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92–331PDF 2015

AN UPDATE ON THE SPACE LAUNCH 

SYSTEM AND ORION: MONITORING 

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE 

NATION’S DEEP SPACE 

EXPLORATION CAPABILITIES 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON SPACE 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND 

TECHNOLOGY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

DECEMBER 10, 2014 

Serial No. 113–98 

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

( 

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

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY 

HON. LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas, Chair 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

RALPH M. HALL, Texas 

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., 

Wisconsin 

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma 

RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

PAUL C. BROUN, Georgia 

STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois 

LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana 

STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas 

BILL POSEY, Florida 

CYNTHIA LUMMIS, Wyoming 

DAVID SCHWEIKERT, Arizona 

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky 

KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota 

JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma 

RANDY WEBER, Texas 

CHRIS COLLINS, New York 

BILL JOHNSON, Ohio 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland 

FREDERICA S. WILSON, Florida 

SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon 

ERIC SWALWELL, California 

DAN MAFFEI, New York 

ALAN GRAYSON, Florida 

JOSEPH KENNEDY III, Massachusetts 

SCOTT PETERS, California 

DEREK KILMER, Washington 

AMI BERA, California 

ELIZABETH ESTY, Connecticut 

MARC VEASEY, Texas 

JULIA BROWNLEY, California 

ROBIN KELLY, Illinois 

KATHERINE CLARK, Massachusetts 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON SPACE

HON. STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi, Chair 

RALPH M. HALL, TEXAS 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

MO BROOKS, ALABAMA 

LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana 

STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas 

BILL POSEY, Florida 

DAVID SCHWEIKERT, Arizona 

JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma 

CHRIS COLLINS, New York 

LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas 

DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland 

SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon 

DAN MAFFEI, New York 

JOSEPH P. KENNEDY III, Massachusetts 

DEREK KILMER, Washington 

AMI BERA, California 

MARC VEASEY, Texas 

JULIA BROWNLEY, California 

FREDERICA WILSON, Florida 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

December 10, 2014 

Page 

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

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

Opening Statements 

Statement by Representative Steven M. Palazzo, Chairman, Subcommittee 

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

Representatives .................................................................................................... 10 

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

Statement by Representative Donna F. Edwards, Ranking Minority Member, 

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

U.S. House of Representatives ............................................................................ 14 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 15 

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

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

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

Witnesses: 

Mr. Bill Gerstenmaier, Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and 

Operations Mission Directorate, NASA 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 19 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 22 

Ms. Cristina Chaplain, Director, Acquisition and Sourcing Management, Government Accountability Office 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 28 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 30 

Discussion ................................................................................................................. 49 

Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions 

Mr. Bill Gerstenmaier, Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and 

Operations Mission Directorate, NASA .............................................................. 70 

Ms. Cristina Chaplain, Director, Acquisition and Sourcing Management, Government Accountability Office ............................................................................. 95 

Appendix II: Additional Material for the Record 

Prepared Statement Submitted by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, 

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

House of Representatives .................................................................................... 106 

(1) 

AN UPDATE ON THE SPACE 

LAUNCH SYSTEM AND ORION: 

MONITORING THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE 

NATION’S DEEP SPACE 

EXPLORATION CAPABILITIES 

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2014 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON SPACE

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY, Washington, D.C. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:03 a.m., in Room 

2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Steven Palazzo 

[Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding. 
2 
3 
4 
5 
6 
7 
8 
9 
10 

Chairman PALAZZO. The Subcommittee on Space will come to 

order. 

Good morning. Welcome to today’s hearing titled ‘‘An Update on 

the Space Launch System and Orion: Monitoring the Development 

of the nation’s Deep Space Exploration Capabilities. In front of you 

are packets containing the written testimony, biography, and truthin-testimony disclosure for today’s witnesses. 

I recognize myself for five minutes for an opening statement. 

I would like to welcome everyone to our hearing and particularly 

our witnesses. Thank you for your appearance here today. 

Anyone who pays attention to the media at all is no doubt aware 

of the spectacular launch of the Orion crew vehicle last week. I 

want to congratulate Mr. Gerstenmaier and his entire team at 

NASA, as well as the teams at Lockheed Martin and United 

Launch Alliance for an outstanding test flight. 

While we will hear today about the preliminary results from this 

test, the scientists and engineers at NASA will continue to analyze 

the data for quite some time. I look forward to hearing more about 

the progress of this analysis in the future. 

The successful test launch of Orion demonstrates that we are on 

the right track for sending humans back to the Moon and Mars 

within our lifetimes. Across the nation, people were watching with 

the same hope and pride that all Americans had in the early days 

of our space program. In my Congressional District children were 

bussed to Stennis Space Center to watch a live feed of the launch. 

Events like this are what we need to inspire the next generation 

of astronauts and engineers, and SLS is a giant leap forward in 

making America the leader in space once again. The tremendous 

ongoing work at NASA and our industry partners is beginning to 

produce tangible results. The nation can be proud of what was accomplished last week. It was certainly a job well done. 

The purpose of our hearing today is to examine the challenges 

and opportunities facing the Space Launch System and Orion programs. It is no secret that this Committee is concerned that the 

support within NASA for the SLS and Orion is not matched by the 

Administration. While this lack of commitment is somewhat puzzling, it is not at all surprising. The President has made clear that 

he does not believe space exploration is a priority for the nation 

and has allowed political appointees within the Administration to 

manipulate the course of our human space flight program. These 

decisions should be made by the scientists, engineers, and program 

managers that have decades of experience in human space flight. 

As everyone here knows, this is not an easy field; we cannot 

ramp up capability or prepare for these missions overnight. Space 

exploration requires a dedication to advanced preparation and research, and this Committee and this Congress are dedicated to supporting that requirement. 

The Administration has consistently requested large reductions 

for these programs despite the insistence of Congress that they be 

priorities. Most recently, the President’s budget for Fiscal Year 

2015 included a request to reduce these programs by over $330 million compared to the Fiscal Year 2014 enacted appropriation. Additionally, in the 2013, 2014, 2015 budget requests, the Administration asked for reductions of $175.1 million, $87 million, and $144 
11 

million respectively for the Orion program relative to the enacted 

appropriations. 

Had Congress agreed to the requests, Orion and the SLS would 

have incurred hundreds of millions of dollars in reductions and 

would likely face significant delays and mass layoffs. Thankfully, 

Congress listened to the program managers and industry partners 

to ensure these programs were appropriately funded. 

Congress has once again demonstrated support for the SLS and 

Orion by providing funding well above the President’s budget request in the Omnibus for Fiscal Year 2015. While these priority 

programs may not enjoy support within the Administration, they 

certainly do from Congress. Let me be very clear, on my watch 

Congress will not agree to gutting the SLS program; not now and 

not any time in the foreseeable future. 

The human exploration program at NASA has been plagued with 

instability from constantly changing requirements, budgets, and 

missions. We cannot change our program of record every time there 

is a new president. This committee is consistent and unwavering 

in its commitment to human exploration, a tradition that I appreciate and am confident will continue into the future. 

While this hearing is certainly an opportunity for us to celebrate 

the great progress of the SLS and Orion programs, particularly last 

week’s test flight, the Committee has ongoing concerns about the 

challenges facing these vital programs. In a letter to the NASA Administrator, Chairman Smith and I expressed our concerns for potential delays of Exploration Mission-1 that had been slated for 

2017 and is now potentially delayed to as late as Fiscal Year 2018. 

The Administration’s letter back to the Committee was strangely 

unresponsive and did not inspire a lot of confidence in NASA’s ability to meet the original timelines laid out. Congress needs answers 

to these questions. At the very least, we need to know, what are 

the true funding needs and schedule expectations for the development of the SLS and Orion Programs, and is NASA on track to 

meet these expectations? 

In addition to consistently submitting insufficient funding requests, the Administration also appears to be limiting the usefulness of funding it does receive. For example, the Administration’s 

treatment of termination liability prevents hundreds of millions of 

dollars from being used for meaningful development work. Also, the 

Committee has learned that the Administration has given direction 

to the SLS and Orion programs to plan spending rates consistent 

with the President’s budget request instead of the higher continuing resolution level. Combined, these efforts are undermining 

the successful development of these national priority programs. 

In a recent report titled ‘‘Space Launch System: Resources Need 

to be Matched to Requirements to Decrease Risk and Support Long 

Term Affordability,’’ the Government Accountability Office highlighted technical and schedule risks that NASA had not previously 

brought to the attention of the Committee. Specifically, GAO states 

that ‘‘According to the program’s risk analysis, the agency’s current 

funding plan for SLS may be $400 million short of what the program needs to launch by 2017.’’ It was surprising for the Committee to hear about this shortfall since the Administrator had pre-
12 

viously testified that ‘‘If we added $300 million to the SLS program, you wouldn’t know it.’’ 

It is not unreasonable for Congress to expect the Administration 

to be straightforward about the risks and costs associated with national priority programs. As we look to continue pushing towards 

Mars, we must talk honestly and realistically about these programs 

and what we can accomplish with them. We want to be partners 

moving forward, not competitors; unfortunately, the Administration 

has simply not allowed for that cooperation. 

The test last week of Orion was an important milestone in the 

future of America’s space program. It was a fully commercial mission licensed by the Federal Aviation Administration and conducted by the private sector. In the future, Orion and SLS will 

serve as the tip of the spear for our nation’s space exploration program. 

Recently, some have argued that the government shouldn’t be involved in space exploration at all and suggest that the private sector alone is capable of leading us into the cosmos. I certainly hope 

that this will someday be possible, but right now, space exploration 

requires government support. This is a worthwhile investment for 

the taxpayer. It inspires the next generation of explorers to pursue 

science, technology, engineering, and math; advances U.S. soft 

power and international relations; reinforces our aerospace industrial base; increases economic competitiveness; and advances our 

national security interests. Orion and SLS, the vanguard of our nation’s space program, are key to advancing these interests. 

I look forward to hearing from Mr. Gerstenmaier and Ms. Chaplain today about the challenges and opportunities facing these important programs. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Palazzo follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SUBCOMMITTEE ON SPACE

CHAIRMAN STEVEN M. PALAZZO

Good morning, I would like to welcome everyone to our hearing and particularly 

our witnesses. Thank you for your appearance here today. 

Anyone who pays attention to the media at all is no doubt aware of the spectacular launch of the Orion crew vehicle last week. I want to congratulate Mr. 

Gerstenmaier and his entire team at NASA as well as the teams at Lockheed Martin and United Launch Alliance for an outstanding test flight. 

While we will hear today about the preliminary results from this test, the scientists and engineers at NASA will continue to analyze the data for quite some 

time. I look forward to hearing more about the progress of this analysis in the future. 

The successful test launch of Orion demonstrates that we are on the right track 

for sending humans back to the Moon and Mars, within our lifetimes. Across the 

nation people were watching with the same hope and pride that all Americans had 

in the early days of our space program. In my congressional district children were 

bussed to Stennis Space Center to watch a live feed of the launch. Events like this 

are what we need to inspire the next generation of astronauts and engineers; and 

SLS is a giant leap forward in making America the leader in space once again. The 

tremendous ongoing work at NASA and our industry partners is beginning to 

produce tangible results. The nation can be proud of what was accomplished last 

week. It was certainly a job well done. 

The purpose of our hearing today is to examine the challenges and opportunities 

facing the Space Launch System and Orion programs. It is no secret that this Committee is concerned that the support within NASA for the SLS and Orion is not 

matched by the Administration. While this lack of commitment is somewhat puzzling, it is not at all surprising. The President has made clear that he does not believe space exploration is a priority for the nation and has allowed political ap-
13 

pointees within the administration to manipulate the course of our human space 

flight program. These decisions should be made by the scientists, engineers, and 

program managers that have decades of experience in human space flight. As everyone here knows, this is not an easy field, we cannot ramp up capability or prepare 

for these missions overnight. Space exploration requires a dedication to advance 

preparation and research, and this committee and this congress are dedicated to 

supporting that requirement. 

The Administration has consistently requested large reductions for these programs despite the insistence of Congress that they be priorities. Most recently, the 

President’s budget for Fiscal Year 2015 included a request to reduce these programs 

by over $330 million compared to the Fiscal Year 2014 enacted appropriation. Additionally, in the 2013, 2014, 2015 budget requests, the Administration asked for reductions of $175.1 million, $87 million, and $144.2 million respectively for the Orion 

program relative to the enacted appropriations. 

Had Congress agreed to the requests, Orion and the SLS would have incurred 

hundreds of millions of dollars in reductions and would likely face significant delays 

and mass layoffs. Thankfully, Congress listened to the program managers and industry partners to ensure these programs were appropriately funded. 

Congress has once again demonstrated support for the SLS and Orion by providing funding well above the president’s budget request in the Omnibus for fiscal 

year 2015. While these priority programs may not enjoy support within the Administration, they certainly do from Congress. 

Let me be very clear, on my watch Congress will not agree to gutting the SLS 

program; not now and not anytime in the foreseeable future. 

The human exploration program at NASA has been plagued with instability from 

constantly changing requirements, budgets, and missions. We cannot change our 

program of record every time there is a new president. This committee is consistent 

and unwavering in its commitment to human exploration, a tradition that I appreciate and am confident will continue into the future. 

While this hearing is certainly an opportunity for us to celebrate the great 

progress of the SLS and Orion programs, particularly last week’s test flight, the 

Committee has ongoing concerns about the challenges facing these vital programs. 

In a letter to the NASA Administrator, Chairman Smith and I expressed our concerns for potential delays of Exploration Mission-1 that had been slated for 2017 

and is now potentially delayed to as late as fiscal year 2018. The administration’s 

letter back to the Committee was strangely unresponsive and did not inspire a lot 

of confidence in NASA’s ability to meet the original timelines laid out. Congress 

needs answers to these questions. At the very least, we need to know, what are the 

true funding needs and schedule expectations for the development of the SLS and 

Orion Programs and is NASA on track to meet these expectations? 

In addition to consistently submitting insufficient funding requests, the Administration also appears to be limiting the usefulness of funding it does receive. For example, the Administration’s treatment of termination liability prevents hundreds of 

millions of dollars from being used for meaningful development work. Similarly, the 

committee has learned that the Administration has given direction to the SLS and 

Orion programs to plan spending rates consistent with the President’s Budget Request instead of the higher Continuing Resolution level. Combined, these efforts are 

undermining the successful development of these national priority programs. 

In a recent report titled Space Launch System–Resources Need to be Matched to 

Requirements to Decrease Risk and Support Long Term Affordability, the Government Accountability Office highlighted technical and schedule risks that NASA had 

not previously brought to the attention of the Committee. Specifically, GAO states 

that quote ‘‘According to the program’s risk analysis . . . the agency’s current funding 

plan for SLS may be $400 million short of what the program needs to launch by 

2017.’’ It was surprising for the Committee to hear about this shortfall since the Administrator had previously testifiedthat quote ‘‘If we added $300 million to the SLS 

program, you wouldn’t know it.’’ 

It is not unreasonable for Congress to expect the Administration to be straight 

forward about the risks and costs associated with national priority programs. As we 

look to continue pushing towards Mars, we must talk honestly and realistically 

about these programs and what we can accomplish with them. We want to be partners moving forward, not competitors; unfortunately the Administration has simply 

not allowed for that cooperation. The test last week of Orion was an important milestone in the future of America’s space program. It was a fully commercial mission 

licensed by the Federal Aviation Administration and conducted by the private sector. In the future, Orion and SLS will serve as the tip of the spear for our nation’s 

space exploration program. 
14 

Recently, some have argued that the government shouldn’t be involved in space 

exploration at all and suggest that the private sector alone is capable of leading us 

into the cosmos. I certainly hope that this will someday be possible, but right now, 

space exploration requires government support. 

This is a worthwhile investment for the taxpayer. It inspires the next generation 

of explorers to pursue science, technology, engineering, and math; advances U.S. soft 

power and international relations; reinforces our aerospace industrial base; increases economic competitiveness; and advances our national security interests. 

Orion and SLS—the vanguard of our nation’s space program—are key to advancing 

these interests. I look forward to hearing from Mr. Gerstenmaier and Ms. Chaplain 

today about the challenges and opportunities facing these important programs. 

Chairman PALAZZO. I now recognize the Ranking Member from 

Maryland, Ms. Edwards. 

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

morning and welcome to our witnesses. 

I want to join Chairman Palazzo in congratulating NASA, Lockheed, United Launch Alliance, and the entire government and contractor team on successfully conducting the Exploration Flight 

Test, EFT–1, of the Orion capsule last week. I think it was truly 

exciting and I know that around the country and around the world 

there were many of us looking on television for the first time in a 

long time at a U.S. space program that really is very forward-looking. The flight subjected Orion and its systems to the rigors of 

outer space beyond low Earth orbit to test key systems, verify the 

Orion design, reduce technical risks, and test recoverability operations. 

Mr. Chairman, I believe that this test flight shows Americans 

that tangible progress is in fact being made on returning humans 

to exploration beyond our Earth’s neighborhood and a goal that 

this Committee and the Congress as a whole have embraced 

through multiple NASA Authorization Acts, despite some of the 

challenges that the Chairman laid out. 

I would also note that I think we were in this hearing room just 

three years ago wondering whether Orion was really going to be 

possible or not and I think that we have addressed that question 

in what is a remarkably short period of time. And so while I look 

forward to looking at the challenges and taking on some of those 

challenges, I don’t want us to lose sight of the fact that we have 

great capacity and that the American people can get greatly excited 

by that and I think then lead those of us who are the policymakers 

to do the right thing when it comes to robustly funding our exploration program. 

The development of the Space Launch System, SLS, and the 

Orion crew vehicle are necessary next steps in reaching our goals 

for human space exploration, including the long-term goal of sending humans to the surface of Mars, as stated in our bipartisan 

House-passed NASA Authorization Act of 2014. And so I also thank 

you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing so we can obtain an 

update on the status of the SLS and Orion programs. 

And it was indeed just those three years ago that we sat in this 

room and we were pressing NASA for a decision on a final design 

of the SLS rocket. There was great debate between the Administration and this Committee and the Congress, and I think today we 

are going to hear of the program’s approval to enter into the fullscale development, as some of us had envisioned. This is indeed a 
15 

significant accomplishment, even in the midst of major challenges, 

especially those related to constrained budgets. Very often Congress has been supportive of SLS/Orion and has appropriated funding above the President’s request, as the Chairman has indicated. 

I don’t know that I necessarily share the Chairman’s view about 

where all the faults lie. However, the programs have been challenged by the flat funding levels provided for SLS and Orion over 

the past years, a situation that departs significantly from the typical funding growth profiles of major development programs, and 

that is why we have recognized the critical need to authorize a robust top-line funding level for NASA in the 2013 Democratic NASA 

authorization bill that included healthy increases for the exploration program. 

The National Academies Committee in fact recently released its 

report on human space exploration and also recognized that sending humans to the surface of Mars would include and require sustained increases. They said, ‘‘Increasing NASA’s budget to allow increasing the human spaceflight budget by five percent per year 

would enable pathways with potentially viable mission rates greatly reducing technical, cost, and schedule risk.’’ 

And so, Mr. Chairman, we can work together to overcome these 

challenges. And as we work over this next Congress to reauthorize 

NASA, I look forward to working with you to ensure that this Committee authorizes the appropriations that the SLS and Orion programs require to achieve the expeditious development and testing 

of these vehicles for their use at the earliest possible date and that 

we obtain a human exploration roadmap to focus the SLS and 

Orion systems on long-term mission goals. And because when I see 

the excitement of the EFT–1 test flight, as demonstrated by the 

flight’s coverage as a leading media story—I think in fact it did 

lead the broadcast news—I am reminded that the SLS and Orion 

programs really do belong to the American public and that they 

will in fact embrace them. We need to honor this thirst for exploration. 

And finally, though the 113th Congress is rapidly drawing to a 

close, I encourage our colleagues in the Senate to seek quick passage of the House-passed NASA Authorization Act of 2014 so that 

NASA and its industry contractors, all of them, have the direction 

and stability needed to plan for continued progress. 

And then finally, I will just reiterate what I have said many 

times before and that is we cannot have one set of goals for NASA 

and for our human exploration programs and then not match those 

goals with the resources that are required to commit to the work 

on a timely basis. It is unfair to the agency, it is unfair to contractors, and it is a false expectation for the public. 

And with that I yield back and I look forward to hearing the testimony today. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Edwards follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SUBCOMMITTEE ON SPACE

RANKING MINORITY MEMBER DONNA F. EDWARDS

Good morning and welcome to our witnesses. First, I want to join Chairman 

Palazzo in congratulating NASA, Lockheed Martin, United Launch Alliance, and the 
16 

entire government and contractor team on successfully conducting the Exploration 

Flight Test—EFT-1—of the Orion capsule last week. 

The flight subjected Orion and its systems to the rigors of outer space beyond low 

Earth orbit to test key systems, verify the Orion design, reduce technical risks, and 

test recoverability operations. Mr. Chairman, this test flight shows Americans that 

tangible progress is being made on returning humans to exploration beyond our 

Earth’s neighborhood, a goal that this Committee and the Congress as a whole have 

embraced through multiple NASA Authorization Acts. 

The development of the Space Launch System-SLS-and the Orion crew vehicle are 

necessary next steps in reaching our goals for human space exploration, including 

the long-term goal of sending humans to the surface of Mars as stated in our bipartisan House-passed NASA Authorization Act of 2014. So I thank you, Mr. Chairman, 

for holding this hearing to obtain an update on the status of the SLS and Orion 

programs. 

It was only three years ago that we sat in this room pressing NASA for a decision 

on a final design for the SLS rocket, and today we’ll hear of the program’s approval 

to enter into full scale development. That’s a significant accomplishment, even in 

the midst of major challenges, especially those related to constrained budgets. 

Congress has been supportive of SLS and Orion and has appropriated funding 

above the President’s requests. However, the programs have been challenged by the 

flat funding levels provided for SLS and Orion over the past years, a situation that 

departs significantly from the typical funding growth profiles of major development 

programs. 

That’s why we recognized the critical need to authorize a robust top-line funding 

level for NASA in the 2013 Democratic NASA Authorization bill that included 

healthy increases for the exploration program. The National Academies committee 

that recently released its report on human space exploration also recognized that 

sending humans to the surface of Mars would require sustained increases. They 

said, ‘‘Increasing NASA’s budget to allow increasing the human spaceflight budget 

by five percent per year would enable pathways with potentially viable mission 

rates, greatly reducing technical, cost, and schedule risk.’’ 

Mr. Chairman, we can work together to overcome these challenges. As we work 

to reauthorize NASA during the next Congress, I look forward to working with you 

to ensure that this Committee authorizes the appropriations that the SLS and Orion 

programs require to achieve the expeditious development and testing of these vehicles for their use at the earliest possible date, and that we obtain a human exploration roadmap to focus the SLS and Orion systems on long-term mission goals. 

Because, when I see the excitement of the EFT-1 test flight as demonstrated by 

the flight’s coverage as a leading media story, I’m reminded that the SLS and Orion 

programs belong to the American public. We need to honor their thirst for exploration. 

And, finally, though the 113th Congress is rapidly drawing to a close, I encourage 

our colleagues in the Senate to seek quick passage of the House-passed 2014 NASA 

Authorization Act so that NASA and its industry contractors have the direction and 

stability needed to plan for continued progress. 

Thank you and I yield back. 

Chairman PALAZZO. Thank you, Ms. Edwards. 

I now recognize the Chairman of the full Committee, Chairman 

Smith. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And first, I want to congratulate Bill Gerstenmaier and those at 

NASA and also at Lockheed Martin, and United Launch Alliance, 

who I see represented in the room today, on a spectacular flight 

test last week of the Orion crew vehicle. I know a lot of hard work 

went into making that test flight successful. 

At a fundamental level, space exploration—the mission of 

NASA—is about inspiration. This inspiration fuels our desire to 

push the boundaries of what is possible and to reach beyond our 

own pale blue dot. The successful Orion launch last week is one 

step in a long journey. 

The purpose of today’s hearing is simple: We wish to send a loud 

and clear message that space exploration is NASA’s number one 

priority, and last week’s test flight demonstrated many firsts. We 
17 

are also here to ensure the next steps in this long journey are on 

track and will be just as successful. 

There is bipartisan support within Congress that NASA stay on 

track with the Orion crew vehicle and Space Launch System, including the omnibus appropriations bill that we plan to vote on tomorrow. The Orion and SLS are essential elements for astronauts 

to eventually travel beyond low Earth orbit. 

The omnibus appropriations bill made public last night is the latest example of Congressional support for these programs. Funded 

well above the President’s budget request, the SLS and Orion are 

receiving the resources they need to ensure their success. 

Fortune favors the bold. Last week’s test flight was necessary to 

answer the naysayers and critics who claim that America’s best 

days on the frontier of space are behind us. Last week’s mission answered those critics. The Apollo program demonstrated that we 

could reach the moon. And Orion and SLS will ensure that America 

continues a sustained series of missions as a space-faring nation 

for decades to come. The technologies that are developed for these 

programs exemplify our greatest breakthroughs and demonstrate 

American ingenuity. We must continue to push forward. 

Great nations do great things. Everyone in today’s hearing wants 

to ensure that the first flag flying on the surface of Mars is planted 

by an American astronaut. And they will have arrived there onboard an Orion crew vehicle, propelled by the Space Launch System. Let’s work together to make that happen. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Smith follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY

CHAIRMAN LAMAR SMITH

First I want to congratulate Bill Gerstenmaier and those at NASA, Lockheed Martin, and United Launch Alliance on a spectacular flight test last week of the Orion 

crew vehicle. I know a lot of hard work went into making that test flight happen. 

At a fundamental level, space exploration—the mission of NASA—is about inspiration. This inspiration fuels our desire to push the boundaries of what is possible 

and to reach beyond our own pale blue dot. The successful Orion launch last week 

is one step in a long journey. 

The purpose of today’s hearing is simple: We wish to send a loud and clear message that space exploration is NASA’s number one priority, and last week’s test 

flight demonstrated many firsts. We are also here to ensure the next steps in this 

long journey are on track and will be just as successful. 

There is bipartisan support within Congress that NASA stay on track with the 

Orion crew vehicle and Space Launch System, including the omnibus appropriations 

bill that we plan to vote on tomorrow. The Orion and SLS are essential elements 

for astronauts to eventually travel beyond low Earth orbit. 

The omnibus appropriations bill made public last night is the latest example of 

Congressional support for these programs. Funded well above the President’s Budget Request, the SLS and Orion are receiving the resources they need to ensure their 

success. 

Fortune favors the bold. Last week’s test flight was necessary to answer the 

naysayers and critics who claim that America’s best days on the frontier of space 

are behind us. Last week’s mission answered those critics. 

The Apollo program demonstrated that we could reach the moon. And Orion and 

SLS will ensure that America continues a sustained series of missions as a 

spacefaring nation for decades to come. The technologies that are developed for 

these programs exemplify our greatest breakthroughs and demonstrate American 

ingenuity. We must continue to push forward. 

Great nations do great things. Everyone in today’s hearing wants to ensure that 

the first flag flying on the surface of Mars is planted by an American astronaut. 
18 

And they will have arrived there onboard an Orion crew vehicle, propelled by the 

Space Launch System. 

Let’s work together to make that happen. 

Chairman PALAZZO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

If there are Members who wish to submit additional opening 

statements, your statements will be added to the record at this 

point. 

Before I introduce our witnesses, I would be remiss if I did not 

point out that we are missing one this morning, NASA Chief Financial Officer David Radzanowski. The CFO or his designee was 

invited to participate in today’s hearing to answer questions regarding NASA’s budget development and guidance. Unfortunately, 

despite numerous invitations and attempts to secure his attendance, the Administration refused to make him available. 

Mr. Radzanowski holds a Senate-confirmed position at NASA 

and is obliged to testify before the agency’s oversight committees. 

We are aware of the many demands on his schedule, and for that 

reason the Committee was willing to allow any other employee 

from the CFO’s office to appear. Unfortunately, NASA prohibited 

any other CFO representative from appearing today. This is unfortunate because Mr. Gerstenmaier may not be the appropriate person at NASA to explain many of the policies and practices being 

advanced by the CFO’s office. I look forward to Mr. Radzanowski’s 

appearance before the Committee in the near future to answer our 

questions. 

At this time I would like to introduce our witnesses. Our first 

witness today is Mr. Bill Gerstenmaier. Mr. Gerstenmaier started 

his work with NASA in 1977 as a researcher on aeronautics. 

Today, he is the Associate Administrator for the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate at NASA headquarters 

here in Washington, D.C. Mr. Gerstenmaier has received many 

awards for his work on space exploration, including the distinguished Executive Presidential Rank Award, the National Space 

Club von Braun Award, the Space Transportation Leadership 

Award, and several NASA awards. He received a bachelor of 

science in aeronautical engineering from Purdue University and a 

master of science degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Toledo. 

Our second witness, Ms. Cristina Chaplain, has been a U.S. Government Accountability Office employee for 23 years and currently 

serves as Director of Acquisition and Sourcing Management at 

GAO. In this capacity she is responsible for GAO assessments of 

military space acquisitions and NASA. She has led reviews of the 

Space Launch System, the International Space Station, and the 

James Webb Space Telescope, among others. Prior to her current 

position, Ms. Chaplain worked with GAO’s Financial Management 

Information Technology Teams. She received her bachelor’s in 

international relations from Boston University and a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University. 

Thanks again to our witnesses for being here today. 

As our witnesses should know, spoken testimony is limited to 

five minutes each, after which members of the committee will have 

five minutes each to ask questions. 
19 

I now recognize Mr. Gerstenmaier for five minutes to present his 

testimony. 

TESTIMONY OF MR. BILL GERSTENMAIER, 

ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR FOR HUMAN EXPLORATION 

AND OPERATIONS MISSION DIRECTORATE, NASA 

Mr. GERSTENMAIER. Thank you very much for having me here. 

I would like to again thank you on behalf of the entire team that 

works in the exploration program and I would like to start off my 

testimony with some videos and pictures that we provided earlier. 

These videos and images capture the work that has been accomplished in the exploration program. And I will narrate some of the 

video as it is shown. So if we could start the video, please. 

[Video shown.] 

Mr. GERSTENMAIER. Again, the program is made up of three 

major components, ground systems operations down in Florida, 

which is preparing a launch site. These are the images that you are 

seeing here on the screen. Again, the purpose of this video is to 

show how much work is actually being accomplished, kind of behind the scenes. 

You can see the launch of the EFT–1 but you don’t often get a 

chance to see all the work that is occurring at the various field centers and the various areas that are making these things happen. 

This is the Delta IV. There are some Delta IV images showing 

up down at the Kennedy Space Center. This is the fabrication and 

manufacturing of the Orion capsule that was launched on EFT test 

flight. Again, you get to see the technicians, the folks at the various 

centers working to make all this activity happen. It is not only in 

Florida, but it is also in Houston, where the control center team 

got to monitor the capsule, actually send some commands to the 

capsule. There was a team in Florida that also monitored the 

launch, so they got to participate in that activity and participate 

in the Orion capsule activity. 

Again, you can see the capsule coming together. Some of the 

hardware came from the Marshall Space Flight Center that was actually manufactured. The interface between the Delta IV rocket, 

and the Orion capsule came from the Marshall Space Flight Center. So again, I would say this is an entire NASA team coming together to make this happen. 

This is some work at the—again in Florida preparing for the capsule, and also down at MAF, at the Michoud Assembly Facility, 

where the SLS will be put together. I think you were there for the 

Vertical Assembly Weld Center that got put together that will 

manufacture the large external tanks. That activity is occurring. 

There are several sections all ready to be test-welded next January, 

this—in about a month; that has moved forward. Also, the test 

was—a substantial amount of test occurred before the test to make 

sure the parachute systems would work. 

We are preparing for the future exploration activities to look at 

the Asteroid Redirect Mission, and now you can see some of the 

work of actually, you know, transporting the capsule out to the 

launch pad to be integrated eventually with the Delta IV rocket. 

So again, I think the important message and takeaway from all 

these images is there is a tremendous amount of work going on. It 
20 

is being accomplished pretty much on schedule. There are challenges to this work; it is not easy work. The teams are very dedicated. They are working very hard to make this—things occur and 

I think the results of the test flight show evidence that we are 

making significant and substantial progress as we move forward. 

[Video shown.] 

The next video that is getting queued up now is the actual video 

from the test flight. Many of you got to either see it in person or 

you got to see it on television. Again, I will describe some of the 

activities that occurred there. And again, the point here is that this 

test flight didn’t come about just as a happenstance. There was lots 

of preparation before. We did many drop tests to the parachute systems; we did many recovery activities. We have done the abort system testing down at White Sands earlier again to verify and make 

sure that when we took this test we were ready to go do this test. 

So we didn’t have all the questions answered. There was still significant risk with this test. There were still things that we could 

not test in any other environment other than a test flight, but this 

test flight confirmed that those other pieces, at least at first look, 

fit well and we understand the data and things look very good from 

an overall standpoint. 

Again, a lot of folks got to witness this. This was exciting to see 

people show up in Florida to be there. As you talked about in some 

of your opening remarks, the encouragement to the science, technology, engineering, and math students is really strong. To interact 

with many of the students down in Florida was really exciting for 

me to see their enthusiasm to move forward. 

This is the actual launch activity. That umbilical up at the top 

was unique to Orion. That was added by United Launch Alliance 

just specifically for this flight. That umbilical did not exist before 

this flight on the Delta IV launch. Again, the launch went extremely well. The vehicle gave us a great ride to space, ejected the 

capsule exactly where it needed to be. The upper stage did all of 

its activities to accelerate the vehicle to the right entry conditions. 

All of that worked extremely well and went really, really flawlessly. 

In terms of kind of first results from the test, nothing major was 

really learned. One of the video processing units had to be recycled, 

most likely caused by a radiation event, so we got to understand 

the radiation environment that the capsule will fly through. The 

heat shield looks in very good shape. As we returned, we removed 

some plugs from the heat shield out in California yesterday. The 

capsule is about ready to get on the truck to head towards Florida 

for a more detailed evaluation and all the data has come off the 

capsule. 

The images at apogee are pretty impressive when you look at the 

small Earth and you see the horizon. I think what was more important was that when you see it through a window where someday 

a crew will be, it makes that tie between a human spaceflight and 

the robotic spaceflight even stronger. 

This is the capsule again successfully floating in the water that— 

we expected to see five airbags deployed. In this situation we see 

two. There is something that didn’t work in that system. We know 
21 

the pyros fired, we know the pressure came out of the system, and 

we will understand what occurred. 

But again, overall, just a tremendous testimony to the work that 

the program has put together and I look forward to your questions 

as we move forward in this activity. So thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Gerstenmaier follows:] 
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Chairman PALAZZO. Thank you. 

I now recognize Ms. Chaplain for five minutes to present her testimony. 

TESTIMONY OF MS. CRISTINA CHAPLAIN, DIRECTOR, 

ACQUISITION AND SOURCING MANAGEMENT, 

GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE 

Ms. CHAPLAIN. Chairman Palazzo, Ranking Member Edwards, 

Chairman Smith, and the Members of the Subcommittee, before I 

begin I would like to congratulate NASA on the successful test. It 

indeed does help demonstrate the design and technologies for the 

Orion and it is an important event. 

As you know, we have recently reviewed preliminary cost estimates for the systems being discussed today. We performed an indepth review of the Space Launch System and we have been covering the Orion program through our annual assessment of NASA’s 

major programs. In conducting this work, at the time we reviewed 

SLS, the program was approaching a critical milestone known as 

KDP–C where it makes formal commitments to the Congress in the 

form of costs and schedule baselines. This gate represents the point 

at which a program begins full-scale efforts to fabricate the space 

system and the point at which technical and/or funding problems 

can have widespread effects. We found that SLS was generally 

doing a good job at maturing design, keeping requirements stable, 

and putting a high priority on quality. The program is also acting 

to manage costs. However, it did take longer than recommended to 

definitize contracts, which can create conditions for cost growth. 

The program still faced inherent technical design and engineering risks, as all space programs do, but it was actively managing 

them in a transparent fashion. However, the program still faced a 

resource gap in that the agency’s funding plan for SLS was insufficient to match requirements to resources for the December 2017 

flight test at the high confidence level. The agency’s options were 

largely limited to increasing program funding, delaying the schedule, or accepting a reduced confidence level for the initial flight 

test. 

The SLS program calculated the risk associated with insufficient 

funding through 2017 as 90 percent likely to occur. Further, it indicated the insufficient budget could push the December 2017 launch 

date out six months and add some 400 million to the overall cost 

of development. After our report was issued when NASA established formal baselines for SLS, NASA committed to a launch readiness date of 2018 so that it could have more confidence in meeting 

this date. In our opinion, this was a good step as NASA still has 

low confidence, 30 percent, that it can meet the earlier date. 

Going forward, we have short- and long-term concerns about 

NASA’s human space exploration programs. In the short-term, the 

programs are entering the most risky phases of development. There 

are still technical hurdles to overcome, particularly with the Orion 

spacecraft, which is addressing challenges with the parachute system and the heat shield, among others. There is also still considerable development and testing ahead for Orion in terms of the 

human support systems. 
29 

Meanwhile, SLS is continuing to pursue the earlier launch date 

of December 2017. While NASA’s urgency is understandable, the 

schedule for achieving the earlier date mostly with respect to the 

core stage is very aggressive. There is little room to address problems. Moreover, it does not appear that Orion and the ground system can achieve the earlier date. 

In the long-term we have concerns about the cost estimating for 

human space exploration programs. NASA has only produced estimates for SLS in the ground system through the first flight test 

and for Orion through the second flight test. There would still be 

significant development ahead for SLS after the first flight and significant operations and sustainment costs for all three programs. 

Moreover, there is still uncertainty about missions that will be 

undertaken after the second test. Without knowing the missions 

formally, NASA is limited in its ability to plan for the future and 

is at risk for making choices today that will not make sense later. 

Affordability for the long-haul is a real issue and one that this Subcommittee has already had hearings on, but to garner the longterm commitment from the Congress and taxpayers that is needed 

to make this program a success, we need transparent and realistic 

estimates about the resources that will be needed to achieve the 

Nation’s goals for human space exploration. 

Thank you. This concludes my statement. I am happy to answer 

any questions you have. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Chaplain follows:] 
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Chairman PALAZZO. I thank the witnesses for their testimony 

and reminding the Members that Committee rules limit questioning to five minutes, the Chair will at this point open the round 

of questions. 

The Chair recognizes himself for five minutes. 

Mr. Gerstenmaier, the written testimony provided by GAO and 

Ms. Chaplain states that GAO found that NASA’s proposed funding 

levels had affected the SLS program’s ability to match requirements to resources since its inception. GAO also reported that the 

SLS program is tracking a $400 million shortfall in funding as its 

most significant risk. NASA officials have testified multiple times 

before this committee that the President’s budget request was sufficient to keep the SLS and Orion on budget and on schedule. 

I realize this is a tough question for you to answer because you 

have to defend the President’s budget request, but Congress is ultimately responsible for funding this program and ensuring taxpayer 

dollars are efficiently spent. But given that NASA has now delayed 

the initial launch of SLS due to funding pressure, what funding 

level would keep the 2017 date on track? 

Mr. GERSTENMAIER. Again, I would say that the recent review we 

did, the programmatic review that Cristina talked about, we committed to a joint confidence level of 70 percent on a November of 

2018 launch, and that is consistent with the budgets that we have 

submitted to Congress through the Administration. So that is a 

consistent plan. 

We have been trying to work to an earlier schedule and that is 

based on the risk mitigation for the extra funding we have received 

from Congress, so we have kind of kept both plans in place so we 

take the funds that we are—have been given by Congress and use 

those in an effective manner in trying to hold the earliest launch 

date that we can potentially hold moving forward. We need to be 

aware of the concerns that GAO brought up and make sure that 

we don’t overly pressure that schedule and try to work too fast and 

do things that end up in—wasting the funds or wasting of resources. 

So our current planning we were holding December of 2017. I 

would say we have now moved off of that date. We will be somewhere in the 2018 time frame now with our current planning and 

that is just based on the reality of problems that have come along 

in the program and some uncertainty in funding. So we will move 

a little bit into—probably with our planning dates into I would say 

maybe June kind of time frame of 2018, and that is still ahead of 

our commitment consistent with the budget level in 20—of November of 2018 that is consistent with the President’s budget request. 

So I would say we are managing it in this kind of interesting environment where we get different funding levels. The teams are 

making tremendous technical progress. SLS is entering into probably one of the more critical phases where they actually go in to 

manufacture of hardware and we will see how that goes over the 

next couple of months here in January, February, and March. But 

again, I think we have been able to balance the budget needs that 

we have overall to try to deliver a program as effectively as we can 

for the Nation and for the Congress. 
50 

Chairman PALAZZO. Ms. Chaplain, GAO has noted in the past 

that the SLS and Orion programs do not have integrated schedules 

for development and launch. How is NASA currently managing the 

schedules for these two programs so that they will launch not just 

on time but at the same time? 

Ms. CHAPLAIN. At present there are still different dates in the 

final launches and Orion is a TBD you could say right now because 

they are about to go into the process where they look at their resources, their schedules, and they set a launch date. At this time 

it does not look like they could make 2017 and 2018 is even a challenge in and of itself. So we look forward to seeing what that date 

really is and then how do the dates of the other programs align. 

It is important to plan to a single date as early as you can so you 

can align tasks appropriately to meet that date. You don’t unnecessarily expend resources trying to meet dates that other people or 

other systems can’t meet. So we will have to see what happens 

after this next KDP–C cycle for Orion and see how the dates shake 

out. 

Chairman PALAZZO. I now recognize Ms. Edwards. 

Ms. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And again thank you 

for the testimony. 

Mr. Gerstenmaier, We have all recognized that resources for 

Orion/SLS programs have been constrained and I think we can acknowledge as well that flat budgets are not optimum for carrying 

out major development programs like Orion and SLS, but I am impressed with how much progress has been made on these programs 

given these constraints. And as you know, the Committee has had 

the goal of having SLS and Orion operational at the earliest possible date. You indicated that—you have also indicated the slippage 

based on the budget constraints. 

We are going to be authorizing NASA again—well, reauthorizing 

next year, so I want to understand what the additional progress 

could be made on the SLS and Orion programs if we were to authorize additional resources and whether or not the impact on the 

exploration program—whether there would be any impact if there 

were inflationary increases, as recommended by the National Academies’ report of a five percent increase, say. 

And would a sustained increase of this kind of magnitude be sufficient to accelerate the progress that you describe for projected 

launch dates for EM–1 and 2, or would it only be enough to reduce 

the risk of those dates being pushed even further to the right? I 

guess I am just trying to figure out what would get us back to a 

2017 target. You seem to have indicated that it is not just resources but even Ms. Chaplain acknowledges that the 2018 dates 

are at risk as well because of the uncertainty around budget constraints. 

Mr. GERSTENMAIER. Okay. And I think one thing that could be 

very helpful to us is to get some stability in understanding what 

the budget is. It is difficult for the programs to plan for potentially 

what could be a Congressional budget versus the Administration 

budget. To get some agreement between the Administration and 

Congress so we know what to plan for in terms of budget would 

be helpful to us overall, as well as the absolute level. 
51 

In terms of the technical work, again, I think we have really 

probably moved off of December 2017 when I look at the work so 

I don’t think funding will pull us back to that date. I also respectfully have a difference of opinion with GAO. I think it is perfectly 

fine to complete one of these programs ahead of the others. They 

don’t need to all sync up at exactly the same time. If you think 

about when you take a vehicle to launch down at the Kennedy 

Space Center, typically the rocket is ready to go well before the 

payload is; then the payload comes later. And I think it is actually 

to our advantage to have some difference in schedules between 

those. So I think SLS coming first, having the ground systems 

ready in Florida, and then Orion showing up at the third-place is 

perfectly fine. It is not going to waste resources on—if EM–1 is 

complete, if SLS is ready to go fly, we will beginning to work on 

the next core for the second flight of SLS so that workforce will 

transition immediately from the EM–1 activity to EM–2, so there 

is not a need to have all these programs synced up. So I think we 

needed to be careful and think about that. If we put that extra constraint in where I have to sync all these programs up and match 

all these schedules, I think that puts another burden and that can 

make an inefficiency. 

So again, I think again from a technical standpoint we are probably in 2018 somewhere with SLS and the first part with the funding levels we have seen. We have made the commitment in the 

KDP–C activity to November of 2018, ground ops is in June 2018 

with our commitment, and we are in the process of doing the Orion 

evaluation now to pick a date for Orion. 

Ms. EDWARDS. Thank you. And, some have criticized the SLS and 

Orion program as kind of a rocket and spacecraft without a mission. We have set a long-term goal of a House-passed NASA Authorization Act of 2014 of sending humans to Mars and we need 

a roadmap from NASA of the best way to get there, and it seems 

to me that now is the time for that. What role do you see SLS and 

Orion have in reaching that goal and when will we have a strategy 

for getting there? 

Mr. GERSTENMAIER. I think both SLS and Orion play a key role 

in that strategy you described. SLS is the heavy lift launch vehicle. 

It is the—we need that kind of ability to launch that much mass 

to go do a Mars class mission. Orion will have to return at velocity 

similar to what you saw in the flight test, actually higher from at 

least lunar return velocities, which most capsules have not. So 

those two components are really critical to our Mars strategy. 

There are others that need to be added, a habitation module, and 

we are actually using the space station today to buy down risk on 

the human performance and how well systems work. So I think it 

was talked about, the life support system of Orion; it is actually 

being tested on space station today so we are actually getting a 

chance to see how the Amine Swingbed operations work onboard 

space stations. So we can use all these pieces to continue to advance us towards Mars but I don’t think there is any question that 

these two pieces fit squarely in any plan for Mars activity. 

Ms. EDWARDS. So we should just set aside that criticism, right? 

Mr. GERSTENMAIER. Yes. 

Ms. EDWARDS. Thank you. 
52 

Chairman PALAZZO. I now recognize Mr. Bridenstine from Oklahoma. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for 

your leadership on this very important committee. Thank you to 

our witnesses for providing testimony today. It is an honor to be 

with you and certainly to hear your testimony. 

Gene Cernan was the last man to walk on the moon. He took off 

the moon December 17th, 1972, three years before I was born. He 

was a naval aviator, a naval officer. He was an aeronautical engineer, an electrical engineer, a fighter pilot, a test pilot, and an astronaut. He and so many others that accomplished that pinnacle 

feat never went back to the moon, and I think that is a tragedy 

and certainly something that this committee needs to be aware of. 

It hasn’t happened in my lifetime. My parents remember exactly 

where they were the first time it happened with Neil Armstrong 

and Buzz Aldrin. 

This committee, before I got here, and certainly Congress as a whole, commissioned a report that cost $3.2 million. They spent 18 

months. It was a group of individuals led by Governor Mitch Daniels and they came up with a report that is called ‘‘Pathways to Exploration.’’ And one thing that I thought was telling in this report 

is they talk about a horizon goal. What is the horizon goal for 

NASA? And their horizon goal, according to them, NASA’s horizon 

goal ought to be Mars. And of course there are steppingstones, 

pathways to get to land a human on Mars and to bring humans 

home from Mars. And interestingly, he says, ‘‘The current program 

to develop launch vehicles for spacecraft for flight beyond LEO cannot provide the flight frequency required to maintain competence 

and safety.’’ I am going to read that again: ‘‘cannot provide the 

flight frequency required to maintain competence and safety.’’ 

I took a trip down to Houston, I visited the Johnson Space Center, I talked to them about SLS. Of course everybody was looking 

forward to the first launch. It was going to be December of 2017; 

now we are hearing 2018. But what was interesting is what the follow-on launch after that was going to be. It was going to be a 

human launch that was going to be in 2021, and my initial reaction 

as a Navy pilot—remember, Gene Cernan and these guys inspired 

a guy like me. Even though I hadn’t been born yet, I read about 

these folks. They became heroes of mine and inspired a guy like me 

to join the United States Navy to become a pilot. It was aspirational. This is the kind of benefit that this has to the United States 

of America. 

And they said 2017 would be the first launch, 2018 could be what 

it slips to, and then ultimately we are going to launch man—a 

manned Orion mission in 2021. Now, it would appear that would 

have to slip as well. But my initial reaction was we are going to 

go four years without a launch and then we are going to put men 

in the vehicle and women in the vehicle and send them into space. 

My question for you, Mr. Gerstenmaier—sorry, my name is 

Bridenstine so I live with the same problem—my question for you 

is do you agree with this assessment that the current program to 

develop launch vehicles and spacecraft for flight beyond LEO cannot provide the flight frequency required to maintain competence 

and safety? Do you agree with that? 
53 

Mr. GERSTENMAIER. We are looking very closely at those concerns. I am not—first of all, I would say that the fact that EM– 

1 has moved into ’18 doesn’t mean that EM–2 has moved also. We 

will continue to look at ways of holding that. We are trying to look 

at building a system that we can fly repeatedly and fly for reasonable cost and we still owe answers to GAO on those activities. 

Our goal is, once we fly a crew in ’21, we would like to fly roughly a flight rate of about once per year, and we are off analyzing 

that once-per-year flight rate to see if we can achieve that within 

our budgets and we think if that—does that provide enough frequency of flight that it answers those safety concerns, and we are 

off analyzing both of those activities right now. So our intent would 

be to take this period between the first un-crewed flight of Orion 

to deep space on the SLS and then the second flight with crew and 

then follow that with roughly one flight per year after that. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Do you agree that the horizon goal of the 

United States ought to be landing humans on Mars? 

Mr. GERSTENMAIER. Yes. And the way we see it at NASA is we 

see three phases. There is what we call the Earth-reliant region, 

which is a station which we use today to test out systems like I 

described. We also understand how the human body performs in 

microgravity. We will do a one-year expedition next year with crew 

members to see that the human can tolerate the kind of duration 

in microgravity to go to Mars. 

Then we see the next region of space, the proving-ground region 

of space that is around the moon. That is where we are now days 

away from return, we can test the systems, look at orbital mechanics, we can see deep space radiation, we can do rendezvous without 

communications to the ground, we can verify and validate the concepts that will be needed to take us eventually to Mars. 

Then the last phase is Earth-independent or the Mars-ready 

phase, and that is this horizon goal you described. But we think 

we have at a macro level an orderly process beginning in low Earth 

orbit going to cislunar space and then eventually moving on to the 

Mars class mission. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. And, Mr. Chairman, if you will entertain me 

for just a few seconds here, I would like to ask one last question, 

which is the report here that we commissioned, $3.2 million, 18 

months, a lot of experts, they indicate that given our flat funding 

for the human spaceflight directorate that we are not going to accomplish that mission of getting to the Mars. Given where we are 

with flat funding, do you agree with that assessment? 

Mr. GERSTENMAIER. We are going to need some funding level 

above flat funding. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Would you be willing to come back and provide 

us what kind of funding level is necessary in order to accomplish 

the objective? 

Mr. GERSTENMAIER. We could—we can provide that and we can 

take that for the record and describe that to you. Again, it is going 

to be a function of the time frame and the time frame is driven not 

only by the funding requirement but it is also by have we gained 

enough experience in cislunar space, have we bought down enough 

technical risk, have we—are we ready to take that next step? So 

there are several components. It is more than just a budget discus-
54 

sion; there is also the technical speed and the assurance of what 

we can learn during this period moving forward. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. And that obviously would require more flight 

frequency than what we are currently getting? 

Mr. GERSTENMAIER. Potentially, yes. 

Chairman PALAZZO. The gentleman’s time is expired. We may 

have a second round of questions—— 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Thank you, sir. 

Chairman PALAZZO. —if the Member would like to—at this time 

I recognize Ms. Bonamici for five minutes or six or seven. 

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

And thank you so much to the witnesses for being here today. 

It is really a pretty exciting time for the U.S. space program. I 

know that my colleagues and I all watched the Orion test launch 

with great interest. 

And I want to also join my colleagues to congratulate NASA, 

Lockheed Martin, United Launch Alliance, and everyone who participated in this test flight. I heard from some of my constituents 

who really applauded this, saw this as a big step in our leadership 

in space, and that comes as welcome news as we are trying to inspire and spark interest in the next generation of young scientists. 

In our previous Space Subcommittee hearings, we have talked 

about the challenge of communicating the importance of NASA’s 

work and mission to our constituency who support the mission with 

their hard-earned tax dollars. And as Mr. Bridenstine was saying, 

we have a lot of people who are inspired looking back to the Apollo 

missions and the Moon landing, but that public outreach is really 

important. And I noticed that you gave us a publication here that 

has—‘‘It Takes a Country’’ that talks about all the places across the 

country where the parts and pieces were supplied and purchased 

and that shows a broad range of States and businesses I am sure 

that participated in that. That kind of thing is important to convince our constituents of the importance economically as well. 

I want to make sure Mr. Bridenstine saw the Congressmen On 

Board picture in this publication, too. We have some of our Congressmen pictured in there. 

Also, I know that the budget challenges and the lack of certainty 

is very, very important and, Mr. Gerstenmaier, you talked about 

that need for stability and it is certainly something that we talk 

about here on a regular basis, that that certainty in decision-making is—and long-term thinking—is so important, especially more so 

for NASA than perhaps many of the other decisions that we make 

here. And also we know about the importance of safety. Acknowledging, as we all know, that space exploration involves risk, there 

are safety concerns and I know that NASA does a lot to address 

those. 

So, Mr. Gerstenmaier, some have said that outfitting the Orion 

with the necessary life support equipment on the first crewed mission will cause the spacecraft to be overweight, so should we be 

concerned about that? What options does NASA have to mitigate 

this possibility? 

Mr. GERSTENMAIER. And we—in the flight test we just flew, the 

next flight of Orion will be significantly lighter. We have done a 

major redesign of some of the structures to actually lower the 
55 

weight of Orion and that wasn’t easy to make those changes but 

they have done that. We have also—are starting, as I described 

earlier, testing some of the life support systems on board space station so we will know how much they will actually weigh and some 

of those systems are in place. 

So I think we have a sound approach to address the concerns 

that you raised. We know what it will take to add the life support 

system and we will make sure that it can be added and still not 

exceed the mission weight. 

Ms. BONAMICI. Thank you. And then also, Mr. Gerstenmaier, I 

want to follow up on your response to Ms. Edwards’ question. You 

know, we tend to focus on the SLS and Orion when we think of 

the exploration program, but I want to talk a little bit more about 

the ground infrastructure at the Space Center, which is also undergoing some significant development to support the SLS and Orion 

launches. I know there has been work on the mobile launcher, the 

tower, the vehicle assembly building, the Launch Pad 39B underway, so where does that ground infrastructure work stand relative 

to the progress being made on SLS and Orion? Are they in sync 

so that they will be ready at the same time? 

Mr. GERSTENMAIER. Again, I think you saw in the video a lot of 

activity that is going on down in Florida. That work is in progress 

and we completed the KDP–C review for ground systems and it 

shows a 70 percent confidence level for that equipment to be ready 

in Florida to support a launch in June of 2018, so it is on schedule 

to move forward. 

It has challenges that need to be worked as well, and again I 

would stress I don’t see that all these activities have to line up. 

Even if SLS is ready a little bit early and the ground system isn’t 

fully there, it is still the right thing to do to move the rocket down 

to Florida and begin checking out umbilical interfaces to see how 

it is going to fit within the launch tower, to see how it will fit within the launch pad. That still fits from an overall schedule standpoint so there is not a disconnect in this schedule. Even though 

they don’t—everything doesn’t arrive at precisely the same time, it 

is perfectly appropriate to have one component arrive before. 

Ms. BONAMICI. Thank you. And I am going to squeeze one more 

question in here. 

As demonstrated by the House-passed NASA Authorization of 

2014, there is a strong sentiment for NASA to have a policy on termination liability that really maximizes the use of appropriated 

funds to make progress in meeting those established technical 

goals and schedule milestones. How is NASA currently handling 

potential termination liability for SLS and Orion? 

Mr. GERSTENMAIER. It is actually not a NASA policy. We believe 

it is part of the Anti-Defamation Act where the termination liability is required by all agencies to be handled in a similar manner 

to which the agency does. So, you know, that is where we are. So 

it is not unique to NASA and unique to what we have done in the 

past. 

Ms. BONAMICI. Thank you very much and I am—yield back. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman PALAZZO. I now recognize Mr. Rohrabacher from California. 
56 

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

thank you for holding this hearing. It is vitally important that we 

have a responsible oversight of the various NASA projects that are 

the responsibility of this Subcommittee. Many of us were very 

skeptical about this SLS commitment when it was made. We said 

there would be funding problems; I had no idea the funding problems would come on so quickly. And, sir, you noted that you said 

the funding levels now are interesting. Interesting? They are not 

interesting; they are insufficient, insufficient to reach your goals. 

And why are they insufficient? Because we didn’t have enough 

money for this project to begin with. 

Am I correct in assuming that there are large commitments of 

finances that will be necessary to develop other technologies that 

are yet to be developed for this spacecraft, for the SLS to move forward on its mission to Mars? We don’t even know if those expensive technology development projects will succeed. To say we have 

got the cart before the horse is an understatement. And there is 

an expense to that and I hope my colleagues on this Subcommittee 

understand that with a $10 billion—and that is a minimum expenditure that we are talking about here in developing this monstrous rocket project that won’t have a real mission until we are 

ready to go to Mars, which could be two decades or three decades 

from now depending on if we can actually ever get over the technological hurdles that we haven’t gotten over yet, that by doing that 

we have committed ourselves not to do a bunch of other things, not 

to identify all the near-Earth objects that could be hitting the 

Earth and murdering millions of people from some object hitting 

the Earth, much less setting up a system for how we can deflect 

a near-Earth object. 

We are not going to have that because we are going to have a 

big, huge rocket that we can be so proud of that won’t even have 

a mission for two decades. We are not going to be building ways 

to deflect those rockets. We are not going to be building a way and 

a technology developing a way, Mr. Chairman, to clear space debris. Space debris is going to end up strangling humankind’s involvement in space in order to improve the condition of human 

beings, which is a good investment to make, not an investment in 

a huge rocket that doesn’t have a mission for 20 years. 

And we basically have canceled—just even recently we have canceled this solar cell project. We are not going to have a refueling 

system in space that could incredibly increase our abilities to do 

things in space, and basically we could be perfecting our ways of 

repairing satellites. All of these things are going to be defunded because we are spending billions of dollars on a rocket that may not 

fly to Mars two decades from now. 

This is—I was going to say to say this is the cart before the horse 

is an understatement that I have ever heard and we are already 

having budget crisis talks about it right now because what you are 

telling us today is that things aren’t going to work out with the 

budget that we have got. It is not just interesting; it is insufficient 

to achieve the goal. And even if we do then pump more money into 

the SLS project, we have pumped it into a project that is providing 

a rocket that will be useless to us for two decades as compared to 

all those other things that can be done in space. 
57 

Mr. Chairman, we need to be serious; we need to be responsible. 

We should not be blaming the people at NASA and our professionals and the executive branch. We made a wrong decision when 

we went down this road and I think that unfortunately the American people and the people of the world are going to pay for it not 

just out of their pockets with money but out of things that we could 

of been doing in space that would have been so beneficial to the 

human race. 

With that, and I guess you have got 30 seconds to answer that, 

but go right ahead. Is there any refutation you have of that observation? Please feel free. My feelings won’t be hurt. 

Mr. GERSTENMAIER. My only comments would be we don’t have 

very—we have—I can’t think of any real major technical challenges 

in terms of SLS development. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. How about the radiation challenge with going 

to Mars? 

Mr. GERSTENMAIER. That is—— 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Have we met that? 

Mr. GERSTENMAIER. We have not met that—— 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Yeah, we have got a whole bunch of those 

type. I am not talking about the challenges of developing the SLS; 

I am talking about the challenges of once we have it and we have 

spent those billions of dollars whether it is going to be able to go 

to a mission which it is supposedly for. We don’t even know how 

we are going to land on one of those moons on Mars yet, do we? 

We don’t have the exact systems set up and how much that is 

going to cost us to develop it and how it is going to be put on the 

rocket. We have a list of these technological achievements that are 

necessary for this rocket to have been useful in any way and we 

are not even halfway there. Please feel free. 

Mr. GERSTENMAIER. And then the only other thing I would add 

is we are doing some activities in the area as you described. On 

board space station we have a refueling demonstration—— 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Um-hum. 

Mr. GERSTENMAIER. —package on the board outside of space station where we have actually robotically serviced the outside of a 

satellite—— 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Right. 

Mr. GERSTENMAIER. —and we have transferred some propellant 

back and forth. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Right. 

Mr. GERSTENMAIER. We are also looking at cryogenic servicing on 

station. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Right. 

Mr. GERSTENMAIER. There is a package on board station—— 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Those are the good things. Okay. 

Mr. GERSTENMAIER. And then we also have solar electric propulsion and—as part of the Asteroid Redirect Mission and we are also 

looking at techniques where we can use a gravity tractor—— 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. So—— 

Mr. GERSTENMAIER. —to deflect some asteroids. So we are—— 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. They are wonderful but let me just note all 

of those projects were financed in budgets before the SLS became 

part of our budget. All of those things that you said we now are 
58 

testing, they were done in the research and development stage long 

before we started taking all of our money out to put it in one big 

rocket. And we don’t even know, do we, whether we are going to 

have the money to finish all those projects that you just talked 

about in their development because this is how at $10 billion, and 

by all of the experience we have had, it is likely to go up to double 

that by the time we finish with this rocket. And I say finish, that 

is just when the rocket is ready to take off for the first time. 

This was a rotten decision on the part of this committee. It is not 

your fault. You are good soldiers and you are doing your very best 

with what the Members of Congress are giving you. We have given 

you an undoable task and thank you very much for your hard 

work. 

Chairman PALAZZO. I now recognize Mr. Posey. 

Mr. POSEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am glad that didn’t stop 

Apollo. 

We are all excited about the Orion launch, Mr. Gerstenmaier, 

and I think we are seeing more public awareness of SLS now and 

that is something we all look forward to. Can you take a moment, 

following up on Congresswoman Bonamici’s comments, to discuss 

the importance of another special aspect of the SLS program and 

that is the exploration ground systems. I am sure many folks are 

not up to speed on the importance of the ground systems aspects 

of the SLS. 

Mr. GERSTENMAIER. Yeah, the ground systems team plays a critical role in the Space Launch System. They are working on the mobile launch platform to interface with the rocket to provide propellant to that to fuel the rocket and they will actually launch off it. 

They are also working on a launch pad; a significant amount of 

work has gone into the pad. 

We have looked forward to trying to lower our operations costs 

so there are many activities on the launch pad. It is a clean pad 

which should help lower launch costs. We also have the firing room 

down at the Kennedy Space Center. That is going in place with a 

lot of software development activities there. We have also made the 

launch pad a multipurpose launch pad so it can not only support 

SLS but it can support other rockets so the fiber cables that run 

out to that launch pad can support multiple rockets launching off 

of that pad, which is a good thing. So there is a tremendous 

amount of work going on at the Kennedy Space Center. 

The recovery activities that occurred for the EFT–1 flight, those 

were all managed at the Kennedy Space Flight Center by the 

ground systems folks that worked with the Navy and the Anchorage to pick up the capsules. So again, the ground support activities, 

and as you saw in the video, are absolutely critical to what we are 

doing with the heavy lift launch vehicle and the Orion processing 

and manufacturing. 

Mr. POSEY. Thank you. Following up little bit, can you explain 

the thinking behind the President’s budget request calling for funding increases for exploration ground system in the years 2016 to 

2019 and what happens if these funding targets are not met? 

Mr. GERSTENMAIER. Again, we need the funding levels that we 

have requested to meet the schedules that we have put forward or 

there will be slippages in activities, as I have described. 
59 

Mr. POSEY. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Chairman PALAZZO. I now recognize Mr. Brooks. 

Mr. BROOKS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

As you can discern from the comments of Representatives Donna 

Edwards and Dana Rohrabacher, the mission for SLS and Orion is 

a certainly a concern for this committee and for Congress as a 

whole. Mr. Gerstenmaier, it seems that you are uniquely situated 

as Associate Administrator for Human Exploration Operations to 

answer some of these questions about SLS’s missions. It is one 

thing for us to test whether SLS and Orion components work; it is 

another thing to actually give SLS and Orion a substantive, a real 

mission such as going to the moon or Mars, capturing an asteroid, 

space station resupply if that is what is necessary, or whatever. In 

your opinion, what should SLS’s first real mission be? 

Mr. GERSTENMAIER. I think the SLS and Orion’s first mission 

will be to this proving ground, this space that I described around 

the moon amid we call it cislunar space in the vicinity of the moon. 

That is a very necessary step for us to move forward as we push 

human presence into the solar system. So it is a place for us to 

hone skills, to understand techniques, to prepare, much as the 

early flights did in Mercury and Gemini to prepare for the Apollo 

activities. These flights around the moon will help us prepare to 

get ready to go do these Mars missions decades later. But the first 

flights will be to the vicinity of the moon. The rocket is capable of 

doing that. Orion is capable of doing that without any additions 

and we can learn the skills, bring our level of expertise up to where 

the risk is then appropriate to take bolder steps beyond the 

cislunar space. 

Mr. BROOKS. For clarity, you are saying around the moon. Does 

that include landing on the moon or simply going around the 

moon? 

Mr. GERSTENMAIER. We didn’t—in our budget we don’t have 

funding for landing on the moon; we just have in the vicinity of the 

moon. We use potentially the gravity of the moon to help with 

doing trajectory design as we would look for Mars. We have an 

international community that is very interested in potentially 

doing lunar activities and maybe we can partner with the international community if they choose to develop the lander. But in our 

concept we don’t have funding in our plans for a lander to the 

moon. 

Mr. BROOKS. Okay. After we go around the moon, what should 

be the second mission of SLS? 

Mr. GERSTENMAIER. Again, I think it is going to take more than 

one mission around the moon it to build these skills that we need 

to—— 

Mr. BROOKS. Okay. After all the around-the-moon missions, what 

should be the second mission for SLS? 

Mr. GERSTENMAIER. Then we are ready to start heading towards 

Mars, and whether we go to an asteroid as an intermediate destination or we go all the way to the vicinity of Mars and go to potentially a moon of Mars, those are things yet to be decided. 

Mr. BROOKS. Can you please give me a timetable sequencing of 

what you believe is appropriate for NASA and SLS with respect to 

the missions you have just enumerated? 
60 

Mr. GERSTENMAIER. Again, we kind of think of them in broad 

terms so that the decade of the ’20s to the ’30s, that is this proving 

ground region that I described to you where we learn these capabilities between 2020 and 2030. But beyond 2030 we are ready to 

go do these other activities, to an asteroid potentially in its native 

orbit or potentially all the way to the moons of Mars or to Mars 

in that time frame. 

Mr. BROOKS. So for clarity, for the next decade or two you are 

talking about circling the moon and then roughly two decades 

thereabouts in the 2030s you are talking about then we can think 

about going to Mars. Is that your testimony? 

Mr. GERSTENMAIER. We need—it is not just circling the moon; we 

are actually doing activities around the moon with the intent that 

we are building the skills, understanding the hardware, understanding the techniques, understanding the environment that we 

are operating in that prepares us to go to distances as far as Mars 

with a reasonable risk assessment. 

Mr. BROOKS. Is additional funding needed to speed up the mission platform that you have just expressed? 

Mr. GERSTENMAIER. Additional funding can help with that activity. 

Mr. BROOKS. How much additional funding would be required, by 

way of example, to speed up the Mars part of the mission scope to 

somewhere in the 2020s, around 2030? 

Mr. GERSTENMAIER. Again, I think I would like to take that question for the record. It is more than just funding. It is not only funding but it is also how long it takes us to actually get proficient at 

these skills to go take that next step, and to give you a real answer 

I need to spend some time with our teams looking at how long we 

think those activities take and then back into the funding discussion that you have. 

Mr. BROOKS. Well, I hope you can understand this Subcommittee’s concerns when it took us less than a decade not only to go 

around the moon but to land on the moon under Apollo and with 

what I am hearing you testify to it is going to be 10 to 20 years 

to just go around the moon, not actually land on the moon. So 

those kinds of timing issues are of concern. 

And, Mr. Chairman, if I could ask Ms. Chaplain a question, is 

that okay? 

Chairman PALAZZO. That is okay. 

Mr. BROOKS. Thank you. 

Chairman PALAZZO. You may proceed. 

Mr. BROOKS. At this past year’s hearing on the President’s Fiscal 

Year 2015 budget request for NASA, Administrator Bolden indicated that providing more funding for SLS would not be helpful for 

completing the first version of SLS by 2017. However, your testimony states that the ‘‘top risk’’ for meeting its deadline for EF–1 

in December 2017 is insufficient funding. Would you please explain 

this discrepancy and would additional funding make meeting the 

2017 test flight possible or at least more likely? 

Ms. CHAPLAIN. So the cost risk we identified in our report comes 

from NASA’s own documents and was also raised by their Standing 

Review Board so there was indeed a very high risk that there was 

not enough money to help meet the 2017 date. 
61 

That said, as Mr. Gerstenmaier has already testified, just putting in money now won’t help you get there any quicker. There are 

a lot of sequential activities that are needed to get some of the critical path items done for SLS like the core stage. The money at this 

point would be helping out with reserve and possibly doing testing 

and some other activities that couldn’t be done earlier in bringing 

them forward. 

Mr. BROOKS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Mr. 

Gerstenmaier and Ms. Chaplain. 

Chairman PALAZZO. I now recognize Mr. Schweikert. 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Part of this is going to be a little bit of a follow-up on both what 

Dana and Congressman Brooks were—Ms. Chaplain, help me get 

my head a bit—from your report and I am assuming much of the— 

woven into your report was actually taken from the documents 

from NASA and others, and then when we start to look at 

timelines, any—and this—I will let you do it as a personal opinion 

because you have been doing this for a while. How short are we 

financially? And then I will go to Mr. Gerstenmaier and ask how 

short we are technologically. 

But if I came to you and say, hey, here is the robustness of what 

we are trying to do, I am looking at, you know, a number of tables 

that have, you know, all these moving pieces and projects, and I 

came to you and said here is where we are over the next 20 years, 

here is what we are seeing Congress’ appetite for funding, what is 

an honest number of shortfall? 

Ms. CHAPLAIN. I think there are various numbers to pay attention to here. First are the kind of short-term numbers laid out in 

the documents for SLS and Orion. For SLS they ranged anywhere 

from 400 to 900 million, but with pushing out the date and doing 

some other things, those numbers have been reduced. There is still 

a funding risk for Orion that is considerably high—— 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Well—and—but—and I am actually after something for the robustness of the system. Is that just Orion itself? Is 

that also ground control, personnel costs? I mean every step you 

need to make this work instead of just this individual silo, has that 

been actually looked at through the totality of the system that is 

required? 

Ms. CHAPLAIN. Right. So the problem we identified in a different 

report on cost estimating is we don’t really know the total number 

now of how much it is going to cost to do everything we are looking 

for them to do. And second, we don’t know really what the pathway 

is and that pathway has a big effect on numbers. Like Mr. 

Gerstenmaier mentioned a landing system. It is very costly. There 

is not money to do it right now. If you want to move things up, you 

have to pay for a landing system. How much is that? So it is very, 

very important to kind of layout the roadmap now and see all the 

different pieces that you need. We don’t know that and we don’t 

have cost estimates beyond the first test for some of the systems. 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. And, Ms. Chaplain, you understand sort of 

the—you know, when we are looking at CBO-type numbers, you 

know, we have here is our best guess, here is our optimistic, and 

here is when we are in trouble, I mean, sort of those variants. We 

understand for every step of technology, every additional incre-
62 

mental piece of timeout, the variance grows because it is unknown. 

But we are trying in a number of discussions to get some idea of 

what the exposure is and are we about to cannibalize everything 

else? 

Mr. Gerstenmaier, technologically if I came to you and said the 

goals that are here on the timeline over the next ten years, 20 

years, where do we have things where we don’t actually have the 

technology yet but we are working on it? 

Mr. GERSTENMAIER. I would say the biggest technology areas 

that we need to work on are we need to work on radiation for the 

human being and look at radiation shielding. We can only shield 

so much and—but I think again that is a manageable risk, but will 

there ultimately be some risk associated with galactic cosmic radiation that we will have to deal with on humans. 

The other big thing is if we are going to Mars, the entry, descent, 

and landing into the Mars—to the surface of Mars is a big technology leap. Today, we have landed Rovers on the order of one metric ton on the surface of Mars. For our human class mission we are 

going to have to land about 20 times that, at least 20 metric tons. 

We don’t know exactly how to do that. We did some tests off the— 

in Hawaii to go look at some inflatable reentry heat shields. We are 

working on that technology. 

And then kind of going back a little bit to the other questions 

about Mr. Brooks and why we are not sprinting to the moon like 

we did before, I am really building systems that are modern manufacturing, so the equipment we are putting in down at Stennis is 

going to allow us to have a system that can be reproduced and 

flown multiple times for minimum cost. 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Okay. 

Mr. GERSTENMAIER. So we are spending extra time, I would say, 

to prepare a system that is affordable in the long-term. GAO wants 

more details on that. We need to provide that information to them. 

But we are looking forward that we are not just building a single 

system that sprints to a destination. We are building an infrastructure that allows us to have sustained presence beyond low Earth 

orbit. 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. All right. Thank you. 

Mr. Chairman, as you have had a number of conversations with 

staff and the rest of us, we still think there is so much variability, 

exposure, and costs, and we all know what is about to hit us in the 

entitlement crisis over the next decade cost-wise. What is going to 

happen to future Federal Government spending? Somewhere here 

we are going to have to have a much more robust and much more 

brutally honest—of what we have cash for and what we don’t. 

With that I yield back. 

Chairman PALAZZO. At this time we will go into our second round 

of questions. 

Mr. Gerstenmaier, when did NASA first begin tracking the $400 

million risk identified by GAO? 

Mr. GERSTENMAIER. Probably that got identified back in 2013, 

2014 time frame. I would say if you asked my teams now, they 

would say that that $400 million risk, because of the appropriations we have received in 2014 and the pending bill that we saw 

last night, that $400 million risk will be retired. 
63 

Chairman PALAZZO. Well, you said in 2013, we had Administrator Bolden sitting where you are telling us that if we threw another 300 million at SLS and Orion, we wouldn’t even notice it. I 

mean it wasn’t needed at that time so you recognized this risk. If 

we would have—if you would have come to us, say, a year ago or 

when you first started tracking it—because it feels like we are just 

finding out about this risk, this 400 million since the GAO’s report 

has come out. Has—and you are telling me NASA has known about 

this for a much longer period than that? 

Mr. GERSTENMAIER. It was in their earlier reports that GAO 

picked up and it is one of many risks. We carry technical risks, programmatic risks, and budget risks. And it was again to meet a specific launch date and we—and again, we have moved the launch 

date, which gives us some margin as well and then we have also— 

we actually know what the budgets are now in 2014 and we will 

know what the budget is when it gets approved here in ’15. Those 

remove that uncertainty and that lowers the level of the risk. So 

as we identify those, we carry those and bring those forward as 

soon as we can. 

Chairman PALAZZO. And are you going to be matching your expenditure of funds based on Congress’ budget or the President’s request, which has been quite lower than what Congress has been 

appropriating for the past several years? 

Mr. GERSTENMAIER. This is the dilemma we have, right. So the 

reality is the program plans to some variance between those two 

limits that you just described. 

Chairman PALAZZO. And if we—if you would have come to us for, 

say, additional funding a year or two years ago, would you have 

been able to mitigate the risk or buy down the technical risk or 

would we still be having this same conversation that the test is 

going to slip to the right regardless of the amount of funding we 

may have been able to appropriate to the program? 

Mr. GERSTENMAIER. That is a very difficult question to answer. 

And the other thing that is hard for me is that I look at human 

spaceflight as the total, which is SLS/Orion, also commercial crew, 

commercial cargo, and International Space Station. I see human 

spaceflight as really the combination of all those activities. We are 

using space station today to buy down a lot of risk for Mars so I 

have to look at a balancing across all those programs. I can’t optimally find any one of those programs so I effectively balance across 

those in the risk and I try to weigh the budget and the technical 

risk associated with those programs to give what we think is the 

best approach to deliver hardware for the lowest cost for the Congress and the taxpayers. 

Chairman PALAZZO. I now recognize Ms. Edwards. 

Ms. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you again 

for a second round of questions. 

I want to go back to something that I raised earlier and it is regarding the recommendation by the National Academies about a 

five percent inflationary increase in the budget. And although I understand that for this specific purpose of looking at 2017 slippage 

to 2018, that that is not what we are talking about, but I want to 

know about the program and would it be useful for both the Administration to recommend and Congress to incorporate this mar-
64 

gin that the National Academies has recommended so that we, over 

a period of time—that we are not looking at the questions that are 

being raised today? Just give us some guidance. Okay. Flip a coin. 

Yes, Ms. Chaplain. 

Ms. CHAPLAIN. I would just add that is not the first time a recommendation like that has been made. It was made at the tail end 

of the Constellation program by the Augustine Commission and I 

think they recommended about three billion additional a year, 

which was pretty significant, and that was their view of what was 

needed over a number of different paths that you would take, not 

just the Constellation path. They mentioned a path similar to what 

is being done here. 

Ms. EDWARDS. And that would provide a lot more stability than 

what we are seeing now, wouldn’t it? 

Ms. CHAPLAIN. Yes, and the other thing to remember is programs 

like this have spikes in terms of their funding needs so Constellation program itself, when that recommendation was made, was 

asking for about $3 billion a year but in their budget they went up 

to as much as $7 billion a year in terms of their needs. So there 

are spikes depending on what you are developing and when activities come up. 

Ms. EDWARDS. I want to just ask really briefly in Department of 

Defense large-scale programs, they don’t go through this. They 

say—they set out kind of a goal. It crosses Congresses. They know 

that there is a difference in these kind of large-scale development 

programs. Why is it that we are funding a scientific program that 

has a lot of uncertainties year by year and in some cases a few 

months by a few months? Don’t we actually end up wasting way 

more money over the long term by doing that than just setting out 

a goal of making sure that we fund this program in the most robust way possible across Congresses so that the goal is achieved? 

Why aren’t we—why isn’t there modeling for these large-scale 

science programs the same way that there is that kind of modeling 

for defense programs? And has GAO ever analyzed that and what 

the impact would be to the success of the programs? 

Ms. CHAPLAIN. We have never analyzed NASA funding compared 

to DOD funding but we do know when the funding stretched out, 

the problems you are describing do occur. It is not like all the DOD 

systems don’t experience some kind of instability. It is rare when 

Congress is trying to give more money than what they are asking 

for. Sometimes there is the reverse case where Congress gives a little less. But with programs with a lot of schedule pressure and everybody recognizes—— 

Ms. EDWARDS. And experimentation? 

Ms. CHAPLAIN. Yes, but programs where everybody recognizes a 

date is important to deliver, there tends to be more support funding-wise and it tends to be more stable. 

Ms. EDWARDS. Mr. Gerstenmaier, do you have a comment about 

that? 

Mr. GERSTENMAIER. No, I think again the discussion is good. 

Some understanding and stability in budget would be helpful. At 

least matching inflation would be helpful. 

But again, I think the problem is we deal, as you describe very 

succinctly that—with essentially a year budget, sometimes months. 
65 

You know, we throw in furloughs and other things just to make— 

and those are real impacts to us. When we had—we stood down effectively for two weeks where we couldn’t do any work on Orion 

during that time and how you plan for that in a programmatic 

sense is extremely difficult. 

So it is a tribute to my teams to take this environment that is 

very dynamic and figure out a way to make as significant progress 

as we can, not waste funds, not use funds in an inappropriate manner, but it is difficult for the teams to do that but they have done 

a fairly good job, as we have seen through this activity. It could be 

eased if we got some more certainty. 

Ms. EDWARDS. Well, Mr. Chairman, I really—I am on a mission 

that we have to think differently about the way that we do these 

large-scale programs. We faced it with James Webb. We are looking at it here with SLS/Orion. This is just really not smart, and 

at the end of the day, the technologies expire, the technologies 

change over a period of 10 or 20 years as we are stretching things 

out, and then it is like starting all over again. And I just think it 

is about the dumbest way to do science. 

And with that I yield. 

Chairman PALAZZO. Ms. Edwards, I think there are several people that would agree with you. 

I now recognize Mr. Bridenstine. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And, Ms. Edwards, I do agree with you and your comments are 

certainly well recognized on both sides of the aisle so thank you for 

that. And we would like to work with you on how we can remedy 

this. 

I just had a quick question about the international implications 

of our direction for human spaceflight. The report that Ms. Edwards referenced from the National Academies indicated that if we 

were to do this Asteroid Redirect Mission, we would be not in 

alignment with the international community, most of which is focused on getting to the moon, namely the lunar surface and then 

on to Mars, and that this misalignment, according to the report, 

again headed by Governor Mitch Daniels, indicated that this misalignment could actually result in us spending a whole lot of money 

on dead-end technologies rather than actually accomplishing the 

objective of getting to the moon. Mr. Gerstenmaier, could you address that? 

Mr. GERSTENMAIER. I would say the global exploration roadmap 

is the plan that the international partner community has agreed to, 

along with NASA, as the basic framework of how we want to head 

forward. I think in that roadmap Mars is a horizon destination, as 

we have described. The internationals, as the report describes, 

have a stronger interest in the moon. The Asteroid Redirect Mission places this asteroid in the vicinity of the moon, which is consistent with what the international partners would want to do. The 

SLS rocket, the Orion capsule, they fit very well in this lunar activity, in this proving ground I described, that the partners then have 

a desire to do lunar activities. We could very easily work with the 

partners and support that activity. 

The Asteroid Redirect Mission also fits into the long-term goal of 

what we want to do. We believe for a Mars class mission we need 
66 

solar electric propulsion to move large masses to the vicinity of 

Mars. We are going to move essentially a 50 metric ton asteroid 

through space. That could be the same cargo we are delivering to 

Mars so that space tug that we are building for the Asteroid Redirect Mission is a piece of the tug that would be used for the human 

class missions to Mars so it fits in that other architecture moving 

forward. 

So it is not a diversion, it is not—from our overall goal. So we 

look at each piece we are developing within human spaceflight. We 

look how it fits in terms of international partner needs, we look 

how it fits in our horizon goal of Mars needs, and we only move 

projects that we can continue to keep moving forward in that direction. We don’t want to spend resources on items that are one-ofa-kind use—— 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Do you know—— 

Mr. GERSTENMAIER. —much as the report said. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Do you know offhand specifically which technologies they are talking about that would be dead-end technologies as we pursue this path? 

Mr. GERSTENMAIER. I think we didn’t have a chance to discuss 

with the Committees significantly how we were going to use this 

cargo capability for Mars. I think if we would have had a chance 

to describe that with them, they would not have seen that as a 

dead-end capability. And so we—I think we needed to have more 

dialogue with the Committee. We ran out of time towards the end. 

They didn’t get a chance to see some of our latest thinking of how 

all these pieces fit together towards the ultimate Mars horizon 

goal. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Okay. 

Mr. GERSTENMAIER. But I can’t judge what their answer would 

have been. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Last question—we are down to about a 

minute-and-a-half—we noticed that the WARN Act—notices went 

out for the WARN Act recently associated with the SLS program. 

Can you explain why, given the fact that we are spending more 

money than expected and everybody seemed to be telling us that 

things were ahead of schedule and we are spending more than 

what was anticipated, why did these WARN Act notices go out? 

Mr. GERSTENMAIER. One reason for the WARN Act was there 

is—again, they are issued by the contractors based on the activity 

and the direction we give them. There is a natural change in the 

development lifecycle of the SLS. We are essentially ramping down 

on the heavy design phase where there is a lot of engineering, a 

lot of drawing development, analysis kind of activities that now is 

terminating naturally. 

Now we are getting ready to go manufacture so they are going 

to be buying long-lead items, large aluminum forgings. The work 

occurs down at the Michoud facility down off—by New Orleans to 

actually do manufacturing, so we are shifting from design to manufacturing, and during that shift, there is a natural ramp-down of 

the skills that the overall workforce will come up but it will come 

up in other areas and it will show up in materials. It will not show 

up in personnel. So this is a piece of that. Warren Act activity is 

supporting this natural progression from design to manufacturing. 
67 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Roger that. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Chairman PALAZZO. Thank you, Mr. Bridenstine. 

Two stories below us is the House Armed Services Committee 

room and Mr. Bridenstine and I also serve on that same committee, 

and we have had testimony presented to us that the number one 

threat to America’s national security is our national debt, and I am 

going to have to say that the number one threat to America maintaining its leadership in space is also going to be our national debt, 

and many Members on both sides of the aisle recognize that we 

have to address the pending fiscal problem that is going to be facing our Nation and hopefully we can overcome that. 

Once again, Mr. Gerstenmaier, congratulations to you and your 

entire team at NASA, to Lockheed Martin and ULA for a very successful outstanding test flight. 

And I want to thank the witnesses for their valuable testimony 

and the Members for their questions. The Members of the Committee may have additional questions for you and we will ask you 

to respond to those in writing. The record will remain open for two 

weeks for additional comments and written questions from Members. 

The witnesses are excused and this hearing is adjourned. Thank 

you. 

[Whereupon, at 10:30 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 

(69) 

Appendix I 

ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS
70 

ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS

Responses by Mr. Bill Gerstenmaier 
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75 
76 
77 
78 
79 
80 
81 
82 
83 
84 
85 
86 
87 
88 
89 
90 
91 
92 
93 
94 
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Responses by Ms. Cristina Chaplain 
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100 
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Appendix II 

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL FOR THE RECORD
106 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF FULL COMMITTEEE

RANKING MEMBER EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON

Good morning. I’d like to join my colleagues in welcoming our witnesses to today’s 

hearing. We have much to discuss, so I will be brief in my opening remarks. 

Last week, NASA achieved an important milestone with the successful EFT-1 

flight test of the Orion crew capsule, and I want to congratulate you, Mr. 

Gerstenmaier, and the entire NASA and contractor team on a very impressive 

achievement. 

I look forward to hearing more about EFT-1 and the significance of what you are 

learning from it. Equally importantly, I want to hear what lies ahead for the nation’s human exploration program, because EFT-1 demonstrates that NASA’s exploration program is no longer simply something NASA would like to do-it’s now a reality, with hardware being built, facilities being prepared, and vehicles being tested. 

Yet there is much more that will need to be done to achieve the long-term goal 

of landing humans on Mars. As we prepare for the 114th Congress, I think we need 

to heed the words of the distinguished National Academies panel that testified before us earlier this year. At that hearing, former Governor of Indiana and co-chair 

of the panel, Mr. Mitch Daniels, stated the panel’s consensus view that the goal of 

sending humans to Mars ‘‘justifies the cost, risk, and opportunities’’ of doing so. 

However, Mr. Daniels also made clear that the panel believed that ‘‘any pathway 

that could successfully land humans on the surface of Mars would require funding 

above constant dollars.’’ That is pretty clear guidance. And yet, to date we have 

asked NASA to achieve its exploration goals on a budget that doesn’teven keep pace 

with inflation. We in Congress have the ability to correct that deficiency if we have 

the will to do so. I want to work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle in 

the next Congress to provide the funding that NASA will need to carry out a robust 

human exploration program as well as its other important tasks in science, aeronautics, and technology development. 

It is our choice as to whether we will do so, and I hope we will choose wisely. 

As I said after last week’s successful EFT-1 mission, EFT-1 demonstrates that 

America’s best days in space exploration still lie ahead of us. NASA and its contractor team are working hard to achieve challenging goals-we in Congress need to 

do the same. 

Thank you, and I yield back. 

Æ