U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

30–882PDF WASHINGTON : 2018

JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE: 

PROGRAM BREACH AND ITS IMPLICATIONS 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND 

TECHNOLOGY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

JULY 25, 2018 AND JULY 26, 2018 

Serial No. 115–72 

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

( 

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

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY 

HON. LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas, Chair 

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois 

BILL POSEY, Florida 

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky 

RANDY K. WEBER, Texas 

STEPHEN KNIGHT, California 

BRIAN BABIN, Texas 

BARBARA COMSTOCK, Virginia 

BARRY LOUDERMILK, Georgia 

RALPH LEE ABRAHAM, Louisiana 

GARY PALMER, Alabama 

DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida 

ANDY BIGGS, Arizona 

ROGER W. MARSHALL, Kansas 

NEAL P. DUNN, Florida 

CLAY HIGGINS, Louisiana 

RALPH NORMAN, South Carolina 

DEBBIE LESKO, Arizona 

MICHAEL CLOUD, Texas 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon 

AMI BERA, California 

ELIZABETH H. ESTY, Connecticut 

MARC A. VEASEY, Texas 

DONALD S. BEYER, JR., Virginia 

JACKY ROSEN, Nevada 

CONOR LAMB, Pennsylvania 

JERRY MCNERNEY, California 

ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado 

PAUL TONKO, New York 

BILL FOSTER, Illinois 

MARK TAKANO, California 

COLLEEN HANABUSA, Hawaii 

CHARLIE CRIST, Florida 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

July 25, 2018 

Page 

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

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

Opening Statements 

Statement by Representative Lamar Smith, Chairman, Committee on Science, 

Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives .................................... 4 

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

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

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 12 

Statement by Representative Brian Babin, Chairman, Committee on Science, 

Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives .................................... 14 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 16 

Statement by Representative Ami Bera, Ranking Member, Committee on 

Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives ..................... 19 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 21 

Witnesses: 

Hon. Jim Bridenstine, Administrator, NASA 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 22 

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

Mr. Tom Young, Chairman, JWST Independent Review Board 

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

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

Discussion ................................................................................................................. 38 

July 26, 2018 

Opening Statements 

Statement by Representative Lamar Smith, Chairman, Committee on Science, 

Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives .................................... 74 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 76 

Statement by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, Ranking Member, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives .... 78 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 81 

Written by Representative Brian Babin, Committee on Science, Space, and 

Technology, U.S. House of Representatives ....................................................... 83 

Written Statement by Representative Ami Bera, Committee on Science, 

Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives .................................... 85 

Written Statement by Representative Barbara Comstock, Committee on 

Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives ..................... 110 
Page

IV 

Witnesses: 

Mr. Wesley Bush, Chief Executive Officer, Northrop Grumman 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 86 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 89 

Mr. Tom Young, Chairman, JWST Independent Review Board 

Discussion ................................................................................................................. 104

Appendix II: Additional Material for the Record 

Documents submitted by NASA ............................................................................. 134 

Documents submitted by Northrop Grumman ...................................................... 135 
(1) 

JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE: 

PROGRAM BREACH AND ITS IMPLICATIONS 

2018 

AND THURSDAY, JULY 26, 2018 

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. 
2 

lAMAR S. SMITH, Texas 

CHAIRMAN 

EDDlE BERNICE JOHNSON, Tex<Js 

RANKING MEMBER 

tt:ongrcss of thr tlnitrd ~tatrs 

ilousc of Rcprcscntatiucs 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY 

2321 RAYBURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING 

WASHINGTON, DC 20515-6301 

(202) 225-6371 

www,sdence.house.gov 

James Webb Space Telescope: Program Breach and its 

Implications 

Panel I. June 25: 

Wednesday, July 25,2018 

10:00 a.m. 

2318 Rayburn House Office Building 

Witnesses 

Hon. Jim Bridenstine, Administrator, NASA 

Mr. Tom Young, Chairman, JWST Independent Review Board 

Panel 2. July 26: 

Mr. Wesley Bush, Chief Executive Officer, Northrop Grumman 

Mr. Tom Young, Chairman, JWST Independent Review Board 
3 

TO: 

FROM: 

DATE: 

SUBJECT: 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY 

Charter 

Members, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology 

Majority Staff, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology 

July 25,2018 

Full Committee Hearing: "James Webb Space Telescope: Program Breach and its 

Implications" 

On Wednesday, July 25, at 10:00 a.m., and Thursday, July 26, at 9:00a.m., in Room 

2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology 

will hold a two-part hearing titled, "James Webb Space Telescope: Program Breach and its 

Implications." 

Hearing Purpose 

The purpose of this hearing is to focus discussion on the James Webb Space 

Telescope (JWST) Independent Review Board (!RB) report and NASA's response, as well as 

the implications of the ongoing J WST program breach, especially to other NASA programs. 

Since the JWST program has now breached under 51 USC 30 I 04 notification conditions, the 

hearing discussion on July 25 will explore NASA program management effectiveness, 

program continuation and reauthorization, and budgetary implications across NASA's entire 

science portfolio, to include the WFIRST program. The second part on July 26 will explore 

contractor issues and recommended improvements regarding contractor accountability. 

Witnesses 

Panell, June 25: 

• Hon. Jim Bridenstine, Administrator, NASA 1 

• Mr. Tom Young, Chairman, JWST Independent Review Board 

Panel2, July 26: 

• Mr. Wesley Bush, Chief Executive Officer, Northrop Grumman2 

• Mr. Tom Young, Chairman, JWST Independent Review Board 

Staff Contact 

For questions related to the hearing, please contact Dr. Michael Mineiro, Staff Director, 

Space Subcommittee, Dr. Samuel Amber, Professional Staff Member, Space Subcommittee, or 

Ms. Sara Ratliff, Policy Assistant, Space Subcommittee, at 202-225-6371. 

1 Mr. Bridenstine may have an assistant with him at the witness table to assist with technical questions, but a single 

statement will be submitted on behalf ofNASA. 2 Mr. Bush may have an assistant with him at the witness table to assist with technical questions. but a single 

statement will be submitted on behalf of Northrop Grumman. 
4 

Chairman SMITH. The Committee on Space, Science, and Technology will come to order. Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare recesses of the Committee at any time. 

Good morning, and welcome to today’s hearing entitled ‘‘James 

Webb Space Telescope: Program Breach and its Implications.’’ I’ll 

recognize myself for an opening statement. 

Today, we will hear from Administrator Bridenstine on NASA’s 

plans to ensure that the James Webb Space Telescope is a success. 

We will also hear from Tom Young on the findings and recommendations of the JWST Independent Review Board. 

Tomorrow, at the second part of the hearing, Northrop Grumman’s CEO, Mr. Wes Bush, will testify. We will learn more about 

why Northrop failed to deliver JWST on budget and on schedule 

and what can be done about it. 

Welcome to Jim Bridenstine, who is testifying for the first time 

since leaving the Committee to become NASA’s Administrator. He 

began his job with our high expectations, and he has already exceeded them. Jim, that’s the highest compliment I can pay you. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Why, thank you. 

Chairman SMITH. We can be confident that he is striving to tackle the program management issues NASA faces, specifically those 

associated with the James Webb Space Telescope. 

Starting on March 26, 2018, NASA began notifying this committee about the James Webb Space Telescope’s cost and schedule 

breaches. Now that the Independent Review Board has completed 

its work, we should review the decades-long JWST cost overruns 

and schedule delays. And if Members will take a look at this chart 

that’s on the screen in front of us. 

[Slide.] 

Chairman SMITH. This chart chronicles JWST’s substantial cost 

growth and launch schedule delays starting with the 1996 initial 

projections in the lower-left-hand corner all the way to the IRB’s 

2018 projection in the upper-right corner. It is truly staggering to 

behold how this space telescope’s cost and schedule projections 

went from costing the same as a space shuttle mission—around 

half-a-billion dollars with an original launch date in 2007—to now 

becoming an expenditure exceeding $9 billion with a new launch 

goal in March 2021. This is 19 times the original cost and a delay 

of 14 years. It doesn’t get much worse than that. 

The cost of delaying the launch again will add almost another 

billion dollars to the total program cost. The $8 billion development 

cost cap set in 2012 will be exceeded by $803 million. With other 

program costs added in, the IRB now estimates the total cost at 

over $9.6 billion. 

The IRB also stated that technical complications and unclear reporting roles, responsibilities, and lines of communications greatly 

impacted the development schedule and its associated cost increases. Mr. Young will provide details during his testimony. We 

will discuss options going forward, such as the contractor watch list 

designation contained in the bipartisan NASA Authorization Act of 

2018. 

I support the continuation of JWST to mission completion and 

appreciate Administrator Bridenstine’s efforts to improve contractor performance. Going forward, Congress needs to have the 
5 

necessary confidence in NASA’s contractors to put us on the right 

path at a reasonable cost. Anything short of that will undermine 

Congressional confidence in contractors’ ability to deliver on their 

promises. 

Usually, when government contractors make mistakes, no one is 

held accountable. The mistakes ‘‘just happened’’ or ‘‘were unavoidable’’ or ‘‘won’t happen again.’’ But in every case, the American people pick up the bill. We often forget there is no such thing as federal dollars. It’s the American taxpayers’ hard-earned money. If 

space exploration is going to continue to earn the public’s support, 

then contractors will have to deliver on time and on budget. If they 

cannot, they should be penalized. 

[The prepared statement of Chairman Smith follows:] 
6 

COMMITTEE ON 

SCIENCE, SPACE, & TECHNOLOGY Lamar Smith, Chairman 

For Immediate Release 

July 25,2018 

Media Contacts: Heather Vaughan, Bridget Dunn 

(202) 225-6371 

Statement by Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) 

James Webb Space Telescope: Program Breach and its Implications 

Chairman Smith: Today, we will hear from Administrator Bridenstine on NASA's plans to ensure 

that the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a success. We will also hear from Tom 

Young on the findings and recommendations of the JWST Independent Review Board (IRB). 

Tomorrow, at the second port of the hearing, Northrop Grumman's CEO, Mr. Wes Bush, will 

testify. We will learn more about why Northrop foiled to deliver JWST on budget and on 

schedule and what con be done about it. 

Welcome to Jim Bridenstine who is testifying for the first time since leaving the committee to 

become the NASA Administrator. He began his job with our high expectations, and he has 

already exceeded them. We con be confident that he is striving to tackle the program 

management issues NASA faces, specifically those associated with the James Webb Space 

Telescope. 

Starting on March 26, 2018, NASA began notifying this committee about the JWST cost and 

schedule breaches. 

Now that the IRB has completed its work, we should review the decodes-long JWST cost 

overruns and schedule delays. Toke a look at the chart on display. 

[JWST cost and schedule delay chart] 

P<oJectedcost{$BIIUonsl JWST Cost Growth vs. Launch Delay 

12 

10 

18; 

0 o.sr~ 2006 

I 2008 2010 

2.5 

I 

I 

/ v ........ , 

y 

i 4.5 

l-Y 

I 

2012 2014 2016 

Projected Launch Date 

I 9.66 

88 8.8 88/ 

/ 

2018 2020 

I 

2022 
7 

This chart chronicles JWST's substantial cost growth and launch schedule delays starting with 

the 1996 initial projections in the lower-left corner all the way to the IRS's 2018 projection in 

the upper-right corner. 

It is truly staggering to behold how this space telescope's cost and schedule projections 

went from costing the same as a Space Shuttle mission-around half a billion dollars with an 

original launch goal in 2007-to now becoming an expenditure exceeding $9 billion with a 

new launch goal in March 2021. That is nineteen times the original cost and a delay of 

fourteen years. It's hard to get much worse than that. 

The cost of delaying the launch again will add almost another billion dollars to the total 

program cost. The $8 billion development cost cap set in 2012 will be exceeded by $803 

million. With other program costs added in, the IRB now estimates the total cost at $9.6 

billion. 

The IRB also stated that technical complications and unclear reporting roles. responsibilities, 

and lines of communications greatly impacted the development schedule and its 

associated cost increases. Mr. Young will provide details during his testimony. 

We will discuss options going foiWard, such as the contractor watch list designation 

contained in the bipartisan NASA Authorization Act of 2018. 

I support the continuation of JWST to mission completion and appreciate Administrator 

Bridenstine's efforts to improve contractor performance. 

Going foiWard, Congress needs to have the necessary confidence in NASA's contractors to 

put us on the right path at a reasonable cost. Anything short of that will undermine 

congressional confidence in contractors' ability to deliver on their promises. 

Usually, when government contractors make mistakes, no one is held accountable. The 

mistakes "just happened" or "were unavoidable" or "won't happen again." But in every 

case, the American people pick up the bill. We often forget there is no such thing as federal 

dollars. It's the American taxpayers' hard-earned money. 

If space exploration is going to continue to earn the public's support. then contractors will 

have to deliver on time and on budget. If they cannot, they should be penalized. 

### 
8 

Chairman SMITH. That concludes my opening statement, and the 

Ranking Member, the gentlewoman from Texas, is recognized for 

hers. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you very much. Good morning to everyone 

and, Mr. Chairman, I thank you for holding this hearing on the 

James Webb Space Telescope program breach and its implications. 

Excuse me. 

Welcome to our witnesses, to the Administrator Bridenstine and 

Mr. Young. We appreciate your commitment to this high-priority 

science mission. 

As a powerful observatory that will be 100 times more sensitive 

than the Hubble Space Telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope 

will be a gateway to unlocking the origins of the universe. Further, 

like Hubble, it will also be an inspiration for our next generation 

of scientists, engineers, and citizens and a symbol of American— 

America’s leadership in space, science, and exploration. 

I appreciate the tireless commitment and dedication of NASA to 

its industry, international, and academic partners, also for their 

work on this project. 

The hardware for the mission is now complete, and the observatory is undergoing integration and testing. Getting to this point 

has not been easy. A 2010 review of the project identified significant costs in growth—schedule growth while subsequent re-baseline plans help keep the program on track for many years. Today, 

we will discuss another series of setbacks. 

I want to commend NASA for establishing the Independent Review Board. The Independent Review Board and I want to recognize the members for contributing their time and expertise and Mr. 

Young for his leadership in chairing the effort. 

The message is clear. Mission success for the James Webb Space 

Telescope needs to be the priority, and finding potential embedded 

problems and minimizing the impact of human errors must be a 

focus going forward. 

That said, the Independent Review Board was also clear on the 

fact that both NASA and the prime contractor for the mission, Northrop Grumman, have contributed to the 29-month schedule delay 

and the $1 billion cost increase to the project. In particular, the review board found complex and confusing management reporting on 

the project and inconsistent, uncoordinated communications on the 

James Webb Space Telescope within NASA and with external 

stakeholders, including Congress. This is not good news, especially 

since some of these problems were identified in the 2010 review. 

I hope that today’s hearing will inform us on how NASA plans 

to ensure that these and the other findings and recommendations 

of the Independent Review Board are successfully implemented and 

how lasting processes are being put in place to prevent these problems from occurring on other NASA projects. 

I am also concerned about the potential collateral damage. I’m 

eager to hear from the Administrator on how NASA plans to ensure the health and balance of the astrophysics program, including 

small missions research and analysis and the next high-priority 

decadal survey mission—excuse me—the WFIRST, given the additional resources that will be needed to complete the James Webb 

Space Telescope. 
9 

And as I’ve said on many occasions before, inspiring and challenging projects such as the James Webb Space Telescope are an 

investment in our future, and the review board found that it is an 

observatory with incredible capacity and awesome scientific potential. And while it is up to this committee to carry out the oversight 

of the taxpayers’ significant investment in this project, we must not 

lose sight of the importance of bringing the James Webb Space Telescope to a successful outcome. 

And, Mr. Chairman, I have a letter I’d like to submit for the 

record. 

Chairman SMITH. Okay. 

Ms. JOHNSON. This is a letter of support of the project from the 

American Astronomical Society. 

Chairman SMITH. Without objection, the letter from the American Astronomical Society will be made a part of the record. 

[The information follows:] 
10 

AMERICAN ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 

Office of the President 

The Honorable Lamar Smith 

Chairman, Committee on Science, 

Space, and Technology 

316 Cannon House Office Building 

Washington, DC 20515 

Dear Chairman Smith and Ranking Member Johnson, 

July 24, 2018 

The Honorable Eddie Bernice Johnson 

Ranking Member, Committee on Science, 

Space, and Technology 

1431 Longworth House Office Building 

Washington, DC 20515 

I am writing as the President of the American Astronomical Society (AAS)-the major North American 

organization of professional scientists, engineers, and educators advancing astrophysics, planetary 

science, and heliophysics-to thank you for your oversight over the development of the James Webb 

Space Telescope (JWST) and for convening a hearing to review the Independent Review Board (IRB) 

finding that the project would breach its development cost and schedule constraints. 

As you know, JWST will be the most ambitious, capable space telescope humanity has ever built. It will 

transform scientific understanding of our place in the universe. The astronomical community is eager to 

realize the extraordinary potential of this observatory, and we share your frustration at the news ofthis 

breach. Significant cost and schedule overruns driven by preventable human errors are unacceptable, 

particularly on such an incredibly high profile mission. I am pleased with NASA's commitment to 

completing JWST. We agree that mission success is paramount, even if that unfortunately requires 

further launch delay and an increase in development costs. I am confident that NASA has learned, and 

will continue to learn, from this experience. Carrying those lessons forward to the next generation of 

ambitious NASA missions is essential to ensuring a balanced, world-leading space-science program. 

I encourage you to reauthorize JWST at the updated cost and schedule estimate, and continue to 

conduct rigorous oversight of the project, its prime contractor, and NASA. Congressional oversight is a 

key component in maximizing the scientific return from public investment in the astronomical sciences. 

Thank you for your strong past support and thank you in advance for considering this feedback. We look 

forward to working with you and your Congressional colleagues to ensure that the U.S. space science 

program continues to be world leading. Please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns, 

or Joel Parriott, AAS Director of Public Policy, at j[J<ei.PAU:LC>!!@aas,org. 

Sincerely, 

~pmvJ-_ 

Megan Donahue, Ph.D. 

President, American Astronomical Society 

Professor of Physics and Astronomy, Michigan State University 

cc: Senator John Thune, Chairman, Senate Committee on Commerce, Space, and Technology 

Senator Bill Nelson, Ranking Member, Senate Committee on Commerce, Space, and Technology 

1667 K St. NW, Suite 800 • Washington, DC 20006 • 202-328-2010 • F 202-234-2560 • megan.donahue@aas.org 
11 

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

[The prepared statement of Ms. Johnson follows:] 
12 

OPENING STATEMENT 

Ranking Member Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) 

House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology 

"James Webb Space Telescope: Program Breach and its Implications" 

July 25,2018 

Good moming. Thank you, Mr. Chainnan, for holding this hearing on the "'James Webb Space 

Telescope: Program Breach and its Implications," and welcome to our witnesses, Administrator 

Bridenstine and Mr. Young. We appreciate your commitment to this high-priority science 

mission. 

As a powerful observatory that will be I 00 times more sensitive than the Hubble Space 

Telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope will be a gateway to unlocking the origins of the 

universe. Further, like Hubble, JWST will be an inspiration for our next generation of scientists, 

engineers, and citizens, and a symbol of America's leadership in space science and exploration. 

I appreciate the tireless commitment and dedication of NASA and its industry, international, and 

academic partners for their work on JWST. The hardware for the mission is now complete, and 

the observatory is undergoing integration and testing. 

Getting to this point has not been easy. A 20 I 0 review of the project identified significant cost 

and schedule growth. While the subsequent rebaseline plan helped keep the program on track for 

many years, today, we will discuss another series of setbacks to JWST. 

I want to commend NASA for establishing the JWST Independent Review Board-the IRBand I want to recognize the IRB Members for contributing their time and expertise, and Mr. 

Young for his leadership in chairing this effort. The IRS's message is clear. Mission success for 

JWST needs to be the priority and finding potential embedded problems and minimizing the 

impact of human errors must be the focus going forward. 

That said, the IRB was also clear on the fact that both NASA and the prime contractor for the 

mission, Northrop Grumman, have contributed to the 29-month schedule delay and $1 billion 

cost increase to the project. In particular, the IRB found complex and confusing management 

reporting on the project, and inconsistent, uncoordinated communications on JWST within 

NASA and with external stakeholders. including Congress. 

This is not good news, especially since some of these problems were identified in the 20 I 0 

review. I hope that today's hearing will inform us of how NASA plans to ensure that these and 

the other IRB findings and recommendations are successfully implemented and how lasting 

processes are being put in place to prevent JWST's problems from occurring on other NASA 

projects. 

I am also concerned about potential "collateral" damage. I am eager to hear from Administrator 

Bridenstine on how NASA plans to ensure the health and balance of the astrophysics program, 

including small missions, research and analysis, and the next high-priority decadal survey 

mission, WFIRST, given the additional resources that will be needed to complete JWST. 
13 

As I've said on many occasions before, inspiring and challenging projects such as JWST are an 

investment in our fl1ture. The !RB found that "JWST is an observatory with incredible capability 

and awesome scientific potential." And while it is up to this Committee to carry out the 

oversight of the taxpayer's significant investment in the project, we must not lose sight of the 

importance of bringing JWST to a successful outcome. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back. 
14 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Ms. Johnson. 

And the gentleman from Texas, the Chairman of the Space Subcommittee, is recognized for his opening statement. 

Mr. BABIN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And thank you 

witnesses, expert witnesses, for being here as well. 

As Chairman of the Space Subcommittee and proud representative of Johnson Space Center, I’m a very tireless advocate for 

NASA. I strongly believe in the mission of NASA, and I commend 

the tremendous dedication of the NASA and industry team under 

Mr. Bridenstine and the rest of the team. However, as Members of 

this Committee, we have a responsibility to every taxpayer to ensure that government agencies, including NASA, are being good 

stewards and effective at managing our resources with which they 

are entrusted. 

Today’s hearing will focus on the serious issues associated with 

the James Webb Space Telescope program breach and its implications, the Independent Review Board’s analysis and recommendations, and the coming debate over Congressional reauthorization of 

JWST. Chairman Smith summarized the IRB’s findings and recommendations, so I want to use this opportunity to discuss NASA’s 

lost opportunities due to flagship program cost overruns. 

As the Space Subcommittee Chairman, I focus on the NASA 

budget in its entirety and every project and program in the agency’s portfolio, particularly those where budget limitations force difficult decisions on reducing specific project budgets or whether we 

can even fund them at all. Please give your attention to the chart 

on display. 

[Slide.] 

Mr. BABIN. The Committee surveyed NASA’s science portfolio 

over the last few fiscal years to identify project budget reductions 

and unfunded requests due to limitations. These projects are listed 

by fiscal year starting on the left there with fiscal year 2013 all the 

way up through fiscal year 2019. You can see those. 

Now, with the fiscal year 2018 coming to a close shortly and the 

IRB’s announced JWST cap breach of $803 million in development 

costs, this chart reflects the reality of the breach going into fiscal 

year 2019 budget planning. In terms of lost opportunities and 

NASA’s budgetary trade space, it is important to know the full impact of JWST breach on NASA and the American public as a whole. 

So we’ll bring up the next one. 

[Slide.] 

Mr. BABIN. The $803 million needed to fund the JWST cost 

breach could fund nearly every one of NASA’s science funding 

shortfalls from fiscal year 2013 all the way up through fiscal year 

2016. These projects include earth science and education projects 

greatly promoted by our Democratic colleagues on the Committee. 

And looking forward to fiscal year 2019 and NASA’s future flagship program plans, the cost issues with the Wide Field Infrared 

Survey Telescope, or WFIRST, will become a subject of debate right 

alongside the JWST Congressional reauthorization. The fiscal year 

2018 omnibus required an updated lifecycle cost estimate for 

WFIRST, and NASA’s report concludes the estimated cost range is 

$3.3 billion to $3.9 billion. This lifecycle cost estimate exceeds the 
15 

NASA-imposed cost cap of $3.2 billion included in the bipartisan 

NASA Authorization Act of 2018. 

To give perspective to the funding dilemma presented by JWST 

and WFIRST cost issues, NASA’s WFIRST estimate includes a request for $371 million, which is now reflected on the fiscal year 

2019 chart. 

Thank you. 

[Slide.] 

Mr. BABIN. The bipartisan NASA Authorization Act of 2018 seeks 

to limit flagship program overlap to reduce NASA’s risk of becoming overwhelmed by WFIRST development before JWST is operational in space. Thus, it is my hope the IRB report and our witness panel testimony will shed some light on lessons learned with 

JWST and lead to a successful flight and operations in March 2021. 

We do not want these mistakes repeated during the development 

of WFIRST. 

Congress needs to understand the unvarnished truth of the status of these programs today, as well as the plan going forward. Decisions made now can have long-lasting implications on future missions. We need to know that there is not a systemic or a fundamental management problem with how NASA plans and executes 

these larger strategic missions. 

And I want to thank the witnesses here today, helping us to better understand where we are and how we plan to move forward, 

and I look forward to your testimony. 

I yield back. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Babin follows:] 
16 

s H 

For Immediate Release 

July 25,2018 

Media Contact: Heather Vaughan, Bridget Dunn 

1202) 225-6371 

Statement by Chairman Brian Babin (R-Texas) 

James Webb Space Telescope: Program Breach and its Implications 

Chairman Babin: As the Chairman of the Space Subcommittee and proud representative of 

Johnson Space Center, I am a tireless advocate for NASA. I strongly believe in the mission of 

NASA and commend the tremendous dedication of the NASA and industry team. 

However, as members of this committee, we have a responsibility to every tax-payer to 

ensure that government agencies, including NASA. are being good stewards and effectively 

managing the resources with which they are entrusted. 

Today's hearing will focus on the serious issues associated with the James Webb Space 

Telescope (JWST) program breach and its implications, the Independent Review Board's 

(IRB) analysis and recommendations, and the coming debate over congressional 

reauthorization of the JWST. 

Chairman Smith summarized the IRB's findings and recommendations, so I want to use this 

opportunity to discuss NASA's lost opportunities due to flagship program cost overruns. As the 

Space Subcommittee chairman, I focus on the NASA budget in its entirety and every project 

and program in agency's portfolio, particularly those where budget limitations force difficult 

decisions on reducing specific project budgets or whether we can fund them at all. Please 

give your attention to the chart on display. 

5(11) 

3\lil 

NASA's Unfund.d Science Requests 

And Budget Reductions From FYl3 to FY19 

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17 

The committee surveyed NASA's science portfolio over the last few fiscal years to identify 

project budget reductions and unfunded requests due to limitations. Those projects are listed 

by fiscal year starting with FY 13 and going through projections for FY 19. 

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With FY18 coming to a close shortly and the IRB's announced JWST cap breach of $803 

million in development costs, this chart reflects the reality of the breach going into FY19 

budget planning. 

In terms of lost opportunities and NASA's budgetary trade space, it is important to know the 

full impact the JWST breach caused for NASA and the American public as a whole. 

ffiiJIRIS 

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The $803 million needed to fund the JWST cost breach could fund nearly every one of 

NASA's science funding shortfalls from FY13 to FY16. These projects include Earth science and 

education projects greatly promoted by our Democratic colleagues on the committee. 
18 

Looking forward to FY19 and NASA's future flagship program plans, the cost issues with the 

Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (W-FIRST) will become a subject of debate alongside 

the JWST congressional reauthorization. The FY18 Omnibus required an updated life-cycle 

cost estimate for W-FIRST and NASA's report concludes the estimated cost range is $3.3 

billion to $3.9 billion. 

This life-cycle cost estimate exceeds the NASA-imposed cost cap of $3.2 billion included in 

the bipartisan NASA Authorization Act of 2018. 

To give perspective to the funding dilemma presented by the JWST and W-FIRST cost issues, 

NASA's W-FIRST estimate includes a request for $371 million which is now reflected on this 

FY19 chart. 

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And Budget Reductions From FY13 to FY19 

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The bipartisan NASA Authorization Act of 2018 seeks to limit flagship program overlap to 

reduce the NASA's risk of becoming overwhelmed by W-FIRST development before JWST is 

operational in space. Thus, it is my hope the IRS report and our witness panel testimony will 

shed light on lessons learned with JWST, leading to a successful flight and operations in 

March 2021. We DO NOT want these mistakes repeated during the development of W-FIRST. 

Congress needs to understand the "unvarnished" status of these programs today, as well as 

the plan going forward. Decisions rnade now can have long lasting implications on future 

missions. We need to know that there is not a systematic or fundamental management 

problem with how NASA plans and executes these larger strategic missions. 

I thank our witnesses here today, helping us to better understand where we are and how we 

plan to rnove forward. and look forward to your testimony. 

### 
19 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Babin. 

Mr. BABIN. Yes, sir. 

Chairman SMITH. The gentleman from California, Mr. Bera, the 

Ranking Member of the Space Subcommittee, is recognized for his 

opening statement. 

Mr. BERA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to the 

Ranking Member for holding this hearing. 

In many ways, these hearings are a continuation of hearings that 

the Space Subcommittee had last month on NASA costs and schedule overruns, and it’s always good to see our former colleague, Administrator Bridenstine, on that side of the podium. 

I won’t reiterate what both the Chairman and Ranking Member 

and the Chairman of the Subcommittee have gone through, but I 

do think what the cost overruns suggest and remind us is the complexity of mentioning when you’re thinking about doing something 

that you’ve never done, the scientific and technologic complexity. 

And, you know—and it also highlights the important role that Congress has in our oversight role in making sure that, as we’re budgeting and thinking about those future priorities, we’re doing so 

with the most accurate information. 

As we think about— I’m someone—I think along with a lot of my 

colleagues—that puts a lot of faith in the decadal survey and in an 

objective way kind of laying out what our priorities are. And in 

that decadal survey when we think about WFIRST and think about 

future projects, in that context I’m going to be curious to hear both 

today and tomorrow what we can learn in terms of if we look backwards on Webb in terms of budgeting, in terms of timeline, that 

will help inform us going forward. 

I do think there will be robust dialogue and discussion as we look 

at future missions, future budgets and allocations knowing that 

this is a pretty significant cost overrun. One billion dollars is a lot 

of money. So it is what can we learn. 

At that Space Subcommittee hearing, we also started to talk 

about, as NASA contracts out with other commercial vendors and 

others to do a lot of the important and necessary work, what are 

newer types of contracts that do share some of the risk there and— 

on deliverables. You use them in many other industries. Are those 

even viable in this context when you’re trying to do something that 

you’ve never done before and what does that look like? And I do 

think, over this Congress but then also into future Congresses it 

will be important for us to have that conversation as we think 

about prioritizing. 

And then just one last statement. I think it is worth noting that, 

despite the headline-grabbing finding of schedule and cost growth, 

the IRB’s concluded that James Webb should continue based on its 

extraordinary scientific potential and critical role in maintaining 

U.S. leadership in astronomy and astrophysics. And, you already 

have a lot of the sunk costs in there, so it would be shortsighted 

on our part not to say, you know, let’s finish this incredibly important project. 

But again, as we go forward, it’ll be interesting to hear from 

NASA, as well as the contractors and subcontractors what can we 

learn from the Webb experience that helps better inform us going 

forward as Members of Congress. 
20 

So thank you. And with that, I’ll yield back. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Bera follows:] 
21 

OPENING STATEMENT 

Ranking Member Ami Bera (D-CA) 

of the Subcommittee on Space 

House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology 

"James Webb Space Telescope: Program Breach and its Implications" 

July 25, 2018 

Good morning, and thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding these hearings on ':James Webb Space 

Telescope: Program Breach and its Implications". I am pleased to see Administrator Jim 

Bridenstine make his first appearance before the full Committee. As most know, the 

Administrator sat on this side of the dais for several years. I look forward to working with him 

in his new capacity in the months ahead. I also want to thank Mr. Young who will be joining us 

on both panels today and tomorrow. Mr. Young, thank you for your willingness, time and time 

again over the years, to chair the many assessments you have been asked to undertake in 

reviewing space programs in difficulty. 

Mr. Chairman, in many respects, these hearings are a continuation of the hearing the Space 

Subcommittee held just last month on NASA cost and schedule overruns. As we will hear today, 

JWST has encountered a significant schedule delay. This will translate into a new projected 

launch date of March 2021 and a program cost increase of about $1 billion. 

In terms of what we should focus on today, I hope that Mr. Young and the Administrator will 

address: 

• How much confidence Congress can have in the March 202 I launch date in light of 

the IRB's acknowledgment that some risks are not included in projecting that date; 

• How Congress can measure NASA's progress in implementing the findings and 

recommendations of the IRB report; 

• The impacts of the JWST delay and cost increase, both on the Science Mission 

Directorate and agency-wide; 

• Why issues identified in the 20 I 0 JWST independent review regarding 

communications and program reporting appear to have been unaddressed; and 

• When additional funding will be requested for JWST, and how much will be needed. 

It is worth noting that despite the headline-grabbing finding of schedule and cost growth, the 1RB 

concluded that ''JWST should continue based on its extraordinmy scientific potential and critical 

role in maintaining US. leadership in astronomy and astrophysics.'' That is why I look forward, 

over the course of the next two days, to having frank discussions with the people most involved 

in moving us forward towards commissioning this tremendous observatory. 

With that, I yield back. 
22 

Chairman SMITH. All right. Thank you, Mr. Bera. 

Our first witness today is Mr. Jim Bridenstine, Administrator of 

NASA. A former colleague and Member of the Science Committee 

and its Space Subcommittee, Mr. Bridenstine now serves as a Senior Space Science Advisor to the President and oversees agency operations. 

Prior to his election to Congress, Mr. Bridenstine was the Director of Tulsa’s Air and Space Museum. He completed a triple major 

at Rice University and earned his Master’s of Business Administration at Cornell University. 

Our second witness is Mr. Tom Young, Chairman of the Independent Review Board. In this role, Mr. Young led a team of 11 

members to conduct a review of the JWST program. Mr. Young is 

the former Director of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, as 

well as the former President and Chief Operating Officer of Martin 

Marietta Corporation. 

He earned both a bachelor’s degree in aeronautical engineering 

and a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Virginia and a Master’s of Management degree from MIT. 

We welcome you both, look forward to your testimony. And, Mr. 

Bridenstine, if you’ll begin. 

TESTIMONY OF HON. JIM BRIDENSTINE, 

ADMINISTRATOR, NASA 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Thank you, Chairman Smith. It’s an honor to 

be here. Chairman Smith, Chairman Babin, Ranking Member 

Johnson, Ranking Member Bera, thank you all for your leadership 

on this Committee. Thank you for your leadership with the James 

Webb Space Telescope quite frankly. And, when I was on your side 

there back in March, NASA came to Congress and let everybody 

know that we’re up against a cost overrun and of course an increase in schedule. And at that moment I knew that I would be sitting on this side coming back and testifying before the Committee 

that I used to serve on. 

So here we are, and I want to share with you some of the things 

that I’ve learned in my time here at NASA. First of all, the Independent Review Board was called for by NASA at a time when we 

were having trouble with the spacecraft element of the James 

Webb Space Telescope. When I say the spacecraft element, there’s 

really two elements. One is the optical telescope element, which includes all the scientific capabilities, and then really the bus. 

And if you go back in time, we really believed at NASA that the 

most difficult part of the James Webb Space Telescope would, no 

kidding, be all of the scientific instruments and the capabilities on 

that side of the spacecraft. The spacecraft element seemed to be a 

little bit more routine. 

There’s one big difference in this spacecraft element than every 

other spacecraft that we’ve ever developed, and that is that we 

need a sunshield. On one side of the spacecraft we need to be down 

around 7 degrees Kelvin, which is near absolute zero. That’s an incredibly cold temperature and necessary in order to use the infrared side of this telescope, which is really just—it’s detecting heat 

signatures from galaxies that go back to the very dawn of time if 
23 

you will, the very beginning of the universe. So in order to do that, 

it has to be extremely cold. 

So that—we need a heat shield. And that heat shield is a very 

complex, very dynamic piece of equipment that is unique in this 

particular spacecraft. And it has five layers, and the—in order to 

deploy it, think of five sheets the size of a tennis court stacked on 

top of each other, and on one side of this heat shield the temperatures are going to be almost, you know, 300 degrees Fahrenheit 

and on the other side minus 390 degrees Fahrenheit separated by 

maybe just a couple of feet. That’s a very impressive scientific 

achievement once it’s complete. 

But to deploy that heat shield is very complex and very challenging, and there’s a whole lot of single points of failure. And we 

have to test it. And NASA was going through a process of deploying that heat shield and then folding it back for the purpose of testing. And in that process we discovered—NASA discovered—I 

wasn’t there at the time, but NASA discovered that this is going 

to take a lot longer. We were very optimistic in the amount of time 

that we believed that it would take to test this. Ultimately, that 

proved to be incorrect. 

And during the course of this, NASA said we need to have an 

Independent Review Board to—and I want to be really clear. Nobody likes Independent Review Boards. They are not fun. They are 

not fun for NASA, they are not fun for the contractor. But NASA 

called for an Independent Review Board on itself because of the 

delays and the cost overruns that we got on James Webb. 

During the Independent Review Board, there was more testing 

being conducted and embedded problems were found in some 

human errors were found that once again delayed it during the 

course of the Independent Review Board. So that’s how we came 

to the conclusion that we needed to really do a re-planning, and 

that re-planning has been done and we’re looking now at a launch 

date of March 30 of 2021 and a cost overrun of about $800 million. 

So it’s gone from a development cost of $8 billion to $8.8 billion and 

a total lifecycle cost of $8.8 billion up to $9.6 billion. These are 

massive increases, and I understand that. 

It’s also true—and I want to be really clear about what we’re 

doing here. And Ranking Member Bera I think hit the nail on the 

head. We are doing things that have never been done before, and 

we are doing things that nobody on the face of the planet other 

than the United States and our European, you know, supporters, 

the European Space Agency has instruments on this telescope. This 

has never been done before in the history of the world, and it really 

sets the stage for who in the world is the leader in astrophysics 

and these kind of capabilities. And only the United States of America could accomplish this. That’s where we are. 

I also want to be clear that we are going to change how we understand the universe. We’re going to see very—all the way back 

to the very beginning of the universe, what we call cosmic dawn, 

the very first light from the beginning of the universe. And the reason that this telescope is an infrared is because the universe is expanding, all the time expanding. In fact, it’s expanding at an accelerating rate, and we’re trying to understand, why is that happening? 
24 

But when you see back to the very beginning, cosmic dawn, 

you’re talking about, as the universe expands, those wavelengths 

lengthen, so instead of being able to detect optical light, we’re going 

to be looking at infrared light. And that gives us a requirement to 

have this extremely cold cryocooled antenna that can see back that 

far basically detecting heat signatures from light from the very beginning of dawn. 

We’re also going to be able to see inside of other galaxies in ways 

that we’ve never seen before. We’re going to be able to look at the 

atmospheres of exoplanets. This is also I think an important point. 

If you go back in time when we started this project, we did not 

even know that exoplanets existed. Now, we know that there are 

thousands of exoplanets, planets maybe even like Earth orbiting 

other stars in our galaxy. We’re going to be able to use this telescope with a spectrometer to understand, what are the 

atmospheres of this planet like, and are they capable of hosting 

life? So this is a tremendous capability that we’re bringing to bear 

that, again, nobody else on the planet can do. 

So I want to reemphasize how important this mission is, and the 

work that this committee has done helping us get to this point has 

been amazing. It’s not comfortable to come back and have to testify 

on cost overruns and of course schedule delays, but at the end, my 

testimony to you is that I really believe that this will be worth it. 

And I look forward to answering your questions, and I appreciate 

all of you having me here today. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Bridenstine follows:] 
25 

Statement of 

James F. Bridenstine 

Administrator 

National Aeronautics and Space Administration 

before the 

Committee on Science, Space and Technology 

U. S. House of Representatives 

July 25,2018 

In March, NASA informed Congress about a schedule delay and potential cost increase for the 

James Webb Space Telescope, NASA's next great observatory. Since then, the agency has been 

working to understand the causes of the delay, determine steps necessary to ensure mission 

success and improve our estimates of the time and cost necessary to complete development, 

launch, and commissioning. NASA is committed to successfully completing Webb, an 

international program with partners from Europe and Canada, and sharing its unprecedented and 

certainly incredible view of the early Universe and observations of cxoplanets with the scientific 

community, U.S. taxpayers, and the world. 

Successfully implementing the Webb mission is a high priority and critical to maintaining 

national leadership in the space sciences. Webb was the highest priority major initiative of the 

National Academy of Sciences' 200 I decadal survey, Astronomy and Astrophysics in the New 

Millennium. Webb is designed to see the Universe's first stars and galaxies, lo reveal how the 

familiar night sky of galaxies and stars came to be, and to take the next giant leap in 

characterizing planets orbiting other stars (exoplanets) and searching for Earth-like planets. 

Webb plays a significant role in the Astrophysics program. For example, the Transiting 

Exoplanet Survey Satellite that launched in April2018 is designed to provide a pipeline of target 

exoplanets that are well-suited for characterization using Webb. 

While Webb will transform our understanding of the Universe, to achieve its objectives it must 

necessarily be sophisticated. In fact, it is the most challenging science mission and the largest 

observatory that NASA has ever developed. Webb's mission requires a very large telescope 

optimized to make observations in the infrared portion of the spectrum. The telescope and its 

instruments need to be extremely cold to limit the amount of infrared light emitted by the 

telescope itself. Both the primary mirror and the sunshield it uses to keep cool are larger than the 

fairing of any rocket yet flown. The mirror and sunshicld will be folded to fit inside the fairing, 

and they will deploy after launch into their final mission configurations while Webb is 

maneuvering to its operational location in space over l million miles from Earth. There is 

significant risk associated with these deployments, and every effort must be made to ensure they 

occur as planned. Developing the observatory required the maturation of new technologies to 

enable Webb's next-generation instruments, mirrors and mirror system, telescope structure, 

sunshield, and thermal-control systems. Each of these technology advancements is required to 
26 

provide the Webb observatory with the capabilities needed to see the first stars, to characterize 

exoplanets, and to achieve Webb's other science objectives. 

2 

Webb is in the final stages of its development. All of its hardware has been fabricated, and the 

flight hardware and software are undergoing the last major steps of its integration and testing 

(I&T) phase. The observatory is currently integrated into two elements. One element is the 

Optical Telescope Element /Integrated Science Instrument Module, called OTIS. OTIS is 

comprised of the Optical Telescope Array, itself made from 18 precision mirror segments 

aligned to achieve the sensitivity of a single large mirror, and four state-of-the-art infrared 

science instruments. The other element is the Spacecraft Element, which is composed of the 

spacecraft (solar arrays, communications, propulsion, power, command and data handling, etc.) 

and the five-layer, tennis-court-sized sunshield. Both elements now reside in a single clean room 

at the observatory contractor, Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems (NGAS), in Redondo 

Beach, California. OTIS has completed testing that simulates the conditions of launch and of 

space with excellent results. The Spacecraft Element has been completely assembled and is 

currently undergoing similar testing. Once testing of the Spacecraft Element is complete, the 

two elements will be joined together into the full observatory and put through a series of tests as 

an integrated system. The observatory will be shipped by sea to French Guiana where it will be 

launched on an Ariane 5 rocket. In space, Webb will undergo six months of commissioning, 

including deployments of the observatory's mirrors, sunshield, and a number of smaller systems, 

as well as powering-up, testing, and calibrating the observatory's five instruments and multiple 

observing modes. 

Early this year, NASA recognized that it would take longer to complete the Spacecraft Element 

I&T than previously estimated. Problems during l&T caused significant delays, and the team 

discovered that certain tasks-in particular deploying and re-folding the sunshield-would take 

significantly more time and possibly more funding than previously estimated. 

Due to the schedule delays and possible cost increase, NASA formed an Independent Review 

Board (IRB) chaired by A. Thomas Young, a distinguished leader of the aerospace community, 

member of the National Academy of Engineering, former director of NASA's Goddard Space 

Flight Center, and former president of Martin Marietta. The IRB's charge was to evaluate all 

factors influencing Webb's success, to ensure that NASA's approach to completing l&T. the 

launch campaign, and commissioning would maximize the likelihood of mission success. NASA 

also requested the IRB to provide an independent assessment of the schedule and cost necessary 

to complete Webb's development including launch and commissioning. The JRB was asked to 

conduct its review quickly since the project was at a critical stage. The IRB members arc an 

impressive set of well-known experts across engineering, science and management fields. and 

NASA appreciates the hard work they put into the task. In spite of the disruption to their lives, 

they accepted the challenge of conducting a thorough review on a relatively short time line, 

recognizing the importance of Webb's success to NASA and the Nation. 

While the IRB was meeting, a new issue was discovered. During acoustic testing of the 

Spacecraft Element-a test that subjects the hardware to the intense sound levels that it will 

experience during launch-a number of fasteners for covers that protect the sunshield 

membranes until deployment in space loosened and detached, falling onto or near the sunshield 
27 

and spacecraft. Determining the cause and solution to the problem took time and significantly 

extended the schedule necessary to complete I&T. This additional work added six months 

beyond the delays already evident when the IRB convened. The Webb project team is currently 

correcting the problem, searching for any potential related issues that might be present, and 

preparing the Spacecraft Element to repeat acoustic testing and complete the remaining 

Spacecraft Element testing in preparation for integration with the OTIS. 

3 

Mr. Young's testimony will discuss the IRB Report, and l recommend reading this thoughtful 

and useful report to obtain a full understanding of their findings and recommendations. The IRB 

submitted their report to NASA on May 31. The IRB made 32 recommendations, all aimed at 

maximizing the likelihood of Webb's success. In their report, they found that issues including 

human errors. embedded problems (lurking undetected problems, like the fastener issue revealed 

by the acoustic test), excessive optimism in I&T planning, the lack of sunshield experience, and 

system complexity significantly impacted the development schedule. Two examples of human 

errors highlighted by the IRB were damage to propellant valves caused by cleaning with an 

improper solvent and damage to pressure transducers due to application of excessive voltage 

during testing. A fundamental observation was that due to the scale and complexity of Webb's 

development, small mistakes often lead to large impacts on schedule and cost. A central focus of 

the IRB recommendations was the reinforcement of figurative safety nets to catch human errors 

that happen during l&T. In addition, the IRB focused on enhancing efforts to reveal embedded 

problems that may be hidden in the observatory, and to mitigate the impacts of any embedded 

problems on the schedule and cost of completing observatory development. The IRB also 

reaffirmed Webb's incredible scientific potential and its critical role in maintaining U.S. 

leadership in astronomy and astrophysics. Thanks to the IRB members' extensive experience 

and independent perspective, their findings and recommendations provide NASA with a clear 

and actionable roadmap of the areas where we should focus as the Webb team works to complete 

development. 

In June, NASA provided a report to the Committee on Science, Space and Technology as well as 

other Congressional Committees describing the actions we are taking in response to the IRB's 

recommendations. NASA accepts all of the IRB's recommendations. NASA already is fully 

implementing all of the recommendations except two, with plans to respond to those as well. 

Some select IRB recommendations are: I) due to the complexity of Webb's commissioning, 

especially the deployment of the telescope and sunshield, NASA should name a world-class 

system engineer as '·Commissioning Manager," with total end-to-end responsibility for 

commissioning success; 2) Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems (NGAS) and NASA should 

take a number of actions to address human errors during l&T and embedded problems, to 

prevent them or, if that fails, to catch them before they arise in a context in which they would 

affect schedule, cost, or mission success; and 3) NGAS should take steps to ensure that certain 

important engineers are present at critical stages through the rest of development. 

As part of the review, the IRB requested the Webb teams at each of the major organizations 

developing Webb (NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Northrop Grumman Aerospace 

Systems, and the Space Telescope Science Institute) identify additional activities that would 

enhance mission success if implemented, without regard to any impact on cost and schedule. 
28 

4 

One of the IRB's recommendations was that NASA evaluate those mission success enhancing 

activities and implement them as appropriate. NASA used a cost versus benefit analysis to 

decide which of those mission enhancements could be implemented. The small set of exceptions 

are items that would either take too long to implement or would not provide a net benef]t to 

mission success after taking all considerations into account. 

The IRB's analysis of the schedule found that the Webb project's scheduling process was robust. 

However, the IRB's schedule estimate included some differences from the previous Webb 

schedule estimates, including uncertainty in the durations of tasks. and likelihoods of risks and 

threats. The largest contribution to the shift in the IRB's schedule from previous NASA 

estimates was due to the fastener issue that occurred during the IRB's deliberations and after 

NASA's schedule announcement in March. 

The IRB's cost estimate accounted for the continued workforce needed to complete development 

throughout the duration of the delay, which is characterstic given the mature stage of 

development for the project. 

NASA greatly appreciates the IRB' s thorough and thoughtful analysis and the care they put into 

developing their recommendations and explaining their results. Their efforts will be invaluable 

to ensuring Webb's success as it progresses through development to become an operational 

scientific observatory. We have made the IRB's report available to this Committee and the 

public. 

NASA has incorporated the IRB's schedule analysis along with other inputs to determine a 

revised estimate of Webb's launch date and the cost necessary to complete the mission. NASA 

has established March 30,2021, as Webb's new launch date with 80 percent confidence. This 

new date is consistent with the findings of the IRB. It includes time to accommodate the 

technical issues and over-optimism identified by the IRB, addresses the fastener issue 

encountered during acoustic testing, and reestablishes appropriate schedule reserves. 

While both the IRB's schedule analysis and NASA's revised launch date include significant 

margin for problems that may arise while completing development. neither accommodates the 

time required to recover from unknowable future events such as another several-month delay due 

to human errors or embedded problems of the sort that have cost so much time recently. The 

estimates assume that the corrective actions taken based on the IRB's recommendations will 

significantly reduce or eliminate the likelihood of such events, and we must ensure that they do. 

Additionally, they do not accommodate the time required to recover from a significant spacecraft 

subsystem or instrument problem where the element needs to be removed from the observatory 

for corrective action. Removing an embedded element could add several months to the schedule, 

or, in the case of an instrument, potentially more than a year. It should be noted that no program 

typically adds schedule margin for such significant hardware anomalies because such anomalies 

are very rare. 

As a result of the additional time needed to complete development of Webb, additional funding 

is required. To support the March 30, 2021 launch date and five years of science operations, we 
29 

5 

estimate that Webb's new life-cycle cost will be $9.663 billion. The estimated development 

cost, including launch and commissioning, to support the new launch date is $8.803 billion, up 

from the $7.998 billion development-cost estimate established in 2011. Over Webb's lifetime, 

about $837 million in new funding will be necessary beyond previous requests, including $813.8 

million in development funding and $23.5 million in additional funding for Phase E (operations 

and closeout). The increase in cost accommodates the additional time required to complete 

development of Webb, implement the IRB's recommendations, incorporate additional activities 

to enhance mission success identified by project in response to the IRB, and replenish reserves at 

all levels of the project (NASA Headquarters, Goddard, and Northrop Grumman). The revised 

estimates do not require a change to the budget request for Fiscal Year (FY) 2019. 

We anticipate that the cost growth on Webb will have implications for other missions and 

programs. We expect the most serious repercussions to occur in FY 2020 and FY 2021, due to 

the estimated $490 million of additional funding required for Webb in those years above the 

prior planning budget. We have not yet determined what the impacts will be on other NASA 

programs and projects, but our plan will be informed by the priorities established through the 

National Academy's decadal surveys. We look forward to providing our plan for successful 

completion of Webb to this Committee as part of the FY 2020 budget request. 

NASA also recognizes that the lessons learned here have similarities to other issues we are 

seeing around NASA's development programs for large, complex space systems and it is 

imperative for NASA to not only internalize these messages to lasting effect on Webb, but also 

across all of NASA's programs. We have talked about these results concerning development, 

management and the U.S. industrial base with all of our agency leaders. I have asked my team to 

communicate these lessons directly to NASA development personnel in an appropriate forum. 

This is an important opportunity for us to get better, an opportunity we do not want to miss. 

The successful completion of the James Webb Space Telescope is critical to advancing our 

understanding of the Universe. Webb will conduct world-class science, answering questions 

about our place in the universe and rewriting textbooks for years. The data acquired with Webb 

will underpin many future projects. Notwithstanding the issues encountered during integration 

and testing of the Spacecraft Element, the superb performance of Webb's telescope and 

instruments during testing have made us eager to put them to use in space to address fundamental 

science questions. The IRB put it succinctly-Webb has "awesome scientific potential." 

Despite the recent challenges, NASA is confident that Webb will achieve mission success. That 

confidence is increased with the implementation of the IRB's recommendations, and mission 

success must be NASA's driving consideration moving forward. Along with the scientific 

community and the public, we are disappointed that completing Webb is taking longer and 

costing more than expected, but NASA is absolutely committed to successfully completing, 

launching, and commissioning Webb, and to carrying out its important scientific mission. 

We ask this Committee, Congress, the scientific community, and the public for their continued 

support as we work to do everything necessary to make Webb successful. We appreciate your 

understanding of the complexity of what is required to ensure Webb's success, and we will 

continue to do everything possible to be good stewards of the resources with which you have 

entrusted us. I assure you that, in the end, Webb will be worth the wait. 
30 

NASA Administrator Jim 

Bridenstine 

James Frederick "Jim" Bridenstine was nominated by 

President Donald Trump, confirmed by the U.S. Senate, and 

sworn in as NASA's 13th administrator on April23, 2018. 

Bridenstine was elected in 2012 to represent Oklahoma's 

First Congressional District in the U.S. House of 

Representatives, where he served on the Armed Services 

Committee and the Science, Space and Technology Committee. 

Bridenstine's career in federal service began in the U.S. Navy, flying the E-2C Hawkeye 

off the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier. It was there that he flew combat missions 

in Iraq and Afghanistan and accrued most of his 1,900 flight hours and 333 carrierarrested landings. He later moved to the F-18 Hornet and flew at the Naval Strike and 

Air Warfare Center, the parent command to TOPGUN. 

After transitioning from active duty to the U.S. Navy Reserve, Bridenstine returned to 

Tulsa, Oklahoma, to be the Executive Director of the Tulsa Air and Space Museum & 

Planetarium. 

Bridenstine was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Commander in 2012 while flying 

missions in Central and South America in support of America's war on drugs. Most 

recently, he transitioned to the 137th Special Operations Wing of the Oklahoma Air 

National Guard. 

Bridenstine completed a triple major at Rice University, and earned his MBA at Cornell 

University. He has three children with his wife, Michelle. 
31 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Bridenstine. 

Mr. Young? 

TESTIMONY OF MR. TOM YOUNG, CHAIRMAN, 

JWST INDEPENDENT REVIEW BOARD 

Mr. YOUNG. Chairman Smith and Ranking Member Johnson and 

Committee Members, I’m pleased to present the results of the Independent Review Board evaluation of the James Webb Space Telescope mission. 

The IRB charter established by NASA require that we evaluate 

all factors influencing JWST success. Our report is complete. We 

believe we have satisfied our charter. Our report contains 32 recommendations. We believe the implementation of all—underline in 

all—32 recommendations is required to maximize the probability of 

JWST success. 

Our initial observation is that JWST is an observatory with incredible capability, awesome scientific potential, and significant 

complexity, risk, and first-time events. An overarching recommendation of the IRB is that mission success be the top priority 

in all future JWST activities. JWST is at a point in its development 

that every appropriate thing that can be done to maximize mission 

success should be done. 

There are a large number of JWST accomplishments that require 

recognition. All flight hardware has been delivered. All science instruments have been integrated into the science module, which has 

been combined with the telescope to form the optical telescope and 

science instrument model called OTIS. OTIS has been successfully 

tested. The science instruments have met their requirements, and 

it has been delivered to Northrop Grumman for integration with 

the spacecraft and sunshield. This is but a few of the positive 

JWST accomplishments. 

In our report, we cite seven noteworthy JWST firsts, the most 

noteworthy being the sunshield, which is mandatory for success, 

and it has no significant legacy. There are two yet-to-be-completed 

phases of the JWST project that represent significant risk. The 

first is integration and test. To date, there have been human errors 

and embedded problems that have caused significant delays in integration tests, resulting in large schedule delays. 

The IRB has been very—has very specific recommendations focused upon human errors and embedded problems. The success in 

implementing the IRB recommended corrective actions will determine the success of completing JWST development. 

Human errors are mistakes made by people working on the flight 

hardware or developing procedures that dictate how work on the 

flight hardware is to be conducted. Three examples of human errors that have had a major impact on JWST schedule and cost are: 

wrong solvent used to clean propulsion valves, test wiring erroneously connected to flight hardware without adequate inspection, 

sunshield cover fasteners improperly installed. The capability of 

the integration and test workforce and the quality of procedures 

must be such that human errors are minimized, and when they 

occur, their impact is negligible. 

Embedded problems or problems in the as-built hardware that 

are undetected until a major test many months in the future after 
32 

the problem is introduced or, even worse, not detected until the observatory is in space. The valve solvent problem and sunshield fastener problem are examples of embedded problems that have had 

a major impact on scheduling. An in-depth audit by NASA and 

Northrop Grumman of the flight hardware, including drawings, 

procedures, et cetera, is required to identify any additional embedded problems that may exist. 

The second JWST phase with high risk is spacecraft and 

sunshield deployments that occur during observatory commissioning. Approximately 307 single-point failure items must work to 

success—have these deployments be successful. This phase of 

JWST is similar to the entry-descent-landing phase of a Mars 

science laboratory mission which, for comparison, had 72 singlepoint failures when it landed on Mars in 2012. Both are high-risk 

missions with no ability to test as you fly. A world-class systems 

engineer established as EDL manager has been critical to the success of Mars landers. The IRB recommends the position of commissioning manager staff by a world-class engineer be established for 

JWST. 

There are several additional technical and management recommendations from the IRB. If fully implemented, such recommendations as NASA certification launch vehicle and management reporting and communication increase the probability of mission success. 

The IRB recommended launch date for JWST is March 2021. 

This is a 29-month delay from the October 2018 date established 

in 2011 with a cost of approximately $1 billion. Five factors have 

caused this delay: human errors, embedded problems, lack of experience in areas such as the sunshield, excessive optimism, and systems complexity. The JWST complexity and risk cannot be overstated. The IRB recommends—recommending March 2021 launch 

date assumes the successful implementation of the recommendations in our report. No allowance has been made for additional INT 

errors or embedded problems with multi-month impacts. Additional 

sunshield deployments during INT beyond the currently planned 

two or removal of the spacecraft sun system or science estimate. 

With all factors considered, the members of the IRB are unanimous in recommending that JWST continue based on its extraordinary scientific potential and critical role in maintaining U.S. 

leadership in astronomy and astrophysics. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Young follows:] 
33 

TESTIMONY TO THE COMMITIEE 

ON 

SCIENCE, SPACE AND TECHNOLOGY 

JULY 25, 2018 

A. THOMAS YOUNG 

CHAIR, JWST INDEPENDENT REVIEW BOARD 
34 

Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Bernice Johnson and Committee members, I 

am pleased to present the results of the Independent Review Board {IRB) 

evaluation of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) mission. 

The IRB charter established by NASA required that we evaluate all factors 

influencing JWST success. Our report is complete. We believe we have satisfied 

our charter. Our report contains 32 recommendations. We believe the 

implementation of all 32 recommendations is required to maximize the 

probability of JWST success. 

Our initial observation is that JWST is an observatory with incredible capability, 

awesome scientific potential and significant complexity, risk and first-time events. 

An overarching recommendation of the IRB is that mission success be the top 

priority in all future JWST activities. JWST is at the point in its development that 

every appropriate thing that can be done to maximize mission success should be 

done. 

There are a large number of JWST accomplishments that require recognition. All 

flight hardware has been delivered. All science instruments have been integrated 

into the science module which has been combined with the telescope to form the 

optical telescope and science instrument module (OTIS). OTIS has been 

successfully tested, the science instruments have met their requirements and it 

has been delivered to Northrop Grumman for integration with the spacecraft and 

sunshield. This is but a few of the positive JWST accomplishments. 

In our report we cite seven noteworthy JWST Firsts. The most noteworthy being 

the sunshield which is mandatory for success and has no significant legacy. Two 

yet to be completed phases of the JWST project represent significant risk. The first 

is Integration and Test (I & T). To date, there have been human errors and 

embedded problems that have caused significant problems in I & T resulting in 

large schedule delays. The IRB has very specific recommendations focused upon 

human errors and embedded problems. The success in implementing the IRB 

recommended corrective actions will determine the success of completing JWST 

development. 

2 
35 

Human errors are mistakes made by people working on the flight hardware or 

developing procedures that dictate how work on the flight hardware is to be 

conducted. Three examples of human errors that have had a major impact on 

JWST schedule and cost are: 

- Wrong solvent used to clean propulsion valves. 

Test wiring erroneously connected to flight hardware without adequate 

inspection. 

- Sunshield cover fasteners improperly installed. 

The capability of the I & T workforce and the quality of procedures must be such 

that human errors are minimized and when they occur their impact is negligible. 

Embedded problems are problems in the as-built hardware that are undetected 

until a major test many months in the future after the problem is introduced or 

even worse not detected until the Observatory is in space. The valve solvent 

problem and sunshield fastener problem are examples of embedded problems 

that have had a major impact on schedule. 

An in-depth audit by NASA and Northrop Grumman of the flight hardware 

including drawings, procedures, etc. is required to identify any additional 

embedded problems that may exist. 

The second JWST phase with high risk is spacecraft and sunshield deployments 

that occur during Observatory Commissioning. Approximately 307 single point 

failure items must work to have successful deployments. This phase of JWST is 

similar to the entry-decent-landing (EDL) phase of a Mars Science Laboratory 

mission, which for comparison had 75 single point failures when it landed on Mars 

in 2012. Both are high risk missions with no ability to test-as-you-fly. A "World 

Class" systems engineer assigned as EDL manager has been critical to the success 

of Mars landers. The IRB recommends the position of Commissioning Manager 

staffed by a "World Class" engineer be established for JWST. 

There are several additional important technical and management 

recommendations from the IRB. If fully implemented, such recommendations as 

NASA certification of the launch vehicle and management reporting and 

communication increase the probability of mission success. 

3 
36 

The IRB recommended launch date for JWST is March, 2021. This is a 29-month 

delay from the October, 2018 date established in 2011 with a cost of 

approximately 18$. Five factors have caused this delay: 

- Human errors. 

- Embedded problems. 

- Lack of experience in areas such as the sunshield. 

Excessive optimism. 

- Systems complexity. 

The JWST complexity and risk cannot be overstated. The IRB recommended 

March, 20211aunch date assumes the successful implementation of the 

recommendations in our report. No allowance has been made for: 

- Additional! & Terrors or imbedded problems with multi-month impacts. 

- Additional sunshield deployments during I & T beyond the currently 

planned two. 

- Removal of a spacecraft subsystem or science instrument. 

With all factors considered, the members of the IRB are unanimous in 

recommending that JWST continue based on its extraordinary scientific potential 

and critical role in maintaining U.S. leadership in astronomy and astrophysics. 

Thank you, I will be pleased to respond to any questions you may have. 

4 
37 

A. Thomas Young 

A. Thomas Young is the former Director of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, President and 

COO of Martin Marietta and Chairman of SAIC. He retired from Lockheed Martin in July, 1995 

and the SAIC Board in 2013. Mr. Young is involved in various advisory and review activities 

associated with the U.S. Space Program. 

Mr. Young began his career with NASA at the Langley Research Center in 1961. He was a 

member of the Lunar Orbiter Project Team and was Mission Director for Project Viking, which 

resulted in the successful landing of two spacecraft on the surface of Mars. He became director 

of the Planetary Program at NASA Headquarters in 1976 and was appointed Deputy Director of 

the Ames Research Center in 1978. Mr. Young was Director of the Goddard Space Flight Center 

from 1979 to 1982. He joined the Martin Marietta Corporation in 1982 and was subsequently 

President of Baltimore Aerospace and the Electronics and Missiles Group. Mr. Young was 

President and COO of Martin Marietta from 1990 to 1995. 

Mr. Young is an Honorary Fell ow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, a 

Fellow of the American Astronautical Society, a Fellow of the Royal Astronautical Society and a 

Fellow of the International Academy of Astronautics. He is a member of the National Academy 

of Engineering and the University of Virginia Raven Society. Mr. Young is a former member of 

the NASA Advisory Council. 

Mr. Young earned a Bachelor of Aeronautical Engineering degree and a Bachelor of Mechanical 

Engineering degree in 1961 from the University of Virginia. In 1971 he received a Masters of 

Management degree from MIT which he attended as a Sloan Fellow. He also holds an honorary 

doctor of science degree from Salisbury University. 
38 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Young. And I’ll recognize myself for questions. Let me address the first one to Administrator 

Bridenstine. When we take a look at the cost overruns, when we 

take a look at the missed deadlines in regard to JWST, what are 

your options when it comes to contractor accountability for this 

particular mission, as well as for others? 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. So for this particular contract it’s cost-plus and 

award fee, and the award fee is the profit because, other than that, 

the contractor is working at cost. The award fee is based on a set 

of metrics that NASA determines. Technical capability is included 

in that; cost, schedule, business administration is included in that. 

And during the course of evaluating the contractor, we’re making 

determinations as to what their award fee will be. 

So a couple of things here. Number one, their award fee has not 

been as good as it otherwise would have been, so that has in essence hurts their bottom line. And number two, when there’s a cost 

overrun or a schedule delay, as we have right now, there is no 

award fee, so they are in essence working right now at cost. 

Chairman SMITH. Okay. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Now, ultimately, as has been identified, there’s 

going to be a commissioning process of the satellite once it’s in 

space, and there are potential award fees in that. Those potential 

award fees add up to—if they were to maximize it, it would add 

up to about $60 million. We have already taken off the table $28 

million of the $60 million, which again is not helpful to the contractor and hurts their bottom line. It is also true that the remainder $30 million-plus available they’re going to have to perform in 

order to accomplish and achieve that award fee, which is again 

there only profit. 

Chairman SMITH. Okay. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. It is also true that there are provisions in the 

contracts to actually claw back previously earned award fees. And 

I want to be really clear, Mr. Chairman. We don’t want any of that 

to happen going forward. We want success going forward, which 

means that the punishment they’ve already received would be the 

punishment they will receive. That doesn’t guarantee that’s how 

it’s going to be going forward—— 

Chairman SMITH. Right. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. —but, ultimately, we want them to be successful because if they’re successful, then we are successful. And so 

those are some of the tools that we have in our belt. 

Chairman SMITH. Okay. That is really helpful, all those options 

that you just mentioned, and I appreciate that. 

Next question, is there any legislation that Congress can pass 

that will help you enforce contractor accountability? Do you need 

any more authority than you already have? 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. We have really good authorities that we utilize 

right now. We have what’s called an Acquisition Integrity Program 

that’s administered by the Office of the General Counsel at NASA. 

The Acquisition Integrity Program ultimately has provisions by 

which a contractor can be suspended or can be debarred. Again, we 

don’t like exercising those authorities, but under the federal acquisition regulations, those are tools available to us. 
39 

If there’s a law that Congress could pass, one of the things we’re 

doing right now is we are taking some of our best talent and we 

are embedding them with Northrop Grumman in this process. You 

know, NASA—we like to count ourselves a smart buyer. When I 

say that, we have—and this is absolutely true. We have really intelligent and capable and qualified people that we can take off of 

other projects and put on to this project, for example, and we are 

doing that right now and embedding them with the contractor. 

That’s—— 

Chairman SMITH. Okay. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. —smart buying. One of the challenges we have 

going forward is a lot of the talent is going other places because 

of the way we hire. So if we could—if you could pass one law, 

maybe direct-hire authority could help us ultimately keep our 

smart buyer capabilities. 

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

Mr. Young, how do you think the program management for 

JWST compares to other programs that you’ve analyzed? 

Mr. YOUNG. It depends on how far back you—excuse me. It depends on how far back you’re going back in the program, I mean, 

looking at the charts that you had this morning. If you go back to, 

say, the first confirmation that I’m familiar with where I think 

JWST was confirmed by NASA at $2.75 billion with a 2011 launch, 

you know, we—the costs have increased roughly a factor of three 

since that time period—— 

Chairman SMITH. I was primarily talking just about the program 

management itself in isolation. Do you consider it to be one of the 

worst, one of the average? How does it compare to others? 

Mr. YOUNG. Well, I’m kind of sneaking up on that answer. 

Chairman SMITH. Okay. All right. I’ve got limited time, so I hope 

you’ll sneak up quickly. 

Mr. YOUNG. Okay. And I’ll sneak fast. Okay. So if you look at the 

program, it’s grown a factor of three in a decade. It is hard to take 

a program with those characteristics and conclude it’s anything 

other than a not-well-managed program and by comparison not a 

well-managed program. 

Chairman SMITH. Okay. Any description as to what you think of 

a program that costs 19 times what was anticipated and is 14 

years delayed? 

Mr. YOUNG. My description would be the same, poorly managed. 

Chairman SMITH. Okay. And what about recommendations, Jim 

Bridenstine mentioned a couple of the options that he had, like 

sanctions. Do you have any recommendations going forward for 

what we might do with some of those fees and some of the profit 

and how that can be used to encourage Northrop Grumman to perform better? 

Mr. YOUNG. I think his comments were very good. I would really 

underline the fact that at this stage in the program all of us—emphasize all of us—need to be focused on maximize the probability 

of JWST being successful. So if I—I’m speaking only as an individual, but if I had this problem, I would take all of the available 

fees that currently exist, be they the fee on work to be done, the 

award fees that have not been awarded, the future award fees, I’d 

put them altogether and I’d put them in one lump sum and I would 
40 

have the criteria for getting them the quantity and quality of data 

returned by JWST after it’s on orbit. So I would turn every dollar 

yet to be awarded into an award fee based on mission success. 

Chairman SMITH. That is a very good suggestion, which I endorse, and I thank you for mentioning it today. 

The gentlewoman from Texas, the Ranking Member, is recognized for her questions. 

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

Mr. Administrator, you mentioned in your last statement that 

we’re moving people and unable to control some of that movement. 

Could you expand a little bit on that? 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. So there’s a number of things that we are already putting into place ultimately to ensure success, so we have 

taken some NASA talent and put it on this project that—and it’s 

not just people and bodies. It’s capability, it’s people with history 

and—that are highly qualified on this project embedded with Northrop Grumman. We are also instituting more oversight from the 

Goddard Space Flight Center and from NASA headquarters, and in 

fact we have created an even stronger mission assurance capability 

so that every screw that goes on to this spacecraft ultimately is 

being quality assured so we get immediate feedback if something 

is—if anybody believes something is not right. 

We want everybody to be empowered to say stop because one of 

the challenges that we’ve had is that there are embedded problems. 

Some of these problems are screws that were put in the sunshield 

covers going back years, and we don’t discover it until the integration and tests. 

I also want to—and I think it’s important for me to testify that— 

and I heard it from Mr. Young as well. We’re at the integration and 

test phase. All of the hardware is built. The software is ready to 

go. In fact, the scientific instruments have already been tested. 

What we’re doing now is we’re integrating the scientific instruments ultimately with the spacecraft and then testing that. And 

that’s where we’re having the challenge. 

So I think it’s important to note, if I can give an analogy, we’re 

on the five yard line we’re trying to punch it into the end zone. And 

I know that, you know, a cost overrun and a delay is not what Congress wants to hear, but at this point, given the scientific return, 

I think it’s critical that we continue to put all of our resources here 

to get it complete. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Do you think you have the proper tools to hold 

Northrop Grumman accountable? 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. I do at this point. It is my assessment that we 

have a contract that gives us flexibility ultimately to hold them accountable. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Mr. Young, would you like to comment? 

Mr. YOUNG. My comments would be similar. I think we do make 

some observations in our report of areas that we think it really be 

strengthened. One I think was in one of your opening statements. 

I think it’s very clear that NASA have clear lines of authority and 

accountability for managing this project, and an observation was 

that they did not exist when we were looking at them. We made 

a very strong recommendation in this regard that the Center Director of Goddard have a clear responsibility for the success of the pro-
41 

gram and the Associate Administrator of SMD have a clear responsibility for the success of this program. 

Our observation is that’s not been the practice to date. That’s our 

recommendation. I don’t know what NASA’s response to that is, 

but accountability, clear-lines responsibility, and authority to proceed are critical to managing a program such as JWST. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. I would just piggyback on that and say we are 

in fact implementing that recommendation of the IRB and certainly 

it will make a difference. 

And by the way, Tom Young used to be the Director of the Goddard Space Flight Center, so he knows a thing or two about the 

organizational structure so— 

Ms. JOHNSON. Well, let me thank you both and kind of review 

that this is the first time we’ve ever done something like this. It’s 

a big project, and it’s an important project, and I would hope and 

I believe that both of you will continue to—well, your responsibility, Mr. Young, is over, but I hope you keep a little eye going, 

too. And thanks to both of you. 

I yield back. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Ms. Johnson. 

The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Babin, is recognized for his questions. 

Mr. BABIN. Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

My first question is for Administrator Bridenstine. The JWST 

program cost issues pose a budgetary threat to the other NASA 

science mission programs, especially the WFIRST program. What 

is your assessment of the budget planning challenges for NASA 

science mission programs in light of the latest JWST cost overruns? 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. That’s a wonderful question, Chairman, and 

it’s something that we think about and we worry about because 

you’re absolutely right. This cost overrun is going to be a challenge 

going forward. So I’d like to start by saying that, right now, we 

have a very balanced portfolio for astrophysics that includes small 

missions that are not very expensive, medium missions that are a 

little more expensive, and that we have these, as you mentioned, 

flagship missions that are strategic in nature, take a long time, 

and very expensive but ultimately make the United States of 

America the premier country when it comes to these kind of scientific capabilities, which we all like and believe in. When we do 

these massive flagship missions, as you just identified, and there 

are overruns and there are delays, it absolutely makes us in essence cannibalize some of the other missions in the future. 

You mentioned WFIRST. The idea of WFIRST presumed that 

JWST would be on orbit and delivering science, and so it is my recommendation that, you know, we move forward with WFIRST after 

we move forward with JWST. I think that’s—now, it is true that 

we can do some development now. I’m not saying that we need to 

shut down WFIRST and we shouldn’t do it. 

Mr. BABIN. Right. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. What I’m saying is there’s opportunity here 

because it presumes JWST would be on orbit. It is also true that, 

as we go forward with this balanced portfolio to make sure that we 

are getting the best science that we can get in astrophysics and 

throughout the entire Science Mission Directorate, we want to fol-
42 

low what Ranking Member Bera mentioned, which is the decadal 

surveys that come from the National Academies of Sciences. So 

that gives us kind of our guidance if you will to make sure that 

we’re not damaging our total portfolio to deliver the absolute best 

science. 

So I will—this is important, too, Mr. Chairman. The goal—when 

you think about 2019, we have—there is some money that is left 

over from last year, plus the—you know, the—at this point JWST 

was intended to be in operation, so we have the operational money 

that we can apply to the development of JWST, so for 2019 it 

doesn’t look like we’re going to need any more money. The first 

time that we’re going to need any more money is going to be 

2020—— 

Mr. BABIN. Right. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. —and that’s when we’re going to have to look 

at ultimately how do we balance this portfolio to make sure we get 

the mix right. 

Mr. BABIN. And our reauthorization bill actually specifies that 

before WFIRST is complete, we’ve got to have JWST on orbit. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Yes, sir. 

Mr. BABIN. Yes. Also, for both of you gentlemen, the Trump Administration has included space as part of the national security 

strategy. Do you think the JWST development issues signal an erosion in the quality of the American space industrial base to our 

near-peer adversaries, thus negatively affecting our national security strategy? Are JWST problems signs of more serious problems 

with our space industrial base? 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. So we—there is a study underway right now 

that is considering that as an issue. I don’t want to prejudge that 

study, but I will tell you the industrial base is something that is 

critically important to the national security interests of this country, and NASA plays a role there. Our scientific capabilities ultimately are for peaceful purposes. I mean, that’s just the reality. We 

do discovery, we do exploration, we do science. That’s what NASA 

is, that’s what NASA does. We inspire and we educate. And so we 

don’t get involved in national security directly. 

It is absolutely true, though, that what we do does help the industrial base, and the technologies in many cases can be used both 

for science and for national security. So I don’t want to prejudge 

the study, but certainly NASA plays a role here. 

Mr. BABIN. Okay. And Mr. Young? 

Mr. YOUNG. My general observation is that the industrial base 

is strong. I think that the problems that we’re talking about on 

JWST are problems that we know how to solve. I mean, they’re not 

failures of F equals MA or what have you. So it is—space is a onestrike-and-you’re-out business. You don’t get two swings at it. And 

what that really says is it takes extraordinary discipline, it takes 

extraordinary training of the people, and it takes a safety net that 

prevents a problem when it occurs because humans are going to 

make errors from that problem becoming mission catastrophic. We 

know how to do that. The disappointing thing in what we’re talking 

about here to be honest is these are problems we know how to prevent. 
43 

So my observation would be, yes, we should learn from JWST 

the—every day in a one-strike-and-you’re-out business you’ve got to 

renew your focus on discipline, but it’s certainly that we know how 

to do, can do, and it will be a positive factor not only for the civil 

space program but also for national security space. 

Mr. BABIN. Thank you very much. I wish I had 10 more minutes, 

Mr. Chairman, but I don’t. And I yield back. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Babin. 

The gentleman from California, Mr. Bera, is recognized. 

Mr. BERA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

As I said in my opening statement, when you’re looking at budgeting, et cetera, it’s complicated, particularly when you’re doing 

budgeting for something that you haven’t done. I’m a simple person. I think about it in the context of my daughter going off to college and she’s going to start her senior year. And we made a contract saying you’re going to finish in four years, and she assures 

me she is going to finish in four years, but I don’t—we won’t have 

this conversation in the committee hearing if she comes back at the 

end of that fourth year and says I’ve got a couple units that I it 

won’t be a comfortable conversation. And, Administrator 

Bridenstine, I know this isn’t a comfortable conversation. 

And I think everyone understands that, given the scientific importance of JWST, given the sunk costs that we already have in 

this and the additional costs, it doesn’t make any sense not to complete this mission and, you know—and do it in a way that optimizes success. I mean, it would be a real shame if we stopped this 

mission. It would be an even bigger shame if we continued. And I 

think, Mr. Young, you said 307 single-point failure areas, which 

suggests how complicated this is, that we went through you to finish and we got 306 right but we didn’t get the 307th right. 

So, I don’t sense that Congress or the committee will say put a 

halt on this, but it doesn’t mitigate what we think about going forward, right? I mean, I think a lot of us understand the scientific 

importance of WFIRST, et cetera. It does make it harder for this 

body in fiscally austere times when we’re thinking about a lot of 

budget considerations, not just in the area of NASA but obviously 

throughout the entire federal budget as we authorize and allocate 

funds going forward. 

And I think in that context—and, Mr. Young, through the IRB 

process, I’d be curious about hearing some of what we’ve learned 

looking backwards that will help this body in its oversight role 

make better decisions going forward. Does that make sense? 

Mr. YOUNG. Sure, good question. I think that you can certainly 

look at JWST but you can also look at WFIRST. I think what 

NASA did recently with WFIRST was they did an in-depth review 

of the WFIRST program to look at requirements, cost, budget, all 

the factors. And they did it at a time where there’s total flexibility. 

In other words, for WFIRST today everything is controllable that 

you can make every decision that you want on the program. You 

can adjust the requirements to go with the cost, to go with the 

schedule, to go with the technical risk. And that’s—now, what it 

also requires is after you got all those data, if you’ll allow me to 

say so, it requires leadership to utilize those data to turn them into 

a credible program. 
44 

But I think that it should become common practice for programs, 

flagship missions, not only for astronomy and astrophysics but 

across the board to—prior to entering into real development to take 

the time to really look at all the trade space and to make intelligent decisions as to how far you want to push the technology, how 

far you want to push the requirements, and what’s affordable and 

what is a reasonable schedule in the process. I actually think that’s 

an extraordinarily powerful tool that can eliminate some of the 

issues that we’re talking about now with future programs, starting 

with WFIRST. 

Mr. BERA. So as—I guess maybe this is for Administrator 

Bridenstine. As we start to look forward certainly within JWST but 

within future programs, I think it’ll be incredibly important to 

think about what we’ve learned, to think about there’s obviously 

scientific and technological risks that are unexpected, but also, if 

I listen to Mr. Young, there’s the organizational, decision-making, 

human error side of things that we ought to have a lot more control 

over and put the systems and processes in place, the redundancy, 

et cetera, that helps prevent these types of issues happening in the 

future. 

So, you know, it looks like I’m out of time, but again, we can’t 

undo the past. Let’s just make sure we learn from the past and we 

don’t repeat the same failures in the future. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Bera. 

The gentleman from California, Mr. Rohrabacher, is recognized 

for his questions. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. This, of course, is very disturbing when a 

large amount of wealth has just evaporated that we thought we 

had and we had planned on. And when you talk about the real difficulty of the mission—you have to come to the point where this 

type of mission where every screw has to have its quality tested, 

and that’s part of this. Well, I can tell you this is about the biggest 

screw job I’ve ever seen, and it’s the taxpayers getting screwed 

here. 

And, however, let us note when we say that and understand that 

and we expect more, that this is not inconsistent with other things 

that we have witnessed from NASA and from the aerospace industry. I remember the C–17 project, and the C–17 was $1 billion over 

budget and they were going to close down the whole line, and I remember—it was one of the first things when I came here—I remember calling my father, who was a DC–3 pilot in World War II, 

saying ‘‘should I vote for the money to put this C–17 back in production? Because they have already gone almost $1 billion overrun 

and they’re going to have to start all over in building the line.’’ 

And my dad said, ‘‘well, let me ask you this. Do you think the 

C–17 is going to be needed by people who are defending our country in the future?’’ And I said, ‘‘well, yes, because we’re going to 

have to project power.’’ And thank God I thought of that because 

I said in the future we’re going to have to project our power to 

areas on the other side of the world rather than having bases everywhere. 

And he said, ‘‘well, then you just answered your question. You 

need the airplane.’’ And he said every single plane I know—my dad 

was a career pilot—every single plane had cost overruns, every sin-
45 

gle plane, he says, because they’re trying to do what they haven’t 

done before. And that’s what goes with that territory, when you’re 

doing something that you’ve never done before. 

I would hope that we can be more realistic, and we can hope that 

Mr. Bridenstine in his new job here can be more realistic in the 

assessments. Let’s note that in 2002 we awarded, what, $824 million to TRW for this telescope project, and it was supposed to be 

launched eight years later. And now, it’s twice as long as what was 

expected, and the cost is 12 times more than expected for the 

James Webb Space Telescope. But when you look back, the Hubble 

Space Telescope was 12 times the cost and twice as long as expected as well. I think I see a trend there somewhere. And I think 

that we need to be very serious about that. I mean, I remember we 

had trouble with the space station as well in cost overruns, and we 

certainly had trouble with the Hubble and the C–17. 

Let me ask you, Mr. Young, is one of the problems of these professionals that we rely on in the aerospace industry, are they bidding and saying they can do something before they know they can 

do it or—it’s one thing to say ‘‘we believe we can do this,’’ but are 

they basing a lot of their bids on maybe something that they don’t 

know they can do but they think they can? Is that one of the problems? 

Mr. YOUNG. If you take JWST, the bidding was a long time ago, 

as you point out, it was in ’02. And NASA, we’ve come a long way 

since ’02 in our understanding as to how to cost these projects and 

to establish schedule for these projects. But I think it is fair to recognize that on—with cost-plus programs this is not—you’re not 

going to enjoy this answer, but with cost-plus programs, contractors fundamentally bid lowest credible cost, and it’s really up to the 

evaluators to have a competent capability such that lowest credible 

doesn’t win. So there is a situation that exists, but that’s the status 

that existed then and probably, you know, still to a degree exists 

today. But as long as lowest credible cost wins, lowest credible cost 

will be bid. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. And can we change that? Is there an alternative to that? 

Mr. YOUNG. Sure, there’s an alternative, and that is the—how 

smart the buyer is to be able to establish what the realistic costs 

are and to punish in the bidding process bidding unrealistically low 

cost. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Well, when we try to analyze what the cost 

of the screw job is going to be, I hope that we understand that 

that’s what the cost is to the American people if we aren’t handling 

that in a professional way. Thank you very much. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Rohrabacher. 

The gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Lipinski, is recognized. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

It’s good to have you back, Mr. Bridenstine. Thank you for your 

work there at NASA. This is obviously a critical program. The impact that this is going to have on astrophysics and for, you know— 

we talked a little bit about what that means in terms of searching 

for life, seeing the beginning of the universe, the impact is very 

hard for everyone to understand. 
46 

I think one of the issues that we have here in this Committee 

and Congress in general is trying to understand the technology, understand how we can do the best job we can do to get the best 

science at the—you know, without the cost overruns, without the 

delays. But lacking the expertise, we have a difficult time with 

that. 

We’ve discussed a lot of things. You and Mr. Young have discussed a lot of things that went wrong with the JWST and some 

things that could be changed going forward. So I wanted to ask 

you, Mr. Bridenstine, do you believe that, going forward, that lessons learned really can be applied here? Because it seems there’s 

a lot of things that we’re talking about, and some of them taking 

more time, I mean, that’s going to be more time and more cost, you 

know, figuring these things out, making sure that everything’s covered, making sure that everything is checked. Are you confident 

that there are lessons learned? And how are those lessons learned 

going to be, you know, implemented going forward? 

And Mr. Rohrabacher brought up, you know, well—and Mr. 

Young said that everyone—everyone who’s bidding always underbids. Well, do you have the ability at NASA to really get these 

things better under control so that you can deliver better for the 

American people going forward? 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. All wonderful points, and certainly the answer 

is I really believe that there are a whole host of learning points 

here and that these learning points ultimately need to be distributed not only across NASA but across government at large. And so 

one of the first things we’re doing is we’re taking the lessons 

learned, when you think about all of the 32 recommendations from 

the Independent Review Board, we’re compiling those and we’re 

going to have a roadshow and go to all 10 of the NASA centers and 

other facilities that NASA has and we’re going to go around and 

we’re going to talk about ultimately what the failure was here. 

This is an opportunity, quite frankly, to learn and to prevent this 

kind of thing from happening in other missions. 

A couple of things I think are important to address on the chart 

we saw, you know, the $500 million original cost figure. One of the 

challenges NASA had going back all the way to then, the early 

2000s, was what are the requirements? What are we building here? 

And at the time the telescope was going to be a 4 meter—it’s going 

to have a four meter mirror. The primary meter—or the primary 

mirror was only going to be four meters large. Then it was determined, well, hold on a second, we want to see all the way back to 

the very beginning of the universe, the very first light. Well, that 

means we have to be able to detect even more trace infrared signatures that we’ve never been able to do before. 

So how do we accomplish that? Well, we have to have, you know, 

almost absolute zero temperatures, we have to have this massive 

heat shield that is very intricate with five different layers of 

Kapton sheets, so on one—— 

Mr. LIPINSKI. But—— 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Yes. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Excuse me because I’m running out of time here. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Yes. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Is there—going forward, though—— 
47 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Yes. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. —I understand the complexity and the added complexity as looking for something that could do more. Is there a way 

that we can be confident here that this is not going to happen in 

the future? It wasn’t just the added complexity. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Right. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. The complexity was added, but then how much it 

was going to cost, how long it’s going to take—— 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Yes. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. —there was not a—it doesn’t seem to maybe have 

been realistic, you know—— 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. That is absolutely true, and that was the recommendation from the Independent Review Board is that we were 

excessively optimistic. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Well, let me ask Mr. Young. Are you—how much 

confidence do you have that we’re not going to be back here with 

another, you know, WFIRST or any other major NASA projects, 

that we’re not going to be talking about the same issues again after 

we’ve gone through this? 

Mr. YOUNG. If you could narrow your question, if—and do I believe that for JWST we know the lessons learned in order to successfully complete this program. I believe my answer to that is yes. 

And what I really mean is that if the recommendations that we 

have made, if NASA implements them as we intended in the depth 

that we intended them to, then I believe we will maximize the 

probability of success of JWST. 

A few fundamentals: We have got to—when human errors occur, 

we have got to have the processes in place that keep them from 

having any significant impact on schedule, and we know how to do 

that. The other item, which is harder, is the embedded problems. 

There have been two. Are there any more embedded problems? And 

if they are, we have got to find them before we get to the test so 

that we can eliminate them. 

Now, that is a hard item. That will take tens of people months 

to go through. Fundamentally, what you’re doing is you are reestablishing the pedigree for each piece of hardware that you are—— 

Mr. LIPINSKI. So it’s more time is going to take? 

Mr. YOUNG. Yes. Yes, it could—it possibly could—— 

Mr. LIPINSKI. And we have to understand that. 

Mr. YOUNG. It’s possible it could take more time. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. We have to be accepting of that. 

Mr. YOUNG. It’s possible. That’s possible. I actually think that 

the schedule has been established with the reservations that I—or 

with the footnotes that I put on in my comments is a realistic 

schedule, but the program is really at a point right now that you— 

there’s really—the control parameters are small, and that is you 

really have a choice between cost and schedule and risk. I mean, 

that’s what your—that’s what the program is managing from this 

day forward. And if you try to go too fast with too little cost, then 

you’re probably going to add risk. And it doesn’t mean that you 

don’t have to be prudent in how you manage the risk, but you’re 

really trading risk, schedule, and cost every day is what the project 

people would be doing from this day forward in JWST. 
48 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Well, I think the science is so important that we— 

no question that we need to move forward. Thank you. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Lipinski. 

The gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Brooks, is recognized. 

Mr. BROOKS. Good to see you here, Mr. Bridenstine. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Thank you. 

Mr. BROOKS. I miss some of our witty conversations during votes 

on the House Floor. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. You bet. 

Mr. BROOKS. You have not been replaced, but we’re looking. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. All right. 

Mr. BROOKS. Per the testimony, the James Webb Space Telescope delay cost taxpayers roughly $800 million. With the limited resources of the NASA budget, I’m concerned that other space priorities will have their funding impacted by these cost overruns, and 

that concern has been heightened by your testimony that these cost 

overruns may force NASA to, quote, ‘‘cannibalize other missions,’’ 

end quote. 

With that as a backdrop, will you commit here today that these 

James Webb Space Telescope cost overruns will not come from the 

space and human exploration or, more specifically, the space 

launch system portions of the budget? 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. So there—at this point, that hasn’t even been 

discussed, so this is relevant to the Science Mission Directorate exclusively, and that’s where at this point we’ve had discussions 

about, you know, what are the options going forward. 

Mr. BROOKS. What is the timetable for NASA’s determination of 

what programs will be cannibalized to come up with that now $800 

million shortfall? 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. So maybe the word cannibalized isn’t the right 

word, but the idea is there is an opportunity cost going forward, 

what missions maybe we—do we not start and that kind of thing. 

So the answer is by the 2021—or, actually, by the 2020 time frame 

is when we’re going to need to have additional funds, and so between now and then we’re going to have to make determinations. 

And, you know, that process is right now. It’s underway. And in 

this process what we’re trying to do is, again, evaluate where we 

are with respect to the decadal surveys for each of the divisions of 

the Science Mission Directorate, make sure that we’re in compliance with that, and ultimately, do it in a way that people can agree 

on. And I’d love to have your feedback on that. 

Mr. BROOKS. Well, as a member of the Space Subcommittee and 

also as a member of the Science, Space, and Technology Committee, you can imagine how each of us on this Committee focus 

on different parts of what NASA does for our country. And I suspect that each of us has some concern about whether things that 

we believe are most important may be delayed as a result of these 

James Webb Space Telescope cost overruns. So if you could please 

keep us informed as you engage in your decision-making process, 

I would very much appreciate it, and I’d submit that the Committee as a whole would also do so. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. You can count on it. 

Mr. BROOKS. With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance 

of my time. 
49 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Brooks. 

And the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Beyer, is recognized. 

Mr. BEYER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much. 

Mr. Bridenstine, welcome back. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Thank you. 

Mr. BEYER. You know, how much has changed since 1996—— 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Oh, my goodness. 

Mr. BEYER. —when this was first put out there at half-a-billion 

dollars? And I was just thinking about so many projects that we’ve 

seen over the years, whether there’s been actually evolution in design, what we expected the project to do, the kind of instruments 

that were on board. I love that you brought up the search for the 

cosmic dawn and looking back into that. Can you even talk about 

how much cosmology has changed, the science itself in those 22 

years, and what impact has that had on the delays and the cost? 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. It’s a wonderful question, and when you think 

of the universe at large, we’re—NASA is learning new things every 

single day—how the universe is expanding and not just expanding 

but expanding at an ever-increasing rate; it’s actually accelerating—and what is causing that, and can James Webb help us 

understand that—you know, at the edge of the universe there are 

galaxies in essence disappearing because they’re accelerating faster 

than the speed of light. So those galaxies, the light from them if 

they’re faster than the speed of light, that light can’t get back to 

Earth, which means there’s a lot of things we don’t understand 

about the physics, astrophysics that this particular spacecraft is 

going to help us learn. 

Going back to the very beginning of cosmic dawn, we’re going to 

learn how did the very first galaxies form, what did that first light 

look like, what was its shape, what was its pattern? And we have 

models at NASA that we believe could be accurate, but I’m telling 

you they’re not because we don’t know. 

We talk about things like dark matter and dark energy, things 

that we have very little understanding of. We cannot interact with 

it in any way. We cannot sense it, we cannot detect it, but we— 

there’s evidence of it based on how objects move in space. There’s 

evidence of gravitational effects of it. 

And so—and all of these things—talk about gravitational waves, 

things that, you know, just recently we have been able to detect, 

you know, so all these kind of, you know, new things that didn’t 

exist, you know, even a few years ago—and earlier, I mentioned 

the exoplanets. The idea that exoplanets existed is a—I mean, the 

idea that they existed is not new, but we had no evidence of it 

until, you know, within the last ten years, and now every day we’re 

detecting new exoplanets. And now there’s thousands of exoplanets 

right near our own star, and the question is, you know, can this 

help us understand the atmospheric composition of those planets 

that are around other stars and help us understand whether or not 

life could exist there? So—— 

Mr. BEYER. Well, I really want to thank you for the comprehensiveness of that answer because I think you point out very clearly 

that this isn’t simply mismanagement or cost overruns or delay. 

It’s the fact that the world and science itself is changing—— 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Yes. 
50 

Mr. BEYER. —in ways that impact the project that we have completely different expectations for in 2018 than we had in 1996. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. That—— 

Mr. BEYER. So let me ask you another completely speculative 

question, but you did so well on that one. Nine-point-six billion dollars is what we’re going to spend. What would be the value of the 

knowledge that we get compared to that $9.6 billion? 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. So, again, we don’t know what we don’t know 

until this spacecraft is operational. I want to be clear; we are doing 

everything we can to make it operational. But when it becomes 

operational, it’s going to change our understanding really of astrophysics, change our understanding of the universe and even galaxies and their formation and the formation of planets. So all of 

this is going to add tremendous value. 

But I would also argue—and I really believe this—that the 

United States of America may have lost some ground when it 

comes to science and astrophysics on the international scene. What 

this spacecraft represents is the reestablishment of the United 

States of America is the preeminent Nation when it comes to astrophysics and science. And I think that’s an important part of our 

leadership in the world, and ultimately, other countries all around 

the world are coming up with ideas on how to use this spacecraft, 

and they want access to it, countries that you wouldn’t normally 

think of that—and universities that have great astrophysicists that 

want to have access to this. And they’re sending NASA ideas all 

the time on how to use this, so there’s a whole host of capabilities 

that we can’t even predict yet until it’s on orbit, and we’re doing 

everything we can to get there. 

Mr. BEYER. Mr. Chairman, I just wish we had a head of NASA 

that was excited about this project. 

Chairman SMITH. Well, when you asked your first question, I 

could see that answer going on for a couple of hours, but I thought 

it was a good answer. 

And thank you, Mr. Beyer. 

We’ll now go to the gentleman from California, I believe, Mr. 

Knight. He’s recognized for questions. 

Mr. KNIGHT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I had the honor of having the new Administrator at our new 

NASA caucus last night, and he spoke about all of the great things 

that NASA is doing. And we brought up what New Horizons did 

and how that was kind of a mankind-changing event. It was on 

every newspaper across the globe. This wasn’t a national issue; this 

was a total-globe issue when we went by Pluto and we were able 

to go within 10,000 miles of Pluto’s surface and do all of the things 

that New Horizons brought to us. 

But I’d like to kind of look at what we’ve done in progression 

with Hubble and even closer to home with SOFIA and some of the 

other telescopes that we use and what we see and what we get. 

Give me an idea—and I think you’ve expanded on this quite a bit— 

but how much of a game-changing event is James Webb going to 

be—— 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Yes. 
51 

Mr. KNIGHT. —compared to what Hubble gives us that’s 350 

miles away from us and James Webb being almost a million miles 

away from us and cruising? 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. It’s a wonderful question, and I’ve heard 

Chairman Smith talk about Hubble a lot in my days on this Committee and his excitement for it. And I’ll tell you the story he tells 

and how Hubble absolutely changed the game of what we understand about our universe. The way Chairman Smith describes it, 

if you hold a penny up at arm’s length and you look at the eye of 

Abraham Lincoln, when Hubble looks through that eye, which is a 

very small piece of sky, just—that’s all the piece of sky that it’s 

looking at, but in an area of space where there’s not a lot of stars 

in our own galaxy so we could see beyond our galaxy, Hubble started taking pictures in areas like that. 

And instead of seeing stars, Hubble saw thousands and thousands of galaxies. So we now believe that there are potentially 400 

billion-plus galaxies, each with 400 billion-plus stars, and I’m just 

throwing out round numbers here. Every galaxy is very different. 

Mr. KNIGHT. We won’t hold you to those numbers. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Right, okay. But it changed the way we understand our place in the cosmos and ultimately how complex our cosmos is. And Hubble changed the game. It changed textbooks. You 

know, the—we didn’t grow up with that knowledge. Now, we have 

that knowledge, and it’s in the textbooks that my kids are reading. 

James Webb is going to do the same thing for our understanding 

of how, you know, physics in the early universe worked because 

there’s a lot of things we don’t know. And so it will change textbooks. It will be generational just like Hubble was, and it’s a whole 

new level of understanding that we’re going to have to have as a 

Nation and as humanity. 

Mr. KNIGHT. Absolutely. And I appreciate the Chairman doing 

this. This is very important. It’s important for us as Representatives for us to know what is a cost overrun, what is a time overrun, 

what are the difficulties, and is this something that we saw when 

we started out on this. 

A lot of times government asks for something that we might not 

know how to do, but over a period of time we’re going to learn that, 

something that maybe we’ve got a get a little better at, too. This 

is an extremely difficult issue, and this is something that is going 

in a different direction. But as I like to say, America takes giant 

leaps where others thought was impossible, and that’s exactly what 

we’re doing with James Webb. 

So I think that everyone has said keep it on time now, move forward, let’s get this in the air so that our academics, our kids who 

are going to learn from this and scientists around the world are 

going to learn. That is who we are going to impact. This is a humankind event. This is not something that’s easy, and this is not 

something that we’re going to have more problems. But when this 

happens, this will be a humankind event. 

So I appreciate your leadership. I appreciate the enthusiasm. 

That’s what NASA is about. It’s achieving. It’s making sure that 

that seven-year-old that wants to be an aeronautical engineer or an 

astronaut or whatever looks at NASA and says, ‘‘look at all they’re 
52 

achieving.’’ That’s what I want to do. And it changes the globe for 

the better, so thank you. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Mr. Knight, I would add that we’re making 

great progress on the low-boom flight demonstrator. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Knight. 

And thank you, Mr. Bridenstine, for that great description of the 

deep-field view taken by the—— 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. There you go. 

Chairman SMITH. —Hubble Space Telescope. I’ve actually passed 

out over a thousand 8 x 11 glossies of that deep-field view, that—— 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Is that right? 

Chairman SMITH. —speck of sky where you describe where nothing was thought to exist. The film was exposed for 24 hours, and 

in that speck, there were 3,000 points of light, each not a star but 

each a galaxy consisting of an average of 100 million stars. If anyone wants to know why we explore, take a look at that deep-field 

view. 

The gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Lamb, is recognized for 

his questions. 

Mr. LAMB. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Bridenstine, you used the term reestablishment of the 

United States as the leader in astrophysics. Could you just go a little further with that? Do you feel that we’ve lost ground in recent 

times? And what would be the reason for that? 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. I don’t know that I would say—well, I would 

say that others have gained ground, how about that? And there are 

other countries around the world that are developing capabilities 

all the time. The European Space Agency is doing wonderful work. 

China is in fact establishing a pretty impressive astrophysics capability. And so I wouldn’t say we’ve lost ground. I would say others 

have gained ground. 

We welcome that. Knowledge is knowledge, and we want them 

to be successful. In this particular case, this is going to gain new 

ground for the United States of America, and I think it’s important 

that we always strive to do more because when we do more, then 

they’re going to do more, and ultimately, our knowledge, especially 

from James Webb, from Hubble, these capabilities, the data that 

we get from it, the information, the scientific—it’s available to the 

world. And scientists can actually use the data to make discoveries 

that NASA doesn’t have the capacity to make on its own. And so 

when we make it available, a lot of people find new things that we 

didn’t ourselves even discover, and so it’s good for the entire world. 

Mr. LAMB. Absolutely. Do you—so I think that’s an important 

point that the funding discussion behind this both for James Webb 

and for NASA overall isn’t taking place in a vacuum. China, you 

mentioned, is making significant investments in astrophysics, and 

I think we know that in their space program they’re going it alone 

in some areas, you know, suggesting that there is a bit of competition going on. Is that something that you think should influence 

the discussion of the NASA budget and the decisions we make in 

2020 when there is, you know, a projected shortfall because of 

these overruns? 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Absolutely. I mean, I do believe that, you 

know, NASA is an agency that can establish American leadership, 
53 

that ultimately the NASA budget always returns far more than the 

investment. And I can give example after example. We actually 

promote the fact that we—we have a spinoff Twitter feed, NASA 

spinoff, so go to ‘‘at NASA spinoff’’ and you’ll find all kinds of capabilities that have been developed. What NASA does we make available to the world, and then people use it for all sorts of things that 

are good. 

But humanity itself, the way we communicate, the way we navigate, you probably may have had DirecTV or dish network, maybe 

internet broadband from space, the—you know, using GPS, the way 

we predict weather, the way we understand the climate, certainly 

the way we do national security and defense, disaster relief, simple 

things that we don’t normally think about like banking requires 

the GPS signal. Banking is fundamental to the United States of 

America. Every transaction requires that timing signal from GPS. 

So when you think about what space represents, it represents a 

fundamental increase in the standard of living not only for all 

Americans but for the entire world. And all of those capabilities are 

available because of a trail that was blazed by NASA, these investments if you will. 

And so the answer is yes, when the United States Congress 

makes determinations to invest in NASA, it always strengthens the 

United States of America, and it always lifts not just our citizens 

but citizens around the world in ways that we never even imagined 

when we make the investments. So I do fundamentally believe that 

NASA is a great investment for the United States. 

Mr. LAMB. Thank you. Just one more question. We have talked 

in this Committee before about developing the future workforce in 

aerospace and astrophysics, and one of the pieces of feedback we 

heard was that NASA’s sort of comparative advantage when they’re 

competing I guess against private-sector employers is the ability of 

NASA to give its workers really hands-on experience on one-of-akind projects, especially earlier in their career. Do you know if 

that’s happening on James Webb? Is there a younger workforce 

that’s able to take part in this and able to get the kind of experience that they wouldn’t be getting anywhere else? 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. So that’s a wonderful question. NASA is, as 

you can imagine—it has for seven years in a row been the numberone federal agency as far as workforce. When I see number one, the 

best place to work as determined by the workers themselves. So 

that’s really an amazing capability. What that means is that 

NASA’s workforce, we don’t have a lot of turnover. In fact, it’s 

about 4.5 percent per year, which means our workforce is aging, 

and that’s just the reality. 

So we are using authorities right now to attract a younger workforce, a program called the Pathways Program that helps us get interns and ultimately recent college graduates, recent graduates 

from master’s programs. We’re doing what we can to get a younger 

workforce, and we are engaging them absolutely in projects. In fact, 

right now this summer, we have over 1,600 students interning at 

NASA, and a lot of those interns, you know, they’re—I’ll tell you, 

most of them want to work for NASA. There’s not going to be spots 

for all of them to work at NASA, but they’re probably going to work 

in the—in a related field or for a contractor or something like that. 
54 

So the answer is yes, we’re doing what we can. The workforce is 

in fact aging. There is a bow wave that I am very concerned about 

because eventually there’s going to be a lot of retirements coming. 

We’ve got to be very cognizant of that and preparing for it today. 

And of course—and it’s my belief that NASA’s doing what it can 

to make sure that we’re prepared for that bow wave. But the workforce is aging. You’re making a great point. We’re doing what we 

can to make it younger. 

Mr. LAMB. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I yield. Thank you. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Lamb. 

The gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Hultgren, is recognized for his 

questions. 

Mr. HULTGREN. Thank you, Chairman, and thank you both for 

being here. This is an important hearing as we continue our oversight of the James Webb Space Telescope and review recent problems that we’ve had. 

Back in a hearing in 2011 on the issues with the telescope, I 

talked about my thoughts of the importance of American leadership 

in these fields and how this really is part of who we are as a Nation and the fact that we continue to be an exceptional Nation. It’s 

important to acknowledge that we’ve had some very serious issues 

with project management over the life of this program, but we also 

have to remind ourselves that we’re almost over the finish line, and 

this is truly where we all do want to be. Many people looked at the 

2011 re-plan as the last chance. It’s obviously not what we want 

to see. 

Administrator Bridenstine, thank you for your work. It’s so good 

to see you back here and especially in the role that you’re in, so 

congratulations and thanks for your work. Also, it was good to see 

you last night and again want to commend you on the vision that 

you’re bringing to NASA and the direction that the President and 

the Administration has charged you with and NASA with. It’s exciting, and you can just feel the excitement that so many are sharing with that. 

You know about my views on these world-leading projects. I’ve 

always been so proud of NASA’s ability to inspire and bring others 

along, certainly from young children that you inspire in STEM to 

also our foreign partners on ISS or other ESA projects. 

I wondered if you could discuss some other projects that NASA 

is working on or planning and how the capabilities of James Webb 

are necessary for them to get the best science. In short, how many 

other investments are we making that rely on this initial investment, and what else do we have to lose if this does not go up? 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. So James Webb, when you think of it, the astrophysics division of the Science Mission Directorate, James Webb 

is one piece, and there are other missions out there that can help 

us ultimately that are less expensive, less capable but ultimately 

can help us determine how to best use James Webb as a force multiplier if you will. So it is absolutely true that we think of it as a 

system of systems and that some of the smaller missions inform 

how we want to use the flagship missions. 

That being said, we have to get this right. As Tom Young mentioned, there’s over 300 parts that are single points of failure, 

which is why we are testing it and retesting it and testing it some 
55 

more to make sure that it works in every single one of these—I 

want to be clear about this, too. Single—300 single points of failure 

is a lot. That’s not what NASA normally does. NASA does normally 

have projects that have a lot of single points of failure. The Curiosity rover that landed on Mars had over 70 single points of failure. 

It’s a successful mission, overwhelmingly successful. We are discovering right now that, you know, there are complex organic compounds on Mars, which has never been determined before, and now 

we’re finding them, which increases the probability of life. Methane, of course, cycles are now—we now know that methane cycles 

are commensurate with the seasons on Mars and in fact, you know, 

today, you are probably going to see reports that we have found 

what appears to be liquid water about 1.5 kilometers below the 

surface of Mars, amazing—that wasn’t from Curiosity. That’s from 

another satellite mission around Mars that has, you know, radar. 

So—but these are capabilities that we make investments in. 

They have single points of failure. This one’s more complex. There’s 

more single points of failure. We have to be more diligent about 

every aspect. That’s why we’re putting so much effort into mission 

assurance and other things. But it is a force multiplier, as you’re 

acknowledging—— 

Mr. HULTGREN. Yes. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. —that the other missions that we do are excellent. This actually makes them even better. It makes those investments even better. 

Mr. HULTGREN. It’s really helpful. Let me go down to one last 

quick question—— 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Yes, sir. 

Mr. HULTGREN. —in my last minute here. Administrator, you 

brought up this little bit last night, but I think it would be good 

to get it on record. And this is also something I had asked former 

NASA Administrator Griffin and it’s something that worries me as 

we work with other nations on world-leading science experiments. 

What is the first question you get from our foreign partners when 

you come to them and see how we can collaborate? I’m always worried about our budgetary process and especially CRs, but your comments last night did give me hope. I wondered if you could talk 

about what you’re hearing from—— 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Yes. 

Mr. HULTGREN. —collaborators? 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Thank you for bringing that up. I just got back 

from the Farnborough Air Show. The heads of space agencies from 

throughout the world were there, and we had great collaborations. 

I was going with the mindset that I’m going to have to make a 

sales pitch, that our—you know, we’re going forward to the moon 

with a sustainable architecture so that this time we can stay and 

then we’re going to go on to Mars. We need all of our international 

partners involved and more, and we need not just our international 

partners but commercial partners. And I was going there to make 

a sales pitch. 

And overwhelmingly what I heard from our international partners, which we’ve established strong partnerships with I think it’s 

over 90 different countries at this point, although they weren’t all 

of this one event, what I heard overwhelmingly is tell us what we 
56 

need to do. It wasn’t me trying to make a sales pitch. They’re ready 

to go. 

Mr. HULTGREN. That’s great. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. They want direction and then they can sell 

their governments and we can move forward as a body. Space represents, in my view, a very strong soft-power tool for the United 

States of America to establish leadership. James Webb is a perfect 

example of that. The European Space Agency is providing two scientific instruments. They’re providing scientists that are going to 

be integrated with our scientists on James Webb, and they’re providing a launch capability. 

So the European Space Agency has really stepped up to the plate 

on James Webb. They’re making sacrifices the same as we’re making sacrifices because they, like us, believe it will be worth it. 

Mr. HULTGREN. Great. Thank you. 

Mr. LUCAS. [Presiding] The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Mr. HULTGREN. I yield back. 

Mr. LUCAS. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Crist, for five minutes. 

Mr. CRIST. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Administrator Bridenstine and Mr. Young, for being with us today. I appreciate your time. 

It’s a concern of mine that the repeated schedule delays and cost 

overruns are putting increasing pressure on both NASA, as well as 

Northrop Grumman to prevent any further slippage. While it’s important to keep schedule and cost under control, it’s even more important in my opinion to make sure that we get this done right and 

that we don’t cut any corners that could negatively impact mission 

success. So, Administrator Bridenstine, how will NASA be able to 

guarantee that the remaining integration and test work is not affected by this schedule pressure? 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. That’s a wonderful question. The Independent 

Review Board made an assessment on both schedule and costs. 

NASA ran independently an assessment on schedule and costs 

through our agency program management council and our directorate program management council. We came to in essence the 

same conclusion. We wanted to make sure that there was adequate 

margin for both cost and schedule so that we weren’t putting ourselves up against the wall. So we do believe there’s adequate margin in there. 

At the same time we are incorporating all of the recommendations from the Independent Review Board. There are, you know, 

two recommendations that we haven’t implemented yet but we’re 

making progress on, and so I really believe that we’re going to be 

able to accomplish the task. We’ve—again, we have taken NASA 

workforce and put that—put them on this task, highly qualified 

NASA workforce. We have strengthened the mission assurance 

piece, which is immediate feedback in response to every—you 

know, every item that goes on or off the spacecraft is being overseen by somebody who can stop the entire program immediately. 

We are providing direct oversight from the Goddard Space Flight 

Center, and we’re providing, you know, direct oversight from NASA 

headquarters as well. 
57 

So I do believe that we’ve taken all the tools that we have and 

we’re using them to the best of our ability. And if we continue to 

execute how we’re executing right now, we will be on cost, we will 

be on schedule, and we will have mission success. 

Mr. CRIST. Okay. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. Young, would you add anything to that? 

Mr. YOUNG. I thought that the description was really quite good 

that was just given. I think that the only thing I would underline 

is that when we do hit the hard spots—and there will be some— 

that mission success has got to be the defining criteria as to how 

we go forward. So I think your question is really excellent, and the 

idea is that while schedule and cost are important, they’re not 

more important than mission success. 

Mr. CRIST. Right. 

Mr. YOUNG. And as long as we have that culture and philosophy, 

which I actually see existing, then I think that, you know, we’ll 

proceed well, but that’s got to be the hallmark as to how we go forward. And that’s got to be communicated down to the lower—to 

working levels of the organization because right today, while we’re 

having this hearing, my guess would be that at some—at a working 

level somebody made a decision that probably can have a real influence on the success of JWST, and we want to be sure that the criteria that they’re making that decision gains us mission success 

and not schedule and cost. 

Mr. CRIST. Great. Thank you, sir. Back to you, Administrator. 

What do you believe is NASA’s responsibility when human error by 

contractors occurs, and what changes do you think might need to 

be made, if any, for contractor oversight. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. So specifications and requirements that come 

from NASA ultimately need to be very crystal-clear. There can be 

no mistakes as NASA generates specifications and requirements. 

One of the challenges we saw during acoustic testing when you 

think about the sunshield covers, you know, the sunshields have to 

be folded up and then flown and—within a rocket faring and then 

deployed once in space. 

The sunshield covers had fasteners that kept them—and kept the 

sunshield covered. Those fasteners ultimately were held together 

by screws and bolts, and NASA did not specify what the torque 

specification requirements were. That’s a failure of NASA. Should 

Northrop Grumman have maybe done things differently? Maybe, 

but NASA has responsibility here as well. And so it’s on us to— 

mission success is on NASA. We can blame the contractor, but the 

reality is it’s on us to have mission success. 

So accountability is critical. We have tools in place for accountability. We are at this point at the integration and testing phase. 

We are on the—again, I’ve said it before, I’m going to say it again. 

We’re on the 5-yard line trying to punch it into the end zone. We’re 

almost there. I believe we’re going to get there, but going forward, 

we have to be—and this is one of the takeaways that we’re going 

to take on a roadshow. When we generate specifications and requirements, we can’t miss anything because ultimately mission 

success is on NASA. 

Mr. CRIST. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. Chairman, I yield back my time. 
58 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Crist. 

The gentlewoman from Arizona, Mrs. Lesko, is recognized. 

Mrs. LESKO. Thank you, Mr. Chair. You know, I’m the secondnewest member to Congress, and I don’t know if some of my fellow 

Congressmen are more used to these budget overruns or not, but 

when I read this, I thought it was outrageous that it’s 19 times 

over the budget that was estimated and so far behind. And I really 

think this is just a perfect example of why the American public 

doesn’t trust the Federal Government in spending its tax dollars. 

I really do. I just thought it was outrageous. 

So I guess my question, since I’m new, is what has been done 

since—in 2007 this was expected to be finished. Has Congress or 

NASA done anything in between besides what’s just happening 

now with this IRB? And if they did do something, obviously, it 

didn’t work. So I want to know if anything has been done in the 

past 11 years, and if so, why should we believe it’s going to change 

in the future? 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. So in 2011 there was an Independent Review 

Board, and at the time the—all of this was still in development. 

Going back even further, one of the big challenges we had is changing requirements, changing specifications. What do we want the 

telescope to do, how far do we want to see? And if you go from— 

I mentioned this earlier. If you go from a four meter telescope to 

a 6.5 meter telescope—when I say telescope, I’m talking about the 

size of the mirror that actually reflects onto another mirror and 

then the sensors—you—when you change something that is this 

precise this much, it really has an impact on cost and schedule. 

In 2011, we had an independent review. We set a new baseline, 

and that new baseline actually had its launching in 2019. And we 

got—again, we got all the way to the 5-yard line. And when we integrated the spacecraft element with the optical telescope element 

and did testing, we made all kinds of discoveries that were unfortunate, and not just unfortunate, problematic. And that’s where we 

are today. 

So what we have to do now is, as Mr. Young has noted, we are 

going back and we’re going to make sure because the way this telescope is going to be launched, you know, it’s going to be a million 

miles away from Earth. We don’t have any human spacecraft capability that can get up there to service it, and if we could, this telescope is too delicate to even service. 

That being said, we have to get it right the first time. So that’s 

why we go through such extensive testing. Some of the testing, ultimately, we discovered things that are routine, which is why you 

test. Some of the testing demonstrated that we in fact have some 

embedded errors and some human errors, embedded problems and 

human errors, some embedded problems going back a number of 

years. Mr. Young mentioned that the thrusters were washed with 

the wrong solvent, and that corroded some seals. That was done 

years ago, and we only discovered in testing that that had happened. Again, this is why we test. We want to make these mistakes 

here on Earth because that mistake, if it was in space, it would be 

too late. It can’t be fixed. 

So some of it is routine testing that ultimately we’re making discoveries that we need to make discoveries on, and others, we’re 
59 

finding errors that occurred years ago, and some of those errors include, you know, the—using the wrong solvent to wash the thrusters, which is why we’re going through right now and we are starting from a baseline and saying if we have to find every embedded 

error, that we have to go back to the very beginning of every component on this spacecraft and make sure we haven’t made any errors, which is what we’re doing because there’s no room for failure 

once it’s in space. And that’s what we’re doing. Mission success is 

the primary objective. I believe that we’re there, and here we are 

requesting an extra $800 million and a few more years, and I think 

we can get it done. 

Mrs. LESKO. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, I appreciate that we’re 

under a new Administration and that you’re new and so you have 

to take what was given you. I just again want to express my frustration that we’re talking about taxpayer dollars, and it’s very frustrating to me and other taxpayers that this is so much of a cost 

overrun, and although I’ve heard testimony how important it is, I 

understand that, it’s very frustrating. I think we need to do a better job of making sure that we are not so far off the mark. Thank 

you—— 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Yes, ma’am. 

Mrs. LESKO. —and I yield back my time. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mrs. Lesko. 

And the gentleman from California, Mr. Takano, is recognized. 

Mr. TAKANO. Welcome back, Administrator Bridenstine. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. TAKANO. It’s good to see you. And congratulations. I didn’t 

get to say that to you earlier. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Thank you. 

Mr. TAKANO. And thank you, Mr. Young, for being here. Administrator, you just mentioned an $800 million figure. Is that 

for fiscal year 2020 and fiscal year 2021? 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. It gets us through launch, which would be 

through March 30 of 2021, which is the new launch date. 

Mr. TAKANO. So March—so you have enough money for fiscal 

year 2019—— 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. We do. 

Mr. TAKANO. —correct? 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. That’s correct. 

Mr. TAKANO. And so this supplemental that you’re asking for is 

for the year 2021? 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. It’s really—we’re not really asking for a supplemental, although if you’d like to give it to us, we’ll take it. 

Mr. TAKANO. Okay. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. The—what the law requires is that if we hit 

$800 billion—or $8 billion—gosh, dang—— 

Mr. TAKANO. Eight hundred million. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Eight hundred. But if we hit $8 billion, the 

program is no longer authorized. And so, ultimately in the development we haven’t hit it yet, but we will soon hit $8 billion and we’ll 

need Congress to reauthorize it if we’re going to continue. 

Mr. TAKANO. So you’re asking for an authorization—— 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. That’s correct. 

Mr. TAKANO. —of an additional $800 million—— 
60 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Yes. 

Mr. TAKANO. —for the program? 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Yes. And that money could come from NASA 

or if you want to appropriate additional, it could come from there 

as well. 

Mr. TAKANO. You know, we may have to do that. I might prefer 

not having to choose between our children. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. I know. 

Mr. TAKANO. Right? But we have hard choices to make here. So 

$800 million. Let’s see. The question I wanted to ask. Administrator, given that we’re moving the launch date, have you hired 

graduate students and plan for graduate student work based on 

the October 18 launch date? 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. The March 30 launch date of 2021, have we 

hired graduate—— 

Mr. TAKANO. Well, no, because given that you—— 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Oh, oh, oh, I see—— 

Mr. TAKANO. I’m wondering if you did hire graduate students 

based on the old—— 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. The old launch date. 

Mr. TAKANO. —launch date—— 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. So—— 

Mr. TAKANO. Can you tell me what’s going on with that? 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. So the launch is actually being provided by the 

European Space Agency on an Ariane 5, so they are our international partner on this particular project. And so to my knowledge 

we haven’t hired any graduate students to help us with the launch. 

It’s being provided by the European Space Agency. 

Mr. TAKANO. All right. You might just want to check up—— 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. I will. 

Mr. TAKANO. —on that detail because if we’ve hired graduate 

students—— 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Right. 

Mr. TAKANO. —based on the launch date—but maybe you’ve delayed doing that because you were uncertain about when you are 

going to be able to launch. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Right. 

Mr. TAKANO. How many cost overrun proposals has Northrop 

submitted to NASA since the original JWST re-plan agreement in 

2011? Do you know that? 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. I don’t know offhand, but—— 

Mr. TAKANO. If you could get that—— 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Yes, I will. I will get that. 

Mr. TAKANO. If you could get that to my office—— 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. I’ll take that for the record. 

Mr. TAKANO. And if you could also get me a total on the value 

of the cost overrun proposals and whether they included any award 

fees. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. I will. 

Mr. TAKANO. That’d be helpful for me to know. 

You know, I want to go back to the workforce training issues 

that were kind of gone over by I think Mr. Hultgren and Mr. Lamb. 

You spoke about the unique workforce that you have and the in-
61 

terns and the programs, and you’re worried about the aging out of 

the current workforce. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Yes. 

Mr. TAKANO. And it’s a pretty specialized workforce. What can 

Congress do to support opportunities for relevant workforce training and experience beyond what it has now? 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. That’s a—— 

Mr. TAKANO. Can we do more? 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Absolutely. Thank you for asking because I’ll 

be sure to let you know the—one thing that we have been talking 

about a lot at NASA is the competition that exists today that might 

not have existed for NASA centers even maybe, you know, 20 or 

30 years ago. So if you’re a young person in Houston, Texas, 

there’s, you know, an amazing energy industry down there that is 

trying to gobble up all of the electrical engineers, mechanical engineers, chemical engineers. If you’re a young person out in the San 

Francisco Bay area where Ames Research Center is, there’s all of 

the tech companies that are gobbling up those types of talents. 

And so it’s—the challenge that NASA has is ultimately the way 

a young person can get a job with NASA is to apply online. And 

in the six months that follow, you may or may not get a response, 

let alone get a job. And this is a challenge that we need to—there 

is a challenge in the way—— 

Mr. TAKANO. So there’s a personnel office problem, inefficiencies 

there. The applications are kind of stuck is what you’re telling me? 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Well, that’s a piece of it, but there’s also a 

piece of it that there’s a body of law that we have to follow in order 

to hire somebody. And a lot of our competitors for that talent, private companies, they can go to a job fair and hire somebody on the 

spot. And it’s not—you know, when I say we’re competing, we’re 

not competing against the people that supply services to us necessarily. We’re competing against entire other industries for that 

talent. And so when they can hire on the spot and when we hire, 

we have to go through this elaborate process, we lose. We lose a 

lot of talent. So direct-hire authority is something that we would 

love to have. 

Mr. TAKANO. Mr. Chairman, I’m sorry for going over, but I think 

this is a rich topic and I hope we can maybe explore this topic more 

with more hearings about—— 

Chairman SMITH. We will. 

Mr. TAKANO. I know we’ve done some stuff on workforce development, but I’ve heard a statistic that Mexico is producing more mechanical engineers than we are in the United States, and so I 

think—this is a broader topic and I hope we can devote more time 

to it later. 

Chairman SMITH. Okay. 

Mr. TAKANO. Thanks. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Takano. 

The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Weber, is recognized for questions. 

Mr. WEBER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

To paraphrase JFK, we choose to take risks not because they’re 

known or easy but because they’re unknown and they’re hard. So 
62 

you just answered the question I had Administrator Bridenstine. 

And welcome back, by the way. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Thank you. 

Mr. WEBER. We kind of miss the days you sat up here and make 

snide remarks about some of the other Members. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Now you’re making them about me. 

Mr. WEBER. I know. Did I say that out loud? I’m encouraged to 

hear that it’s important that we lead in space. Dr. Babin had a conversation—I forget with which one of you it was with—about the 

fact that we were cost overrun and behind schedule, and that 

washurting us with a national security and with the industrial 

base. And I would argue exactly the opposite, that it’s actually 

helping us. And when you said there’s 90 countries who are ready 

to help with this, I was so encouraged by that because it shows the 

world that we are determined to be the space leader, and we’re 

going to do it come hell or high water, if that applies to the amount 

of water we found here the other day. So thank you for saying that. 

I’m encouraged by that, Jim. 

Mr. Young, in the IGR report you made was it 32 recommendations? 

Mr. YOUNG. Yes, sir. 

Mr. WEBER. Three hundred and seven failure areas, is that what 

I understand? And then you said all, and I’m quoting, ‘‘All of us 

need to focus on maximizing the program,’’ okay, end quote. Who 

does that for those 32 recommendations and 307 failure areas? Do 

you make recommendations about who actually takes that responsibility? 

Mr. YOUNG. I think it’s pretty clear for each of those who has the 

responsibility. We—the—our particular activity was chaired by 

the—was—excuse me, was established by the Associate Administrator of Space Science. And so that in essence is where our report 

went, but we did report directly to the Administrator. And we did 

highlight some areas where we want to get special attention, so 

some are aimed towards Northrop Grumman, some are aimed towards NASA Goddard, and some are aimed towards NASA headquarters. So the answer is there are very specific indicators as to 

who should be responsible for each and who should be necessarily 

responding. 

Mr. WEBER. Well, that’s what I want to hear. The famous example about Edison and the lightbulb and when somebody said you 

failed a thousand times, doesn’t that discourage you? And he said, 

what are you talking about? We’re a thousand times closer. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Yes. 

Mr. WEBER. So if we’re learning from this, if we’re going to use 

this to our benefit and show the world that we can do this, I think 

it’s a good thing. 

Administrator Bridenstine, I want to come back to you. You 

named categories of missions in earlier comments. You said strategic, flagship, and—— 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Just different sizes of missions. 

Mr. WEBER. There’s different sizes of missions, okay. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. So the idea being that for smaller missions 

there’s a lot less risk because there’s a lot less—it’s not as complicated, we don’t spend as much money, and if there’s a failure, 
63 

it’s one failure of, say, eight different small missions. But for a flagship mission or a strategic mission—— 

Mr. WEBER. It’s huge. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. —it’s—yes, it’s a big impact. 

Mr. WEBER. Right. Are you able to give us a percentage of those 

three categories and how much is in each category? 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Well, given where we are with James Webb, 

that’s by far the largest category at this point. 

Mr. WEBER. Sure. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. So—— 

Mr. WEBER. I’ve been there to see it by the way. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. That’s good. That’s good. 

Mr. WEBER. Yes. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. It’s impressive. So the—but I can get you a 

breakdown, a very specific breakdown of missions and costs. 

Mr. WEBER. Right. And then, Mr. Young, back to you. You made 

a comment earlier about the contractors who bid the lowest. What 

did you call it? Lowest—there was a—— 

Mr. YOUNG. Lowest credible cost. 

Mr. WEBER. Lowest credible cost. How do we fix that? 

Mr. YOUNG. Well, you know, contractors are going to do, you 

know, what you would expect, and that is they’re going to bid in 

accordance to what they think will be the determining factor in 

winning the contract so—— 

Mr. WEBER. So do you need authorization or change in the law 

from Congress on how the bidding process works? 

Mr. YOUNG. I personally don’t think so. I mean, I think it is 

much more the contracting organization establishing criteria for 

who wins a contract to be consistent with the—what the particular 

contracting organization wants to get from the contractors. But 

people—the contractors, you know, are very capable in figuring out 

what is the criteria that will maximize their chance of winning, 

and they’re going to—they’re going to perform in that particular 

manner. And the contracting organization has to change it such 

that the criteria are such that it gets the performance that that one 

in the bids that they get. And my personal belief is that there is 

adequate law and legislation to allow that to happen today. 

Mr. WEBER. Okay. Mr. Bridenstine, you want to weigh in on 

that? 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Well, just that it is important for NASA, when 

you think about the way we do contracting and we have, you know, 

contracting officer representatives, we have contractors, and then 

we have program managers and project managers, when we go 

through a contract, it is critically important that NASA be every 

bit as smart on the capabilities and the requirements and—as the 

contractor that we are buying from. We have to be smarter than 

the people we are buying from to know whether or not what they 

are telling us is accurate and can be accomplished. 

Mr. WEBER. There’s a Latin term for that. Caveat—— 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Okay. 

Mr. WEBER. —emptor. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Okay. 

Mr. WEBER. Okay? Buyer beware I think it is. But look—— 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Sure. 
64 

Mr. WEBER. —thank you. You guys are doing great, and we appreciate your commitment. And short of sounding a little hokay, I 

think you’re helping to continue to make America great again, always have. We appreciate NASA. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Thank you. 

Mr. WEBER. Thank you. 

Mr. LUCAS. [Presiding] The gentleman’s time is expired. 

The Chair now turns to the gentleman from Colorado, Mr. Perlmutter, for five minutes. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. Thank you. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Twenty thirty-three. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. Gentlemen, thank you for your testimony. Obviously—what did I—everybody’s leaving. Oh, my gosh. 

Anyway, just—no, obviously, thank you for your testimony. I 

have confidence in both of you and in your review of something 

that really is, you know, disappointing in a lot of respects, but obviously this is new territory that’s being broken. There are some contractual things. And, Mr. Young, I want to talk to you about them 

in a second. But if you have confidence—and I think there—a specific question came form Mr. Lipinski to you, Tom, that, you know, 

can this get done in this time frame that’s been set for $800 million? And you have confidence that it can. That’s good enough for 

me honestly. 

Let me just ask you some basic questions because there is some 

contractual stuff in here that I think really are good learning tools 

for you at NASA, for the industry generally. And, Mr. Bridenstine, 

you talked about it. So my dad was in the construction business, 

all right? He said it was always easiest to fix a problem at the 

blueprint stage before you built the building. And in yours you’ve 

got an added complexity, which is the design phase, the construction phase, and then it’s a million-miles-out-there phase. So we’re 

in the—sort of the construction phase where you can fix it here and 

not a million miles away and it’s a much better use of our money 

to do it here. 

In this process, Mr. Young, in this next two or three years, is 

there—see, I think one of the things that happened here, there was 

a critical path of some sort that was used. And you had vendors. 

Northrop Grumman was the general contractor, had vendors to it, 

and then—and now we’re at the integration stage. Could there 

have been something different in terms of the critical path that 

would have allowed us to see these mistakes, which we know can 

happen when people are putting the screws in? Is there a different 

way to do this critical path? Could we have integrated this thing 

earlier? That’s my first question. 

Mr. YOUNG. It’s a good question. Let me touch on two aspects of 

it. Relative to embedded problems, you know, that are discovered 

later, you know, the technique that we utilize to make sure that 

they don’t happen is to really go through a progressive test program. And so what it really says is that if you have a piece of hardware and you start out with it, you test it as a standalone item, 

and so you know the—I’ll call it the pedigree again or the quality 

of that hardware all the way through. And so if you get to the particular point that you’ve installed out on the spacecraft before you 

have gone through each of these steps, you have made yourself vul-
65 

nerable to an embedded problem being there that has a much larger implication. 

I’ve got to really say that we did not go back through and trace 

the history, you know, of each of these items because what we were 

trying to do is assess where we are today and what do we have to 

do to get to a successful completion. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. I guess what I’d like you to do, though, is 

when you guys are doing sort of an after, you know, project kind 

of analysis, look at the critical-path piece of this. 

Mr. YOUNG. It needs to be done. And, typically, if you walk 

through that process that you’re asking about, which is probably no 

different than the construction process, by the way, I would argue, 

if each step of the way you know the quality of that particular 

hardware, then you are pretty confident that you have not moved 

too far to the right of an embedded problem without discovering it. 

So that’s the process of doing it. 

And I do think you raise a really good point. As a lesson learned, 

it would probably be a good thing to take all of these and go back 

and look at how the step-by-step test program was implemented. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. I’m going to change the subject just a little bit. 

So I feel like we have three opportunity costs kind of lost here. One 

is the billion dollars or $800 million, which, you know, I’m reading 

something today says that the majority party, the Republicans are 

thinking of another $600 billion tax cut on top of the 1.5 or $1,500 

billion tax cut. We could fix this problem a lot with that revenue 

that we are foregoing. 

But I think the two issues that I’m particularly concerned about 

are the lost science and the reallocation of assets away from other 

projects that NASA may have. If we were to authorize and appropriate another $800 million, could you keep those other projects on 

time or keep them going? 

Mr. LUCAS. The gentleman’s time is expired. The witness may 

answer the question, though. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. The answer is yes, sir, we absolutely could. I 

would also argue that some of those projects haven’t even started 

yet, so we would in essence start new projects that otherwise 

wouldn’t get started if we didn’t have the additional money. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. Okay. Thank you. 

Mr. LUCAS. The— 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. And I yield back. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. LUCAS. The gentleman yields back. 

The Chair now turns to the gentleman from Louisiana, Mr. Higgins, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. HIGGINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I support this program and the completion of this crucial project. I believe the money should come from offsets in other areas. 

Like my colleagues, I voice my concern regarding the cost overruns and schedule delays, but these guys are doing something that 

has never been done before. And although all Americans recall the 

infamous ‘‘Bridge to Nowhere,’’ the endeavor we’re speaking of 

today, Mr. Chairman, is a bridge to everywhere. So I concur with 

my colleagues. I believe that the United States should be number 

one on Earth, and thus, we must be number one in space. As a 

Christian-principled man, it’s fascinating to me to observe as 
66 

science begins to come to grips with ‘‘Let there be light.’’ And this 

is the mission that could bring us to a new level of understanding 

never dreamed of before. 

Mr. Bridenstine, thank you for your service, sir. The Independent 

Review Board recommends that NASA and Northrop Grumman 

Aerospace Systems should take a number of actions to address 

human errors during the integration and testing phase to prevent, 

or at the very least detect, embedded problems before they affect 

a project’s schedule. Please elaborate on what actions NASA has 

taken to ensure that Northrop Grumman is properly implementing 

the recommendations that the Independent Review Board suggested to ensure that human error and embedded problems will not 

continue. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. So one of the reasons that we have extended 

the time of the program is ultimately to go back and look at all of 

the components that go into the entire spacecraft from the beginning and ultimately to determine whether or not there are other 

embedded problems like the issue we had with the fasteners, like 

the issue we had with using the wrong solvent to clean the thrusters. Are there any other of those issues that might have been accomplished years ago that ultimately could end up revealing themselves in space? And what we want to do is make sure— 

Mr. HIGGINS. And fix that on the ground. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. And fix it on the ground. 

Mr. HIGGINS. Understood. So you’re very focused on the 32 recommendations that have been concluded by the review board? 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Yes, sir. Absolutely. 

Mr. HIGGINS. And for the record, Mr. Young, in regard to NASA 

and Northrop Grumman’s plan for implementing your board’s recommendations, how soon do you recommend a review of those implementation plans? 

Mr. YOUNG. That’s really a good question. I actually—and it’s a 

decision for NASA to decide, you know, when they want that to be 

done. My personal judgment is that in the next couple of months 

the course is going to be set for JWST and hopefully the success— 

Mr. HIGGINS. Mr. Bridenstine seems to be very animated and 

sincere about following your recommendations. Can you provide for 

this Committee, sir, in writing a recommendation what you believe 

should be a time frame for a review of those implementations, say, 

90 days or whatever you believe it would be? Mr. Young, can you 

provide that? 

Mr. YOUNG. Yes. Yes, sir, I can. 

Mr. HIGGINS. And, Mr. Bridenstine, will you provide that as well, 

that you’ll concur with that? 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Absolutely. In fact—— 

Mr. HIGGINS. Okay. Let me jump forward. These cost overruns, 

they predate my service at the Congressional level. They predate 

your service for NASA, sir, so we’re just living with what we have. 

But we have to finish this thing. And it’s fascinating, as you pointed out, that the largest issue you’re dealing with is a never-beforedesigned spaceship. Now, had that spaceship been designed prior, 

would we have eliminated a lot of the problems that we’ve encountered with cost overruns? 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Absolutely. 
67 

Mr. HIGGINS. So is it not reasonable to conclude that future 

NASA projects and future space exploration projects will certainly 

draw upon the knowledge that you all are frontiering right now 

and pioneering, engineering, regarding heat shields in this particular type of spacecraft? Is it not reasonable to conclude that the 

work you’re doing now and the treasure we’re investing now will 

benefit future projects and future generations of all mankind? 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Absolutely. We have bought down a ton of risk 

through this process. 

Mr. HIGGINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield. 

Mr. LUCAS. The gentleman’s time is expired. 

The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Foster, for five minutes. 

Mr. FOSTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to our witnesses. 

As someone who’s actually managed not multibillion but multimillion dollar technical projects for the government, you know, I 

probably stayed up way too late last night reading the, I guess, 69 

pages of your independent review report. And I was quite impressed with the top-line recommendations you made. And I have 

a couple of concerns with NASA’s plan for dealing with some of 

them. 

But let’s see. First, Mr. Bridenstine, you emphasized that there 

is now the ability for more people to say stop when they see a technical thing. Did anyone for the two major difficulties you’ve had, 

either the thrusters solving problem or the sunshield covers, did 

anyone at any point say stop and was shouted down? 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. As far as the thrusters go, the—my understanding is the technician—and this was years ago. The technician 

ultimately did ask for permission to use a specific solvent and was 

given the go-ahead by mission assurance. Now, that was a mistake 

that was made a couple years ago and in testing— 

Mr. FOSTER. Right, but it was not an instance, you know, like the 

shuttle O-ring situation—— 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. No. 

Mr. FOSTER. —where engineers got overruled—and now on the 

other one, the—which was I think a secondary problem with the 

redesign of the fastener attachment plate with concerns about 

snagging, and so a redesign of which nuts and bolts would be used, 

and so was that—I guess this is for Mr. Young. Was that under 

configuration control when someone changed the design of how 

those attachments would be made? And was there a traceable signature authority when that design change was made or was this 

something where a technician sort of said, okay, maybe we should 

use a different kind of nut and bolt on this? 

Mr. YOUNG. We did not go through all the paper, so I want to 

be clear about that, but my assumption is it was under configuration control and there was a procedure that was written and established by Northrop Grumman that was implemented by the subcontractor in installing them, so there was a change process. The 

change was documented. The change was incorporated in a procedure, and that procedure was provided to the subcontractor as to 

how the screws and nuts should be installed. 
68 

Mr. FOSTER. Okay. So if you could get actually as a follow-up, the 

actual change control response, what the formalities of that actually were for this change that went in because I think a simple 

thing like having a nylon insert in the bolt would probably change 

the project history a little bit. 

Now, into the big picture, the cost overrun, which in aggregate 

has been roughly tripling. I’m painfully familiar with a similar 

thing for the superconducting super collider in high-energy physics 

where the costs roughly doubled and eventually resulted in the 

cancelation. When you look in retrospect at the cost growth, it was 

almost entirely attributable to a decision that was made by the Department of Energy to task essentially a military contractor to reproduce a laboratory in a place—in a greenfield site with completely unrealistic cost estimates for that. 

And so if you look at the cost growth, this was a project that was 

split between, you know, Goddard and Northrop Grumman and as 

well as I guess the launch facilities. Can you make generalities 

about where most of the cost growth occurred? Because there may 

be lessons learned about when you split projects, there may be better ways to do that split. Mr. Young, I guess. Well, it’s a hot potato. 

Okay. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. So the—I think originally the cost growth 

came from the idea that we changed requirements. We wanted to 

see further. We wanted to see further back in time, which required 

us to go with a larger mirror. And when that determination was 

made, the cost really went up very, very fast. And we made a decision—when I say we, it was NASA back in, you know, the mid2000s—made a decision to go with the much bigger, more intricate 

kind of— 

Mr. FOSTER. So that was a high-level decision—— 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. It was. 

Mr. FOSTER. —in terms of the execution of the project, independent of that. Are there any generalities that can be made about 

the circumstances under which—did most of the cost growth happen in one area or another, in the scientific instrument package 

versus the bus, and so on or just the schedule slippage? 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. I think the number-one thing was just excessive optimism from the beginning. We didn’t know what we didn’t 

know, and we believed that a lot of these, you know, very new technologies could be developed at a much lesser cost and a lot less 

time. And as we went through the process, we discovered that 

there’s a lot to be developed that we didn’t understand, and of 

course we have learned from that. 

Mr. FOSTER. Yes. And, your report highlights these reporting 

gaps that happen very often between Goddard and Northrop Grumman. And I just wonder if there are lessons to be learned. Do future projects like WFIRST have that same sort of split responsibility between contractor and NASA—— 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. So— 

Mr. FOSTER. —as the lab? 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. —WFIRST is ultimately a mission that is far 

less complex than what we have with the James Webb Space Telescope, so— 
69 

Mr. FOSTER. Does it have the same split reporting problems that 

were highlighted—— 

Mr. LUCAS. The gentleman’s time is expired but the witnesses 

may answer the question. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. It—the organizational change that we made on 

James Webb Space Telescope ultimately will apply to WFIRST. 

Mr. YOUNG. I think the other comment to make is I don’t—the 

split’s not unusual. In other words, it’s common practice for NASA 

to have a prime contractor, so I think NASA has an overarching 

responsibility of—you know, for the total program, the prime contractor has a responsibility for executing their contract. And I don’t 

think that’s at all unusual, and I think it’s—you know, it will be 

the way that many programs go forward in the future. And what 

it really says is that, you know, we do know how and we need to 

implement both on JWST and future missions a communications 

mechanism that is recognized, that that’s the way we actually execute and implement projects. 

Mr. FOSTER. Thank you, and I yield back. 

Mr. LUCAS. The gentleman’s time is expired. 

The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Alabama, Mr. 

Palmer, for five minutes. 

Mr. PALMER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

You know, we’ve had a lot of talk about the prospects of a successful project and looking back and looking forward, and I want 

to do that right now on the project because I appreciate all the rahrah that’s gone on here. But in my opinion, the purpose of this 

hearing is to try to determine what happened and how we can prevent this from happening in the future. 

So, Administrator Bridenstine, I’m going to ask you this, and, 

Mr. Young, you can jump in, but I don’t want long answers because 

I’ve got a lot of questions, and if I have to, I’ll stick around and 

do a second round. But who was responsible for the design on the 

front end? Was that NASA or Northrop? 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. NASA. 

Mr. PALMER. Okay. Who was responsible for the estimating on 

the cost side? 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. We received proposals and then we make determinations based on those proposals. 

Mr. PALMER. So you had a combination of NASA doing the design, Northrop Grumman evaluating the design and presenting a 

proposal that told you $500 million? 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. We ultimately—NASA is responsible for generating the requirements and the specifications. 

Mr. PALMER. Did anyone take into account the feasibility of the 

project at the time to determine, first of all, was the project feasible 

and was the cost in line with the feasibility of the project? 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Yes. 

Mr. PALMER. And—but you still took—it’s 2018, 22 years later. 

You still don’t have it done, and it’s 19 times the initial estimate. 

How is that possible? 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Again, going back in time, the specifications 

changed. We determine— 

Mr. PALMER. I understand that—— 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Sure. 
70 

Mr. PALMER. —that— I worked for two international engineering 

companies before I started a think tank, and we used to joke at one 

of them in particular that there’s never a time to do it right, but 

there’s always time to do it over. That’s bad for everybody. And 

when you do a cost-plus contract and somebody else is paying the 

cost, the taxpayers, I just see it time and time again, whether it’s 

military contracts, whether it’s NASA, that there are a number of 

things that happen. They get concerned that they won’t get the 

funding from Congress so they start a project before it’s ripe, and 

then you have cost overruns. There’s a NASA project right now I 

think that within six or eight months it was 50 percent cost overrun. And then you have things like this. The initial estimate was 

$500 million. With the launch cost, you’re going to be at, what, $9.6 

billion? 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. That’s a lifecycle cost. 

Mr. PALMER. Lifecycle cost. And I just have to wonder if we’d 

gone ahead and built the project to the initial specifications and 

launched it, how much would we have learned from that launch 

that could have been applied to a second generation, a third generation? 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. You’re absolutely right. That’s a wonderful 

point. I agree completely. 

Mr. PALMER. Well, that’s the kind of stuff that drives me crazy. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Yes. 

Mr. PALMER. I mean, we’re looking right now at a $21.5 trillion 

debt, and if we have another project that takes 20 years to complete, it won’t get completed because we can’t afford it. We’ll be 

bankrupt. And we keep doing stuff like this, and we don’t hold people accountable for doing it. The Committee doesn’t exercise the 

proper oversight. I’m sitting here wondering after 22 years, Mr. 

Chairman, where’s the oversight and where was the effort to hold 

anybody accountable for this? And this goes on and on and on. 

I think what we’re trying to accomplish here is breathtaking in 

its scope, but we can’t continue to operate like this. I mean, somebody at some point should have had some oversight over this, and 

maybe we would have launched this ten years ago and we would 

have learned an enormous amount from it so that the money we’re 

spending now really would’ve had a magnificent return. But we 

haven’t gotten off the ground. So that’s the kind of stuff that I 

think we’ve got to deal with. 

For NASA to be able to achieve its mission, accomplish the objectives that NASA has set for itself, we have got to rethink how we 

do these contracts. I’m not a big proponent of cost-plus at all. I 

think if we did these things where we fund it up front at the design 

phase and then a certain percent at the next phase of construction, 

then you do the review, you correct the mistakes, and then you 

launch and you pay off after launch, I think we’d see things that 

cost a whole lot less and we’d see things get off the ground a whole 

lot quicker. So how do you want to respond to that as the new Administrator? 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Well, I would say that the fundamental question is would we do it again? And I would say that not this way, 

we would not. The question is will it be worth it in the end? And 
71 

we don’t have an answer for that right now, but I believe it will 

be. 

Mr. PALMER. Well, I sat here and listened to you talk about your 

hopes, your visions for this project and NASA, and I heard one of 

our Democratic colleagues comment on you as the Administrator, 

and I just wonder why it took so long to confirm you. I appreciate 

what you’re trying to do, and I want you to know that if there’s 

any help that I can provide to you—I think I can speak for the 

Committee as well—that we can provide to you, particularly in 

avoiding other project mishaps like we’ve had for this, I think we 

would be more than happy to assist in any way we can. 

With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. LUCAS. The gentleman yields back, and before I turn to the 

gentleman from New York, I’d simply note to him I’m after you, so 

you’re not last, sir. 

Mr. TONKO. Okay. 

Mr. LUCAS. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from New York, 

Mr. Tonko, for five minutes. 

Mr. TONKO. Thank you. I thank the Chair and the Ranking 

Member for the opportunity. 

Personally, I was inspired by the years leading up to the moon 

landing. I was in high school as we competed in the space race 

against the Soviet Union for spaceflight supremacy. We had a passionate resolve to use science and engineering to beat our rivals, 

and after years of investing and innovating, America led the world 

in this endeavor, and our Nation was the first to land on the moon. 

The memories from that day forever linger in my mind. It inspired 

me to believe that with the will and necessary resources America 

would lead the way in continued exploration, research, and development. It also inspired me to embrace an education in science and 

engineering. 

So I am excited by the James Webb Space Telescope and even 

more so excited by the potential impact this work and related discoveries can have on engaging the public and inspiring our next 

generation of scientists and engineers. We should continue discussions on how to ensure mission success and how to do this the right 

way even if it takes longer than we would’ve liked. 

On a different note, though, I would like to hear more on how 

NASA is utilizing Webb to engage the public and to build our next 

generation of scientists and engineers. I’ve told students in the capital region of New York that I represent that, through STEM, you 

can be the scientist who learns new secrets about our universe, you 

can be that astronaut who lands on Mars, or you can be that doctor 

or researcher who discovers the path to better ensure a healthy 

passage on long spaceflights, or you can be the engineer who designs or invents a new technology or the spaceship that will take 

us far past our own galaxy. 

So, Administrator Bridenstine, what is NASA working on to engage the public on the inspirational undertaking? 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. That’s a wonderful question, Congressman 

Tonko, and important because NASA is the one agency I believe in 

the U.S. Government more than any others that can inspire that 

next generation of—as you so correctly identified and to have an 

investment like this and not take advantage of it to accomplish 
72 

that I think would be a massive mistake. So what we do with 

James Webb is critically important for that. 

One of the first things that we’re going to do is—it’s—the data 

and the information and the science that we receive from James 

Webb is going to be made available to the entire world, and it’s 

going to be made available for free. We want people to know and 

understand what we’re discovering and let them take the data and 

the information and make discoveries of their own, which we believe all around the world people will have the opportunity to do. 

It’s also true that we want to engage the public, as you’ve correctly identified, by having people come up with ideas on how to 

utilize the James Webb Space Telescope in ways that we’re not 

even thinking about right now. What are the scientific inquiries 

that others all around the world have? And we’re seeing right now 

an interest from nations all over the world with their universities 

and their scientists making recommendations to NASA. And of 

course we’re compiling a lot of—there’s more requests for utilization than there is ability to utilize, which is a good problem to 

have. And so it—I think it will provide a source of inspiration from 

around the world. 

But more than any of that, just like we’ve seen with the Hubble, 

taking the new science that we learn and rewriting textbooks is 

game-changing. And so it will have—again, we’re rewriting science 

textbooks. That’s what NASA does, and that’s what this will be, 

and that in itself is going to engage the public in ways that right 

now we don’t even understand so—— 

Mr. TONKO. Are there—and I appreciate that, and I think that’s 

a good outcome. Are there other specific things that NASA is doing 

to communicate and involve our students? 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Certainly, NASA has a number of different 

programs that get universities involved and get children involved. 

And yes, so that—you know, we have an Office of Education, for 

example. We have an Office of Communications, and we’re very active on social media. We have millions and millions of people that 

follow us. And every new discovery that we make, we’re communicating it out to the public and trying to inspire that next—you 

know, the 7-year-old to become the next, you know, Neil Armstrong. We’re doing that all the time. 

Mr. TONKO. Well, I think the efforts here to engage the public 

and to pull the students into technical fields are so critically important to the future of this country, and to be able to do that through 

the auspices of NASA I think is an incredible thing. So I thank you 

for the leadership, and I wish us all well with the final outcomes 

here as we go forward and learn from our mistakes and build for 

a stronger future. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Thank you. 

Mr. TONKO. With that, Mr. Chair, I yield back, and thanks for 

allowing me to be next-to-last. 

Mr. LUCAS. Absolutely, my dear friend. Thank you for yielding 

back. 

I recognize myself for five minutes to just simply offer an observation and a question. It’s good, Administrator Bridenstine, my old 

fellow Oklahoma colleague, to have you here. You entered into your 

role in a challenging time. Perhaps not since Administrator Webb 
73 

have there been such opportunities and such challenges for the 

agency. 

I’m about 18 months younger than NASA, so my entire life 

NASA has been the—as my mother used to say, a child of the 

1930s—the Buck Rogers institution. It’s been the whizbang of the 

federal government and the world. But as we enter into these everincreasingly large and expensive science projects, the expectations 

and the anticipation of the constituents grow. 

Your legacy, I suspect, will be determined by how well you, working with all of the wonderful people at NASA and other contractors, deliver on finishing James Webb. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. That’s right. 

Mr. LUCAS. I have expectations that you can do that. My only 

question quite simply to you is, as we’ve discussed now at extent, 

not through this hearing but through hearings and hearings and 

hearings on James Webb, this has to be right. We can’t go put a 

pair of glasses on it the way we did Hubble. We can’t go make adjustments. It has to fly correctly. Your word is—and I’m asking— 

we won’t fly until we’re ready. We won’t fly until we’re perfect, and 

when we’re perfect, we’ll live up to the expectations that we’ve established in this Committee and in this country for this project, 

correct? 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. That’s correct. 

Mr. LUCAS. That’s all I have to ask, and that’s the reassurance 

I need. 

With that, I thank the witnesses for their testimony and the 

members for their questions. The Committee stands in recess until 

tomorrow morning, at which time we’ll reconvene for the continuation of this hearing. 

[Whereupon, at 12:35 p.m., the Committee recessed, to reconvene 

at 9:30 a.m., Thursday, July 26, 2018.] 
74 

The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 9:39 a.m., in Room 2318 

of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Lamar Smith [Chairman of the Committee] presiding. 

Chairman SMITH. The Committee on Space, Science, and Technology will come to order. Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare recesses of the Committee at any time. 

Good morning, and welcome to the second day of the hearing entitled ‘‘James Webb Space Telescope: Program Breach and its Implications.’’ I’ll recognize myself for five minutes for an opening 

statement. 

Yesterday, the Committee heard discussions about the James 

Webb Space Telescope program breaches. NASA Administrator Jim 

Bridenstine and Independent Review Board Chairman Tom Young 

provided insights into the Northrop Grumman management problems. As a reminder of JWST’s cost overruns and schedule delays, 

take a look at the chart on display, and this is the chart that I also 

showed yesterday. 

[Slide.] 

Chairman SMITH. The chart chronicles JWST’s substantial cost 

growth and launch schedule delays starting in the lower-left corner 

with the 1996 initial projection of $500 million and a 2007 launch 

all the way to the—excuse me—upper-right corner with the IRB’s 

2018 projection of $9.6 billion and a 2021 launch. That is 19 times 

the original cost and a delay of 14 years. Who is going to be held 

accountable? 

Beginning with TRW’s 1990s developmental work on JWST 

through Northrop Grumman’s acquisition of TRW and continuance 

of the project’s development, it is clear that Northrop Grumman 

did not adhere to the best business practices. Digging into the details, the IRB report describes mistakes that have greatly impacted 

the JWST development schedule and its associated cost increases. 

The IRB categorized those issues as follows: first-of-a-kind developments such as the complex sunshield for the telescope; avoidable 

human errors in the workplace, such as the use of a wrong solvent 

and applying excess voltage; lack of individual and organizational 

discipline in developing safety checks to catch human errors and 

minimize their impact; embedded problems with contractor quality 

control processes, such as not detecting technician and material errors until assembly and testing when those errors added to costs; 

lack of a contractor managed engineering audit process to catch 

embedded problems before those problems continued unchecked 

until testing and assembly. 

The IRB’s description of workplace errors and lack of good management has been found at other space missions associated with 

Northrop Grumman. The U.S. aerospace industry has the highest 

skilled workforce in the world. Their scientists, engineers, and 

technicians have built incredibly challenging and complex aerospace systems. So the workplace errors and lack of discipline, auditing, and quality control described by the IRB could lead us to 

believe that the real issue may be with Northrop Grumman. 

Not that Northrop Grumman hasn’t tried to convince the public 

that all is going well. As this hearing date approached, Northrop 

Grumman’s JWST advertising campaign loudly proclaimed, quote 

‘‘Making History Requires Mission Success’’ and ‘‘The Value of Per-
75 

formance.’’ But the full-page ad in The Washington Post, which 

may have cost as much as $200,000, didn’t mention the lack of performance due to billions of dollars in cost overruns, years of launch 

delays, frustration of NASA managers, and avoidable workplace errors. 

As I said yesterday, when government contractors make mistakes, typically no one is held accountable. The mistakes ‘‘just happened’’ or ‘‘were unavoidable’’ or ‘‘won’t happen again.’’ But in every 

case, the American people pick up the bill. We often forget there’s 

no such thing as federal dollars. It is the American taxpayers’ 

hard-earned money. 

Going forward, Congress needs to have the necessary confidence 

in NASA’s contractors to put us on the right path at a reasonable 

cost. Anything short of that will undermine Congressional confidence in contractors’ ability to deliver on their promises. 

Another adverse effect of cost overruns, of course, is that they 

can jeopardize other space programs. If space exploration is going 

to continue to earn the public’s support, then contractors will have 

to deliver on time and on budget. If they cannot, they should be 

penalized. 

[The prepared statement of Chairman Smith follows:] 
76 

COMMITTEE ON 

SCIENCE, SPACE, & TECHNOLOGY Lamar Smith, Chairman 

For Immediate Release 

July 26, 2018 

Media Contacts: Heather Vaughan, Bridget Dunn 

{202) 225-6371 

Statement by Chairman Smith (R-Texas) 

James Webb Space Telescope: Program Breach and its Implications 

Chairman Smith: Yesterday, the Committee heard discussions about the James Webb 

Space Telescope (JWST) program breaches. NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine and 

Independent Review Board (IRB) Chairman Tom Young provided insights into the 

Northrop Grumman management problems. 

As a reminder of JWST's cost overruns and schedule delays, take a look at the chart on 

display. 

Projected Cost{$ Billions} JWST Cost Growth vs. Launch Delay 

12 

I 10 9""_§__ 

88 8.8 88 

L -

I y / 

r I 

is 2.5 :=Vt I 1.8 /' -1 I 1 r i I I 0.5 I 

2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018 2020 2022 

Projected launch Date 

This chart chronicles JWST's substantial cost growth and launch schedule delays starting 

in the lower-left corner with the 1996 initial projection of 500 million dollars and a 2007 

launch all the way to the upper-right corner with the IRB's 2018 projection of 9.66 billion 

dollars and a 2021 launch. That is nineteen times the original cost and a delay of 

fourteen years. Who is going to be held accountable? 

Beginning with TRW's 1990's developmental work on JWST through Northrop Grumman's 

acquisition of TRW and continuance of the project's development, it is clear that 

Northrop Grumman did not adhere to good business practices. 

Digging into the details, the IRB report describes mistakes that have greatly impacted 

the JWST development schedule and its associated cost increases. The IRB categorized 

those issues as follows: 
77 

• First of a kind developments such as the complex sunshield for the telescope. 

• Avoidable human errors in the workplace, such as the use of a wrong solvent and 

applying excess voltage. 

• Lack of individual and organizational discipline in developing safety checks to catch 

human errors and minimize their impact. 

• Embedded problems with contractor quality control processes. such as not detecting 

technician and material errors until assembly and testing when those errors added to 

costs. 

• Lack of a contractor managed engineering audit process to catch embedded problems 

before those problems continued unchecked until testing and assembly. 

The IRB's description of workplace errors and lack of good management has been 

found at other space missions associated with Northrop Grumman. 

The US aerospace industry has the highest skilled workforce in the world. Their scientists. 

engineers, and technicians have built incredibly challenging and complex aerospace 

systems. So the workplace errors and lack of discipline, auditing, and quality control 

described by the IRB could lead us to believe that the real issue is with Northrop 

Grumman. 

Not that Northrop Grumman hasn't tried to convince the public that all is going well. As 

this hearing date approached, Northrop Grumman's JWST advertising campaign loudly 

proclaimed, "Making History Requires Mission Success" and "The Value of 

Performance." 

But the full-page ad in the Washington Post, which may have cost as much as 200 

thousand dollars, didn't mention the lack of performance due to billions of dollars in 

cost overruns, years of launch delays, frustration of NASA managers, and avoidable 

workplace errors. 

As I said yesterday, when government contractors make mistakes, typically no one is 

held accountable. The mistakes "just happened" or "were unavoidable" or "won't 

happen again." But in every case, the American people pick up the bill. We often 

forget there is no such thing as federal dollars. It's the American taxpayers' hard-earned 

money. 

Going forward, Congress needs to have the necessary confidence in NASA's 

contractors to put us on the right path at a reasonable cost. Anything short of that will 

undermine congressional confidence in contractors' ability to deliver on their promises. 

Another adverse effect of cost overruns is that they can jeopardize other space 

programs. 

If space exploration is going to continue to earn the public's support, then contractors 

will have to deliver on time and on budget. If they cannot, they should be penalized. 

### 
78 

Chairman SMITH. That concludes my opening statement, and the 

gentlewoman from Texas, the Ranking Member Ms. Johnson, is 

recognized for hers. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Let me first 

apologize for being a little late. I had tox—was delayed from a previously scheduled meeting. 

Good morning to everyone and welcome, Mr. Bush, and welcome 

back, Mr. Young. 

The recently announced cost growth and schedule delay for the 

James Webb Space Telescope is not good news, and Northrop 

Grumman shares responsibility with NASA for the situation which 

we are facing. The human errors at Northrop Grumman that contributed to the cost and schedule growth on the project are indeed 

troubling. 

But let me be clear. I am not here to berate Northrop Grumman 

and its associated subcontractors but rather to see what needs to 

be done to keep this from happening again. In addition, the Committee, in its oversight capacity, needs to take a hard look at 

whether appropriate mechanisms are in place to ensure accountability at both Northrop Grumman and NASA for the cost growth 

and delays to the James Webb Space Telescope project. 

So I hope this morning’s discussion will shed light on several 

issues, including the biggest risks to meeting the March 30, 2021, 

launch date and how much confidence Congress should have in 

Northrop Grumman’s ability to meet that date. I also want to know 

what changes are being made to address the Independent Review 

Board’s findings and recommendations on management communication on the James Webb Space Telescope project. 

Before I close, Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the hundreds of 

employees at Northrop Grumman and NASA who are working tirelessly toward a successful completion and the commissioning of the 

James Webb Space Telescope. Many of them have worked long 

shifts, weekends, and have given up time with their families to 

meet the demands of this extraordinary project. We appreciate 

their important contribution. This project and the scientific discoveries it will enable would not be possible without them. 

And before I yield back, I have a letter that I’d like to offer to 

the record, which is a support letter from Mr. Hoya and Anthony 

Brown. 

Chairman SMITH. Okay. Without objection, the letter will be 

made a part of the record. 

[The information follows:] 
79 

C!ongress of tl)e Wntteb ~tates 

~ou5e of l\epresentatibes 

ilmasbinnton, :m~ 20515-2004 

The Honorable Lamar Smith 

Chainnan 

July25,2018 

House Committee on Science, Space, and 

Technology 

2321 Rayburn House Office Building 

Washington, DC 20515 

The Honorable Eddie Bernice Johnson 

Ranking Member 

House Committee on Science, Space, and 

Technology 

394 Ford House Office Building 

Washington, DC 20515 

Dear Chainnan Smith and Ranking Member Bernice Johnson: 

We write in strong support of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Program. When 

launched, JWST will be the largest, most powerful telescope ever built for space. This premier 

observatory will play an integral role for decades in the advancement of astronomy and 

astrophysics, and will preserve the United States' role as the global leader in science and space. 

Managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) in Prince George's County, 

Maryland, JWST is among the most complex scientific endeavors our nation has embarked on. 

This next generation observatory will allow us to see farther out into space and deeper into the 

past of the universe, answering many of mankind's biggest questions regarding the aftennath of 

the Big Bang. The telescope will use infrared detectors to look at the universe's first light; the 

origins of stars and planets, including ones that can potentially support life; the assembly of 

galaxies; and black holes. The scientists and engineers at GSFC are also responsible for 

providing components for the Integrated Science Instrument Module, which houses the 

telescopes' four main instruments: a near-infrared camera, a near-infrared spectrograph, a midinfrared instrument, and a near infrared imager and spectrograph. 

With any historic, complex, and cutting-edge undertaking such as JWST, there will be 

associated complications and risks. JWST has faced no shortage of challenges during its 

development and construction. After issuing its report, the Webb Independent Review Board 

(IRB) indicated its belief that the leadership at NASA and Northrop Grumman Aerospace 

Systems are committed to success. It is imperative that we move forward to address all 

remaining challenges and ensure that mission success is the highest priority. We are grateful that 

the IRB believes that JWST should continue and agree with this recommendation based on the 

"exceptional potential and science insight" JWST holds. 

JWST represents a giant leap into the future for the United States and humankind, and we 

are confident it is worth the wait. The JWST team, including many of our constituents who work 

at GSFC, should be very proud. Thanks to their hard work, ingenuity, and creativeness, we now 

know that a telescope of JWST's complexity is possible. 

PRINTED ON RECYClED PAPER 
80 

We strongly support the JWST Program and its continuation. Thank you for your 

consideration and work on this crucial program, and we look forward to the successful 

completion of this important mission. 

Sincerely, 

2 

Anthony G. Brown 

Member of Congress 
81 

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Johnson follows:] 
82 

OPENING STATEMENT 

Ranking Member Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) 

House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology 

"James Webb Space Telescope: Program Breach and its Implications" 

July 26, 2018 

Good morning. Welcome Mr. Bush and welcome back, Mr. Young. 

The recently announced cost growth and schedule delay for James Webb Space Telescope is not 

good news, and Northrop Grumman shares responsibility with NASA for the situation we are 

facing. The human errors at Northrop Grumman that contributed to the cost and schedule growth 

on the project are indeed troubling. 

But let me be clear. I am not here today to berate Northrop Grumman and its associated 

subcontractors, but rather to see what needs to be done to keep this from happening again. In 

addition, this Committee. in its oversight capacity, needs to take a hard look at whether 

appropriate mechanisms are in place to ensure accountability at both Northrop Grumman and 

NASA for the cost growth and delays to the James Webb Space Telescope project. 

So, l hope this morning's discussion will shed light on several issues, including, the biggest risks 

to meeting the March 30, 2021 launch date and how much confidence Congress should have in 

Northrop Grumman's ability to meet that date. I also want to know what changes are being made 

to address the Independent Review Board's findings and recommendations on management 

communication on the James Webb Space Telescope project. 

Before 1 close, Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the hundreds of employees at Northrop Grumman 

and NASA who are working tirelessly toward a successful completion and commissioning of the 

James Webb Space Telescope. 

Many of them have worked long-shifts. weekends, and have given up time with their families to 

meet the demands of this extraordinary project. We appreciate their important contribution. This 

project and the scientific discoveries it will enable would not be possible without them. 

Thank you, and I yield back. 
83 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Ms. Johnson. 

And let me ask unanimous consent that the opening statements 

of the Chairman of the Space Subcommittee, Mr. Babin, and the 

Ranking Member of the Space Subcommittee, Mr. Bera, be made 

a part of the record, too. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Babin follows:] 
84 

COMMITTEE ON 

SCIENCE, SPACE, & TECHNOLOGY Lamar Smith, Chairman 

For Immediate Release 

July 26, 2018 

Media Contact: Heather Vaughan, Bridget Dunn 

(202) 225-6371 

Statement by Chairman Brian Babin (R-Texas) 

James Webb Space Telescope: Program Breach and its Implications 

Chairman Babin: Good morning. Welcome back to our 2nd hearing regarding the James 

Webb Space Telescope (JWST). As I stated yesterday, I strongly believe in the mission of 

NASA and cornrnend the tremendous dedication of NASA and the industry team. But as the 

Chairman of the Space Subcommittee which oversees the agency, it is our responsibility to 

ensure they, as well as every other government agency, are managing their resources 

effectively. 

However. as this Committee learned in yesterday's hearing, the program and resources 

relative to JWST have not been managed effectively with fault resting not only with the 

contractor, but also with NASA and Congress. 

In his testimony, Tom Young, Chairman of the Independent Review Board (IRS), addressed 

many of the issues that led to the cost and schedule breaches with JWST. He also shared 

significant insight on contributing factors such as the contracting mechanisms used and the 

expertise of the program management and acquisition personnel. 

Administrator Bridenstine provided testimony on NASA's response to the IRB and detailed 

actions being taken to avoid such development failures in the future. He further conveyed 

NASA's unwavering commitment to "get these problems solved on the ground" ... before the 

system is launched. 

For today's paneL the focus shifts to contractor performance and oversight. More 

specifically, I want to address implications and concerns over the US space industrial base. 

The recent presidential space directives have emphasized the renewed importance of 

space operations to America's national security, scientific advancements, commercial 

innovation, and aerospace transportation infrastructure. Across all of these lines of effort, the 

robustness and resiliency of the space industrial base are critical. 

Unfortunately, JWST development shortfalls and numerous other cost and schedule issues 

with multiple civil and national security space programs have given this Committee reason 

to be concerned with the health of the US space industrial base. 

Since a high-visibility civil space mission like JWST is experiencing avoidable human errors in 

the workplace and embedded problems with engineering processes at a major aerospace 

firm, then it is important to ask if more widespread technical issues are occurring within 

national security space missions and other areas of the US space operations community. 
85 

The root causes of these issues need to be discussed today, especially if they are related to 

insufficient availability of highly-skilled employees and reduced STEM education enrollments 

affecting recruitment. Likewise, Mr. Young mentioned yesterday that the JWST trade space 

consists of acceptable risk versus available funding. Thus, we need to ask if the space 

industrial base is trading too much design resiliency to seek more cost efficiency. 

Congress needs to understand the status of JWST today, as well as the plan going forward. 

Decisions made now can have long lasting implications on future missions. We need to know 

if the problems being experienced are systemic, based in our acquisition approach, or if they 

are fundamental management problems in how we plan and execute these larger, multiyear development strategic missions. 

I gained significant insight from Administrator Bridenstine and Mr. Young's testimony 

yesterday.llook forward to Mr. Bush's testimony today, to better understand the 

perspectives from the JWST prime contractor. It is important to understand their view of the 

challenges, mistakes, current status, and corrective actions as we move forward. Thank you 

for your appearance today. 

### 
86 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Bera follows:] 

OPENING STATEMENT 

Ranking Member Ami Bera (D-CA) 

of the Subcommittee on Space 

House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology 

"James Webb Space Telescope: Program Breach and its Implications" 

July 26, 2018 

Good morning. Mr. Bush, welcome to Day Two of the Committee's hearings on "James Webb 

Space Telescope: Program Breach and its Implications". Welcome back Mr. Young. We 

appreciate your flexibility to appear both yesterday and today. 

Mr. Chairman, as we will hear today, Northrop Grumman acknowledges that they have 

contributed to the telescope's delays. They also acknowledge that some of the challenges they 

have encountered have been the result of human error and procedures. Those errors were 

avoidable and we need to understand both why they occurred and what NASA and Northrop 

Grumman are going to do to prevent any more such errors. 

As I indicated last month at the Space Subcommittee's hearing on NASA's Cost and Schedule 

Overruns, we, on this Committee, have the responsibility for making sure that agencies are being 

good stewards of taxpayer dollars. It is our job to ensure that we understand why programs run 

into difficulty, verify that necessary improvements are being put in place to put these programs 

back on the right course, and apply the lessons learned for future missions. 

As we heard from Mr. Young yesterday, the JWST Independent Review Board (IRB) focused its 

energies on maximizing the probability of JWST mission success. It is worth highlighting that 

the IRB stated that it undertook "a mission success review, not a failure review:· Another point 

worth noting is that the recognition of avoidable human errors that disrupted the integration and 

testing activities should not detract from the technological ·'miracles'' that NASA and its industry 

partners had to bring about just to get us to this point. Indeed. while the human errors the IRB 

identified should not have happened, the American people should be given the context necessary 

to understand the technical complexity associated with building and testing JWST. 

Thus, I hope that Mr. Bush can provide us with details on how Northrop Grumman will move 

forward and what they are doing to prioritize mission success such that a launch in March 2021 

will lead to successful commissioning of this tremendous capability. 

With that, I yield back. 
87 

Chairman SMITH. And also, at the outset, let me note—and for 

our witnesses to be aware of as well—that we expect votes in about 

15 minutes at 10 o’clock. We will come back immediately after 

those votes. I think those votes will take around 20 minutes, and 

then when we come back, we should have close to an hour before 

the second series of votes, after which it will be impossible to get 

members to return. So I hope members will remember they were 

supposed to be here anyway and come back after that first set of 

votes. 

Our first witness today is Mr. Wesley Bush, Chief Executive Officer of Northrop Grumman. Mr. Bush began his career with Northrop Grumman as President of the company’s Space Technology 

Sector. Prior to Northrop Grumman, he served as President and 

CEO of TRW’s United Kingdom-based Global Aeronautical Systems. 

Mr. Bush earned both a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree 

in electrical engineering from MIT. He also completed the University of California Los Angeles Executive Management Program. 

And Mr. Tom Young is welcomed back. He testified yesterday. 

He is Chairman of the Independent Review Board. Mr. Young is 

the former Director of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, as 

well as the former President and Chief Operating Officer of Martin 

Marietta Corporation. He earned both a bachelor’s degree in aeronautical engineering and a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Virginia and a master’s in management degree from MIT. 

Mr. Young testified yesterday, so he will not be making that 

statement a second time, but of course he will be available for 

questions. 

So we’ll begin and I look forward, Mr. Bush, to hearing from you. 

TESTIMONY OF WESLEY BUSH, 

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, 

NORTHROP GRUMMAN CORPORATION 

Mr. BUSH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Well, Chairman Smith, 

Ranking Member Johnson, and Members of the Committee, thank 

you for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the 

status of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. This telescope is 

the largest and most complex astronomical science telescope ever 

built. Like the iconic Hubble Telescope, Webb will reaffirm and solidify U.S. leadership in space, which is critically important as 

other nations are testing our will to lead in space. Webb also will 

inspire the next generation of scientists, engineers, astronomers, 

and innovators and transform our understanding of the physics of 

the universe. But Webb doesn’t just stretch Hubble’s limits, it is a 

true leap ahead in technology and capability. 

From a technical standpoint, Webb is an incredible engineering 

feat with a 21-foot primary mirror and a sunshield roughly the size 

of a tennis court, we had to design and build Webb to fold up together to get it into the launch fairing. 

After launch, Webb will slowly unpack itself in space as it progresses towards its operating location one million miles from Earth, 

where there will be a temperature swing of nearly 600 degrees between the optical mirror and the other side of the sunshield. Build-
88 

ing a telescope that can operate in such a harsh environment beyond the reach of satellite servicing requires extensive testing on 

the ground to ensure that it will operate as planned in space. 

All of Webb’s major hardware components are now located at our 

Space Park facility in Redondo Beach, California, where they will 

undergo final integration and testing. If you could put the first 

slide up. 

[Slide.] 

Mr. BUSH. On the screen is a photo of the elements that make 

up Webb, altogether in the High Bay at Space Park, and it is absolutely a great site to see. And you can get a sense of the scale with 

the humans that are in the photo. 

We’re now assembling these major parts together and testing it 

to ensure mission success. The next picture if we could move to the 

next slide—— 

[Slide.] 

Mr. BUSH. —shows the progress we have made in building up the 

major subsystems of the telescope and the remaining steps still before us. 

The optical telescope element and the integrated science instrument module, which is called OTIS, is complete and fully tested. 

We are now focused on testing the spacecraft element, which includes the sunshield. Once we have successfully completed the 

spacecraft testing, both parts of the telescope will be put together, 

tested, and shipped for launch. 

Northrop Grumman takes very seriously the trust placed in us 

to build this incredible telescope and our responsibility to ensure 

mission success. While we’re proud of the technological accomplishments that we’ve achieved with our partners, we recognize that we 

have contributed to the telescope’s delays. We worked closely with 

the Independent Review Board, and we appreciate the hard work 

by Tom Young and the IRB members in developing their recommendations, and we are currently implementing the IRB’s recommendations and we fully support NASA’s revised plans for the 

program. Mission success is our top priority. 

My written testimony goes into much greater detail about the 

program and how we are implementing the IRB’s recommendations, but let me focus on two key points that I want to make very 

clear. First, the complexity of this first-ever program inevitably creates opportunities for human error in design, manufacturing, integration, and testing. And we have experienced some errors, and unfortunately, several of them have occurred at a phase in the program where they result in significant schedule impacts. We’ve also 

learned that some things that we thought we could do more quickly 

are simply going to take more time to perform in a way that reduces the likelihood of other errors and gives us greater confidence 

that the system will operate as planned. 

I know these delays create frustration and also impact funding 

available to other programs given the budget constraints, so I want 

to address your questions today as best I can to ensure that there 

is complete transparency on the facts. 

Second, I want you to know that we are confident that Webb will 

work and will perform its mission in a way that will make all of 

us in this room proud that we were part of making it a reality. I’m 
89 

pleased to see that the IRB confirmed their confidence that we can 

be successful as well. 

Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Johnson, this Committee’s decades-long bipartisan support has been essential to keeping Webb 

moving forward, and we are determined to make it a success. So 

thanks again for the opportunity to testify here today. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Bush follows:] 
90 

WRITTEN STATEMENT BY 

WES BUSH 

CHAIRMAN AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER 

NORTHROP GRUMMAN CORPORATION 

NORTHROP GRUMMAN 

BEFORE TilE 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

HEARING ON 

JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE 

JULY26.2018 
91 

Introduction 

Statement by Wes Bush 

Chairman and Chief Executive Officer 

Northrop Grumman 

Before the 

Committee on Science, Space, and Technology 

James Webb Space Telescope 

Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Johnson, and Members of the Committee, thank you 

for the opportunity to appear before you today on behalf of the women and men of Northrop 

Grumman supporting the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) .lames 

Webb Space Telescope. My name is Wes Bush and I am the Chairman and ChiefExccutive 

Officer of Northrop Grumman Corporation. 

Northrop Grumman is fully committed to Webb's success, including the completion of 

the remaining test and integration activities to enable launch within the revised budget and 

schedule. We worked closely with the Independent Review Board (IRB), and support NASA's 

revised plan based on the IRB"s recommendations. As the IRB concluded, we have confidence 

that the telescope will meet its mission objectives. While we are proud of the technological 

accomplishments that we have achieved that will enable Webb to perform its important mission, 

we recognize that we have contributed to the telescope's delays. We are currently implementing 

the recommendations of the lRB repo1t as well as continually applying lessons learned from 

Webb and other programs to reduce programmatic risk and cost while ensuring Webb is 

launched at the earliest possible date. Mission success is our top priority. 

The Webb telescope is in its final phase of development testing and integration. The 

mission has come a long way, but this didn't happen in isolation. We arc honored to be pa1t of 

the industry team developing this historic telescope. 

Under NASA's leadership at Headquarters and the Goddard Space Flight Center, and 

with the significant contributions of NASA's Johnson Space Center, Marshall Space Flight 

Center, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, as well as their international partners, our nationwide 

industry team has overcome immense engineering and technological challenges in our efforts to 
92 

develop the world's most powerful space telescope. The project also has benefited from the 

substantial contributions of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScl), which serves as the 

Science and Operations Center for the mission and will ultimately manage Webb's data and 

operations. Ball Aerospace, Harris, the former Orbital ATK-- now Northrop Grumman 

Innovation Systems, Nexolve, and Raytheon have each made significant contributions to the 

Webb program. 

We appreciate our close working relationship with Administrator Bridenstine and the 

NASA team. We also appreciate the diligent leadership of Mr. Tom Young on the IRB his 

technical knowledge and program management experience will help ensure that we continue to 

take every step possible to appropriately reduce risk. The entire TRB is to be commended for 

their diligent and thorough review of the program. 

Science 

The IRB stated. "JWST is an observatory with significant complexity, risk and first time 

events necessary to accomplish established science requirements," and it was exactly right. 

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is the largest and most complex astronomical science 

telescope ever built, and once launched, will be the world's premier infrared space instrument. 

Webb will build upon the legacy ofNASA's Great Observatories, including the iconic Hubble 

Space Telescope. 

Webb provides the essential next step in the search for life in space. NASA has built 

incredible survey telescopes like the Kepler Spacecraft and Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite 

('fESS) that see exoplanets, but in order to actually find signs of life, we must look even closer. 

That is exactly what Webb will do. Webb doesn'tjust stretch Hubble, it is a true leap ahead in 

technology and capability: 

• Massive segmented mirrors and adaptable optics, that carefully unfold in space, provide a 

far more powerful eye than was previously possible to peer 13.5 billion years back to the 

creation of the first stars and galaxies; 

2 
93 

• A deployable sunshield and sensitive instruments that operate at cryogenic temperatures 

to detect even the faintest light in the infrared, making it I 00 times more powerful than 

Hubble; and 

• An orbit I million miles from Earth that provides a cold and stable point to look across 

the universe. 

Webb is a vital step forward as we seek to deepen our knowledge of the universe. 

As the decadal survey stated, what we now call the James Webb Space Telescope is the 

top astrophysics priority. Webb will have four primary scientific missions: search for light from 

the first stars and galaxies that formed the universe; uncover the formation and evolution of 

galaxies; characterize the formation of stars and planetary systems; and study the origins of life. 

As a general-purpose observatory, one of the most exciting things about the James Webb Space 

Telescope is that it will help us answer questions we have not even thought to ask. 

If Hubble's history is any indication, Webb's unique capabilities will change the way we 

view the universe. Like Hubble, Webb will reaffirm and solidify U.S. leadership in space, 

inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers, and transform our understanding of the 

origins of the universe. Webb's unique capabilities promise to be just as transformative for the 

next generation of astronomers and innovators. 

Technology 

From a technical standpoint, Webb is an incredible engineering feat that pushes the limits 

of existing technology and represents a significant step forward for the nation's space program. 

The team has constructed a telescope with a large 21-foot primary mirror and a sunshield 

roughly the size of a tennis court ( 40 feet by 70 feet). In the simplest terms, the larger the 

telescope, the more powerful it is. However, this telescope is so large that it cannot easily fit in a 

rocket. As a result, we had to design and build Webb like a piece of origami - with 18 hexagonal 

mirrors and a massive sunshield that can fold. After launch, Webb will slowly unpack itself in 

space as it progresses towards its operating location, 1 million miles from Earth, in an incredibly 

harsh environment. This is no easy task. The optical mirror, which faces away from the sun, 

will operate at a temperature of minus 388 degrees Fahrenheit while on the other side of the 

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sunshield it will be +185 degrees Fahrenheit a temperature swing of nearly 600 degrees. 

Building a telescope that can operate in such a harsh environment beyond the reach of satellite 

servicing requires extensive testing to ensure that it will operate as planned. While NASA was 

able to repair and refurbish Hubble, which is in low Earth orbit about three hundred and fifty 

miles above the Earth's surface, Webb's operational location means this team only has one 

chance to get Webb right. 

Webb is so complex and advanced that many thought it was an impossible task. In fact, 

at least ten innovative new technologies had to be invented to make this mission a reality. Some 

of these innovations have already spawned "spinoff' technologies that have proven useful in 

other fields such as medicine, science, aerospace, and commercial applications. 

For example, to accurately measure the shape of Webb's mirrors during manufacturing. 

significant new improvements had to be made in the area of wave-front-sensing technology. The 

resulting measurement device is called a Scanning Shack-Hartmann Sensor. This Webbinspired sensor improvement has enabled eye doctors to get much more detailed information 

about the shape of a patient's eye in seconds rather than hours. In fact, at least four different 

patents have been issued as a result of innovations driven by the Webb telescope program. 

According to Dr. Dan Neal of Abbott Medical Optics Inc., "The Webb telescope program has 

enabled a number of improvements in measurement technology for measurement of human eyes, 

diagnosis of ocular diseases and has potentially improved surgery." 

Additionally, laser interferometers designed to precisely measure each of Webb's mirrors 

to ensure that they effectively act as one large optic has led to commercial applications. One of 

the toughest challenges for Webb engineers was to find a way to test mirrors and composite 

structures at the incredibly cold temperature that Webb will experience in space. With desired 

precisions of nanometers, vibration is a constant problem. To solve that problem, 4D Technology 

Corporation of Tucson, Arizona developed several new types o(high-speed test devices that 

utilize pulsed lasers that essentially "freeze out" the effects of vibration. These have had a wide 

range of beneficial commercial applications in the astronomy, aerospace, semiconductor and 

medical industries. 

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Current Status 

I am pleased to report that all of Webb's major hardware components are now located at 

Northrop Grumman's Space Park facility in Redondo Beach, California where they will undergo 

final integration and testing. l have included a photo of the elements that make up Webb, all 

together in the high bay at Space Park. It is a great sight to sec- we have worked hard for so 

many years to reach this point where we are assembling these major parts together and testing it 

to ensure mission success. The second picture shows the success we have had in building up the 

major subsystems of the telescope, and the remaining steps still before us. 

The optical telescope element and integrated science instrument module, what is called 

the OTIS, is complete and fully tested. We are now focused on testing the spacecraft element 

that includes the sunshield. Once we have successfully completed the spacecraft testing, both 

parts of the telescope will be put together, tested and shipped for launch. As an aside, l would 

like to invite the Committee to come out to visit so that you can see the hardware up close, meet 

the amazing engineers and technicians working on the program, and gain a deeper understanding 

of the program's complexity. 

Following the 2011 Casani Report and replan, the Webb program has been on budget and 

on schedule until the program entered the current integration and test phase. Throughout this 

time several thousand parts and sub-assemblies were successfully built, tested, and delivered to 

the next level of assembly. 

As I mentioned earlier, Northrop Grumman recognizes that we have contributed to some 

of the program· s challenges. We have taken the appropriate corrective actions. Calculated risks 

were taken in the development plan for Webb and we are all disappointed that the plan did not go 

perfectly. As emphasized in the IRB report, we agree that mission success is the top priority and 

we want Webb to be launched at the lowest cost and earliest date possible. Unlike a few years 

ago when there were multiple simultaneous activities going on as we worked towards launch, 

there is only one path of integration and testing now. Consequently, as the IRB highlighted, 

even small problems at this stage have larger ripple effects throughout the program. 

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Although we have encountered some issues recently, which I will detail later, it is 

important to not lose sight of the fact that the purpose of testing is exactly that-to find problems 

with the program now versus finding them after launch. We need to ensure that we allow the 

necessary time through final integration and testing to get it absolutely right and ensure that 

Webb is able to fulfill its potential. 

Independent Review Board (IRB) Report 

Again, Northrop Grumman takes very seriously the trust placed in us to build this 

incredible telescope and our responsibility to ensure mission success. We fully support the 

revised program plan that NASA has put forward based on the IRB's findings. Let me take a 

moment to describe some of the technical and programmatic challenges referenced in the IRB 

report, as well as the steps taken by Northrop Grumman and NASA to ensure we adhere to the 

updated program budget and schedule. I think it is important to address several items in this 

statement: 

Propulsion Execution Issues 

The spacecraft bus- one of the four major elements of Webb- provides the necessary 

support functions for the operation of the observatory, and is home to six major subsystems, 

including the propulsion system. The propulsion system contains the fuel tanks and the rockets 

that, when directed by the Attitude Control System, are fired to maintain the orbit. 

Unfortunately, some of the challenges that we have encountered with the propulsion system have 

been the result of human error and procedures. In June 2016, an incorrect voltage was applied, 

damaging the pressure transducers that help monitor spacecraft fuel levels. Using a complicated 

welding process, we installed new pressure transducers on the spacecraft bus before testing and 

integration could continue. This repair process required many detailed operations to be safely 

performed, assuring it would not threaten the spacecraft's operations. It was important to take the 

time to get it right. 

In May 2017, during testing of the spacecraft bus, we discovered that several valves in 

the propulsion system's thruster modules were leaking. After completing all testing it was 

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determined that 8 of the 16 valves did not meet spec and it was decided to remove all valves and 

refurbish them. We determined that the most likely cause of the leaks was an incorrect solvent 

used in cleaning procedures several years earlier. While we test, and test again, to identify and 

determine the root cause of these issues, which we did in this case, it nonetheless resulted in a 

several month delay to the schedule. In this instance, we simply did not have a clear enough 

cleaning process in place. As a result, we had to remove. refurbish and reattach the dual thruster 

modules. Additionally, in the course of our work on the propulsion system, a single thruster 

component was subjected to overvoltage, which required its replacement. 

Although we may face challenges, one thing that l am immensely proud of is the Webb 

team's ingenuity and relentless pursuit of process improvement. A good example of this is when 

the Webb team deployed a new approach called induction brazing to reattach the thruster. The 

new approach was safer and faster than the previous method. In total, the unanticipated 

propulsion system issues added several months to the delivery and launch timeline. The good 

news is that the propulsion system is now checked out and ready for upcoming testing. All of 

these issues have been reviewed by our corrective action board and we have concurrence that 

everything is back on track. 

Sunshield Complications 

The detection of infrared light from very distant stars and planets requires the telescope to 

operate at extremely low temperatures. To shield the system's science instruments and mirrors 

from the sun's heat, Northrop Grumman developed a deployable sunshield. It is roughly the size 

of a tennis court (70 feet by 40 feet). The largest part of the entire observatory, it must fit within 

a rocket fairing 16 feet across. This is no small feat of engineering. This sunshield consists of 

five layers of aluminum and silicon-coated Kapton, which passively cools instruments to 

cryogenic temperatures. Each ofthe five layers are as thin as a human hair and must maintain 

precise separations upon deployment. In order to make certain the sunshield properly deploys in 

space, a gauntlet of strenuous tests must occur on the ground. Webb will orbit the sun at 

Lagrange Point 2, a location that is simply too far from Earth to be serviced, making it essential 

for us to test, re-test, and test again to ensure that we get it right. The largest driver to the recent 

schedule delays is that through rigorous testing, we have learned that it simply takes longer than 

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anyone had anticipated to safely fold, stow and deploy the massive and delicate sunshield. We 

then had to incorporate this additional time throughout each subsequent fold, stow and 

deployment phase. 

The program team was thrilled to complete the first sunshield deployment in October 

2017. However. during this process we realized that one of the six membrane tensioning 

systems experienced a snag. This was quickly mitigated but required a redesign to ensure it will 

not occur again while on orbit. Further complicating matters, during testing, we also uncovered 

small tears in several locations where the tension cables attach to the membrane. These were 

quickly treated with a localized solution but we also discovered a few small tears in the sunshield 

membrane layers. Due to the size of the sunshield, it had to be elevated off the ground to 

remediate the issues. Technicians had to slowly maneuver various lifts simultaneously to access 

the sunshield. The unanticipated challenges of testing the sunshield, as well as the risk reduction 

activities (inserting membrane retention devices) adopted to prevent additional tearing during 

space deployment increased the delivery and launch date timeline. The good news is that after 

multiple reviews by many parties, we have confidence that we have made all the necessary 

engineering changes to the unfolding mechanism to ensure that the sunshield will deploy without 

tearing the delicate membrane. Although disappointing, the sunshield obstacles were readily 

addressable and did not threaten the program's ultimate viability, but they did contribute to 

further schedule delays. 

At the end of April 2018, following what appeared to be a successful acoustic testing of 

the spacecraft element, visual inspection revealed that a small fraction of the sunshield 

membrane fastening hardware that hold the retraction springs loosened during testing. During 

assembly that was performed several years back, engineering needed to deviate from the 

standard process because the original fasteners were sharp and tearing the covers. The 

redesigned fasteners did not threaten the membrane, but they were not as secure as the previous 

fasteners. When exposed to the spacecraft element acoustic testing, some became loose. A 

design modification is being incorporated to address this finding. This issue added significant 

time to the program's schedule because of the complexity of the sunshield. Nevertheless, by 

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identifying the issue and tixing it now, we are focused on ensuring the sunshield witt work on 

orbit. 

Optical Telescope Element and Integrated Science Instmment Module (OTIS) 

OTIS is Webb's science payload. During the vibration testing of OTIS at NASA's 

Goddard Space Flight Center we concluded that more tests at slower speeds were necessary. 

Furthermore, although some previous tests had been planned in parallel, it would reduce risk to 

do them in sequential order instead. I mention these not to point out any mistakes, but rather to 

note that we need to allow a program of Webb's significance to the scientific community and 

importance to our nation the necessary time to test to ensure that we get it absolutely right 

Next Steps 

As we move closer to the revised launch date, the next few months will be critical. Our 

immediate focus is the integration and testing of the spacecraft hardware (spacecraft bus and 

sunshield). The spacecraft elements then must successfully undergo acoustics, vibration, and 

thermal vacuum testing followed by post-environmental deployment and stow tests. Next we 

must integrate the completed OTIS and spacecraft elements before putting the full observatory 

through the final testing phase. After the electrical, acoustics, vibration and deployment tests arc 

concluded, Webb will be prepared and shipped to the launch site in French Guiana, to complete 

its final site processing. Although important work remains, we are in a vastly different position 

than during the 20 I I replan. All the hardware is complete. All the inventing is complete. The 

technical and engineering feats of creating the unique pieces of Webb are behind us. With all the 

hardware done, the once wide range of activities (and program variables) has now narrowed to a 

single path in integration and testing. However, every little deviation has larger impacts 

throughout the program as each piece is brought together for the first time. While risks remain, 

we believe we have an appropriately risk-managed program plan defined that is executable. 

Corrective Actions 

Building a one-of-a-kind scientific instrument is extremely challenging. Northrop 

Grumman is focused on mission success and supports the NASA defined plan based upon the 

IRB. We are implementing the recommendations. 

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The women and men of Northrop Grumman are doing Webb's final testing and 

integration, and we are proud of their commitment to Webb's mission. We recognize we have 

had some human errors, which for a one-of-a kind program of this complexity are to be expected. 

As the IRB identified, ''Human errors must be minimized; however. they cannot be totally 

eliminated ... In order to minimize the occurrence and impact of''human mistakes'' as the IRB 

identified them, we are implementing these specific improvements: 

Processes assure they are well defined, current, accurate. implement able and not subject to 

interpretation. 

Northrop Grumman stood down operations and performed an independent set of process 

reviews, which included feedback from those performing the processes. This resulted in 

rewrites of a number of procedures that were found to create the potential for errors. To further 

enhance robustness in I&T procedures, Northrop Grumman will be incorporating cross-program 

independent reviews of the table top and pre-task briefing processes. 

Personnel certification- assure people capable of perji.Jrming the task at hand. 

In addition to formal training and certification for employees interfacing with the 

spacecraft hardware and the associated integration and test equipment, we are making certain 

that operations that are especially critical also require individual performers to have previously 

demonstrated expertise and prior successful execution of the specific type of critical process task. 

So, for example, a certified I&T mechanical technician would require an additional level of 

experience verification before working on the tasks associated with the sunshield membranes. 

Discipline assure individual accountability andfollow the process, call a halt if the process 

appears questionable. 

All employees supporting JWST are aware of their individual responsibilities to assure 

mission success through all of their actions, including thorough, careful and precise compliance 

with the defined processes. This is an ongoing part of the discussions with the teams. A core 

part of that responsibility is to speak up if the employee sees. or even suspects, that there may be 

something that is not correct, or that may lead to a problem. A process is in place to recognize 

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and reward performers who say 'Stop'. Additionally, we have brought in leadership from 

outside the program to meet with the various performing organizations (home-rooms of 

personnel assigned to work on JWST) to solicit feedback and to work with the program to 

incorporate that feedback into actions designed to enhance mission success. 

Failure-proof "safety net·· -testing. independent analysis. inspection. 

We have taken steps to enhance the "safety net" around the program activities. Two 

organizations, in particular, have specific authorities and accountability for independent action. 

The Mission Assurance organization is independent of the program, and has full authority to stop 

any process it deems to be unacceptable. Members of the Mission Assurance team are assigned 

to be present with the technicians and engineers at all times when integration and test efforts are 

underway. The Engineering organization has the responsibility to conduct independent analyses 

to ensure that the right talent is reviewing critical decisions and that any concerns are 

immediately addressed. Just as we are focused on the training and capabilities of the team 

members assigned to the program, we also are assigning Mission Assurance and Engineering 

representatives in whom we have confidence in providing this "safety-net" process. 

As the IRB recommended, NASA is undertaking a design audit aimed at identifying 

potential embedded risks, such as the fasteners previously mentioned. Northrop Grumman is 

supporting that audit. This activity will look at the pedigree of all the hardware and seek to 

identify other areas where lower level testing was deferred in order to identify possible additional 

challenges. We have also added more senior technical and management resources in engineering 

and leadership to ensure the Webb team can eftectively meet the revised schedule demands. 

Many of the steps we are taking to integrate and test Webb hardware have simply never been 

done before. We are committed to providing the necessary training and resources to achieve 

mission success. We are undertaking additional reviews, strengthening communication across 

our team and ensuring that the people, process and tools arc in place for Webb to fulfill its 

scientific promise. 

There is frequent, in-depth dialogue between NASA's Science and Mission Directorate's 

front office and Northrop Grumman senior management. In addition, NASA has decided to 

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place additional Integration and Testing personnel and senior project management residents at 

Northrop Grumman, a crucial step. All of us at Northrop Grumman recognize our responsibility 

and the trust that you and the American people have placed in us to complete this important 

mission. 

NASA • s new launch schedule includes a 9-month schedule reserve. Given our current 

view of the remaining risks. we believe this provides adequate contingencies to achieve a 

successful launch in March 2021. Since the beginning of development, the Webb team has 

solved a wide array of difficult engineering and technical challenges. Most of the complex 

issues are now behind us: we have completed the construction of the spacecraft, the OTIS, and 

the sunshield. All those components are now ready for integration and tina! testing. 

When I speak with the Webb team, everyone is laser focused on delivering a system that 

we are contldent will perform its mission. The team also understands the importance of 

delivering the telescope to the launch site at the earliest date possible with the lowest cost, while 

not in any way jeopardizing mission success. We are all eager to see Webb's successful launch 

and activation and the amazing scientitlc discoveries it will yield for decades to come. 

As of today, we are employing more than 400 engineers, technicians and support staff for 

integration and testing at our Space Park facility in Redondo Beach, California. To reach this 

point in the program. we have partnered with 511 suppliers across 39 states to complete the work 

to date. The reach of Webb is truly worldwide, harnessing the best technical expertise around 

the globe to fultlll this unprecedented engineering and science endeavor. 

Conclusion 

While we are incredibly proud of the technical achievements on the Webb program to 

date, we recognize that we have contributed to the schedule delays. At every level, from our 

technicians to our corporate leadership, Northrop Grumman is fully committed to mission 

success. I want to assure the Committee that we have worked with NASA to develop a high 

confidence plan for completion of the program. This revised plan has the benetlt of additional 

testing, enhanced experiences and numerous internal NASA, Northrop Grumman and 

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independent reviews. We have learned from the recent challenges of the integration and test 

phase of the program. We have implemented the necessary corrective actions and put the people, 

processes and tools in place to better manage the remaining risks on the program. 

Let me take a brief moment to specifically address the brilliant women and men across 

the James Webb Space Telescope program at NASA and in industry. Thank you for your hard 

work and dedication. Although we have had challenges, what you have already achieved on this 

program is absolutely incredible and deserves to be recognized. Your continued diligence, 

creativity and commitment to getting it right will ensure that Webb is a success. 

This Committee's decades long, bipartisan support is essential to keeping the program on 

track. As difficult as this path has been, we should all take great pride in the incredible scientific 

contributions that Webb will deliver: the technological advances it will enable; and the millions 

of young girls and boys who will be inspired by its discoveries. Importantly, it will serve to 

advance our nation's leadership in physics. Again, we would be honored to have Members of the 

Committee visit the telescope's integration and test facility in Space Park before it is placed on a 

ship, travels through the Panama Canal, and is launched from French Guiana on its path to 

astounding scientific discoveries. We look forward to continuing to work closely with NASA, 

Congress, and our industry and international partners as we work towards making Webb the 

successful program that I have no doubt it will be. 

l3 
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WES BUSH 

Chairman and Chief Executive Officer 

Northrop Grumman Corporation 

Wes Bush is chairman and chief executive officer of Northrop Grumman 

Corporation, a leader in global security. 

He has served as chief executive officer since January 20 I 0, and as chairman since July 20 I L 

Prior to 2010, Bush served as the president and chief operating officer of the company. Before that, he 

served as the corporate vice president and chief financial officer, and, earlier, as the president of the 

company's Space Technology sector. Prior to the acquisition of TRW by Northrop Grumman, he had 

served since 2001 as president and chief executive officer for TRW's UK-based global Aeronautical 

Systems. Bush joined TRW in 1987 as a systems engineer, and served in engineering, program 

management and business development roles in TRW's Space & Electronics business. Prior to joining 

TRW, he held engineering positions with both the Aerospace Corporation and Comsat Labs. 

Bush earned a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts 

Institute of Technology. He also completed the University of California, Los Angeles' Executive 

Management Program. Bush serves on the board of directors ofNorfolk Southern Corporation, as well 

as the boards of several nonprofit organizations, including the Aerospace Industries Association, the 

Business-Higher Education Forum, Conservation International, the U.S. Naval Academy Foundation, 

the !nova Health System and the USO Board of Governors. 

Northrop Grumman is a leading global security company providing innovative systems, products and 

solutions in autonomous systems, cyber, C41SR, space, strike, and logistics and modernization to 

customers worldwide. Please visit ncws.northropgrumman.com and follow us on Twitter, (aiNGCNews, 

for more information. 
105 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Bush. And I’ll address my first 

questions to you. 

Yesterday, Mr. Young suggested—no doubt you’re aware—of the 

idea that all holding fees or all award fees be put in a holding account until the mission is a flight success. Would you agree to do 

that? 

Mr. BUSH. So as a mechanism to ensure that we are all aligned 

on mission success, Northrop Grumman has actually discussed this 

with NASA, and we are willing to place all of the fee that we’ve 

already earned and the fee that we may earn in the future at risk 

based on successful activation and demonstration of the telescope 

on orbit. So we’re very much aligned on that recommendation. 

Chairman SMITH. I appreciate that positive response. I think you 

anticipated the question. Next question is this, this goes a step further. It seems to me that, given Mr. Young’s description of JWST 

yesterday as a poorly managed program, that you ought to also put 

the $800 million and above cap expenses that were not anticipated 

and pay that yourself. 

Mr. BUSH. Well, let me reaffirm that we are very committed to 

mission success, and as I said before, we are very proud of the 

progress that we’ve been making, but we do recognize that there 

has been cost growth. James Webb is structured as a cost-type contract, which is the typical contracting approach for such a largescale development project that’s never been done before. And a 

cost-type contract recognizes the inherent risk in the development 

and it provides the government the ability to direct our actions on 

an ongoing basis. So this type of contract gives the government the 

tools that it needs to ensure accountability through the direct control of our fee. 

So to your question about the financial position on the program, 

to be clear, our financial position on this program has been degraded in a number of ways when we experienced cost growth and 

delays. First, our award fees have been very negatively impacted—— 

Chairman SMITH. Mr. Bush, let me interrupt you. My question 

was would you agree to pay the 800 above cap cost? 

Mr. BUSH. Our view on that is that would create more of a fixedprice relationship on this program, which would significantly impede and impair the relationship between NASA and Northrop 

Grumman. And as we are focused on mission success, we think 

that would be the wrong approach. 

Chairman SMITH. Okay. I think that that would be justified, 

given the poor record and given the poor management that Mr. 

Young referred to yesterday. And I only wish that Northrop Grumman was willing to take responsibility and show a little bit more 

good faith both for the taxpayer and for the cost overruns, but it 

sounds like you’ve made up your mind. I just happen to disagree 

with you. 

Mr. Young, let me address my next question to you. Yesterday, 

you mentioned the cost-plus programs almost inevitably ended up 

being over cost, sometimes considerably over cost, and that was 

kind of baked into the system because when you’re awarded a costplus contract, there’s not much incentive to keep the costs down. 

I wondered if you had any ideas for how the bid criteria should be 
106 

changed so that in the future we can avoid the massive amounts 

of cost overrun that we’ve seen with JWST, as well as with other 

programs? 

Mr. YOUNG. Yes, I think the point I was making yesterday was 

for cost-plus programs, competitive programs, contractors are encouraged to bid the lowest credible cost. And why do they do that? 

They do that because the sponsoring organization for the contract, 

basically that’s what wins. And I think that’s unfortunate, but it’s 

a fact that exists. And my comment yesterday and my comment 

today really is that what’s necessary is that being the lowest credible bidder should not be a criteria for winning the contract. And 

if I go a step further, I think it also should not be the input to 

NASA or the government or this Committee establishing what’s the 

most probable cost for a program. And I think that should be done 

independent of the bid price. 

So I fundamentally think that using JWST or programs like it 

in the future as an example, that NASA should develop a most 

probable cost for the program, not use a bid price from a cost-plus 

program, and that that should be the basis for budget into a program as being the most probable cost. 

Chairman SMITH. And so it’s not necessarily the low bid. It would 

be the—— 

Mr. YOUNG. In fact, I would say it certainly won’t be the lowest 

bid. 

Chairman SMITH. Okay. 

Mr. YOUNG. Yes. 

Chairman SMITH. Do you think that past performance should be 

taken into consideration? 

Mr. YOUNG. I do. I think past performance—past performance is 

a strong motivator for corporations, and if I go back to my personal 

life, you know, at Martin Marietta, past performance was—that 

was a parameter that we treated as very, very important. 

Chairman SMITH. Okay. 

Mr. YOUNG. And even though we may be involved with a costplus contract, that did not negate the fact—— 

Chairman SMITH. Yes. 

Mr. YOUNG. —that both—— 

Chairman SMITH. Yes. 

Mr. YOUNG. —ourselves and our board—— 

Chairman SMITH. Yes. 

Mr. YOUNG. —considered past performance to be part of it. 

Chairman SMITH. Yes, I think past performance should be considered but I also—sometimes you get the feeling when you hear 

about, yes, something is complex, yes, it hasn’t been done before, 

you almost get the feeling in regard to cost that the ends justifies 

the means. And I think that is a dangerous approach to take. I 

don’t think the ends should always be used to justify the means, 

in this case the cost, but I think your suggestions will help us get 

to the goal, and I like the fact that you want us to consider past 

performance, so I appreciate—— 

Mr. YOUNG. If I could add just one item, and I know time is critical. If I could add just one item, I also think that for flagship missions that the kinds of things NASA does are not amenable to fixed 

price. In other words, you—I think that we collectively don’t want 
107 

NASA pursuing the easy stuff, and we want NASA pursuing the 

challenging, the difficult stuff. 

Chairman SMITH. I think there’s some that would be fixed and 

some not depending on the nature—— 

Mr. YOUNG. I agree with that, but flagship missions by their nature probably would not be in the fixed category. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Young. 

And the gentlewoman from Texas, Ms. Johnson, is recognized for 

her questions. 

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

Mr. Young, due to time constraints on yesterday, there are a couple of questions I’d like to raise that I wanted to do yesterday. And 

you have, I think, partially addressed some of them this morning. 

But the review board report found that the current NASA reporting structure for the project is complex, confusing, and ineffective. 

It seems to me that getting that structure right would be critical 

if the James Webb project is to succeed. So who should be accountable for the project specifically and who for the overall James Webb 

project—program? 

And then secondly, there was some discussion yesterday about 

having the review board reconvene if NASA is following through to 

check to see whether they’re following through with the recommendations. I’d like your opinion on whether or not you think 

this board is willing to reconvene. 

Mr. YOUNG. Very good questions. On the first one, the management structure, it’s our belief that a well-run program, clearly one 

of the characteristics is to have established accountability, responsibility, and authority individually for the key members of the organization and to fully use the resources. And you really describe 

what we found for JWST. 

Our belief is that the accountability and responsibility and authority needs to be residing, one, at the Goddard Center Director 

level. The Goddard Center Director should be totally responsible 

for the program, not just providing resources to implement the program. And the full capability of the Center Director and his or her 

staff would be applied to the project, number one. Number two, 

that there be a project manager, which there is today, who’s totally 

responsible for the program reporting to the Goddard Center Director. And three, that at the program level, which is a broader perspective of the project activity, that that be the responsibility totally of the Associate Administrator for Space Science and specifically that the Goddard Center Director would report to that individual for the execution of the program. That in our view is a crisp 

statement of individual accountability, responsibility, and most importantly, authority. 

To your second item very quickly, it’s NASA’s decision obviously 

whether or not they want to have an examination of the implementation of our recommendations. Our belief is that it should be done. 

The IRB is willing to do that, and we personally think that it needs 

to be done early enough in the process that it’s before—that it can 

have an impact and late enough where things have been done. So 

our recommendation would be like the latter part of September 

would be a terrific time to do that review if NASA believes it would 

be appropriate. 
108 

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Bush, what do you consider to be the most important corrective actions that you put in place to avoid some of the past shortcomings and if you’re willing to work with the findings and recommendations of the review board? 

Mr. BUSH. Thank you for that question. We do fully support the 

findings of the review board, and I, too, agree it would be a very 

good idea to have a follow-up in the process with the review board. 

I think the most important things that the review board pointed 

out in terms of ensuring that the steps that are being taken as we 

go forward are primarily focused on mission success are the areas 

where we are ensuring that when we align processes, when we 

align training, when we engage with our team on the floor who 

have their hands building this thing every day, that the discipline 

is there, that the understanding is they not only have the ability 

to put their hand up and say stop everything but they have the responsibility to do that if they even suspect something might be 

wrong. 

We’ve also worked hard to enhance the safety net on the program, and let me explain that. And I think the IRB said it really 

well, that human errors are inevitable, but we have to do everything that we can to put a safety net behind them to make sure 

that we catch them as early as possible. So in our company, and 

I think in most in our industry, there are two organizations that 

work alongside the folks in the program who are, again, touching 

the program every day, the mission assurance organization, as well 

as the engineering organization. And we have given them the ability and the responsibility to be digging in deeply onto the program 

to go back, take a hard look at everything that we have done. 

Mr. Young and his team used the term embedded errors. We 

want to make sure that we do not have those any place in the program. NASA is actually leading a process to go back and help do 

that scrub. Our team is highly engaged on that. So we’ve worked 

hard to enhance the safety net behind the team as well, so it is 

both reinforcing the team, giving them some extra tools, but also 

enhancing the safety net so that we can make sure that we’re doing 

the right thing for mission success. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you very much. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Ms. Johnson. 

After the gentleman from Oklahoma is recognized for his questions, we’re going to recess until after these votes and then resume 

the hearing immediately after. 

The gentleman from Oklahoma, Mr. Lucas. 

Are you going to yield to the gentleman from Texas? 

Okay. Thank you. The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Babin, the 

Chairman of the Space Subcommittee, is recognized. 

Mr. BABIN. Thank you very much. I appreciate that, Mr. Chairman and Vice Chairman. The first question is for Mr. Young. Yesterday, Administrator Bridenstine called a schedule of testing for 

JWST ‘‘optimistic,’’ and your report says the same thing. From your 

experience, what are your observations of overly optimistic expectations being an issue with other major NASA programs? 

Mr. YOUNG. Well, I—there’s probably a natural tendency for 

projects to be optimistic, so—and, fundamentally, people who as-
109 

pire to be involved with projects are naturally I think optimistic. 

On the other hand, there really has to be a process that both encourages optimism and balances it with realism. And so I guess we 

would say that that process wasn’t as strong as it should have been 

in this particular situation, and optimism in doing a lot of the INT 

planning dominated, which I think was a fundamental mistake. 

And that clearly is a Northrop Grumman responsibility, but NASA 

also plays a role in our view in being a damper, if I could say that 

way, on the optimism that is incorporated. 

Mr. BABIN. All right. Thank you very much. Well, you don’t want 

overly pessimistic people working on these programs—— 

Mr. YOUNG. You don’t. 

Mr. BABIN. —either—— 

Mr. YOUNG. That’s right. 

Mr. BABIN. —that’s for sure. 

And, Mr. Bush, the Trump Administration has emphasized space 

as part of the national security strategy. Do you think the JWST 

development issues signal an erosion in the quality of the American space industrial base to our near-peer adversaries, thus negatively affecting our national security strategy? 

Mr. BUSH. I think what the Administration is doing with its emphasis on space is incredibly important for our country. As I said 

in my opening remarks, I am quite concerned that our will to lead 

is being tested every day, and because of that, I think it is especially important that we take on programs like Webb to demonstrate to the world that we can lead and that we can continue 

to set the pace on technology. 

Your question related directly to concerns about the erosion in 

the industrial base, and I did have a number of concerns as we 

went through a very difficult period after the sequester where the 

industrial base, along with our customer communities, were very 

negatively impacted. But as I take a look and in particular at 

Webb, I do not see those particular issues evident. I think they are 

more along the lines of the issues identified by the Independent Review Board. 

But as I look ahead and I think about our industry and I think 

about our capacity to really lead, there are concerns on the horizon 

that we need to be very focused on, concerns associated with workforce, STEM education, and our willingness to take on these very 

risky projects so that we can continue to lead. 

Mr. BABIN. Okay. Thank you. Very well. 

And, Mr. Young, during yesterday’s testimony, you also mention 

that NASA and Northrop Grumman’s plan for implementing the 

IRB’s recommendations will be set in the next couple of months 

and that the implementation plan must be reviewed before it becomes set. Do you believe that an Independent Review Board 

should conduct this implementation plan review, and if not, should 

the SRB conduct this review? 

Mr. YOUNG. I actually think it should be the IRB to do it. The 

review board was the one who obviously developed—established the 

recommendations. One of the things that’s always difficult is putting on paper exactly what it is that, you know, review board 

thinks is necessary to be implemented, so we did the best job we 

thought we could in that regard, but there’s also subject to inter-
110 

pretation. So I think it’s important to the people who sponsored the 

recommendations to be those who examined the implementation of 

the recommendations to assure that they’re consistent with what 

was intended when they were developed. 

Mr. BABIN. Yes, sir. And then one last question for Mr. Bush. 

Congress fully understands that JWST is a very complex mission 

both in terms of spacecraft design and its intended operating environment. Putting aside the sunshield situation, Mr. Bush, what 

other development areas have contributed to this schedule delay? 

Mr. BUSH. So over the years there have been a variety of issues. 

They range back from the decisions early in the program to scale 

up the size of the optic and the approach to conducting the mission. 

I think those were very appropriate. It was a learning process in 

terms of what would really be needed to implement the physics objectives of the program. But as we have progressed through the 

program, we’ve had enormous success. There were basically 10 

technological inventions that we had to get behind us to even enable us to get to the point that we are at today where we could be 

integrating and testing the full capability. We’ve had tremendous 

success in those technological developments. 

But as we’ve gotten into the integration and test process, as the 

IRB I think very accurately pointed out, the issues have been finding the small things that aren’t tested until later in the process, 

that when we find them, they have these big impacts that we have 

to go through to undo things, put it back together again, and then 

retest it because we’re determined that we’re going to test this 

thing comprehensively before we launch it. 

Mr. BABIN. Yes, sir. Thank you very much. And I yield back, Mr. 

Chairman. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Babin. And I understand the 

gentlewoman from Virginia, Mrs. Comstock, has a unanimous consent request? Okay. 

Mrs. COMSTOCK. To submit a statement for the record. 

Chairman SMITH. Okay. Without objection, the statement will be 

submitted for the record. 

[The prepared statement of Mrs. Comstock follows:] 
111 

Rep. Barbara Comstock Opening Statement 

Thursday, July 26, 2018 

Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding today's important hearing to discuss NASA's James Webb 

Space Telescope. 

The James Webb Space Telescope is the most complex telescope ever developed. Once 

launched, it will study the faintest light from the first stars and galaxies that formed the universe, 

uncover the formation and evolution of galaxies, characterize the formation of stars and 

planetary systems, and search for life. We truly cannot begin to understand the incredible 

discoveries that Webb will enable. 

Like everyone in this room today, I am disappointed that Webb is taking longer than originally 

planned. However, I recognize that when building a first of a kind, incredibly complex systems, 

sometimes challenges arise. I believe that Webb is simply too important of a mission not to take 

the time and every possible step to ensure its success. I am pleased to see that Northrop 

Grumman and NASA have been working with the Independent Review Board (IRB) to improve 

management and efficiency. 

Beyond its amazing science, the James Webb Space Telescope will inspire a new generation 

including young girls, to pursue STEM careers, an issue very important to me. In fact, just last 

summer, we showed a film about the making of the James Webb Space Telescope to my Young 

Women's Leadership Program. The girls were clearly excited about the scientific potential of 

Webb and inspired by its technical achievements. It will be impressive to see Webb's STEM 

inspirational abilities on a larger scale once it is launched and sending its images back to Earth. 

I look forward to today's hearing, where we discuss this incredible project that is truly 

worthwhile. Thank you. 
112 

Chairman SMITH. We’ll recess until after these votes and then resume immediately. 

[Recess.] 

Chairman SMITH. The Science, Space, and Technology Committee 

will resume our hearing, and the gentleman from California, Mr. 

Bera, the Ranking Member of the Space Subcommittee, is recognized for his questions. 

Mr. BERA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, Mr. Bush, for being here and, Mr. Young, for your 

patience and coming back for a second day. I talked about a little 

bit yesterday with projects of the size and scope and difficulty of 

James Webb, one of the challenges is appropriately budgeting, 

thinking about things, and figuring out the time to do something 

that you’ve never done before, understanding the science, et cetera, 

and there’s a lot that we can learn from the contracting, the construction, and design and the overruns on James Webb. 

I tend to be a simple person. As I talked about yesterday, putting 

it in simple terms, I think about it as the contract I made with our 

daughter when she decided she wanted to go to college. In this 

case, you know, a lot of us have done home remodels and you kind 

of lay out what you want to do and so forth and think about 

what—as you bid that out to various contractors and you make a 

decision. And most of us run into cost overruns when we do that. 

Part of it is self-inflicted. As you’re going to the project you realize, hey, you know what, we’re doing this, let’s remodel the kitchen 

as well. Those are conscious decisions to spend more money. 

Again, as we look at the history of James Webb, as we started 

designing this, thinking about it. Science advanced. Consciously, 

we said, well, hey, if we’re going to already send a telescope out 

there, science is advanced now; let’s add some things on. Those are 

predictable cost overruns. And we should have conscious debate of 

whether that’s what we should do, et cetera. 

And my sense is we’ve done that multiple times over the length 

of the project. I’m not suggesting that we don’t do that because if— 

it makes sense for us to add additional items and delay the project 

in order to advance science and get more information in a cost-effective way, that may make sense. But then there’s also, I think, 

Mr. Young, you brought up some of the potentially avoidable cost 

overruns the human error component of this. And, you know, I 

know—I asked you, Mr. Young, some of the things that we’ve 

learned from this experience that we could— as we go forth and 

do additional sciences, Mr. Bush, from the contractors’ side of 

things, I’d like to hear your side as you look to the IRB report what 

are the things in our oversight role as Members of Congress as we 

are going to have to make trade-offs and decisions from the contractors’ side of things. What are things that Northrop Grumman 

has learned that could inform Congress? 

Mr. BUSH. So I think a lot of this goes to this notion of how do 

you retire risk when you’re managing complexity? And we all learn 

each time we take on something at the new level of complexity how 

you actually approach those types of steps in a process. So some 

of the risk retirement can occur actually before you start a program, and in fact there are some procurement approaches that a 

variety of places in NASA as well as DOD use where they attempt 
113 

to get as much technological—excuse me—risk retirement in place 

before you start the program. And if you’re able to do that, then 

you are able to better define a path forward. The challenge with 

doing that is that sometimes actually takes a little bit longer at 

least at the beginning to do those risk retirements. 

So on a program like Webb, as we have gotten into it, I think 

one of the big lessons learned was clearly that risk retirement was 

not only associated with the technologies themselves. I spoke earlier about this remarkable set of inventions that have already been 

successfully completed on Webb, which I think we should all be 

proud of. This—these in and of themselves, those inventions represent advancements not only for the space community but they 

have spinout effects as well. And NASA’s been, I think, doing an 

incredible job of spinning things out. 

But the issues were not only in the technology development for 

risk retirement. They were also in a lot of the processes, the actual 

processes for implementing the pieces as we went along. A good example, we’ve never done anything quite as complex in a deployment as folding up the sunshield, and what we’ve learned is it 

takes longer to fold it up and unfold it each time we go to test it 

than we had planned. 

Mr. BERA. Since I’m going to run out of time, is there a way—— 

Mr. BUSH. Right. 

Mr. BERA. We’ve talked a little bit about risk-sharing contracting 

as well. Certainly in health care we do some of that where if you’re 

under budget, on time, or ahead of time, there’s a benefit to the 

contractor. If you’re over budget more delay, there’s some risk 

that’s borne. Is that a type of contract that actually could work in 

this particular space? 

Mr. BUSH. Yes, those types of contracts need to be combined with 

a risk-management, risk-reduction process so that that—those 

risks can be understood. But yes, the answer is absolutely yes. 

Mr. BERA. Great. And, Mr. Chairman, before I yield back, I’d ask 

unanimous consent. I’ve got a letter from Representative Ted Lieu, 

whose district represents where some of Webb is being constructed 

and put together in support of the James Webb—— 

Chairman SMITH. Okay. Without objection, the letter will be 

made a part of the record. 

[The information follows:] 
114 

TEDW.LIEU 

JJRo Drsnncr, CAuroRN!A 

COMMITIEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

C!tnngr.e.s.s nf tl}e 11lnit.eb ~tate.s 

jlj)ouge of l\tprt~entati\Je~ 

BasiJingtun. JOOr 20515-0533 

July 26,2018 

The Honorable Lamar Smith 

Chairman 

House Committee on Science, Space and Technology 

2321 Rayburn House Office Building 

Washington, D.C. 20515 

Dear Chairman Smith, 

236 CA!'iNON HOUSE OfFICE BU!LOING 

WASHINGTON, DC 20515 

(20.2}225-3976 

505S WILStni'IE Bouu::vAAo, Sum:. 310 

lOS ANGEL£$, CA 90036 

(310) 652-3095 

1600 RoSECRANS oii.VENUf., 4TH Ft.OOR 

MA.NHATTAN BEACH, CA 90266 

{310) 321~7564 

I am writing in regards to today's hearing on NASA's James Webb Space Telescope. 

NASA's Decadal Survey has identified the Webb Telescope as the top astrophysics 

priority. It will fundamentally alter our understanding of the universe. Webb will explore the first 

signs of light, the assembly of galaxies, the formation of stars and planetary systems, and even the 

origins of life. Academics and scientists around the world will utilize Webb's data to make 

previously unfathomable scientific discoveries. However, as important as Webb's science will be, 

potentially its biggest impact will be inspiring an entirely new generation to pursue science, 

technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) careers. 

I am proud that the final integration and testing for James Webb is taking place in 

California's 33rd Congressional District at Northrop Grumman's Space Park facility. I have seen 

Webb's hardware up close and it is technical marvel. From the tennis court-sized sunshield to the 

21-foot, segmented adaptable optics, you can't help but be impressed by the telescope's size and 

complexity. I hope that all the Members of the House Science Committee will take the time to see 

the James Webb Space Telescope firsthand. 

The Independent Review Board (IRB) established by NASA to assess progress on Webb 

cited employee morale as one of the risks to mission success. Although the program has had 

challenges, developing Webb required unprecedented technical achievements and numerous 

inventions. The Webb team, including many of my constituents, deserves our respect and 

gratitude. I share the broad disappointment that the James Webb Space Telescope's launch date 

has been delayed. But it is important for us to allow the time and dedicate the necessary resources 

to ensure mission success. 

The James Webb Space Telescope is the most complex telescope ever 

developed. However, as the Independent Review Board (IRB) and NASA have both stated, the 

program is worth it-and I fully agree. 
115 

Thank you for your consideration and continued support of the James Webb Space 

Telescope. 

Sincerely, 

Ted Lieu 

Member of Congress 
116 

Chairman SMITH. And the gentlewoman from Virginia, Mrs. 

Comstock, is recognized for her questions. 

Mrs. COMSTOCK. Okay. Sorry. Thank you. Thanks. I appreciate 

the opportunity to talk with you today, and thank you. I think yesterday’s testimony was very helpful hearing from Mr. Bridenstine 

and also hearing about how all of these evaluations and the critiques really have come together, and I certainly got that impression from him. I wasn’t able to hear all of Mr. Young’s testimony 

yesterday but certainly did get the understanding. 

And I think, Mr. Young, you said this yesterday, ‘‘Space is a onestrike-and-you’re-out business, and we can’t have problems that are 

catastrophic.’’ And I think from all the testimony we’ve had yesterday and today, that seems to be a very large part of the commitment that, given the Hubble Telescope is only 350 miles away, and 

it’s been serviced five times, We were able to get there and do it, 

but when you’re a million miles from Earth, that is not a potential 

solution so we have to work on all of the risks and changes here. 

And with all this, I want to make sure that as we are doing all 

this evaluation, looking at taking the risk and everything, that people are going to feel comfortable coming forward. I want to make 

sure you—and it seemed like Mr. Bridenstine did feel comfortable 

with that yesterday—I want to make sure that all the teams that 

are working on this and the additional supervision now, that when 

there is a mistake, when there is a problem, even if that problem 

is going to lead to more costs, that we are going to catch that problem before. Do you think that the climate and the systems that are 

put in place now will still allow for that? 

Mr. BUSH. Yes, let me let me remark on that if I might, Congresswoman Comstock. One of the most important things in our industry, particularly in the space industry, is the ability of employees to feel very, very comfortable to put their hand up when they— 

as I mentioned earlier, either when they know something’s wrong 

or even if they suspect something might be wrong. So this goes to 

this culture of understanding what really mission success means on 

a day-to-day basis. So it’s something that we work very, very hard 

on. 

It gets reinforced constantly at all levels of engagement to the 

point that we take the extra step of rewarding and recognizing employees who put their hand up and say, wait a minute, let’s stop, 

let’s take a hard look even if it means an impact on schedule because much better to do it while we’re building it, find it then, and 

be confident that it’s going to work. 

So I have a lot of confidence. I’ve seen our team do this now a 

number of times. These issues that we’re talking about today are 

issues that our team found. And they did that. They put their hand 

up. And they are eager to go through this process that’s underway 

now to see if there’s anything else that we need to figure out, that 

we need to find. This is a team of people who are absolutely dedicated to mission success. They work on this thing all the time. And 

I’ve talked to many of them. They dream about it at night. They 

are inspirations in terms of how committed they are. And they are, 

I am confident, going to continue to put their hand up if they think 

something’s wrong. 
117 

Mrs. COMSTOCK. And I’d like to thank both of you for your work 

on this front. I’d like to acknowledge—obviously, Northrop Grumman is in my district, and Mr. Bush, in all your work, I want to 

thank you. I really appreciate that your will to lead is being tested 

every day. Failure is not an option here. We need to have mission 

success. I appreciate all that you’re doing in the STEM pipeline. I 

see you throughout my district all the time and all the work you’re 

doing there, the importance of the workforce development that you 

had highlighted, and I know the first time we had met was when 

we were battling together—I was back in the state house—when 

Northrop Grumman was coming here and the Governor was working to get you here but also we were fighting the sequester together 

with Congressman Wolf, and I appreciate your work there and the 

importance of this. 

And, Mr. Young, thank you also for your service on this front, 

and I think going forward it’s important that we understand—that 

we all appreciate how challenging these missions are, and growing 

up we all saw all the movies and the challenges and the failures 

that have come with space, but also the great successes. We learn 

from the mistakes certainly as—the famous Thomas Edison quote, 

we want to make sure that any of the problems that we’ve had are 

all geared towards a successful mission, so thank you. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mrs. Comstock. 

And the gentlewoman from Oregon, Ms. Bonamici, is recognized. 

Ms. BONAMICI. Thank you very much, Chairman Smith and 

Ranking Member Johnson. And to our witnesses, I regret that I 

was in another committee where I had a commitment yesterday 

and I missed Administrator Bridenstine’s testimony, but in the 

event he’s watching, I send greetings. He was on this Committee 

not that long ago, and I thank him for his work at NASA and for 

his service to the country. 

You know, over the years, our country’s investments in space exploration have led to so many exciting discoveries about our universe. I’ve been on this Committee my entire time in Congress, and 

we’ve often discussed planetary science and human space exploration. And an emerging theme is the role that NASA plays in 

sparking the imaginations of the next generation of students to 

pursue studies in science and astronomy. And certainly, members 

of this Committee understand the importance of making progress 

on restoring our sense of pride as a country and international leadership in space discovery. We also know that the James Webb 

Space Telescope is a high priority for NASA and that thinking big 

and taking risks is part of what space exploration is about. 

I share the concerns, however, about the latest setbacks, and I 

applaud NASA for establishing the Independent Review Board. I 

hope this hearing, as well as the hearing yesterday, can help identify a path forward that minimizes risks and additional delays. 

Mr. Bush, I want to follow up on Ranking Member Eddie Bernice 

Johnson’s question. We understand the scope and complexity of the 

project, but some of this, as your testimony admits, was human 

error, so are you convinced that Northrop Grumman has put in 

place adequate practices to minimize the risk of additional errors? 

And, as you said in your testimony, most of the complex issues are 
118 

now behind us, so how can you be confident that from this point 

to launch you won’t encounter additional complex issues? 

Mr. BUSH. So to answers to your two questions there, first, with 

respect to our degree of confidence in finding the issues today, 

there was I think several important perspectives on that. One is— 

and Mr. Young and the IRB pointed this out. We’re never going to 

be able to get human errors to zero. You know, the word human 

in that equation tells you that. So what we have to do is do our 

very best with the humans involved to make sure that they’ve got 

the right processes, that they’re with discipline following those 

processes, and that they have the right qualifications to do the job. 

So that’s a big part of it. 

The second part of it, though, is the safety net and making sure 

that we have a robust approach to backing up the humans that are 

doing the job so that, if they do make an error, there is someone 

there or some other process involved that with high likelihood will 

identify before it propagates into the system. 

Ms. BONAMICI. And are you convinced that you—that the company has done that—— 

Mr. BUSH. I feel very, very good about where we are in that regard, but we’re going—we are continuing to self-test that. 

So your second question I think related to what the Independent 

Review Board talked about as embedded problems, things that 

might still be there. So we are in process. NASA is leading this. 

We’re going through all the records. We’re going through taking a 

second pass to see if there is anything else that we can possibly 

find or conceive of that might be an issue that we need to get addressed quickly. I think we’re going to be through this in just a 

number of weeks, and if it is the case that the Independent Review 

Board takes another look, I think that would be a great thing for 

them to look at as well. 

Ms. BONAMICI. Thank you. And I’m going to ask Mr. Young a 

question, but I did notice that you said most of the complex issues 

are now behind us, not all. 

Mr. BUSH. Well, we have to test the satellite, right? We test it 

for a reason. 

Ms. BONAMICI. And, Mr. Young, thank you for your testimony. 

How can Congress—and following up on Mr. Bera’s question—how 

can Congress assess NASA’s progress in implementing the findings 

and the multiple recommendations from the Independent Review 

Board, and should the board be reconvened to determine if NASA 

is on track to meet those metrics, and if so, when? 

Mr. YOUNG. My personal belief is the board should be reconvened 

and—because I think it’s the group who’s, you know, most formulated to assess the implementation, and it needs to be done after 

NASA and Northrop Grumman have had adequate time to understand and do—implement or begin the implementation of the recommendations. 

Ms. BONAMICI. What do you think adequate time would be? 

Mr. YOUNG. Well, I think it should be by probably this—sometime in September this year is when it should be done. And I think 

if this Committee is interested in the result of that, then I’m sure 

that, you know, that the—NASA and the review board would be delighted to report back to you what we find. 
119 

Ms. BONAMICI. Thank you. And I’m certainly not going to speak 

for the Chairman and the Ranking Member, but I’m pretty convinced that this Committee would be very interested. Thank you, 

Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Ms. Bonamici. 

And the gentlewoman from Arizona, Mrs. Lesko, is recognized for 

her questions. 

Mrs. LESKO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

As I talked about yesterday, having a project 19 times over the 

original cost estimate is obviously very troubling, and I think it is 

a prime example of why taxpayers think that the Federal Government isn’t spending taxpayer dollars wisely. 

I used to be in the construction business years ago, and when we 

signed a contract for a certain amount, and when you had changes, 

there were change orders that set forth how much extra it would 

cost. So I’m trying to understand how something can be 19 times 

over the project. How often do you communicate with NASA? Is 

there a contract similar to what I described? Do you go back to 

them and communicate with them on a regular basis and say, you 

know what, we had human error and there was a problem and now 

it’s going to cost $2 million more, or we’re changing the project because technology is more advanced now and we want to do this and 

it’s going to cost, you know, $1 billion more, or can you kind of explain the process? Because I need to understand how we got here. 

Mr. BUSH. Yes, it’s a very good question, and obviously for those 

who have not observed how something of this complexity gets created, a very, very spot-on question. It is the reason that this is a 

cost-type contract. We work side-by-side with NASA every single 

day. No significant decision is taken on the program unilaterally by 

us. So in terms of the degree of communication and coordination, 

it is exceptionally high. And NASA holds us to that transparency 

standard, that they do not want us unilaterally making decisions. 

And it is important that we be able to work hand-in-hand as we 

go through it simply due to the complexity. 

NASA has extraordinary people who have great experience working on so many different things. Their experience applies to this 

program, just as the experience of our scientists and engineers 

apply to the program. We have to have both, and so we have to be 

able to make decisions on it together and it is a daily interaction. 

It’s not just, you know, sending letters back and forth. It is daily 

communication, daily interaction so that the best decisions can get 

made together. 

Mrs. LESKO. And so, Mr. Chair, either one of you can answer— 

so NASA gave you the okay at every step of the way for this extra 

cost, this extra time delay? Is that what you’re saying? 

Mr. BUSH. We would only take actions that NASA approves in 

that regard. 

Mr. YOUNG. If I could add to your question, which also I think 

is very good, I think Wes’ comments were right on. Space is not an 

awful lot different than what you described form your building experience. The most important thing I suspect in your business was 

to get the first bid correct, to get the price correct. I think if you 

look back through the history of this program and if you look at 

an earlier review group called the Casani team that reported out 
120 

in 2010 I think or ’11, they highlighted that NASA had done an 

incredibly poor job of cost estimating on this program, and I think 

that’s true. So if—again, in your business, if you don’t start out 

with a good estimate, you’re in trouble from day one. 

The second thing is that your customers I’m sure, as was mentioned, decide they want to remodel the kitchen, it’s very important 

when that’s done that that be costed, priced, and be added to the 

budget so—and it should not be—which it’s easy to do. We’re just 

going to add this requirement and we won’t worry about what it 

costs, and then it’s obviously going to cause a problem down the 

stream. 

The third thing is I suspect that you probably—I don’t know the 

nature of the kind of stuff you were involved with, but you could 

envision that there was a very, very unusual staircase and that got 

underestimated as a cost to do it or the people who were doing it, 

it was stretching their ability to do it, so they ran into problems. 

So I think the analogy you’re talking about—I’m really trying to 

just encourage you—is really quite good and it’s not different than 

this. It’s just that the multiplier is so much higher in doing this. 

And I’m not trying to excuse any of it, so don’t read that into it. 

But the process is—just because it’s a space activity, the process 

in my view is not a mystery. It’s not significantly different than I’m 

sure your experience in the construction world. 

Chairman SMITH. Okay. Does the gentlewoman yield back? 

Thank you, Mrs. Lesko. 

The gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Beyer, is recognized. 

Mr. BEYER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Bush, thank you for coming to be with us today. 

Mr. Young, thank you for bravely showing up the second day. 

I want to take issue with the, I think, overstated allegations of 

poor management. I mean, it’s always easy to be a Monday-morning quarterback. I’ve been managing businesses, organizations, 

even an embassy over 45 years, and I just—management is much 

like golf or baseball or bridge that it’s not a game of perfect, that 

we make the best decisions we can on a minute-by-minute basis 

with the best advice we have, and sometimes, we’re still going to 

get it wrong. 

So let me—I think it’s really important to put the total cost of 

James Webb in perspective. So first, Administrator Bridenstine 

yesterday said the lifecycle cost of James Webb is $9.66 billion, so 

I added up the NASA budgets from 1996, when this was first suggested, through 2020, which is a little before launch, and that’s 

$396.357 billion. Quick math, 2.4 percent of the total NASA budget 

over the lifespan of JW is 2.4 percent, and that’s an understatement because that assumes JW Webb falls out of the sky in 2020 

and it will actually be up there for a long, long time. So we’re talking maybe one percent of NASA’s budget. 

The second point, Mr. Bush, you were just a young systems engineer in 1996, but can you tell us how different the expectations of 

James Webb were in 1996 versus what NASA and the American 

public expects today before dark energy, before dark matter, before 

gravitational waves, before the state of science and cosmology is so 

very different? Is this even the same James Webb Telescope? 
121 

Mr. BUSH. Well, thank you, Congressman. It is a great question. 

When we originally conceived the telescope, we had no idea of all 

these discoveries that would occur in the time that has elapsed 

since then. And those discoveries themselves—and this is part of 

the great thing about space science—those discoveries set our ambitions a bit higher because we now know that there’s a lot more 

we don’t know and that we need to find out. 

So as we went through that process really over the course of the 

last decade, the period from around 2002 through the Casani report that Mr. Young mentioned, the vision for the mission continued to expand appropriately because if we are going to make this 

magnitude of investment, we ought to be able to get the most return for our Nation that we can through this investment. 

And while the original mission was very focused on sort of origins, you know, looking backwards in time, we did not know at 

that time about exoplanets, and now we’ve discovered thousands of 

these things. Your reference to dark matter and dark energy has 

really transformed the thinking around what the potential for scientific discovery might be with a system like Webb. And it is incredibly inspiring because if we can solve some of these tougher 

problems in physics, hopefully, we’ll be able to translate that 

knowledge back into the engineering on Earth to make life a lot 

better for all of us humans. So this growth and the view of it is 

very, very important to understand because I think it goes to the 

real value of this program. 

Mr. BEYER. Which tees up my next question to Mr. Bush is $9.6 

billion, is there any way to measure the value to humanity of what 

we will learn compared to that $9 billion investment? 

Mr. BUSH. I have no idea how to do that. I wish I could. But I 

can give you a couple of reflections in that regard. You know, the 

work that our Nation did to put us ahead decades ago in physics 

where we were able to gain a better understanding of things like 

quantum mechanics, if we had not done that work, had we not 

really understood how things operate at the quantum level, this 

silly little device we all carry around with ourselves and rely on 

constantly throughout the day to know what’s going on in the 

world and communicate with each other, we wouldn’t have been 

able to do that. And if you think about value in that regard, the 

multiple of return is extraordinary. Those are the types of discoveries in physics that we hope are still in front of us, and we believe 

they are based on the insights we’ve been able to gain from Hubble. 

And it’s really just, I think, beginning to tickle the imagination 

what Webb is going to enable us to do. So it’s a very exciting potential. 

Mr. BEYER. I saved my hardest question for last. Both of you are 

MIT graduates I think, so do you guys believe in string theory? 

Mr. BUSH. I’ll let Mr. Young answer that. 

Mr. YOUNG. I’ll pass. 

Mr. BEYER. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Beyer. 

The gentleman from California, Mr. Knight, is recognized. 

Mr. KNIGHT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank the gentlemen for being here today. 
122 

I got to sit down with Scott Willoughby last week and ask him 

a lot of questions and kind of understand where Northrop is going 

and what his vision was. He was extremely excited. He was passionate about the future and passionate about when there are 

issues of how we get through these issues and how we move forward. And I think that’s very important because what we’re trying 

to do here is a mankind-changing event. I’ve said that a couple 

times, but I think that is exactly what we’re trying to do. 

As I tell my son, we will be smarter in 100 years than we are 

today, whether we have faster computers or we have just attained 

more knowledge or we are able to do more things by our engineering knowledge and our knowledge of just academics. And so some 

of the things that we try and do, we find problems. 

Now, my question is how do you think that the IRB’s report is? 

Do you agree with that, Mr. Bush? And I think I’ve heard all of 

the questions and all of the kind of what are we going to do, how 

do you do this, and all of that, I’ve heard all of that, but I want 

to hear if you agree with the IRB’s report and if you think that 

that was a good, solid report on this issue. 

Mr. BUSH. I absolutely believe that the IRB in many ways is a 

gift to this program. What the Independent Review Board did was, 

in addition to being very clear about specific matters and recommendations, which we fully agree with and which we are fully 

implemented in, what the IRB did I would say at a higher level 

was it was the big reminder that, as we make incremental decisions in this program, it all has to be about mission success. 

We all feel the intensity of cost, we all feel the intensity of schedule. We’ve had teams working on this program seven days a week 

for a long period of time. And with their—this great reminder that 

everything is about mission success, it caused us to step back and 

ask were we doing everything the way we really needed to do in 

that regard? And we did make changes not just in terms of the specifics of the recommendations but with that broader perspective in 

mind. 

So I think it was an outstanding thing that NASA did to commission the Independent Review Board. I’m grateful to the members 

who participated on it. And we are fully supportive of implementing all of their recommendations. 

Mr. KNIGHT. And I think it’s another part in what we’re trying 

to achieve. If we only know what we know or if we only do what 

we know how to do, we never achieve. And that’s what happens 

when we try and take leaps. 

Administrator Bridenstine yesterday was trying to explain how 

the shield unfolds, how big it is, what it does, how it lowers the 

temperature so that it could get to the right temperature so that 

they could get the readings. And it went over my head. I’m sure 

it went over others or I would be ashamed that it only went over 

mine. But it really started you thinking how impressive this is and 

how important it is to get it right. Obviously, this is a fire and forget. This is a telescope that goes away and our—well, we don’t 

have space shuttle anymore, but if we did, we can’t go up and service it. We can’t do those things. 

We have another telescope through NASA called SOFIA. It’s on 

the back of a 747. It comes down, lands after a 10-hour flight. They 
123 

do different things, they put things on it, and they do different experiments. James Webb is not that. James Webb is going to be a 

million miles away, and it’s going to be looking at maybe the beginning of time, other galaxies, things that we have never even 

thought of. 

So that is my kind of one minute on this of how we do have to 

get this right, and when there are problems, how quickly we can 

get to the solution. And that’s everything. That’s no matter if 

you’re doing something that is game-changing or just a new product that we’re trying to improve on, it’s how quickly we fix the 

problems. It’s not the problem, it’s how fast do we get from A to 

B. 

So thank you very much for being here today, and I look forward 

to the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope. 

Mr. BUSH. Thank you. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Knight. 

The gentleman from New York, Mr. Tonko, is recognized. 

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

Welcome, Mr. Bush, and welcome back, Mr. Young. 

Yesterday, I shared how inspired I was by the years leading up 

to the moon landing, and I want to express the same sentiment to 

you, Mr. Bush. I was in high school as we competed in the space 

race against the Soviet Union for spaceflight supremacy. And we 

had a passionate resolve to use science and engineering to beat our 

rivals and, after years of investing and innovating, we won. America led the world in this endeavor, and our nation was the first to 

land on the moon. 

The memories from that day will forever linger in my mind. It 

inspired me to believe that, with the will and necessary resources, 

America would lead the way in continued exploration, research, 

and development. It also inspired me to embrace an education in 

science and engineering. I’m excited by the James Webb Space Telescope and, even more so, I’m excited by the potential impact that 

this work and related discoveries can have on engaging the public 

and inspiring our next generation of scientists and engineers. 

Yesterday, I was asking the Administrator how NASA is utilizing 

Webb to engage the public and to build our next generation of scientists and engineers. Mr. Bush, you put it well in your testimony 

when you referred to this project as an incredible engineering feat. 

I have told students in the capital region of New York that I represent that, through STEM, you can be the scientist who learns 

new secrets about our universe, you can be that astronaut who 

lands on Mars, you can be that doctor or researcher who discovers 

the path to better ensure healthy passage on long spaceflights, or 

you can be that engineer who designs or invents a new technology 

or the spaceship that will take us far past our own galaxy. 

So, Mr. Bush, what is Northrop Grumman working on to engage 

the public at large on the inspirational undertakings? 

Mr. BUSH. I really appreciate your perspective. You and I share 

a common motivation. The Apollo program is what inspired me to 

enter our industry and dedicate my career to this. And I know it 

has—it was the same way for so many others. And we want to continue to replicate that. We need that STEM talent. We need the 

innovators in our Nation to continue to focus on moving us ahead. 
124 

So we’ve done many things with the space telescope to help support that. We have a large model of the space telescope that we utilize to take to a variety of different organizations and gatherings 

to enable scientists to have something in front of them to talk 

about as they work to inspire youth. 

We also sponsored the development of a film. It’s called ‘‘Into the 

Unknown,’’ and I would commend it to you if you have the opportunity and the interest in looking at it. We have played this film 

not only around the United States but around the world to let folks 

know what James Webb will be able to do, to expose them to some 

of the people who are working on it so they can see what real engineers and scientists do because oftentimes that’s a challenge for 

those considering entering the STEM field. They don’t actually 

know what engineers and scientists do. And when they’re able to 

see it in the context of something that’s so inspirational, our hope 

is that it will create more folks interested in pursuing these STEM 

careers as we go forward. 

And I have to give NASA a lot of credit here. NASA has I think 

probably the very best approach to using what it’s doing to inspire 

our youth. And James Webb needs to continue to be a part of that. 

I think they’ve done a fabulous job of communicating effectively. 

The website, if you want to learn about it, you can go on that 

website and learn about it. 

I talk to a lot of the interns in our company, and part of the reason they’re interested in coming to work with us and being a part 

of the things that we’re doing is because they’ve heard about James 

Webb and they’re inspired by it. So I think this is a fabulous opportunity for our Nation as we go forward to help us with much of the 

work that we need to do in motivating and leveraging STEM. 

Mr. TONKO. Thank you very much. I appreciate that approach. 

Anything in general that you’re doing in the youngest of the student population in those great schools to engage them early on? 

Mr. BUSH. Yes, and we’ve all I think come to realize that we unfortunately lose too many folks who could otherwise be interested 

in STEM actually in middle school, so your point is right on. We 

have to hit them in grade school early on, and so we have a whole 

variety of grade school programs across our nation largely 

leveraging our employees. Our employees are very motivated to engage in the STEM efforts whether it’s at science fairs or actually 

taking the movie that I talked about ‘‘Into the Unknown’’ or even— 

we have little paper models that we use where students can actually try and go through the paper model build-up of what James 

Webb will be. So there’s a variety of activities. NASA as well, as 

I said. It’s not just us. NASA has been very proactive in this. 

Mr. TONKO. Thank you, gentlemen. And with that, Mr. Chair, I 

yield back. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Tonko. 

And the gentleman from California, Mr. Rohrabacher, is recognized. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much, and I’m sorry that I 

cannot join you in this uplifting testimony that you’ve given today. 

Mr. Bush, I don’t think that we should look to our young people 

and give them an example of being eight times over budget and 
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twice as long in cost overruns. That’s not what you tell our young 

people and encourage them to get involved in your industry. 

Let me just note—and again, this isn’t your fault, okay? This is 

your—whoever was handling this in your company failed. They 

failed us and they failed the American people. And you can say ‘‘is 

the Jim Webb telescope going to be worth all that money?’’ That’s 

not what the question is. The question is, ‘‘is it worth all those 

other projects that we have been unable to fund in this Committee 

because you have failed your job?’’ That’s the question. 

Yes, I have supported telescopes and astronomy, and I think that 

deep space astronomy is a good thing. You’ve done a disservice to 

achieving those goals by not being able to do your job. Now, let me 

ask you, did Northrop make a profit last year, Northrop Grumman 

Corporation? 

Mr. BUSH. You can read our Securities and Exchange Commission filings and see exactly how we did. We’re very transparent in 

that regard. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I didn’t hear. Did you make a profit last 

year? 

Mr. BUSH. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay. How much was your profit last year? 

Mr. BUSH. It’s filed in our Securities and Exchange Commission 

filings. I don’t remember the exact number off the top of my head. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Is it hundreds of millions or billions? What 

is it in? 

Mr. BUSH. It’s a very large number. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay. You had a profit last year, and you 

have spent money acquiring things like Orbital ATK? 

Mr. BUSH. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay. So Northrop really hasn’t suffered at 

all from the fact that we now have billions of dollars being spent 

that we were not told we were going to have to spend, and thus, 

those other science projects are now not even being considered 

here. But Northrop, by putting us in that spot, went ahead and 

made a profit. 

Did they make any loss—obviously, your profit would have been 

higher had you been handling this project better—is there any loss 

at all that your company made by not being able to do this job as 

you contracted? 

Mr. BUSH. So when we think about the economics of this 

project—and I’ve been clear about this before—this is not a particularly attractive economic proposition for our company, but that is 

not the objective for us at this point. We are focused on mission 

success. And clearly, you know, you can do the math a lot of different ways, but if you look at the resource we have invested in 

this program, both the capital resource and more importantly the 

human resource, our expectation is when we make that kind of investment on this magnitude of activity, that we would achieve a 

nice return. That will not be the case here. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I understand you’re not making a profit on 

this project now, and I think that is a factor that is going to try 

to influence people to try to make the right decisions and be tough 

on doing the right thing even though there’s a lot of conflict going 

on over some decision among engineers or whatever. But the fact 
126 

is that Northrop hasn’t had to suffer a penalty. The fact is that it’s 

not just Northrop, Mr. Chairman, that’s our system. And I’m not 

deriding Northrop because what Northrop is doing is exactly like 

the rest of the aerospace industry when we get involved in these 

projects. Hubble was that way, as we noted yesterday. 

Mr. Young, is there something that we can do fundamentally to 

the process that’s going to prevent that from happening? Is there 

some penalty that a company should have to pay if indeed they go 

way over budget and spend all this time? Otherwise, we’re losing 

our ability to use that money on other projects, whether it’s STEM 

projects or whatever projects they are. Mr. Young, what can we do? 

Mr. YOUNG. Well, we talked about that a little bit. And I think 

that companies measure return on their programs in different 

ways. Financial is one. Reputation is an extraordinary motivator. 

And I think the people who are involved in these enterprises are 

clearly motivated by reputation, and that is the intent is to do a 

good job. 

If I could span my comments—and I don’t want to talk you out 

of your comments, and I know I wouldn’t be able to anyway, 

but—— 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. You know me. 

Mr. YOUNG. But I think it’s—there’s no question in my mind 

being appropriately critical of events that have happened is appropriate, so I don’t think there’s an issue. I do think that it’s important for all of us to recognize that there’s a lot of work in front of 

us on JWST, and there’s an extraordinary opportunity for a success 

that is almost mind-boggling as to what it is that we can learn. So 

what I’m really trying to do is I’m really trying—I’m probably 

speaking to myself as well as to you, but I’m really saying that 

being appropriately critical, tough love is a very important part of 

this—let me just finish—a very important part of this. But equally 

important is a recognition that we’ve kind of all got to pull together 

and make this thing an enormous success because the worst thing 

that could happen on top of where we are now is not to have a success. So I’m an advocate for being self-critical, I’m an advocate for 

tough love, but I’m also an advocate for saying today’s the first day 

of the rest of our lives—— 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I agree with you. 

Mr. YOUNG. —and let’s make this a success. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I agree with you on that, but we should be 

changing the policy so that this doesn’t happen like this again. And 

perhaps a company that does not meet its goals or what it said it 

could do, perhaps we shouldn’t be giving them the next contract 

that comes down the line, whatever their bid is. Anyway, that’s 

just a thought. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Rohrabacher. 

The gentlewoman from Connecticut, Ms. Esty, is recognized for 

her questions. 

Ms. ESTY. Thank you very much, both of you, for joining us here 

today and, Mr. Young, for your return visit. 

And I have to say, with a son who pursued astrophysics as his 

major who was inspired—had rocketry models in his room from the 

time he was about three and use that Hubble space data to develop 

a program working with folks at Yale to allow high school students 
127 

to access the Hubble data to do exoplanet research, to make that 

data available for young people across the country, I can see just 

enormous opportunities with the James Webb Telescope. 

And I think we cannot forget, as you have both mentioned, the 

value proposition. We’ve had a lot of discussion about cost, and the 

cost matters, but I will tell you, taxpayers and all of us are way 

more concerned about value than cost at the end of the day. 

And I do think one of the big challenges we have is, given the 

rapid development and discoveries, as my colleague Mr. Beyer outlined from the first conception of the James Webb to where we are 

now, was unprecedented and not anticipated, those new avenues 

we would want to use this extraordinary device to research. 

So I do think—and my dad was in construction, too. This is not 

like building a home. It’s not like building a bridge. It’s not like 

building a brand-new bridge either because every aspect of this is 

changing, and what we’re looking for is changing, too. So I think 

some of what we have to think about is for the value proposition, 

we absolutely want to include those new elements. For the mission 

success, we want to do that, too, and we need to make sure we 

have safety. 

So—but we do need to look at what we do to more appropriately 

cost because that is fair and proper, and that allows NASA and allows this Committee to do its work in terms of allocating, 

prioritizing other projects and that’s what you hear concern about 

that. 

Mr. Bush, yesterday, Mr. Young suggested that maybe it would 

be wise for the Committee to look to the—or for Congress to insist 

that all the remaining dollars are aggregated and are not paid 

until after we have, you know, a full and complete checklist 

through mission success, so that’s one question I’d like to add—ask. 

And another is, you know, how do we incentivize, identify, and 

correcting errors early? I mean, it’s an ongoing problem in industry, but it’s an issue in science, too. People don’t like to come forward and say this isn’t working. So we need to figure out ways to 

incentivize that. 

And the last thing I’ll put out there is I think it would make 

sense for us to work some with folks both in Silicon Valley, as well 

as in the business community to think about how to structure contracts in a way that would better perhaps share that risk of identifying problems early, correcting, minimizing, taking ownership of 

human error. So maybe there’s cost-sharing when there’s human 

error or overruns. There would be cost-sharing of those, not just 

cost-plus, but there would be cost-sharing to provide an incentive 

to more appropriately—and Mr. Young talked about how these contracts are bid and how they’re incentivized. Everyone wants to get 

it on the cheap, but then we want it to be first-class when it’s deployed. So we need to find a different way of, I think, structuring 

those contracts to enforce as much as possible honesty and anticipation and then tight controls and everyone taking ownership. So 

a few simple questions out there. Thank you. 

Mr. BUSH. Well, thank you, Congresswoman. And let me just reiterate what I said in response to Chairman Smith’s request along 

the same lines with respect to what Mr. Young mentioned yester-
128 

day. And we do believe it is an appropriate mechanism to make 

sure that we are all aligned on mission success. 

And we’ve been talking with NASA just recently about this, that 

we are willing to place all of the fee that is in front of us, as well 

as the fee we’ve already earned, into the mission success pool that 

will have that determination to make sure that it works. So we’re 

all in on mission success and just want to confirm that again for 

you. 

With respect to this question about catching errors early, it goes 

back to, in my mind, the approach that is taken on programs to actually mitigate risk. How do you identify and quantify and then 

mitigate risk? So some of this is in the design process, but also it 

is in the testing programs. 

And I will just say broadly that in the rush oftentimes to go faster, there is an opportunity to make decisions to not test along the 

way, to wait until you have more things to together and test. And 

if you turn the clock back in the space industry, we didn’t used to 

do that. We tended to test everything we possibly could at the lowest level of assembly. There was some criticism of that, particularly 

back in the 1990s, that that was somehow unnecessary, that it was 

wasteful, and that it attributed—or created more cost on programs 

than perhaps was necessary. But—and that may be the case for 

some more simple types of designs where we’ve done the same 

thing many times over and we’re not exploring or discovering new 

things. 

But a program of this complexity, I think if there are some important lessons learned on error discovery, it is reinforcing that 

more traditional approach of testing at the lowest level that you 

can and trying your best to break it at the lowest level that you 

possibly can so that the propagation of a later-discovered error is 

not as significant. 

And back to the question about the independent review team and 

their work, that was a lot of their suggestion, to go back and look 

at what they were calling the embedded issues to make sure there 

wasn’t something else that was skipped at a lower level that could 

come back and haunt the program later on. So we’re well underway 

in that regard. 

I see we’re just about out of time, so I’ll limit my comments to 

that. 

Ms. ESTY. Thank you. And, Mr. Chairman, since I wasn’t able to 

ask yesterday, if Mr. Young could—— 

Chairman SMITH. Okay. 

Ms. ESTY. —ask that same—answer that same question, whether 

we should rethink that testing at a lower level because that would 

be a time frame and a cost issue. 

Chairman SMITH. Without objection, Mr. Young is going to be 

recognized to answer that question, although this is the first time 

I’ve ever heard of a carryover from one day to the next. 

Ms. ESTY. No, I was noting how far over my colleagues were 

going, 2.5, 1 and 2 and 3 minutes over yesterday, so I never—I 

missed my five minutes being able to say. Thank you. I appreciate 

your indulgence. 

Chairman SMITH. Please, Mr. Young, feel free to answer the 

question. 
129 

Mr. YOUNG. The—one of the things that struck us in our review 

process is the small problems can have such big implications for a 

system as complex and challenging as James Webb. And what that 

really says—and I’m kind of following what Wes said—is that it’s 

important to know the pedigree of the hardware all the way 

through the process. And what that really means is that when the 

piece of hardware is first built, from that point on, each step of the 

process there’s an appropriate test to make sure that you know the 

pedigree of the hardware. And if you do that all the way through 

the final assembly of this observatory, then you can be pretty confident that you don’t have embedded problem. 

If I use the sunshield as an example, the sunshield was not tested as an individual item prior to being integrated with the spacecraft. Now, I don’t know the full details of that, but I think that 

was a joint decision by NASA and Northrop Grumman, and I think 

it was derived primarily because there’s only one sunshield, and 

that’s the one that’s going to fly, and so you don’t want to wear it 

out so to speak. But had that test been done, my guess is that this 

fastener problem would have been found and the implication would 

have been much less. 

So only as an example that that was an embedded problem that 

went forward so we kind of lost the pedigree of the hardware, and 

then it got to a higher level of integration when the problem was 

discovered, and therefore, the implication is much larger. So there 

really is a process of knowing this pedigree all the way through 

that results in when the final observatory is assembled and tested, 

you could have pretty good confidence that you don’t have embedded problems. And that’s a great question, by the way. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Ms. Esty. 

Ms. ESTY. Thank you. I appreciate it. 

Chairman SMITH. The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Cloud, is recognized for his questions. 

Mr. CLOUD. Thanks for being here. First of all, it’s certainly not 

lost on me or I think anybody here that you’re literally dealing 

with rocket science, and that’s way beyond my pay grade. Our job, 

though, is to manage the checkbook, and I’m curious about the 

process, because we all agree that mission success is critical, also 

the scientific, humanitarian, national security implications, but 

we’re presented with thousands of good ideas every day, and we 

have to manage that on a budget. 

So I’m curious about the bidding process, because it seems almost like it’s a normal process in business that we bid a project, 

it gets approved, but we know that we’ll actually be able to spend 

as much money as we want on it. You mentioned that everything 

went back to NASA and was approved, so does NASA think they 

have the right to spend more money on projects that Congress approves? It seems like that rebidding process or that extra work 

order, change order process that Mrs. Lesko talked about, should 

come back to Congress. Has that not happened? 

And I understand it seems like part of the low-bid process is part 

of the problem in the sense that we put a low-bid project and then 

we take on these great, awesome projects and try to move them forward. Is there anything we can do in the bidding process to remedy 

that? 
130 

Mr. BUSH. So I think that is a really good question and Mr. 

Young talked about this a little bit earlier. I would simply reinforce 

what he said. We have found that the customer communities that 

implement an independent cost estimating process as a part of 

their source selection activities tend to end up with budgetary 

strategies and management strategies that are a bit more robust 

against the inevitable variability of some of these complex programs. 

And we can turn the clock way back because we’re talking about 

Webb. you know, where a contract decision was made I believe it 

was in 2002, but a lot has changed in acquisition strategies since 

then both at NASA, as well as some other customer communities. 

And the use of independent cost estimating, when done well, often 

results in contractors being selected who did not bid the lowest cost 

because the customer community then has the opportunity to 

evaluate bids against this broader analytic of what it should cost 

to do a job. And I think that’s a healthy practice. I endorse its use. 

And, Mr. Young, I would defer to you if you have some other 

things to add to it. 

Mr. YOUNG. No, I don’t. I mean, I think that’s really what I 

would advocate. I don’t mean this quite the way it sounds, but I 

would recommend that cost proposals or cost-plus contracts never 

be opened. I mean, I think they only, you know, confuse the situations. Independent cost estimating is really the quality of the process— 

Mr. CLOUD. It seems to me, too, like putting together some sort 

of system where we could rate government contractors based on 

past performance of on-time delivery and on budget might be something to work into that project. 

One other question, you testified that the sunshield was more 

difficult than was thought, and I can appreciate that. Maybe Mr. 

Young touched on this in the last question, but in the original bid, 

my understanding is that the sunshield was promoted as existing 

technology, yet we’re finding out that a lot of the cost overruns had 

to do with them not being existing technology. Could you clarify? 

Mr. BUSH. I can’t speak to what may have been written some 

many years ago, but I would be very clear that the sunshield is a 

new invention and a new development, and as we’ve gone through 

it, it has been exciting to see how those developments have occurred. If you look at each of the levels of the sunshield, the membranes, they’re about the thickness of a human hair, Kapton, silicon-coated. It is a phenomenal class of technology. It will have a 

lot of other applications over time, but this has clearly been a new 

development. 

Mr. YOUNG. I think if I would add, you know— 

Mr. CLOUD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman SMITH. Mr. Cloud, if you will, will you yield the balance—— 

Mr. CLOUD. Yes. 

Chairman SMITH. —of your time to me? 

Mr. CLOUD. Yes. 

Chairman SMITH. Okay. Thank you. I’ve thought of another question, Mr. Bush, for you. In Mr. Young’s report, there were several 

instances of preventable human error that were pinpointed that led 
131 

to millions of dollars of cost overruns. I’m just curious if those employees are still employed by Northrop Grumman. 

Mr. BUSH. So we look very carefully each time we have an error 

to make sure we understand what the challenge is and what the 

issue is. And given the complexity—and yes, there have some— 

been some mistakes. But to answer your question very directly, 

with respect to the mistakes, we have not found instances of the 

type of behavior that were contributory to those mistakes that were 

deemed—— 

Chairman SMITH. I mean, you had a situation—— 

Mr. BUSH. —to be willful conduct. 

Chairman SMITH. —where a solvent was used that was the 

wrong solvent that cost $100 million more of overruns. There had 

to be some actual human individual that applied that solvent. My 

question is are those types of individuals who committed the preventable human error still employed by Northrop Grumman? 

Mr. BUSH. If we find issues with conduct that we think is willful 

misconduct, we act on it. 

Chairman SMITH. Okay. But—— 

Mr. BUSH. In the cases where the individuals make honest errors—— 

Chairman SMITH. Right. So no one has lost—— 

Mr. BUSH. —then we want—— 

Chairman SMITH. No one has lost their—— 

Mr. BUSH. —we want them to learn. 

Chairman SMITH. No one has lost their job because of any cost 

overrun to date? 

Mr. BUSH. I would not say that. 

Chairman SMITH. Okay. 

Mr. BUSH. I’m talking about these individuals specifically—— 

Chairman SMITH. Okay. Well, how many people have lost their 

job? 

Mr. BUSH. Are you talking specifically to this program? 

Chairman SMITH. Yes, JWST. 

Mr. BUSH. I don’t have a number off the top of my head. 

Chairman SMITH. It’s more than zero? 

Mr. BUSH. I can’t confirm that for you here today. I’m simply telling you how we approach assessing what—— 

Chairman SMITH. No, no, I know. Of course, that wasn’t responsive, but my question is—you do not know as CEO whether any 

employees lost their job because of the human errors? 

Mr. BUSH. With respect to the mistakes that we’re talking about 

here today, I do not recall any losing their jobs. 

Chairman SMITH. Okay. And then going back to the question 

about profit, what was Northrop’s profit last year in 2017, just to 

the nearest tenth of a billion? 

Mr. BUSH. We can get you that for the record. 

Chairman SMITH. I’m sorry? 

Mr. BUSH. We can provide that to you for the record. 

Chairman SMITH. Okay. 

Mr. BUSH. I don’t want to make a financial mistake—— 

Chairman SMITH. Isn’t it—— 

Mr. BUSH. —by not recalling something exactly. 

Chairman SMITH. Isn’t it a matter of public record? 
132 

Mr. BUSH. Yes, sir. That’s why we can easily get it to you for the 

record. 

Chairman SMITH. Okay. But why won’t you tell us today what 

it is? 

Mr. BUSH. I don’t have it in front of me. 

Chairman SMITH. Well, do you not? How could a CEO not know 

what the profit of his company was last year? 

Mr. BUSH. We will provide that to you for the record. 

Chairman SMITH. And you say it’s public information but you 

won’t—— 

Mr. BUSH. Yes, sir. 

Chairman SMITH. —tell us today? You just don’t want to say 

what the figure is? 

Mr. BUSH. No, I just want to make sure I get it right. 

Chairman SMITH. Well, could it have been $6 billion in 2017? 

Mr. BUSH. If that’s what the filing says, then it will be exactly 

accurate. 

Chairman SMITH. Okay. But why would you not tell us? I just 

don’t understand. You’ve talked about transparency. You’ve talked 

about willingness to give us information. Why wouldn’t you be willing to tell us what the profit is or what—— 

Mr. BUSH. I’m perfectly willing to tell you. I just want to make 

sure we get it exactly right. 

Chairman SMITH. But you as CEO—— 

Mr. BUSH. I’m very careful about financial reporting—— 

Chairman SMITH. You—okay. How about this? You as CEO, what 

was the profit last year to the nearest billion? Do you know that, 

and are you willing to say it? 

Mr. BUSH. Mr. Chairman, as I said, I would be happy to provide 

that to you with—— 

Chairman SMITH. Okay. 

Mr. BUSH. —high precision. 

Chairman SMITH. But you—okay. And you admitted it’s public 

record, but you will not say the figure in front of us today, is that 

right, even to the nearest billion? And you’re CEO? 

Mr. BUSH. I’m happy to provide it and—— 

Chairman SMITH. Okay. 

Mr. BUSH. —make it very, very public. 

Chairman SMITH. All right. Thank you all for being here today, 

and we stand adjourned. 

Mr. BUSH. Thank you. 

[Whereupon, at 11:37 a.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 
(133) 

Appendix I 

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL FOR THE RECORD
134 

DOCUMENT SUBMITTED BY NASA 

Material requested for the record by Representative Takano during the July 25, 2018 

hearing at which Administrator Bridenstine testified. 

Answer: 

Northrop had submitted to NASA one overrun proposal since the 2011 replan. This proposal, 

which was received in July 2016, addressed Northrop overrun costs relative to Optical 

Telescope/ Integrated Science instmment (OTIS) Integration & Testing (I&T); vibration testing 

support; delays in the Particle Dampers; and risk reduction efforts to maintain project's critical 

path. The total negotiated value was $180M. Overrun proposals are not fee bearing. 

On Friday, August 24, 2018, Northrop submitted a second overrun proposal for the slip to the 

new launch readiness date. This latest Northrop Grumman proposal is currently undergoing the 

customary assessment, evaluation, and contract modification process. NASA can make the final 

definitized amount available to the Committee when that amount has been negotiated. Again, 

overrun proposals are not fee bearing. 
135 

DOCUMENT SUBMITTED BY NORTHROP GRUMMAN

Æ 

Additionallnfonnation Provided for the Record by Northrop Grumman: 

During the hearing, Chainnan Smith asked about Northrop Grumman's 2017 profits. That information is 

available on page 23 of Northrop Grumman's annual report, which can be found here: 

http://www.northropnrumman.com/ About Us/ AnnualRcports/Documents/pdfs/20 17 noc ar.pdf