those aspects. I think that—and I will say that— 

and I don’t know about if we have thought about how to communicate or invite them home for dinner or what, but—— 

Mr. STEWART. So that really isn’t either of your—it is not within 

your realms of considering what we do after we discover it? Is that 

true? Or do you consider that? 

Dr. SEAGER. I don’t know if it is the best place for us to talk 

about it because this is one of the things that is sort of in its infancy and maybe even a bit marginal, but people do talk about it. 

Maybe you send up an ever bigger space telescope, 50-meter telescope and find more. We need to get pictures and detail of the planet. There are people here on our planet now in our country who 

want to be able to send a robotic probe to another star with a planet. It would take a very long time to figure out how to do that and 

to actually get there. But there are conversations going on. They 

are just not at a really formal or well-articulated level. 

Dr. VOYTEK. With the exception of the fact that since 

probabilistically, we believe it is likely we will find microbial life. 

People in my field are extremely interested in getting a sample of 

that and being able to immediately compare it to what life is like 

here and start abstracting more information about exactly what life 

is, how do we define it, how is it different, what have they learned 

on that planet that makes it survive there, what can we learn in 

our own system. I think that there is a plan as a comparative finding a species or another example and so we—— 

Dr. DICK. This is exactly what I am working on at the Library 

of Congress for my year right now. And I would also say that there 

are protocols, official protocols, which have actually gone through 

the United Nations about what happens if you find extraterrestrial 

intelligence. Basically the plan is to confirm it first and then tell 

everybody, not keep any secrets. 

Mr. STEWART. Okay. And that would be interesting, wouldn’t it, 

if some people knew and others didn’t. 

Dr. DICK. Right. 

Mr. STEWART. And as interesting as it is to talk about the discovery, I think the more fun conversation is what happens after 

that and what we do with that information. 

Thank you, and Mr. Chairman, thank you for allowing me the 

opportunity. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Stewart, good questions. 

Thank you again to the witnesses for your attendance today and 

for speaking about such an interesting and fascinating subject. I 

think you have enlightened us all, and we look forward to staying 

in touch with you about the issues involved. 

So thank you again. We stand adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:35 a.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

(57) 

Appendix I 

ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS
58 

ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS

Responses by Dr. Mary Voytek 
59 
60 
61 
62 
63 
64 
65 
66 
67 
68 
69 
70 

Responses by Dr. Sara Seager 
71 
72 
73 
74 
75 

Responses by Dr. Steven Dick 
76 
77 
78 

Æ