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ENHANCING THE RELEVANCE OF

SPACE TO ADDRESS NATIONAL NEEDS

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON SPACE AND AERONAUTICS 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND 

TECHNOLOGY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

JULY 16, 2009

Serial No. 111–44

Printed for the use of the Committee on Science and Technology

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.science.house.gov 


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(II)

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 

HON. BART GORDON, Tennessee, Chair 

JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 

LYNN C. WOOLSEY, California 

DAVID WU, Oregon 

BRIAN BAIRD, Washington 

BRAD MILLER, North Carolina 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, Arizona 

DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland 

MARCIA L. FUDGE, Ohio 

BEN R. LUJA ́ N, New Mexico 

PAUL D. TONKO, New York 

PARKER GRIFFITH, Alabama 

STEVEN R. ROTHMAN, New Jersey 

JIM MATHESON, Utah 

LINCOLN DAVIS, Tennessee 

BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

BARON P. HILL, Indiana 

HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizona 

CHARLES A. WILSON, Ohio 

KATHLEEN DAHLKEMPER, Pennsylvania 

ALAN GRAYSON, Florida 

SUZANNE M. KOSMAS, Florida 

GARY C. PETERS, Michigan 

VACANCY 

RALPH M. HALL, Texas 

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER JR., 

Wisconsin 

LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland 

VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan 

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma 

JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois 

W. TODD AKIN, Missouri 

RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas 

BOB INGLIS, South Carolina 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida 

BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California 

ADRIAN SMITH, Nebraska 

PAUL C. BROUN, Georgia 

PETE OLSON, Texas 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON SPACE AND AERONAUTICS

HON. GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, Arizona, Chair 

DAVID WU, Oregon 

DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland 

MARCIA L. FUDGE, Ohio 

PARKER GRIFFITH, Alabama 

STEVEN R. ROTHMAN, New Jersey 

BARON P. HILL, Indiana 

CHARLES A. WILSON, Ohio 

ALAN GRAYSON, Florida 

SUZANNE M. KOSMAS, Florida 

BART GORDON, Tennessee 

PETE OLSON, Texas 

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER JR., 

Wisconsin 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

RALPH M. HALL, Texas 

RICHARD OBERMANN Subcommittee Staff Director 

PAM WHITNEY Democratic Professional Staff Member 

ALLEN LI Democratic Professional Staff Member 

KEN MONROE Republican Professional Staff Member 

ED FEDDEMAN Republican Professional Staff Member 

DEVIN BRYANT Research Assistant 


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C O N T E N T S 

July 16, 2009

Page 

Hearing Charter ...................................................................................................... 2

Opening Statements

Statement by Representative Gabrielle Giffords, Chairwoman, Subcommittee 

on Space and Aeronautics, Committee on Science and Technology, U.S. 

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

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

Statement by Representative Pete Olson, Ranking Minority Member, Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics, Committee on Science and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives ............................................................... 21

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 23

Witnesses:

General Lester L. Lyles [U.S. Air Force, Ret.], Chair of the Committee on 

the Rationale and Goals of the U.S. Civil Space Program, Aeronautics 

and Space Engineering Board, National Research Council 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 24

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 27

Biography .......................................................................................................... 31

Ms. Patti Grace Smith, Member of the Board of Directors, The Space Foundation 

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

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 34

Biography .......................................................................................................... 38

Ms. Deborah Adler Myers, General Manager, Science Channel, Discovery 

Communications 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 38

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 40

Biography .......................................................................................................... 43

Mr. Miles O’Brien, Journalist 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 43

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 46

Discussion 

Improving NASA’s Communication With the Public ........................................ 47

How Should NASA Communicate Its Contributions to Society? ...................... 49

Communicating the Value of the ISS to the Public .......................................... 52

Modernizing Public Relations on the ISS .......................................................... 54

Reducing Mission Risk ......................................................................................... 55

Improving Communication to the Public ........................................................... 56

Examining NASA Promotion Techniques .......................................................... 57

Will the Private Sector Play a Greater Role in the Future? ............................ 58

What Should NASA Do Regarding Space Debris? ............................................ 59

Viable Space-based Business Models ................................................................. 60

Streamlining Viable Aerospace Business Models .............................................. 61

Improving Outreach to Children ......................................................................... 61

Marketing Role Models to the Public ................................................................. 62

Creating a Role Model: Example ........................................................................ 63

Telling the Story of Astronaut Diversity ............................................................ 64

A New National Space Council: Advisor or Mission Coordinator? ................... 64


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IV

Inspiring America’s Youth ................................................................................... 65

Rewarding Scientists and Engineers With Competitive Pay ........................... 66

Matching NASA’s Budget With Goals ................................................................ 68

Appendix: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions

General Lester L. Lyles [U.S. Air Force, Ret.], Chair of the Committee on 

the Rationale and Goals of the U.S. Civil Space Program, Aeronautics 

and Space Engineering Board, National Research Council .............................. 72

Ms. Patti Grace Smith, Member of the Board of Directors, The Space Foundation ........................................................................................................................ 76

Ms. Deborah Adler Myers, General Manager, Science Channel, Discovery 

Communications ................................................................................................... 78

Mr. Miles O’Brien, Journalist ................................................................................. 81


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ENHANCING THE RELEVANCE OF SPACE TO 

ADDRESS NATIONAL NEEDS 

THURSDAY, JULY 16, 2009

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON SPACE AND AERONAUTICS, 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, 

Washington, DC.

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:00 p.m., in Room 

2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Gabrielle Giffords 

[Chairwoman of the Subcommittee] presiding.


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HEARING CHARTER

SUBCOMMITTEE ON SPACE AND AERONAUTICS

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

Enhancing the Relevance of

Space to Address National Needs 

THURSDAY, JULY 16, 2009

2:00 P.M.–4:00 P.M.

2318 RAYBURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING

I. Purpose 

On Thursday, July 16, 2009 the Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics will hold 

a hearing on enhancing the relevance of space activities to address national needs. 

The hearing will (1) examine how recent reports by the National Research Council 

and The Space Foundation characterize the relevance of space-related activities, 

particularly their role in improving the health, economic well-being, and the quality 

of life of all Americans; (2) review what should be done to maintain and enhance 

that relevance; and (3) analyze whether enhanced awareness of the contributions 

from space-related activities would result in inspiring future generations of Americans. The hearing will focus on the following questions and issues:

• How relevant is space to addressing important national needs, and what noteworthy benefits have been achieved as a result of past space-related investments?

• What should be done to maximize the benefits to be realized from the Nation’s 

space activities and the relevance of those space activities? How important is 

it for those activities to be aligned to national goals and objectives?

• How important is the inspirational component of the Nation’s space activities, 

and what would be the most effective ways to use space activities to motivate 

emerging generations of Americans to pursue studies and careers in science 

and engineering?

• How well does the public understand the relevance of the Nation’s space activities to meeting national needs and realizing societal benefits? Is there a need 

to ‘‘get the message out’’ on the relevance of those space activities and the benefits to be derived from our space-related investments? If so, how can that message be most effectively communicated?

• The Nation’s space program generated considerable public excitement during 

the Apollo era. What will it take to get today’s public interested and enthused 

about the Nation’s space program?

• What challenges do communications media face in attempting to reach the 

broadest and largest possible audience while engaging and enlightening them 

about space? What tools and strategies are used to address those challenges?

II. Witnesses:

General Lester L. Lyles [U.S. Air Force, retired], Chair of the Committee on 

the Rationale and Goals of the U.S. Civil Space Program, Aeronautics & Space Engineering Board, National Research Council

Ms. Patti Grace Smith, Board of Directors, The Space Foundation

Ms. Debbie Adler Myers, General Manager, Science Channel, Discovery Communications

Mr. Miles O’Brien, Journalist

III. Overview 

Forty years after accomplishing the feat of landing humans on the Moon’s surface, 

the U.S. civil space program, including its largest component, the programs of the 

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), finds itself at a critical 


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juncture. Key factors that will influence the future of the U.S. civil space program 

include:

• Upcoming results from an independent review of U.S. human space flight. 

The Obama Administration has initiated an independent review of ‘‘ongoing U.S. 

human space flight plans and programs, as well as alternatives, to ensure that the 

Nation is pursuing the best trajectory for the future of human space flight—one 

that is safe, innovative, affordable, and sustainable.’’ Led by Norman Augustine, 

the blue-ribbon committee held a public meeting in Washington last month and 

has several others planned in the weeks ahead. Results and supporting analysis 

are scheduled to be provided in August 2009, in time to support a decision on the 

way forward. Until then, NASA is continuing on a path to complete the International Space Station (ISS) and retire the Space Shuttle fleet in 2010, develop 

its next generation of human space transportation systems, and encourage the development of commercial space transportation systems capable of bringing cargo 

to the ISS.

• Direction from a new NASA Administrator. Charles Bolden, nominated to 

head NASA, said at his Senate confirmation hearing last week that he wanted 

to rekindle the pioneering spirit of the space agency’s early manned space program. His strategy for achieving that objective will have an impact on the future 

direction of the Agency.

• Future NASA funding levels. Many in Congress have argued that NASA’s 

budgets have not kept pace with the tasks it has been asked to carry out. How 

this mismatch is resolved will have a major impact on NASA’s future.

• Competition and cooperation in space. Other nations’ ambitions in space 

have resulted in significant progress and accomplishments. China has joined the 

United States and the former Soviet Union as the only countries to have launched 

humans into space. Europe is considering the feasibility of developing its own 

human space flight transportation system, as is India. The once dominant U.S. 

civil space program finds itself no longer the only game in town. Moreover, it is 

now commonplace for U.S. commercial space interests to find themselves in vigorous competition with other nations’ space companies in vying for business in a 

global environment. However, cooperation in space has long been a significant element of the U.S. civil space program. In establishing the National Aeronautics 

and Space Administration through the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 

1958 (P.L. 85–568, as amended), Congress made clear its intent that the space 

program provide benefits to people, that research be utilized, and that the United 

States cooperate with other nations in ‘‘the peaceful application’’ of its space activities. Many of today’s societal challenges including climate change, food security, and availability and access to natural resources and energy supplies are global in nature. Space assets and cooperation among nations in space activities are 

expected to be important in addressing these global societal issues. The future 

scope of international cooperation on space activities will likely shape the direction of the civil space program here in the U.S.

• Relevance of space to the public. While NASA remains generally popular with 

the public according to various polls, concern has been raised about public understanding of what the Agency is doing and how space research and developments 

help improve our lives. At present, Americans and society at large use multiple 

services and technologies that were developed, initially, within the context of the 

U.S. space program. For example, communications satellites, space-based weather 

monitoring and prediction, and precision navigation and timing emerged from the 

Nation’s investments in space; today these assets are critical to our basic infrastructure. Space technologies have also enabled improved medical imaging, telemedicine, and disease tracking, among multiple other applications. NASA has documented many of the technologies, products and services derived from investments in the space program in its annual NASA Spinoffs publications (http://

www.nasa.gov/offices/ipp/home/index.html). In addition, the Agency has developed a tool called NASA City that allows users to trace the impact of space on 

their daily lives (www.nasa.gov/city). Yet, although the applications of space research and development are infused in the everyday life of Americans, there is 

a perception that the public lacks awareness of how space affects their lives, 

which can contribute to a lack of enthusiasm for space program investments.

• Replenishing a skilled workforce for continued leadership in space activities. The perceived lack of excitement may influence the maintenance of a 

skilled future civil space workforce. A February 2003 article by the Wall Street 

Journal stated:


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‘‘Many young people today with a technical bent are more entranced with the 

Internet or biotechnology than space exploration. Space travel, after all, was a 

fascination of their parents’ generation.’’

The National Research Council recently examined the relationship between the 

U.S. space program and societal and national needs and priorities and how U.S. 

leadership can be maintained. Key elements of that report are described in the following section. In addition, space advocacy groups have identified the benefits of 

space to society and have documented, for example, the contributions of space to the 

national and global economy. The Space Report 2009, published by the Space Foundation, which is summarized in this hearing charter, is one example. These and 

many other organizations have also emphasized the importance of space in inspiring 

the next generation to excel in science, technology, engineering and mathematics 

and in ushering in a steady pipeline of professionals to replenish an aging aerospace 

workforce. Communications and media organizations confront the challenge of how 

best to engage individuals by using science content related to space. Perspectives 

from such organizations and individuals can provide insight into some of the approaches that have been taken to effectively communicate the excitement of space 

to the public.

IV. Background

National Research Council’s Report on America’s Future In Space: Aligning the Civil 

Space Program with National Needs 

The National Academies’ National Research Council (NRC) recently released a report that recommended a series of measures to better align the civil space program 

with national needs. The report’s overall conclusion is ‘‘that a preeminent U.S. civil 

space program with strengths and capabilities aligned for tackling widely acknowledged national challenges—environmental, economic, and strategic—will continue to 

make major contributions to the Nation’s welfare.’’ The impetus for the NRC’s chartering a review was its recognition of a changing national and international context 

for space activities. The U.S. space program, initially driven by competition with the 

former Soviet Union, now finds that many nations have established, or are aspiring 

to develop, independent space capabilities. Developments over the past 50 years 

have led to an explosion of scientific and engineering knowledge and practical applications of space technology. Space activities now play critical roles in commerce, 

government, and science. Furthermore, the private sector has become a significant 

factor in the expansion of space-related products and services. 

In light of this changing context, the NRC established the Committee on the Rationale and Goals of the U.S. Civil Space Program and charged it to prepare a report to advise the Nation on key goals and critical issues in 21st century U.S. civil 

space policy. The committee’s report, prepared under the oversight of both the 

NRC’s Space Studies Board and Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board, is entitled ‘‘America’s Future In Space: Aligning The Civil Space Program With National 

Needs.’’

In its initial discussions, the committee concluded that debates about the direction 

of the civil space program often focused on addressing near-term problems and 

issues ‘‘without first putting those issues in the context of how a disciplined space 

program can serve larger national imperatives. In the committee’s view, characterizing the top-level goals of the civil space program and the connection between those 

goals and broad national priorities is necessary as a foundation on which the Nation 

(both now and in the future) can devise sustainable solutions to nearer-term issues.’’

Consequently, the committee chose to focus on the long-term, strategic value of 

the U.S. civil space program. In responding to its charge, the committee ‘‘sought to 

provide a long-term, strategic perspective that frames a vision for civil space activities that can endure for many years.’’ According to the report, the committee’s thinking was informed by the following national priorities:

• ‘‘Ensuring national security,

• Providing clean and affordable energy,

• Protecting the environment now and for future generations,

• Educating an engaged citizenry and a capable workforce for the 21st century,

• Sustaining global economic competitiveness, and

• Working internationally to build a safer, more sustainable world.’’

The report added that ‘‘A common element across all these urgent priorities is the 

significant part that research and development can play in solving problems and advancing the national enterprise in each area.’’ The importance of space-related activiVerDate 0ct 09 2002 12:32 Mar 02, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 Z:\DOCS\50745.TXT SCIENCE1 PsN: COMSCI

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ties to generating interest in science was not lost on the committee. The report 

noted:

‘‘The high visibility of space activities attracts students’ attention to science, technology, and mathematics, and space activities are an exciting focus for teaching 

those subjects. Commercial space-related ventures now figure significantly in 

global economic competitiveness, and, while government investments to stimulate 

the Nation’s fragile economy will have short-term impacts, R&D investments can 

be counted on to make longer-term sustainable contributions to the Nation’s economic strength. As has countless times proved the case, research in and from 

space will continue to lead to important future, and not always currently predictable, benefits that hold the promise of progress toward realizing U.S. as well as 

shared international goals.’’

The committee believed that to be a strategic leader in a globalized world, the 

United States needed ‘‘a civil space program whose breadth, competence, and level 

of accomplishment ensures that U.S. leadership is demonstrated, accepted, and welcomed.’’ Consequently, the committee identified six strategic goals that it regarded 

as basic for guiding program choices and resources planning for U.S. civil space activities. The goals identified in the committee’s report are:

• ‘‘To re-establish leadership for the protection of Earth and its inhabitants 

through the use of space research and technology. The key global perspective 

enabled by space observations is critical to monitoring climate change and 

testing climate models, managing Earth resources, and mitigating risks associated with natural phenomena such as severe weather and asteroids.

• To sustain U.S. leadership in science by seeking knowledge of the universe and 

searching for life beyond Earth. Space offers a multitude of critical opportunities, unavailable in Earth-based laboratories, to extend our knowledge of the 

local and distant universe and to search for life beyond Earth.

• To expand the frontiers of human activities in space. Human space flight continues to challenge technology, utilize unique human capabilities, bring global 

prestige, and excite the public’s imagination. Space provides almost limitless 

opportunities for extending the human experience to new frontiers.

• To provide technological, economic, and societal benefits that contribute solutions to the Nation’s most pressing problems. Space activities provide economic 

opportunities, stimulate innovation, and support services that improve the 

quality of life. U.S. economic competitiveness is directly affected by our ability 

to perform in this sector and the many sectors enabled and supported by space 

activities.

• To inspire current and future generations. U.S. civil space activities, built on 

a legacy of spectacular achievements, should continue to inspire the public and 

also serve to attract future generations of scientists and engineers.

• To enhance U.S. global strategic leadership through leadership in civil space 

activities. Because of the growing strategic importance of space, all nations 

that aspire to global political and economic leadership in the 21st century are 

increasing their space-faring capabilities. Continued U.S. global leadership is 

tied to continued U.S. leadership in space.’’

To contribute to realizing these national objectives, the committee identified four 

foundational elements it viewed as ‘‘critical to a purposeful, effective, strategic U.S. 

space program, without which U.S. space efforts will lack robustness, realism, sustainability, and affordability.’’ These are:

1. ‘‘Coordinated national strategies—implementing national space policy coherently 

across all civilian agencies in support of national needs and priorities and aligning attention to shared interests of civil and national security space activities.

2. A competent technical workforce—sufficient in size, talent, and experience to address difficult and pressing challenges.

3. An effectively sized and structured infrastructure—realizing synergy from the public and private sectors and from international partnerships.

4. A priority investment in technology and innovation—strengthening and sustaining 

the U.S. capacity to meet national needs through transformational advances.’’

‘‘The committee found that, in spite of their promise and utility, components of the 

civil space program are not always aligned to fully capitalize on opportunities to 

serve the larger national interest. Decisions about civil space priorities, strategies, 

and programs, and the resources to achieve them are not always made with a conVerDate 0ct 09 2002 12:32 Mar 02, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 Z:\DOCS\50745.TXT SCIENCE1 PsN: COMSCI

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scious view toward their linkages to broader national interests.’’ The committee made 

seven recommendations:

1. ‘‘Addressing national imperatives. Emphasis should be placed on aligning space 

program capabilities with current high-priority national imperatives, including 

those where space is not traditionally considered. The U.S. civil space program 

has long demonstrated a capacity to effectively serve U.S. national interests.’’

2. ‘‘Climate and environmental monitoring. NASA and NOAA should lead the formation of an international satellite-observing architecture capable of monitoring 

global climate change and its consequences and support the research needed to interpret and understand the data in time for meaningful policy decisions.’’

3. ‘‘Scientific inquiry. NASA, in cooperation with other agencies and international 

partners, should continue to lead a program of scientific exploration and discovery.’’

4. ‘‘Advanced space technology. NASA should revitalize its advanced technology development program by establishing a DARPA-like organization within NASA as 

a priority mission area to support preeminent civil, national security (if dual-use), 

and commercial space programs.’’

5. ‘‘International cooperation. The government, under White House leadership, 

should pursue international cooperation in space proactively as a means to advance U.S. strategic leadership and meet national and mutual international 

goals.’’

6. ‘‘Human space flight. NASA should be on the leading edge of actively pursuing 

human space flight, to extend the human experience into new frontiers, challenge 

technology, bring global prestige, and excite the public’s imagination.’’

7. ‘‘Organizing to meet national challenges. The President of the United States 

should task senior executive-branch officials to align agency and department strategies; identify gaps or shortfalls in policy coverage, policy implementation, and in 

resource allocation; and identify new opportunities for space-based endeavors that 

will help to address critical issues now confronting the United States and, to a 

considerable extent, the world as well.’’

In the course of this report, several points were made that are relevant to the 

work of the Subcommittee:

• There is no single rationale for a U.S. civil space program: ‘‘The committee’s 

view is that there is no single rationale for the U.S. civil space program, but rather 

that, as a significant component of the Nation’s R&D enterprise, the U.S. civil 

space program should be structured and supported to fulfill multiple responsibilities to assist the Nation in achieving its goals of exerting strategic leadership and 

improving the well-being of people. The U.S. civil space program should be preeminent in the sense that it can influence, by example, how nations take advantage 

of the opportunities afforded by space. For the United States to be a strategic leader, its civil space program must demonstrate breadth, competence, and a record of 

accomplishment so that U.S. leadership is accepted and welcomed.’’

• There is unavoidable risk in human activity in space: ‘‘Humans have proven 

effective in carrying out a variety of important roles as engineers and scientists in 

space. It is reasonable to expect that, in this century, humans will again surpass 

previous limits and will visit asteroids, travel to the moons of Mars, and establish 

a martian base similar in scale to those in Antarctica. In the committee’s view, the 

leadership and inspiration achieved by expanding the frontiers of human space 

flight are worth the dangers faced in such exploration; lesser objectives may not 

be worth the same risk.’’

• By pursuing the goal of inspiring, the space program will create other 

benefits. Through pursuit of such a goal, the report said that the space program 

will:

• ‘‘Instill a sense of interest, excitement, and optimism about opportunities for 

scientific and technological advancements to enhance the well-being of the Nation,

• Attract and encourage members of the next generation of the Nation’s technical 

workforce, and

• Create a new generation who can draw on the advantages offered by space to 

help solve problems on Earth, and ensure U.S. leadership, building on the 

solid achievements of the past 50 years of U.S. investments in space.’’

• Civil space activities provide an important stimulus for the next generation to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and matheVerDate 0ct 09 2002 12:32 Mar 02, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00010 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 Z:\DOCS\50745.TXT SCIENCE1 PsN: COMSCI

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matics. ‘‘The NASA Authorization Act of 2008 states that ‘‘NASA, through its pursuit of challenging and relevant activities, can provide an important stimulus to 

the next generation to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.’’ While specific to NASA, this statement applies to all aspects of the U.S. 

civil space program. Furthermore, a reputation for competence in executing space 

missions that advance the frontier is likely to help attract talented foreign nationals to study and work in the United States as well as to inspire our own students 

to enter technical fields.’’

• A vigorous space program generates optimism. ‘‘Civil space activities also 

can exert an influence in building citizens’ confidence in a brighter future. We live 

in a world with many immediate concerns—notably including a weakened world 

economy, regional conflicts and global terrorism, and threats of the consequences 

of climate change and limitations in energy sources. It is a time when people can 

be fearful that our tomorrows will be less promising than our past; that our children will have fewer opportunities than we enjoyed.

Surely, a vigorous civil space program will be a strong signal that our future as 

a nation is promising, that life can be better, that our prospects are boundless. 

Civil space assets, with their global perspective on the changing Earth, can provide 

knowledge to enable wise stewardship of our planet’s bounty. We can become a true 

space-faring society with new opportunities for our economy. Civil space activities 

will add to knowledge of our place in the cosmos and thereby expand the cultural 

richness of our nation.

The United States, leading by example and in cooperation with others in the exploration and utilization of space, can be a strategic leader in the world, not to be 

feared or despised, but rather to be valued for its concerted attention to basic challenges facing people worldwide.’’

• Matching responsibilities to resources does not currently exist today. ‘‘A 

coordinated, sustainable set of strategies should ensure that responsibilities are realistically matched to available resources. Such a match does not exist today. For 

example, NASA has a central role in civil space, yet by any reasonable measure 

it is inadequately funded to pursue its many responsibilities. NASA now follows 

the U.S. space exploration policy established in 2004 by then President George W. 

Bush but must implement that policy within the budget constraints imposed by the 

Administration and Congress. The committee concurs with the primary conclusion 

of a 2006 NRC report, which summarized the situation by saying, ‘‘NASA is being 

asked to accomplish too much with too little. The agency does not have the necessary resources to carry out the tasks of completing the International Space Station, returning humans to the Moon, maintaining vigorous space and Earth science 

and microgravity life and physical sciences programs, and sustaining capabilities 

in aeronautical research.’’ Rather than requiring that a broad and ambitious program be fit into an arbitrarily constrained budget as has been the case in recent 

years, a sustainable strategy would first define the program that the Nation is 

committed to undertake and then realistically define the resources that are required to accomplish that program.’’

• Budget levels need to recognize space programs’ connection to the Nation’s most prominent problems. ‘‘The budgetary situations faced by NASA and 

NOAA [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] are a consequence of 

a trend in recent administrations to view the space program as an isolated stovepipe, with little or no connection to the Nation’s most prominent problems. Civil 

space programs have largely been assigned budget levels that are incrementally 

based on previous years’ budgets, with only tenuous connections to the evolution 

of the programs or their capabilities. An effective process would connect space policy to broader national needs, and then consider the necessary resources and implementation, improve efficiency by considering interdependencies and broad system 

effects, enhance productivity by providing focus and a longer-term view, and encourage a culture of collaboration among government agencies, the private sector 

(including both industry and academia), and international partners. This process 

would then provide a necessary foundation for continuing U.S. space leadership.’’

General Lester Lyles, Chair of the Committee on the Rationale and Goals of the 

U.S. Civil Space Program, will be a witness at the hearing and can provide further 

details on the committee’s work. The Executive Summary of the committee’s report 

is included in Attachment I.

The Space Foundation’s ‘‘The Space Report 2009’’

In chronicling the previous year in space along with an outlook on what lies 

ahead, the Space Foundation’s The Space Report 2009, released in April 2009, estabVerDate 0ct 09 2002 12:32 Mar 02, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00011 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 Z:\DOCS\50745.TXT SCIENCE1 PsN: COMSCI

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lishes the relevance of space by detailing the overall space economy; space products 

and services; space infrastructure; and economic impacts, workforce, and education. 

The report states that, ‘‘in a troubled financial environment, the space industry managed to maintain and increase its revenues in 2008, with estimated budgets and revenues from public and private sources of $257 billion. Total revenue for space products and services in 2008 reached an estimated $91 billion, 10.4 percent more than 

the $82.4 billion total in 2007.’’

Of particular interest to this hearing is how The Space Report 2009 treats space 

products and services. The report notes that:

‘‘The space industry has passed the point where all the ways in which space 

products and services are used can be described within the covers of a single 

publication. The examples in this report represent a small sampling to illustrate 

the breadth and ingenuity of the space industry in creating new ways to serve 

governments and the private sector. From private space travel to mobile Internet 

services to high-tech swimsuits, the space industry is fully engaged in finding 

new applications for existing technology and in developing new technologies to 

solve persistent problems. Common themes around some of these products and 

services involve making life easier and more interesting. In 2008, ICO Global 

Communications began testing a mobile TV service using a satellite over the 

United States designed to deliver up to 15 television channels for entertainment 

starting in 2010. Fishermen around the world are using satellite maps that report sea surface data to help guide them to profitable fishing grounds. The world 

watched U.S. Olympian Michael Phelps swim into the record books at the Beijing games. Less well known is the fact that Phelps and other Olympic swimmers 

were breaking records with the help of swim wear developed as a result of a technology spinoff from atmospheric drag research conducted for the Space Shuttle 

program.’’

In comments regarding how pervasive and integral space products, services, and 

spinoffs have become, the report states:

‘‘Space products and services and their related space technology spinoffs have become part of the fabric of daily life in ways that people increasingly take for 

granted, and often in ways that do not even bring space to mind.’’ The report 

provides a table listing examples of such technology spinoffs:


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The report also provides examples of how space products and services have contributed to improving health care. In describing one such example, the report stated:

‘‘A collaborative effort between NASA and the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) involves using satellite imagery to study and combat disease. 

Although this type of collaboration has occurred before, the new effort aims to 

formalize a training program. In 2008 a laboratory was set up to train public 

health students to use remote sensing for medical and public health applications. 

The students take courses both from NASA remote sensing scientists and UAB 

professors. Studies in the lab have been conducted on fighting malaria and the 

West Nile virus. Using infrared imagery from satellites, scientists can locate 

warm standing water, a breeding ground for disease-carrying mosquitoes. Satellites also collect data on pollution levels and other environmental factors in 

areas with high populations of asthma sufferers to determine the factors that 

might be causing asthma attacks.’’

In examining workforce issues, the report notes that:

‘‘The highly visible rockets, satellites, telescopes, and other hardware that embody space exploration obscure the fact that these endeavors ultimately depend 

on skilled people. Scientists, engineers, astronomers, technicians, and administrators represent the true backbone of the space industry and are its most precious resource. The Space Report 2009 explores the talent pool needed to keep the 

space industry thriving. It describes the positive economic impact of space industry activity in states and metropolitan areas, and identifies a critical area of concern in the need to educate and train the next generation of U.S. space professionals. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. space industry employs more than 262,000 men and women in 41 states including the District of Columbia. Between 2003 and 2007, the U.S. space industry sector added 

approximately 12,000 jobs at pay scales far above national averages. In just the 

commercial space transportation sector, the direct valuation according to the 

U.S. Federal Aviation Administration is $23 billion, and $139 billion when secondary and tertiary industries are included. This value exceeds one percent of 

the country’s gross domestic product.’’

But keeping a flow of trained workers in the future will be a challenge. The report 

states:

‘‘It is axiomatic that securing a skilled and technically trained workforce is critical to sustaining and growing the U.S. space industrial base. There is deepening 

concern that the young people who will make up the workforce required for the 

U.S. space industry to prosper into the future are not receiving the basic education they need in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) 

fields. A long educational pipeline is required to develop these skills, beginning 

in elementary school and continuing through secondary and higher education. 

Science and technology levels in the United States, from kindergarten through 

the 12th grade (K–12) and at the post-secondary level, place the Nation at a disadvantage relative to other countries. The most recent data shows that American 

students are slipping behind their international counterparts in math and 

science education. This situation is exacerbated as other nations such as China 

have become more aggressive in developing their indigenous technical talent 

base. These worrisome indicators point to a need for the U.S. space industry to 

intensify its advocacy for the highly educated and technically trained workforce 

that enables it to thrive.


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The success of space-related activity depends upon workers with great technical 

expertise, from astronauts and aerospace engineers to space scientists. The U.S. 

Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) occupational outlook projections show that demand will be high during the next ten years for workers in key space occupations 

as the needs and demands of the space industry grow. For instance, the BLS projections confirm that total employment levels for aerospace engineers will be 10 

percent greater in 2016 than the 2006 employment level. The number of advanced degrees awarded in the United States for space-related fields of study has 

been on the rise for years. However, virtually all of this growth can be attributed 

to an increasing percentage of foreign graduate students in these subjects.’’

In examining the state of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education in the United States, the report provides some sobering and worrisome statistics about the Nation’s ability to address future workforce challenges:

‘‘The results of this examination confirm prevailing concerns about shortages in 

the ranks of aerospace engineers as the scientists and technicians who began 

their careers during the era of the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs reach 

retirement. According to U.S. Government estimates, the employment levels for 

aerospace engineers needed to sustain anticipated activity will be 10 percent 

greater in 2016 than a decade earlier.

Meanwhile, results of proficiency testing in science and mathematics show reason 

for serious concern about low achievement levels in U.S. elementary and secondary schools, as the report details. Only 29 percent of the Nation’s 4th graders 

rated proficient in science; 39 percent in math. In a comparison of 36 nations, 

U.S. 4th graders ranked 11th in math achievement and 8th in science achievement. The nations outperforming the United States in these subjects include several that are pursuing ambitious space programs. Among 12th graders, only 18 

percent achieved proficiency in science; 23 percent in math. In the physical 

sciences, more than 93 percent of middle school students are taught by teachers 

who are not certified or did not major in those fields.

The worrisome trends in U.S. science and math education extend to the college 

level. Between 1986 and 2006, Bachelor’s degrees awarded in Earth and atmospheric sciences, engineering, math, and computer science fell eight percent. Graduate level degrees have increased significantly at both the Master’s and doctoral 

levels, but that is due in part to the large number of foreign students studying 

in the United States. Immigration policies are making it harder for such students to come to the United States and study, and to stay once they graduate.

Engineering Bachelor’s degrees have declined by 11 percent in the United States 

over the past two decades. The percentage of undergraduate degrees in science 

and engineering has also dropped considerably in the past 20 years. Engineering 

degrees comprised only five percent of all Bachelor’s degrees awarded in 2006, 

down from eight percent two decades earlier.

In addition to improving the quality of math and science education in secondary 

schools, the space profession has recognized the need to recruit more women into 

the field. While women represent a majority of the students who received Bachelor’s degrees in 2006, only one in five of the degrees in engineering were awarded to women that year. Female representation in the aeronautical and astronautical engineering fields has increased, but has a long way to go to reach parity.

Unless the current declining trend of space-critical degrees is reversed, many of 

these new jobs may go unfilled, opening the door to increasing competition from 

other countries for a field the United States has dominated for two generations.’’

In projecting its outlook for the future, The Space Report 2009 states:

‘‘The picture of space activity that emerges in The Space Report 2009 is one of 

continued innovation and risk-taking in the private sector, and ambitious exploration and international cooperation in the public sector. So far, the clearest visible impact of the global economic downturn on the space industry is in the equity 

markets, where space industries collectively sustained deeper valuation losses 

than broader market indexes. The raw numbers concerning space activity in 

2008—employment, payroll, output, manufacturing, and launches—generally 

showed continued steady growth. There may be a lag time before a downturn in 

some of these measures of the space industry becomes apparent. If historic trends 

are indicative, the full impact of the economic slowdown on the commercial space 

industry may not be visible until 2009 or 2010 due to the numerous corporate 

growth program commitments and the consistently strong cash flows produced 

by the industry.’’


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‘‘Space activity has integrated itself so thoroughly into broader business activity, 

with an array of services vital to communication, travel, broadcast, and other 

industries, that the space industry is now part of the mainstream economy. It 

continues to demonstrate the potential for growth, expanding its breadth and volume of activity, and growing new business arenas in which the space industry 

is, or has become, a key player.’’

Ms. Patti Grace Smith, a Member of the Board of Directors of The Space Foundation, will be a witness at the hearing and can provide further details on the Foundation’s report.

Surveys and Polls of Public Views on Space 

The National Academies and Space Foundation reports documented the importance of space to our national needs and the myriad ways in which space benefits 

our lives and society at large. However, the extent to which the public is aware of 

those benefits appears to be limited. In recent years, NASA and other non-governmental entities have sponsored national surveys and public opinion polls to acquire 

feedback on how the public views NASA and the Nation’s space program. One of 

those surveys, which was conducted for a NASA Strategic Communications Implementation Framework, showed that public perception about the relevance of space 

changed after individuals were informed of examples of how space affects their lives.

• Gallup Polls

Since 1990, Gallup has conducted polls to ascertain public attitudes about the job 

NASA is doing and public spending on space. According to Gallup, ‘‘the public has 

generally rated NASA positively.’’ The two most recent Gallup polls were conducted 

in 2006 and 2007. The 2007 poll results were based on telephone interviews with 

1010 adults (18 years of age or older). 

An October 31, 2007 article on Gallup’s web site, ‘‘Americans Continue to Rate 

NASA Positively,’’ on the results of the Gallup poll states: ‘‘According to the Sept. 

14–16 poll [2007], 56 percent of Americans rate the job NASA is doing in positive 

terms, with 16 percent saying it is doing an ‘excellent’ job and 40 percent a ‘good’ 

job. Meanwhile, just eight percent say it is doing a poor job, with most of the rest 

describing NASA’s performance as ‘only fair’.’’

Gallup has asked the same question—‘‘How would you rate the job being done by 

NASA—the U.S. space agency? Would you say it is doing an excellent, good, only 

fair, or poor job?’’ since 1990. According to the 2007 article, ‘‘NASA has had lessthan-majority positive evaluations just twice since 1990, when Gallup first asked this 

question. The initial 46 percent rating in July 1990 came shortly after a flaw in the 

Hubble telescope was discovered. Gallup measured the historical low rating of 43 

percent in September 1993 after a series of mishaps, which included the loss of contact with the Mars Orbiter and a couple of last-second decisions to scrub planned 

Space Shuttle missions.’’ In addition, the 2007 article notes that ‘‘The high point in 

NASA’s ratings came in November 1998, shortly after Sen. John Glenn—one of the 

earliest U.S. astronauts—made a much-heralded return trip to space.’’

• Public Views of Space Exploration: An Independent National Survey

In February 2009, The Everett Group, conducted an independent national survey 

to:

Æ ‘‘Gauge Americans’ impressions of the space program relative to other national 

institutions

Æ Determine what the public perceives to be the greatest benefits of the space program

Æ Gauge the level of public support for an increase in funding for the space program

Æ Identify future missions that the public would support.’’

The survey included a random sample of 360 U.S. adults. 

In response to the question, ‘‘How would you describe your overall interest in the 

U.S. space program?’’, the participants answered: very interested (15 percent), somewhat interested (44 percent), not too interested (22 percent), and not at all interested 

(19 percent).’’

In response to the question, ‘‘Can you think of any ways that your life has been 

improved directly by the U.S. space program?’’, ‘‘Half of the public says ‘Yes’ and can 

name one or more ways the space program improved their life.’’ ‘‘The other half says 

‘No’ and believes that the program has not improved their life in any way.’’ Of those 

that answered that space improved their lives and provided an example, ‘‘satellites, 

knowledge about the universe, and new technology’’ were the three most common exVerDate 0ct 09 2002 12:32 Mar 02, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00015 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 Z:\DOCS\50745.TXT SCIENCE1 PsN: COMSCI

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amples cited. Other responses included ‘‘computers, Velcro, foods, cell phones, plastics, knowledge about weather/environment, microwaves, medical advances, communications, clothes/fabrics, educating young scientists, and entertainment/pictures.’’

The write-up of the survey lists ‘‘Key Take-Aways’’ as:

Æ ‘‘Most Americans are interested in the space program (60 percent) but an 

alarming number have no interest at all (19 percent). Interest is particularly 

soft among women.

Æ On the positive side, large majorities feel that the space program is important 

to national security (71 percent), contributes to national pride (79 percent), 

and inspires young people to study math and science (82 percent).

Æ Half of the public feel that the space program has not directly improved their 

lives in any way. Those who do, however, cite technological developments and 

knowledge about the universe.

Æ Most believe that the U.S. continues to explore space in order to maintain our 

status as an international leader or because it is human nature to explore.

Æ The majority of Americans (60 percent) reject the idea that the space program 

is a waste of taxpayer money. They are not convinced, however, that more 

funding is needed.

Æ A plurality feel that a manned mission to Mars should be the next major mission, but there is some sentiment that this should not be pursued during the 

current economic recession.

Æ Many Americans would prefer to see the space program’s resources used to 

help solve terrestrial problems rather than extraterrestrial ones for the time 

being.’’

NASA Strategic Communications Framework Implementation Plan 

In 2007, NASA’s Office of Strategic Communications developed an Implementation Plan with the purpose of putting ‘‘forward specific messages and initiatives 

based on the Strategic Communications Framework and recent round of market research and analysis.’’ According to the Plan, the overall Agency communications 

goals were:

1. ‘‘Build greater public support for NASA’s mission and activities. Authority for effort based in:

• Space Act of 1958

• 2005 NASA Authorization Act

2. Make Agency communications more participatory

• Increase users of MyNASA, Inside NASA, and communications.nasa.gov

3. Change communications behavior within the Agency

• Reach out to new audiences

• Demonstrate relevancy and benefits to key audiences.’’

The report states that ‘‘Messages and outreach activities are informed by relevant 

policy guidance: Vision for Space Exploration, National Space Policy, National Aeronautics Research and Development Policy.’’

On the analysis of market research, the report provides a NASA Brand Balance 

Sheet:

‘‘Strengths

1. Near Universal Awareness

2. Enormous Public Appreciation

3. High Support

4. Wide Appeal

Challenges

1. Little Specific Knowledge

2. Lack of Relevance

3. Low Excitement

4. Disconnect from Activities

5. Lack of Current Context’’

The report recommends that NASA communications should:


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• ‘‘Demonstrate NASA’s role using message components:

Æ Science

Æ Economic

Æ Security

Æ Leadership

• Illustrate NASA’s relevance by highlighting

Æ The importance of space to America’s economy

Æ The benefits to people that exist because of technology developed by NASA

• Engage and inspire audiences about the future benefits of NASA and its leadership 

in space exploration, aeronautics research, science, and education.’’

In developing the 2007 Strategic Communications Framework Implementation 

Plan, NASA commissioned independent entities to conduct market research (focus 

groups and a survey) to:

Æ ‘‘Set benchmarks in areas of knowledge, relevance, and excitement

Æ Testing of key words and messages

• Development of messages around Space Exploration including Moon/Mars 

missions

Æ Effects of specific benefits in terms of illustrating relevance

Æ Gain insight into demographic differences.’’

The summary of market research results is as follows:

Æ ‘‘NASA’s overall public image remains high and a large number of Americans 

believe continuing space exploration is important

Æ However, fewer Americans rate NASA as relevant to their daily lives and perceptions of NASA’s economic contribution vary

Æ Telling people about specific NASA-related technologies has a tremendous impact on both relevance and economic measures

Æ Among messages tested, there were no ‘‘weak’’ reasons for continuing space exploration, though some reasons were stronger than others

Æ When talking about NASA programs and activities, framing NASA communications in terms of relevance and benefits is most effective.’’

The report identifies outreach strategies [as of 2007] including the 50th Anniversary of NASA, NASA Future Forums (conferences to discuss how innovation helps 

promote and sustain economic development), NASA Lecture Series, the use of Shuttle launches to engage State and local leaders, public service announcements, strategic alliances, and the use of new media that takes advantage of customized and 

personalized web pages and opportunities for online interaction (MyNASA), as well 

as an upgrade of the NASA web site and an online catalog of NASA benefits and 

stories provided by individuals on how space affects their lives.

Social Networking and Other Forms of Communications and Outreach 

As noted in the above sections on public awareness and strategic communications, 

many Americans are unaware of how space affects and benefits their lives. Enhancing the public’s awareness involves communication and information dissemination, 

including by means of new communication modes and tools that are widely used by 

younger generations. As stated in a March 2009 article in Discovery News, ‘‘Ask 

most folks around NASA what lured them into the space business and they’ll tell you 

about how shivers ran down their spines watching Neil Armstrong step onto the 

moon in 1969. That’s a problem for an agency that exists to inspire the young and 

explore the unknown.’’

One of the ways that NASA is attempting to address this issue is through the 

use of social networking. According to the Webcontent.gov information on Social Networks and Government, social networking tools are ‘‘web sites that connect people’’ 

and involve ‘‘online communities’’ that people can join without cost and create a web 

page with their profile. These sites ‘‘allow users to find people they know among the 

members, or look for other members with similar interests or affiliations.’’ NASA is 

employing these tools as another means of communicating with the interested public, especially with younger people who are active users of social networking sites. 

The Mars Phoenix Lander mission has tens of thousands of Twitter followers. NASA 

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ish on his Shuttle mission training. NASA is on Facebook and also disseminates 

video using YouTube. 

NASA is also using naming and voting contests as another means to engage the 

public in its programs. A contest on what to name a new node of the International 

Space Station attracted considerable attention when participants voted to name it 

after comedian Stephen Colbert. (NASA elected to name the new ISS node, ‘‘Tranquility,’’ but named a new treadmill, the Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill (COLBERT) after the comedian.) Another contest allowed 

participants to vote, for example, on an observing target for the Hubble Space Telescope. 

In addition, NASA has upgraded its web site to incorporate other tools that invite 

public participation in NASA activities. One example is a web page entitled ‘‘Collaborate and Connect with NASA’’ that provides links to Twitter, Facebook, 

USTREAMTV, myspace, YouTube, and flickr and provides multiple links that provide opportunities to collaborate with NASA. The Collaborate and Connect with 

NASA web page also provides links that outline how readers can help identify 

landforms in satellite images of Mars, one that has offered contests for artwork on 

the lunar environment, and a site that provides teacher lesson plans, access to 

Earth science data, and opportunities to participate in citizen science projects relevant to Earth science, among other means to engage with NASA activities.

ATTACHMENT I 

Executive Summary of the Report 

America’s Future In Space: Aligning the Civil Space 

Program with National Needs 

From its inception in 1958, much of the U.S. space program was driven by opportunities to serve national interests in a geopolitical environment heavily colored by 

Cold War threats and fears. Originally, the true potential of space activities was 

largely speculative. In the ensuing decades, however, early expectations for discovery and technological accomplishment have been richly exceeded. Without a 

doubt, the first 50 years of the space age have been transformative. Astronauts have 

stood on Earth’s Moon while millions watched. Commercial communications and remote sensing satellites have become part of the basic infrastructure of the world. 

Satellites support worldwide communications, providing a critical backbone for daily 

commerce—carrying billions of global financial transactions daily, for example. Direct broadcasting beams television signals into homes globally, delivering images 

that bring unprecedented awareness of events occurring throughout the world. Military global positioning satellites provide ubiquitous signals that support a stunning 

variety of services, from assisting in the navigation of civilian airplanes, shipping, 

and automobiles to transmitting timing signals that enable cell phone and power 

grid switching. Remote sensing satellites obtain high-resolution images of Earth’s 

surface, available now on the Internet for people worldwide to view and use, and 

provide critical information to monitor changes in our climate and their effects. 

Our understanding of every aspect of the cosmos has been profoundly altered, and 

in the view of many, we stand once again at the brink of a new era. Space observations have mapped the remnant radiation from the Big Bang that began our universe. We have discovered that the expansion of the universe continues to accelerate, driven by a force that we do not yet understand, and that there are large 

amounts of matter in the universe that we cannot yet observe. We have seen galaxies forming at the beginning of the universe and stars forming in our own galaxy. 

We have explored the wonders that abound in our solar system and have found locations where life might have occurred or might even now be present. We have discovered planets around other stars, so many that it is ever more likely that there are 

other Earths comparable to our own. 

What will the next 50 years bring? Today we live in a globalized world of societies 

and nations characterized by intertwined economies, trade commitments, and international security agreements. Mutual dependencies are much more pervasive and 

important than ever before. Many of the pressing problems that now require our 

best efforts to understand and resolve—from terrorism to climate change to demand 

for energy—are also global in nature and must be addressed through mutual worldwide action. In the judgment of the Committee on the Rationale and Goals of the 

U.S. Civil Space Program, the ability to operate from, through, and in space will 

be a key component of potential solutions to 21st century challenges. As it has beVerDate 0ct 09 2002 12:32 Mar 02, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00018 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 Z:\DOCS\50745.TXT SCIENCE1 PsN: COMSCI

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1The committee considered ‘‘civil space’’ to include all government, commercial, academic, and 

private space activities not directly intended for military or intelligence use. 

fore, with the necessary alignment to achieve clearly articulated national priorities, 

the U.S. civil space1 program can serve the Nation effectively in this new and demanding environment. 

In its initial discussions, the committee concluded that debates about the direction 

of the civil space program have too often focused on addressing near-term problems 

and issues without first putting those issues in the context of how a disciplined 

space program can serve larger national imperatives. In the committee’s view, characterizing the top-level goals of the civil space program and the connection between 

those goals and broad national priorities is necessary as a foundation on which the 

Nation (both now and in the future) can devise sustainable solutions to nearer-term 

issues. Therefore, the committee focused on the long-term, strategic value of the 

U.S. civil space program, and its report does not address nearer-term issues that 

affect the conduct of U.S. space activities other than to provide a context in which 

more tactical decisions might be made. 

The national priorities that informed the committee’s thinking include ensuring 

national security, providing clean and affordable energy, protecting the environment 

now and for future generations, educating an engaged citizenry and a capable workforce for the 21st century, sustaining global economic competitiveness, and working 

internationally to build a safer, more sustainable world. A common element across 

all these urgent priorities is the significant part that research and development can 

play in solving problems and advancing the national enterprise in each area. Instruments in space have documented an accelerating decline in arctic sea ice, mapped 

the circulation of the world’s oceans, enabled the creation of quantitative three-dimensional data sets to improve the quality of hurricane forecasting, and created 

new tools to address a host of agricultural, coastal, and urban resource management 

problems, to cite only a few examples. Such capabilities demonstrate what can be 

achieved when technologically challenging space problems stimulate innovation that 

leads to long-term advances with applications beyond the space sector. Civil space 

activities are central to the R&D enterprise of the Nation, often in a transformational way, and thus present powerful opportunities to help address major national objectives. 

Observations from space offering unique capabilities for global environmental and 

land-use monitoring are essential to informed decision-making about energy production and climate change policies, and they help provide the understanding required 

for wise management. The high visibility of space activities attracts students’ attention to science, technology, and mathematics, and space activities are an exciting 

focus for teaching those subjects. Commercial space-related ventures now figure significantly in global economic competitiveness, and, while government investments to 

stimulate the Nation’s fragile economy will have short-term impacts, R&D investments can be counted on to make longer-term sustainable contributions to the Nation’s economic strength. As has countless times proved the case, research in and 

from space will continue to lead to important future, and not always currently predictable, benefits that hold the promise of progress toward realizing U.S. as well as 

shared international goals. 

The committee’s overall conclusion is that a preeminent U.S. civil space program 

with strengths and capabilities aligned for tackling widely acknowledged national 

challenges—environmental, economic, and strategic—will continue to make major 

contributions to the Nation’s welfare.

GOALS FOR THE CIVIL SPACE PROGRAM 

Structured and supported to match multiple responsibilities in serving key national objectives, the U.S. civil space program should be preeminent in the sense 

that it can influence, by example, nations’ use of space. To be a strategic leader in 

a globalized world requires that the United States have a civil space program whose 

breadth, competence, and level of accomplishment ensures that U.S. leadership is 

demonstrated, accepted, and welcomed. 

The committee identified six strategic goals that it regards as basic for guiding 

program choices and resources planning for U.S. civil space activities. The goals all 

serve the national interest, and steady progress in achieving each of them is necessary.

• To re-establish leadership for the protection of Earth and its inhabitants 

through the use of space research and technology. The key global perspective 

enabled by space observations is critical to monitoring climate change and 


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testing climate models, managing Earth resources, and mitigating risks associated with natural phenomena such as severe weather and asteroids.

• To sustain U.S. leadership in science by seeking knowledge of the universe and 

searching for life beyond Earth. Space offers a multitude of critical opportunities, unavailable in Earth-based laboratories, to extend our knowledge of the 

local and distant universe and to search for life beyond Earth.

• To expand the frontiers of human activities in space. Human space flight continues to challenge technology, utilize unique human capabilities, bring global 

prestige, and excite the public’s imagination. Space provides almost limitless 

opportunities for extending the human experience to new frontiers.

• To provide technological, economic, and societal benefits that contribute solutions to the Nation’s most pressing problems. Space activities provide economic 

opportunities, stimulate innovation, and support services that improve the 

quality of life. U.S. economic competitiveness is directly affected by our ability 

to perform in this sector and the many sectors enabled and supported by 

space activities.

• To inspire current and future generations. U.S. civil space activities, built on 

a legacy of spectacular achievements, should continue to inspire the public 

and also serve to attract future generations of scientists and engineers.

• To enhance U.S. global strategic leadership through leadership in civil space 

activities. Because of the growing strategic importance of space, all nations 

that aspire to global political and economic leadership in the 21st century are 

increasing their space-faring capabilities. Continued U.S. global leadership is 

tied to continued U.S. leadership in space.

FOUNDATIONAL ELEMENTS 

To contribute to realizing critical national objectives including those listed above, 

the U.S. space program, both the civil and national security components, must have 

a strong foundation and adequate resources. While the breadth of the civil space 

program has grown, there is also a sense that the program has been unfocused, with 

corresponding impacts on the organizations and institutions that support it. The 

United States can no longer pursue space activities on the assumption of its unchallengeable dominance—as evidenced by the view of other nations that the United 

States is not the only, or in some cases even the best, option for space partnerships. 

U.S. leadership in space activities and their capacity to serve urgent national needs 

must be based on preeminent technical capabilities; ingenuity, entrepreneurialism, 

and a willingness to take risk; and recognition of mutual interdependencies. The 

time has come to reassess, and in some cases reinvent, the institutions, workforce, 

infrastructure, and technology base for U.S. space activities. 

The committee identified four foundational elements critical to a purposeful, effective, strategic U.S. space program, without which U.S. space efforts will lack 

robustness, realism, sustainability, and affordability:

1. Coordinated national strategies—implementing national space policy coherently 

across all civilian agencies in support of national needs and priorities and aligning 

attention to shared interests of civil and national security space activities, 

2. A competent technical workforce—sufficient in size, talent, and experience to address difficult and pressing challenges, 

3. An effectively sized and structured infrastructure—realizing synergy from the 

public and private sectors and from international partnerships, and 

4. A priority investment in technology and innovation—strengthening and sustaining the U.S. capacity to meet national needs through transformational advances.

Efforts to establish each of these elements to ensure a strong foundation for the 

Nation’s civil space program must overcome several impediments. The issues include a loss of focus on national imperatives, overly constrained resources, inadequate coordination across the Federal Government, missed opportunities to transition roles from government-led to private sector-provided services, obstacles to international cooperation, weakened institutional partnerships, and lack of emphasis on 

advanced technology development programs. Awareness of such issues—and not an 

effort to resolve specific instances—guided the committee in its development of recommendations to NASA, NOAA, and the Federal Government at the highest levels.

RECOMMENDATIONS 

The committee found that, in spite of their promise and utility, components of the 

civil space program are not always aligned to fully capitalize on opportunities to 

serve the larger national interest. Decisions about civil space priorities, strategies, 


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2The NRC decadal surveys have been widely used by the scientific community and by program decision-makers because they (a) present explicit, consensus priorities for the most important, potentially revolutionary science that should be undertaken within the span of a decade; 

(b) develop priorities for future investments in research facilities, space missions, and/or supporting programs; (c) rank competing opportunities and ideas and clearly indicate which ones 

are of higher or lower priority in terms of the timing, risk, and cost of their implementation; 

and (d) make the difficult adverse decisions about other meritorious ideas that cannot be accommodated within realistically available resources.

and programs, and the resources to achieve them, are not always made with a conscious view toward their linkages to broader national interests. Accordingly, the 

committee recommends as follows:

1. Addressing national imperatives. Emphasis should be placed on aligning space 

program capabilities with current high-priority national imperatives, including those 

where space is not traditionally considered. The U.S. civil space program has long 

demonstrated a capacity to effectively serve U.S. national interests. 

Recommendation 1 provides a broad policy basis on which the committee’s subsequent specific recommendations rest. The recommendations that follow address a set 

of actions, all of which are necessary to strengthen the U.S. civil space program and 

reinforce or enhance the contributions of civil space activities to broader national 

objectives. 

2. Climate and environmental monitoring. NASA and NOAA should lead the formation of an international satellite-observing architecture capable of monitoring 

global climate change and its consequences and support the research needed to interpret and understand the data in time for meaningful policy decisions by:

a. Reversing the deterioration of the U.S. Earth observation infrastructure;

b. Developing and implementing a plan for achieving and sustaining global 

Earth observations;

c. Working with the international community to develop an integrated database 

for sensor information from all Earth-monitoring satellites;

d. Aggressively pursuing technology development for future high-priority Earth 

observation missions; and

e. Actively planning for transitions to continue demonstrably useful research 

observations on a sustained, or operational, basis.

3. Scientific inquiry. NASA, in cooperation with other agencies and international 

partners, should continue to lead a program of scientific exploration and discovery 

that:

a. Seizes opportunities to advance understanding of Earth, the objects of the 

solar system including the Sun, and the vast universe beyond;

b. Includes searches for evidence of life beyond Earth;

c. Contributes to understanding how the universe works, who we are, where we 

came from, and what is the destiny of our star—the Sun—our solar system, 

and the universe, and of the physical laws that govern them; and

d. Is guided by peer review, advisory committees, and the priorities articulated 

by the science communities in their strategic planning reports, such as the 

NRC’s decadal surveys.2

4. Advanced space technology. NASA should revitalize its advanced technology development program by establishing a DARPA-like organization within NASA as a 

priority mission area to support preeminent civil, national security (if dual-use), and 

commercial space programs. The resulting program should:

a. Be organizationally independent of major development programs;

b. Serve all civil space customers, including the commercial sector;

c. Conduct an extensive assessment of the current state and potential of civil 

space technology; and

d. Conduct cutting-edge fundamental research in support of the Nation’s space 

technology base.

5. International cooperation. The government, under White House leadership, 

should pursue international cooperation in space proactively as a means to advance 

U.S. strategic leadership and meet national and mutual international goals by:

a. Expanding international partnerships in studies of global change;

b. Leading an effort in which the Unites States and other major space-faring 

nations cooperate to develop rules for a robust space operating regime that 


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18

ensures that space becomes a more productive global commons for science, 

commerce, and other activities;

c. Rationalizing export controls so as to ensure ongoing prevention of inappropriate transfer of sensitive technologies to adversaries while eliminating barriers to international cooperation and commerce that do not contribute effectively to national security;

d. Expanding international partnerships in the use of the International Space 

Station;

e. Continuing international cooperation in scientific research and human space 

exploration,

f. Engaging the nations of the developing world in educating and training their 

citizens to take advantage of space technology for sustainable development; 

and

g. Supporting the interchange of international scholars and students.

6. Human space flight. NASA should be on the leading edge of actively pursuing 

human space flight, to extend the human experience into new frontiers, challenge 

technology, bring global prestige, and excite the public’s imagination. These goals 

should be accomplished by:

a. Setting challenging objectives that advance the frontier, scientific and technological understanding, and the state-of-the-art;

b. Establishing clear goals for each step in a sequence of human space flight 

missions beyond low-Earth orbit that will develop techniques and hardware 

that can be used in a next step further outward;

c. Focusing use of the ISS on advancing capabilities for human space exploration; and

d. Using human space flight to enhance the U.S. soft power leadership by inviting emerging economic powers to join with us in human space flight adventures.

National space policy too often has been implemented in a stovepipe fashion that 

makes it difficult to recognize connections between space activities and pressing national challenges. Often, senior policy-makers with broad portfolios have not been 

able to take the time to consider the space program in the broader national context. 

Rather, policies have been translated into programs by setting budget levels and 

then expecting agencies to manage to those budgets. The committee believes that 

the process of aligning roles and responsibilities for space activities, making resource commitments, and coordinating across departments and agencies needs to be 

carried out at a sufficiently high level that decisions are made from the perspective 

of addressing the larger national issues whose resolution space activities can help 

achieve. How this process is accomplished might change from administration to administration, but the need for an approach that will elevate attention to the proper 

level remains essential.

7. Organizing to meet national needs. The President of the United States should 

task senior executive-branch officials to align agency and department strategies; 

identify gaps or shortfalls in policy coverage, policy implementation, and resource 

allocation; and identify new opportunities for space-based endeavors that will help 

to address critical issues now confronting the United States and, to a considerable 

extent, the world as well. 

The effort should include the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs and the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, and should consider the following elements:

a. Coordinating budgetary guidance across federal departments and agencies 

involved in space activities;

b. Coordinating responsibility and accountability for resource allocations for 

common services and/or infrastructure;

c. Coordinating responsibility and accountability for stimulating, nurturing, 

and sustaining a robust space industrial base, including the commercial 

space industry;

d. Coordinating responsibility and accountability for initiatives to recruit and 

develop a competent aerospace workforce of sufficient size and talent, anticipating future needs;

e. Identifying, developing, and coordinating initiatives to address long-range 

technological needs for future programs;


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19

f. Identifying, developing, and coordinating initiatives to establish and 

strengthen international space relationships;

g. Harmonizing the roles and responsibilities of federal agencies to eliminate 

gaps and unnecessary duplication in the Nation’s space portfolio; and

h. Regularly reviewing coordinated national space strategies and their success 

in implementing overall national space policy.


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20

Chairwoman GIFFORDS. The hearing will come to order. 

Good afternoon, everyone. I am so pleased that we are all here, 

having an opportunity to talk about this very important issue, but 

I am also excited, because this is the 40th anniversary of the 

launch of Apollo 11’s mission to the Moon. 

There are a whole series of commemorative events planned for 

this week and for next week, and it is clear that Apollo is still considered one of the most significant achievements of the U.S. space 

program, and I would go beyond that, and say of all of mankind. 

It is, of course, fitting that we pause to honor those who blazed 

the trail that leads out beyond low-Earth orbit, both the brave astronauts who undertook those hazardous expeditions to the Moon, 

and the countless individuals and organizations who enabled those 

expeditions to succeed. 

Yet, by definition, our civil space program is about the future, 

not about the past, and if our space program is to have a sustainable and productive future, it also has to be relevant. That is, 

America’s space program must be relevant to our broad national 

needs if it is going to continue to be supported by Members of Congress and by the American people. 

Yet, as the National Academies review, the Space Foundation’s 

annual report, and the NASA Authorization Act of 2008 all make 

clear, we can and should do more to enhance the relevance of the 

civil space program, so it can continue to be an important contributor to the Nation’s strength and wellbeing in the years and the 

decades to come. By that, I don’t mean that NASA and our space 

program should just be about spinoffs, as important as the past 

ones have been to our economy, to our science, and to our society. 

Instead, what I am saying is that our space program is important to Americans scientifically, technologically, economically, and 

geopolitically, and we should recognize and nurture that reality, so 

that we can maximize the benefits we accrue from America’s space 

program into the future. I think that the National Academies panel 

put it pretty well. I quote: ‘‘A preeminent U.S. civil space program 

with strengths and capabilities aligned for tackling widely acknowledged national challenges, environmental, economic, and strategic, 

is a national imperative today, and will continue to grow in importance in the future.’’

That is an imperative that both Congress and the White House 

will need to come to grips with if we are to have a productive future in space exploration, yet that is only half of the equation. You 

have all heard the old conundrum, if a tree falls in the forest and 

no one hears about it. Well, we face a similar conundrum with our 

civil space program. If we have an incredibly exciting and relevant 

space program, but the American people don’t hear about it, don’t 

understand it, and don’t know about it, is it really that relevant to 

the American people? Because it is not an academic exercise, our 

space program is incredibly important to this country’s future 

wellbeing, but we can’t assume the public will just take the assertion on faith. We need to be able to demonstrate it. 

So, today’s hearing is a part of that process. It is really a first 

step in that process, and I can think of no better way to honor the 

achievements of those who have led America to the Moon, and creVerDate 0ct 09 2002 12:32 Mar 02, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00024 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 Z:\DOCS\50745.TXT SCIENCE1 PsN: COMSCI

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21

ated a space program that has been the envy of the world, than to 

have a hearing like this today. 

In closing, I again want to welcome our witnesses to today’s 

hearing. 

I now recognize Mr. Olson for his opening comments. 

[The prepared statement of Chairwoman Giffords follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF CHAIRWOMAN GABRIELLE GIFFORDS

Good afternoon. I’m pleased to welcome everyone to today’s hearing on this the 

40th anniversary of the launch of the Apollo 11 mission to the Moon. 

There are a whole series of commemorative events planned for this week and 

next, and it is clear that Apollo is still considered one of the most significant 

achievements of the U.S. space program—and deservedly so. 

It’s of course fitting that we pause to honor those who blazed the trail that leads 

out beyond low-Earth orbit—both the brave astronauts who undertook those hazardous expeditions to the Moon and the countless individuals and organizations who 

enabled those expeditions to succeed. 

Yet, by definition our civil space program is about the future—not the past. 

And if our space program is to have a sustainable and productive future, it is also 

about relevance. 

That is, America’s civil space program must be relevant to our broad national 

needs if it is going to continue to be supported. 

Yet as the National Academies review, the Space Foundation’s annual report, and 

the NASA Authorization Act of 2008 all make clear, we can and should do more to 

enhance the relevance of the civil space program so that it can continue to be an 

important contributor to the Nation’s strength and well-being in the years and decades to come. 

By that I don’t mean that NASA and our space program should just be about 

‘‘spinoffs,’’ as important as past ones have been to our economy and our society. 

Instead what I’m saying is that our space program is important to American scientifically, technologically, economically, and geopolitically, and we should recognize 

and nurture that reality so that we can maximize the benefits we accrue from America’s space program in the future. 

I think the National Academies panel put it well:

‘‘. . . A preeminent U.S. civil space program with strengths and capabilities 

aligned for tackling widely acknowledged national challenges—environmental, 

economic, and strategic—is a national imperative today, and will continue to 

grow in importance in the future.’’

That is an imperative that both Congress and the White House will need to come 

to grips with if we are to have a productive future in space exploration. 

Yet, that is only half of the equation. 

You’ve all heard the old conundrum: ‘‘If a tree falls in the forest and no one is 

there to hear it . . ..’’

Well, we face a similar conundrum with our civil space program. 

If we have an incredibly exciting and relevant space program, but the American 

people don’t really know about it, is it really that relevant? 

Because it’s not an academic exercise—our space program is incredibly important 

to this country’s future well being, but we can’t assume the public will just take that 

assertion on faith. 

We need to be able to demonstrate it. 

Today’s hearing is a first step in that process, and I can think of no better way 

to honor the achievements of those who led America to the Moon and created a 

space program that has been the envy of the world. 

In closing, I again want to welcome our witnesses to today’s hearing, and I will 

now recognize Mr. Olson for any opening statement he may care to make.

Mr. OLSON. Well, Madam Chairwoman, thank you so much for 

calling this afternoon’s hearing. I would like to thank the witnesses 

for coming today to give us your time and your expertise. Thank 

you. 

I look forward to discussing how Congress and the executive 

branch can collaborate to better enhance public perception of the 


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22

contributions that NASA and the civil space industry provide our 

nation’s economy and our quality of life. 

My thanks to our panel of expert witnesses again, for taking 

your time out of your busy schedules to appear before the Subcommittee. Your unique perspectives are greatly valued by the 

Members of this committee. Thank you again for coming today. 

You know, Madam Chairwoman, I am glad we are holding this 

hearing today, but slightly discouraged that we have to hold it at 

all. I assure you that this hearing would not have been one that 

would have occurred on this day back in 1969. Forty years ago 

today, Apollo 11 launched on a journey that changed mankind’s 

perception as to what was possible. We challenged our scientists 

and our engineers to develop never before used technologies to send 

humans on a mission that captivated the world’s attention and 

stirred humanity’s collective imagination. That alone made it relevant. 

I am not sure it is possible to replicate that feeling today, that 

sense of achievement, that sense of unlimited possibilities, without 

an equally challenging goal, but that does not mean that other critical discoveries and new technologies NASA is developing or currently working on are not equally compelling. Our landing on the 

Moon was the beginning of a journey, not the end of one, and sometimes, I feel like we have forgotten that. 

Let us look at some of the issues that are critical to our nation 

at this time, securing our economic future, strengthening our education system, developing alternative energy sources to ease our dependence on foreign oil, improving our health care system, and protecting our environment. All of these, all of these rate as high concerns among the American public polled. 

NASA scores high ratings when it stands alone for public support, but suffers when put in a list of priorities with other competing goals. This is in part because many Americans aren’t familiar with the wide breadth of space and Earth-related research that 

NASA conducts, and the spinoffs that have been developed from 

those experiments. To improve, we need to ensure that we have a 

worthwhile and challenging human space flight goal that is adequately funded, and we also have to effectively convey that America’s space program provides concrete solutions to a wide array of 

societal problems. 

The members of this panel are uniquely qualified to do that. 

General Lyles recently chaired a study that addressed many of 

these subjects. His report looked closely at the overall challenges 

facing our civil space program. Mrs. Smith and the Space Foundation, among other things, have published ‘‘The Space Report: 2009,’’ 

which includes a host of invaluable information, but in my mind, 

the data provided about the space economy is second to none. I am 

also thankful that Mrs. Myers and Mr. O’Brien are here to give us 

some insight on communicating to and hearing from the public. 

After all, it is the public who we are asking to fund many of these 

endeavors. 

When we are in this hearing room, particularly in this subcommittee room, there is no need for convincing. I would love to 

hear how all the enthusiasm that we share in this room about 


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23

space exploration can be conveyed to those people who are standing 

out in the hall. 

With that, Madam Chairman, I conclude my opening remarks, 

and yield back my time. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Olson follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE PETE OLSON

Madam Chairwoman, thank you for calling this afternoon’s hearing. I look forward to discussing how Congress and the Executive Branch can collaborate to better 

enhance public perception of the contributions that NASA and the civil space industry provide our nation’s economy, and our quality of life. My thanks to our panel 

of expert witnesses for taking time out of your busy schedules to appear before this 

subcommittee. Your unique perspectives are greatly valued by the Members of this 

committee. Thank you for agreeing to participate. 

You know Madam Chairwoman, I am glad that we are holding this hearing today, 

but slightly discouraged that we have to hold it at all. I assure you that this hearing 

would not be one that would have been held on this date in 1969. Forty years ago 

today, Apollo 11 launched on a journey that changed mankind’s perception as to 

what is possible. We challenged our scientists and engineers to develop never-beforeused technologies to send humans on a mission that captivated the world’s attention 

and stirred humanities collective imagination. That alone made it relevant. 

I’m not sure it’s possible to replicate that feeling—that sense of achievement—

that sense of unlimited possibilities—today without an equally challenging goal, but 

that does not mean that other critical discoveries and new technologies NASA is developing or is currently working on, are not equally compelling. Our landing on the 

Moon was the beginning of a journey, not the end of one. Sometimes I feel like we 

have forgotten that. 

Let us look at some of the issues that are critical to our nation at this time: securing our economic future, strengthening our education system, developing alternative 

energy sources to ease our dependence on foreign oil, improving our health care system and protecting our environment. All of these rate as high concerns when the 

American public is polled. NASA scores high ratings when it stands alone for public 

support, but suffers when put in a list of priorities with these other issues. This in 

part because many Americans aren’t familiar with the wide breadth of space- and 

Earth-related research NASA conducts, and the spinoffs that have been developed. 

To improve, we need to ensure that we have a worthwhile and challenging human 

space flight goal that is adequately funded, and we also have to effectively convey 

that America’s space program provides concrete solutions to solving a wide array of 

societal problems. 

The members of this panel are uniquely qualified to help us do that. Gen. Lyles 

recently chaired a study that addressed many of these subjects. His report looked 

closely at the overall challenges facing our civil space program. Ms. Smith and the 

Space Foundation, among other things, have published The Space Report 2009, 

which includes a host of invaluable information, but in my mind the data provided 

about the space economy is second to none. I am also thankful that Ms. Myers and 

Mr. O’Brien are here to give us some insight on communicating to, and hearing 

from, the public. After all, it is the public who we are asking to fund many of these 

endeavors. When we are in this hearing room, particularly in this subcommittee, 

there is no need for convincing. I would love to hear how the enthusiasm that we 

all share in this room about space exploration can be conveyed with those out in 

the hall. 

During this week, as we celebrate the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11, all of us 

should recognize what we have achieved, but do so with an eye on the many discoveries and achievements yet to come.

Chairwoman GIFFORDS. Thank you, Mr. Olson. I think we all 

agree with your comments. 

I would like to take a moment to introduce our witnesses. First 

up, we have General Lester Lyles, who is testifying as Chair of the 

National Research Council’s Committee on the Rationale and Goals 

of the U.S. Civil Space Program. 

Next, we hear from Ms. Patti Grace Smith, who is a member of 

the Board of Directors of the Space Foundation. Then, we will hear 


Z:\DOCS\50745.TXT
24

from Ms. Deborah Adler Myers, who is the General Manager of the 

Science Channel at Discovery Communications. 

And finally, we have Mr. Miles O’Brien, who previously acted as 

CNN’s Chief Technology and Environment Correspondent, now 

works as a freelance journalist, and I can personally say is probably the most passionate citizen when it comes to space. So, we are 

glad to have you here, Mr. O’Brien, and for all of our panelists as 

well, welcome. 

As our panelists should know, we are going to require that we 

keep to around five minutes of testimony. I know that will be hard, 

but we would like to just get your testimony out. We will have the 

written testimony, of course, but then, we are going to open it up 

to questions, and I am really looking forward to having a great discussion. 

And General Lyles, we will start with you. 

STATEMENT OF GENERAL LESTER L. LYLES [U.S. AIR FORCE, 

RET.], CHAIR OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE RATIONALE AND 

GOALS OF THE U.S. CIVIL SPACE PROGRAM, AERONAUTICS 

AND SPACE ENGINEERING BOARD, NATIONAL RESEARCH 

COUNCIL 

General LYLES. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, Members of 

the Subcommittee. I thank you very much for giving us the opportunity to testify before this subcommittee today. 

I can’t think of a better date to have this particular hearing, and 

to talk about this very, very important topic. As you stated, my 

name is Lester Lyles. I am a retired United States Air Force fourstar general, and during my 35 years in the United States Air 

Force, I have had the opportunity to be involved in numerous space 

programs: as the Commander of the Air Force’s Space and Missile 

System Center; and in Los Angeles, as Director of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, now called the Missile Defense Agency; 

as the Vice Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force; and then, 

finally, as the Commander of the Air Force Materiel Command. 

Today, however, I speak to you as the Chair of the National Research Council’s Committee on the Rationale and Goals of the 

United States Civil Space Program, which recently, last week, released the report ‘‘America’s Future in Space: Aligning the Civil 

Space Program with National Needs.’’

My committee, the committee that looked at this particular topic, 

contained 14 members. We had distinguished experts in science 

and engineering, economics, political science, public policy, national 

security, and of course, space systems and space exploration. And 

with your permission, Madam Chairwoman, I am going to submit 

my prepared testimony for the record, and would like to just summarize, if you will, what our task was, and what the views were 

of this particular committee. 

First, I will start by saying I thank the National Academy Presidents, Ralph J. Cicerone and Dr. Chuck Vest, Academy of Science 

and the Academy of Engineering, for sponsoring this very, very important topic. This was not a topic sponsored by some other agency, 

NASA, or any other organization. This was the Academies’ opportunity and attempt to address a subject they thought was very important for the 21st century and for our country. 


Z:\DOCS\50745.TXT
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And what they tasked us to do was to take a broad look at identifying the key goals and critical issues for the 21st century for the 

United States civil space policy and civil space programs. They 

asked us to address overarching goals, to identify areas of national 

interest, and to identify, hopefully, solutions to some of the issues 

that we might encounter. 

And even though we were asked to take a look, or told to take 

a look at specific programmatic things, we were asked specifically 

to stay at a strategic level. Don’t get down into weeds, and describe 

how to build a rocket, or one rocket solution versus another, but 

to look at the big strategic goals for the country and for the civil 

space program in general. 

We started out by taking a very broad definition of civil space. 

Most people, I dare say, even in this room, of learned experts in 

the space arena, when you say civil space, they immediately think 

of NASA. Our definition of civil space was much broader. It included NOAA, the National Science Foundation, it included commercial space opportunities. It included academia. It included everything except national security space or intelligence space, 

though we obviously had to touch upon those two entities, because 

of the common ground and common themes, and certainly, common 

industrial base shared by each one of those different entities. 

So, our scope was rather broad, and we think we did as best we 

could to encompass all of the different arenas, and everybody we 

possibly could, to ensure we got a broad breadth look at this topic. 

I think, to summarize what the bottom line for our study was, 

it is sort of revealed in the title of our final report. You quoted our 

sort of final context, if you will, of our study, Madam Chairwoman. 

Our overall conclusion is that we have a preeminent United States 

civil space program. It has been that way in the past, it is that way 

today, and it should stay that way for the future. And the 

strengths and capabilities of that, those civil space activities, we 

think, are vastly available and vastly able to contribute to broader 

national challenges beyond just space exploration, including dealing with issues of climate and climate change, environmental, economic challenges, strategic and leadership opportunities, the economy, et cetera. 

In our term, you quoted it also, is that there is a national imperative to make sure that our civil space programs are aligned to do 

those kind of things that it can contribute solutions to so, in such 

a broad, broad sense. 

Our civil space program should be preeminent, in the sense that 

it can influence, by its example, other nations and their use of 

space, but also give us an opportunity to maintain strategic leadership, and use our space programs to help international cooperation, 

wherever we possibly could. 

I was very, very pleased to see an op-ed published the day before 

yesterday by Congressman Ralph Hall, in which he talked about 

this very topic, and we thought was very, very appropriate. I agree 

with everything that Congressman Hall stated in his report. The 

only thing different is that from our perspective, we think that the 

civil space program alignment doesn’t just focus in a narrow beam. 

We think we should continue doing the things we are doing today, 


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26

in addition to looking at ways we can make that appropriate alignment. 

I will very quickly, because my light just lit up, the red light, 

point out the six goals that we defined and four foundational elements we think are critical. The first goal is to reestablish leadership for the protection of Earth and its inhabitants through the use 

of space research and technology. You could call this stewardship 

of the Earth. We think it is a very, very important goal, and should 

be one of the major things for civil space. 

To sustain and expand our leadership in science, by seeking 

knowledge of the universe, and searching for life beyond. To expand the frontiers of human activities in space. To provide technological, economic, and societal benefits, where space technologies 

and space capabilities can contribute solutions. To inspire current 

and future generations, and to enhance U.S. global strategic leadership. 

Those are our goals, and our recommendations sort of revolve 

around that. I won’t, obviously, get into that, in the interests of 

time. Be more than willing to answer any questions about them. 

But I think it is important to very quickly mention four 

foundational elements that our report thought were absolutely critical to be addressed by the Administration, by the Congress, and 

by others, if those goals are to be achieved. 

One is greater coordination through whatever means possible, a 

National Space Council, some other leadership forum where all of 

the agencies involved in space can do a better job of integrating 

and coordinating their space activities. The need for a competent 

technical workforce to address that from a broader sense than, perhaps, is being done today. To effectively size and structure the infrastructure for space with the organizations that are involved in 

space activities. And probably, very, very critical to one of the comments you mentioned, to look for priority investment or reinvestment in technology and innovation. And again, I can elaborate on 

each one of them. 

I would like to just close very quickly, in talking about inspiration. I grew up here in Washington, D.C., Madam Chairwoman, 

and I was inspired when President Kennedy made his announcement about we are going to the Moon, and we are going to bring 

a human back. I was not about, just about to enter high school, actually, a few years from entering high school, here in Washington, 

D.C., and that statement, that goal, that far-reaching opportunity 

expressed by the President for the United States, inspired me to 

seek out a math and technology related high school in the District, 

and not go to the part of the District where, high school that I was 

supposed to go to, which was known mostly for basketball players 

and criminals, but—so, I chose another place to, because I was inspired by what the President stated. 

I chose engineering at Howard University because of the inspiration of the Apollo program. Today, however, when I look at my own 

children, my four children, one doctor, one lawyer, one businesswoman, one businessman. They are very, very successful. They are 

inspired by things like the space launch yesterday, but on a day 

to day basis, what inspires them is what can be done to solve the 

economic problems in our country, the environmental problems, the 


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27

1The committee considered ‘‘civil space’’ to include all government, commercial, academic, and 

private space activities not directly intended for military or intelligence use. 

energy problems in our country. And I am just very, very enthused 

to think that they can be educated amongst as many others, in the 

hallways and in the public, and the Nation can be better educated 

by understanding how the civil space programs can contribute solutions to those big challenges that most people worry about on a day 

to day basis. 

Madam Chairwoman, I thank you for being here. I am enthused 

about this subject, and very, very pleased that the Committee 

asked me to testify. 

[The prepared statement of General Lyles follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF GENERAL LESTER L. LYLES

Madam Chair and Members of the Subcommittee, I appreciate the opportunity to 

appear before you today. My name is Lester Lyles, I am a retired USAF four-star 

general and during my 35 years with the U.S. Air Force, I served as Commander 

of the Space and Missile Systems Center at Los Angeles AFB in California, Director 

of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, Vice Chief of Staff at USAF/HQ, and 

Commander of the U.S. Air Force Materiel Command. 

Today, I speak to you as the Chair of the National Research Council’s Committee 

on the Rationale and Goals of the U.S. Civil Space Program, which recently released 

the report America’s Future in Space: Aligning the Civil Space Program with National Needs. The committee’s 14 members included distinguished experts in science, 

engineering, economics, political science and public policy, national security, and of 

course, space systems and space exploration. 

With your permission, I would like to submit my prepared testimony for the 

record and summarize my views for you here this morning, leaving sufficient time 

to answer any questions you may have. 

Before addressing the questions posed by the Subcommittee, let me summarize 

our report.

CONTEXT OF THE REPORT 

Without a doubt, the first 50 years of the space age have transformed the Nation 

and the world. Astronauts have stood on Earth’s Moon while millions watched. Commercial communications and remote sensing satellites have become part of the basic 

infrastructure of the world. Satellites support worldwide communications, providing 

a critical backbone for daily commerce—carrying billions of global financial transactions daily, for example. Our understanding of every aspect of the cosmos has 

been profoundly altered, and in the view of many, we stand once again at the brink 

of a new era. We have discovered that the expansion of the universe continues to 

accelerate, driven by a force that we do not yet understand and that there are large 

amounts of matter in the universe that we cannot yet observe. We have discovered 

planets around other stars, so many that it is ever more likely that there are other 

Earths comparable to our own. 

The next 50 years of civil space will occur in a globalized world of societies and 

nations characterized by intertwined economies, trade commitments, and international security agreements. Mutual dependencies are much more pervasive and 

important than ever before. Many of the pressing problems that now require our 

best efforts to understand and resolve—from terrorism to climate change to demand 

for energy—are also global in nature and must be addressed through mutual worldwide action. 

In the judgment of the Committee on the Rationale and Goals of the U.S. Civil 

Space Program, the ability to operate from, through, and in space will be a key component of potential solutions to 21st century challenges. As it has before, with the 

necessary alignment to achieve clearly articulated national priorities, the U.S. civil 

space1 program can serve the Nation effectively in this new and demanding environment. 

In the committee’s view, our study needed to address the top-level goals of the 

civil space program and the connection between those goals and broad national priorities. These connections form a foundation on which the Nation, both now and in 

the future, can devise sustainable solutions to nearer-term issues in the implementation of the civil space program. Therefore, the committee focused on the long-term, 


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strategic value of a U.S. civil space program, and our report does not address nearer-term issues that affect the conduct of U.S. space activities other than to provide 

a context in which more tactical decisions might be made. 

The national priorities that informed the committee’s thinking include ensuring 

national security, providing clean and affordable energy, protecting the environment 

now and for future generations, educating an engaged citizenry and a capable workforce for the 21st century, sustaining global economic competitiveness, and working 

internationally to build a safer, more sustainable world. A common element across 

all these urgent priorities is the significant part that research and development can 

play in solving problems and advancing the national enterprise in each area. Instruments in space have documented an accelerating decline in arctic sea ice, mapped 

the circulation of the world’s oceans, enabled the creation of quantitative three-dimensional data sets to improve the quality of hurricane forecasting, and created 

new tools to address a host of agricultural, coastal, and urban resource management 

problems, to cite only a few examples. Such capabilities demonstrate what can be 

achieved when technologically challenging space problems stimulate innovation that 

leads to long-term advances with applications beyond the space sector. Civil space 

activities are central to the R&D enterprise of the Nation, often in a transformational way, and thus present powerful opportunities to help address major national objectives. 

The committee’s overall conclusion is that a preeminent U.S. civil space program 

with strengths and capabilities aligned for tackling widely acknowledged national 

challenges—environmental, economic, and strategic—is a national imperative today, 

and will continue to grow in importance in the future.

GOALS FOR THE CIVIL SPACE PROGRAM 

For the United States to be a strategic leader in a globalized world, its civil space 

program must be of a breadth, competence, and accomplishment so that U.S. leadership is demonstrated, accepted, and welcomed. The committee identified six strategic goals that it regards as basic for guiding program choices and resources planning for U.S. civil space activities. The goals all serve the national interest, and 

steady progress in achieving each of them is necessary. These goals address such 

issues as U.S. leadership in science and technology, understanding climate change 

and protecting Earth’s environment, providing economic and societal benefits, inspiration of future generations, strategic leadership in space, and human space flight, 

and they are articulated in more detail in the written report.

FOUNDATIONAL ELEMENTS 

While the breadth of the civil space program has grown, there is also a sense that 

the program has been unfocused, sometimes at the expense of the effectiveness of 

the organizations and institutions that support it. The United States can no longer 

pursue space activities on the assumption of its unchallengeable dominance—as evidenced by the view of other nations that the United States is not the only, or in 

some cases even the best, option for space partnerships. U.S. leadership in space 

activities and their capacity to serve urgent national needs must be based on preeminent technical capabilities; ingenuity, entrepreneurialism, and a willingness to 

take risk; and recognition of mutual interdependencies. The time has come to reassess, and in some cases reinvent, the institutions, workforce, infrastructure, and 

technology base for U.S. space activities. 

The committee identified four foundational elements critical to a purposeful, effective, strategic U.S. space program, without which U.S. space efforts will lack 

robustness, realism, sustainability, and affordability. Those elements (which are described in greater detail in the written report) are coordinated national strategies, 

a competent technical workforce, an effectively sized and structured infrastructure, 

and a priority investment in technology and innovation.

RECOMMENDATIONS 

The committee found that, in spite of their promise and utility, components of the 

civil space program are not always aligned to fully capitalize on opportunities to 

serve the larger national interest. Decisions about civil space priorities, strategies, 

and programs, and the resources to achieve them, are not always made with a conscious view toward their linkages to broader national interests. The committee made 

recommendations addressing a broad variety of civil space issues, from Earth stewardship to human space exploration to scientific and technological innovation. For 

the purposes of today’s hearing, I would like to highlight two recommendations. 

Recommendation 1 states that emphasis should be placed on aligning space program capabilities with current high-priority national imperatives, including those 


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where space is not traditionally considered. The U.S. civil space program has long 

demonstrated a capacity to effectively serve U.S. national interests. This recommendation provides a broad policy basis on which the committee’s subsequent 

recommendations rest. 

Recommendation 7 uses a broader perspective on civil space to highlight that the 

success of all of the recommendations in the report relies upon the alignment of the 

various elements of the civil space program. 

National space policy too often has been implemented in a stovepipe fashion that 

obscures the connection between space activities and other pressing needs of the Nation. Consequently, senior policy-makers with broad portfolios have not been able 

to take the time to consider the space program in the broader national context. 

Rather, policies have been translated into programs by setting budget levels and 

then expecting agencies to manage to those budgets. This has resulted in the muchrepeated assertion, with which the committee agrees, that agencies like NASA are 

being asked to do too much with too little. The committee believes that the process 

of aligning roles and responsibilities for space activities, making resource commitments, and coordinating across departments and agencies needs to be carried out 

at a sufficiently high level that decisions are made from the perspective of the larger 

national issues regarding which space activities play roles. How this process is accomplished might change from administration to administration, but the need for 

an approach that will elevate attention to the proper level remains essential. 

Therefore, the committee’s recommendation is that the President of the United 

States should task senior executive-branch officials to align agency and department 

strategies; identify gaps or shortfalls in policy coverage, policy implementation, and 

resource allocation; and identify new opportunities for space-based endeavors that 

will help to address critical issues now confronting the United States and, to a considerable extent, the world as well. 

The effort should include the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs and the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, and should consider such elements as budgetary guidance, resource allocation, the space industrial 

base, the aerospace workforce, long-range technological needs, international space 

relationships, elimination of unnecessary duplication of space efforts, and regular coordination of national space strategies and their success in implementing overall national space policy. 

U.S. space activities—both national security and civil—are not isolated elements 

of the national enterprise. They interact with the broader aspects of our nation’s 

commerce, transportation, education, and international relations. Civil space activities always have been, and will continue to be, excellent vehicles for educating future scientists and engineers, promoting positive international relations, and supporting the Nation’s foreign policy objectives. 

At this time, I would like to address the Subcommittee’s questions.

THE RELEVANCE OF SPACE TO NATIONAL NEEDS 

As mentioned above, U.S. space activities are not isolated elements of the national 

enterprise. Civil space activities, within which the committee includes academic, 

commercial and private sector activities, are a central part of the Nation’s research 

and development portfolio and interact with the broader aspects of our nation’s commerce, transportation, education, and international relations. 

Our report cites numerous examples of the importance of space in addressing important national needs. For example:

• Observations of the Earth from space provide scientists and policy-makers 

with essential data on a wide variety of subjects, from the path and behavior 

of major storms to the regional consequences of global climate change.

• Space science missions have, among other discoveries, identified new effects 

that indicate our understanding of the basic laws of physics is incomplete. 

The impact of this discovery has stimulated research efforts across the country, supported by the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy as well as by NASA directly.

• The construction of the International Space Station has provided significant 

experience in leading a large, international engineering project. Lessons 

learned in this endeavor have important implications in a future that is sure 

to include more frequent and complex international cooperative efforts.

• Communications satellites are a vital piece of the Nation’s telecommunications infrastructure.


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• The GPS system, though built and operated by the U.S. Air Force, has provided significant civilian benefits and has opened entirely new economic markets.

• Civil space efforts are an important part of the national system of innovation, 

which forms the basis of our economic strength and lays the foundation for 

our nation’s continued prosperity.

MAXIMIZING THE BENEFITS FROM SPACE 

The committee’s report provides seven detailed recommendations which, if implemented, well maximize the civil space program’s ability to benefit the Nation. In 

particular, I would like to take this opportunity to highlight those recommendations 

where Congressional leadership could have significant impact. 

The committee recommends that NASA should continue its excellent program of 

scientific exploration and discovery, as a central component of the Nation’s research 

and development enterprise. Continued Congressional recognition of the civil space 

program’s role in this area, alongside agencies such as the Department of Energy, 

the National Science Foundation, and the National Institutes of Health, will help 

to keep these programs aligned with national goals and objectives. 

The committee recommends several areas where NASA and NOAA should work 

collectively to improve our understanding of the Earth and communicate this knowledge broadly, both domestically and internationally. The Congress could assist in 

these efforts by continuing to recognize that the two agencies each have vital, complementary roles to play and by providing the necessary resources, guidance and 

flexibility for the agencies to smoothly transition new capabilities from NASA’s R&D 

environment to NOAA’s operational responsibilities. 

The committee recommends that NASA establish an independent technology development program, modeled after the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency. 

This program should be independent of the Agency’s flight programs and should 

focus on nascent technologies that could be broadly applicable to the space industry 

at large. It should support the best ideas and research, regardless of where the research team is found. In the near-term, Congressional leadership in the establishment and support of this effort will be crucial for its initial success. Over the longerterm, Congressional oversight will undoubtedly be necessary to ensure that the program remains true to these principles in the face of inevitable programmatic and 

budgetary pressures. 

As part of its recommendation on how to use the civil space program to further 

U.S. strategic leadership, the committee highlights the need for reform of the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), in order to prevent the inappropriate 

transfer of sensitive technologies to our adversaries while eliminating barriers to 

international cooperation and commerce that do not effectively contribute to national security. Congressional action is essential to this reform effort. 

Finally, I would like to emphasize the necessity for the Executive Branch to align 

agency and department strategies. The committee recommends a broad outline for 

how this should be accomplished and the range of issues that should be covered. 

Congressional attention to, and oversight of, this effort will help to ensure that the 

goal of a maximally and efficiently beneficial civil space program is achieved.

DRAWING INSPIRATION FROM SPACE ACTIVITIES 

As the committee states in the report, a space program that achieves its programmatic goals but does stimulate educational opportunities or inspirational moments would fail to achieve its full potential. The committee did not directly address 

the most effective ways to motivate future generations, but did point out that a successful space program demands advances in a wide range of activities, from biomedicine to the physical sciences to aerospace engineering.

COMMUNICATING THE RELEVANCE OF THE CIVIL SPACE PROGRAM 

The committee believes that the fundamental role that space programs play in 

daily life has often been overlooked. Discussions of the space program are generally 

focused on the accomplishments of the 1960’s and not on the broad, relevant program that exists today. Though seldom explicitly stated, there seems to be a national consensus that to be successful the space program needs to replicate the Apollo Program, either literally or figuratively. Our report argues that the Apollo Program is inextricably tied to the Cold War environment. The Nation needs to recognize that in our increasingly globalized world a broad, vigorous civil space program 

provides essential solutions to many of the challenges we face. 

This completes my prepared remarks. Thank you for your attention to this report, 

and I would be pleased to take questions if you have them.


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BIOGRAPHY FOR GENERAL LESTER L. LYLES

LESTER L. LYLES, Chair, is a consultant with the Lyles Group. He retired from 

the U.S. Air Force (USAF) in 2003 as commander of the Air Force Material Command at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (AFB) in Ohio. Gen. Lyles entered the 

USAF in 1968 as a distinguished graduate of the Air Force ROTC program. He 

served in various positions, including program element monitor of the Short-Range 

Attack Missile at USAF Headquarters (USAF/HQ), special assistant and aide-decamp to the commander of Air Force Systems Command (AFSC), Chief of the Avionics Division in the F–16 Systems Program Office, Director of Tactical Aircraft Systems at AFSC headquarters, and as Director of the Medium-Launch Vehicles Program and Space-Launch Systems offices. Gen. Lyles became AFSC headquarters’ 

Assistant Deputy Chief of Staff for requirements in 1989, and Deputy Chief of Staff 

for requirements in 1990. In 1992, he became Vice Commander of Ogden Air Logistics Center at Hill AFB in Utah. He served as Commander of the center until 1994, 

when he was assigned to command the Space and Missile Systems Center at Los 

Angeles AFB in California. In 1996, Gen. Lyles became the Director of the Ballistic 

Missile Defense Organization. In May 1999, he was assigned as Vice Chief of Staff 

at USAF/HQ. He is a member of the National Research Council (NRC) Air Force 

Studies Board and served on the NASA Advisory Council. His numerous awards include the Defense Distinguished Service Medal, the Astronautics Engineer of the 

Year from the National Space Club, the National Black Engineer of the Year Award, 

Honorary Doctor of Laws from New Mexico State University, and NASA’s Distinguished Public Service Medal for serving on the President’s Commission on Implementing the U.S. Space Exploration Policy.

Chairwoman GIFFORDS. Thank you, General Lyles. Ms. Smith, 

please. 

Ms. SMITH. Good afternoon, Chairwoman Giffords, Ranking 

Member Olson——

Chairwoman GIFFORDS. Ms. Smith, we are going to have you 

push your button, so we can—there we go. 

STATEMENT OF MS. PATTI GRACE SMITH, MEMBER OF THE 

BOARD OF DIRECTORS, THE SPACE FOUNDATION 

Ms. SMITH. Good afternoon Chairwoman Giffords, Ranking Member Olson, and other distinguished Members of the Subcommittee. 

My name is Patti Grace Smith, and I am a member of the Board 

of Directors of the Space Foundation. 

On behalf of myself and the Space Foundation’s CEO, Elliot 

Pulham, I want to thank the subcommittee for providing the Space 

Foundation the honor to sit in front of you, to talk about enhancing 

the relevance of space to address national needs. I applaud the subcommittee for picking today to hold this hearing, on the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11 lifting off the pad on its historic mission to the 

Moon. 

Before I begin to address the questions the subcommittee asked 

me to discuss, I would like to provide you with a little background 

on the Space Foundation. Our mission is simply to advance space 

related endeavors, to inspire, enable, and propel humanity. The 

Space Foundation was founded March 21, 1983, as an IRS 501(c)(3) 

organization, to foster, develop, and promote among the citizens of 

the United States of America, and among other people of the world, 

a greater understanding and awareness of the practical and theoretical utilization of space, on behalf of the benefit of civilization 

and the fostering of a peaceful and prosperous world. 

As the global space community has evolved, so has the Space 

Foundation, embracing all facets of space: the commercial, including telecommunications and other satellite-based services; civil; 

and national security. Outside of Colorado Springs, the Space 


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Foundation’s largest presence is in Washington, D.C., where our 

Government Affairs Team and our Research and Analysis Team reside. 

The Research and Analysis Team works year-round in producing 

white papers, and most prominently, The Space Report, which we 

submitted for your review. This is our flagship publication, and The 

Space Report is a snapshot, we think, of the global space economy. 

Now that I have provided some information for those of you who 

may be new to the Space Foundation and what we do, I will begin 

to address the questions. How relevant is space to addressing important national needs? What noteworthy benefits have been 

achieved as a result of past space related investments? 

Well, let me just say right off the top, space is very relevant. It 

is so relevant that without it, many of us would be at a loss in conducting our daily lives. Space influences so many things, and benefits so many parts of our universe of our daily lives. Space is the 

bedrock of America’s economic and strategic power. According to 

‘‘The Space Report 2009,’’ the global space economy has grown to $257 billion. That is not an insignificant number, $257 billion. 

In the macro sense, ‘‘The Space Report 2009’’ cites, in depth, how 

space enables a variety of important needs, national needs. National security is enabled by space. The U.S. military could not 

fight as effectively and efficiently as it does without the aid of 

space systems. Other nations seek to emulate what we do with 

space, because they recognize the power and the benefit that it 

gives. With each new generation of military space systems, troops 

farther down the chain of command are given access to powerful 

space-enabled tactical capabilities that were once only available to 

senior commandants. 

Governments, in the area of governance, policy-makers need accurate data, accurate data that they can rely on a variety of issues, 

ranging from climate to urban planning to resource monitoring. Remote sensing from space has provided this data, and will continue 

to do so, as long as the investment is made in new space systems 

for this purpose. 

Take Hurricane Katrina, of the past. Satellite communications 

are often the only way for emergency responders to coordinate their 

efforts, in the absence of terrestrial infrastructure. They could not 

have done the job without the space assets. 

Technology developed to detect stresses in the frame of the Space 

Shuttle has been adapted for use on Earth, and is now helping to 

monitor the structural integrity of bridges and other structures to 

ensure public safety. As far as the economy goes, financial systems 

rely on GPS satellites for accurate timing of transactions. Satellitebased Internet connectivity offers a practical way to bring rural 

populations into the Internet Age, and join the information economy, one of the Administration’s goals. 

Transportation. I personally know that space is integral to the 

next generation air transportation system being implemented by 

the FAA, which will enable cleaner, safer, and more efficient air 

travel. On the local scale, metropolitan authorities in several cities 

have implemented systems like the one now in place for D.C.’s 

Metro service, which allows passengers to check on the Internet or 

by telephone to see when the next bus will arrive. Innovations like 


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this encourage the use of public transportation, thereby reducing 

pollution and traffic. 

The Space Report highlights a number of specific areas, it is not 

an exhaustive list, where everyday space products, services, and 

benefits are realized. And we must understand that space influences other parts of our economy and businesses that it touches, 

as it embraces the service it provides to our citizens. I would posit 

to the subcommittee that a day without space, a day without spacegenerated benefits for American consumers, would be a shocking, 

if not traumatic experience for most Americans. 

And I see the red light, so let me wrap up quickly. Let me just 

say that in terms of how we maximize the benefits to be realized 

from the Nation’s space activities, and the relevance of those space 

activities. 

I want to first commend President Obama on his decision to review the entire U.S. space policy. We welcome that review. I think 

that the activities are pretty well aligned with our national goals 

and objectives. In fact, many of our goals and objectives depend on 

and are enabled by space assets. Having said that, however, I feel 

I must touch on a larger problem in order to address this question. 

In order for the U.S. Government to maximize the benefits of this 

investment, and we all, as citizens, want to maximize the benefits 

of our investments in space, it must improve the acquisition of 

those systems. Currently, we are facing a number of gaps across 

the entire range of the civilian and national security space systems. 

From human space flight to solar radiation detection, to next generation GPS, to missile warning, to climate and weather monitoring, there are, and soon will be gaps in coverage and capability 

that will hamper our ability to derive benefits from space. And the 

gaps will eventually force us, if we don’t act, to be more reliant 

than we already are on foreign space systems, and that would be 

not a good thing, I don’t think. 

Fourthly, we need to modernize the export control regime. That 

is an area that has been begging attention for some time. The 

Space Report 2009 shows that the commercial sector now makes up 

68 percent of the global space economy, 68 percent. So, regulatory 

changes, such as export control, have the potential of generating 

considerably more R&D funds than direct investment by the government. 

Is it inspirational? Absolutely. It is essential. All you had to do 

was be in the desert of Mojave in 2004, and see the thousands of 

people who assembled there, young and old, from all over the country, all over the world, to see their eyes light up with the first 

flight of a private human space flight vehicle, to know how exciting 

it is, and to see how the younger generation, the Gen Y generation, 

are so excited, so passionate about engaging in space in a different 

way. Look at the workforce that SpaceX has put together in California, largely made up of Gen Ys, and they are there because they 

feel that we are on the brink of something really exciting. They 

want to be a part of it. 

So, finally, how well does the public understand? Not very well. 

And I would suggest that we need to look at the tools that the 

younger generation uses to communicate. They are not the traditional tools that we used, or others like us. They are Facebook. 


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They are other forms of technology that they are very, very adept 

at. It has become their new telephone. They communicate messages, groups like Netroots and others around the country are communicating all day in cyberspace, and can carry messages that we 

cannot carry otherwise. So, that is an area that I am very, very 

concerned about, very interested in. We need to move away from 

audiences that have space on the agenda, speaking to space choirs. 

We have got to broaden that audience to a broader public. 

So, with that, let me stop here, and just say to paraphrase 

Arianespace’s CEO, Jean-Yves Le Gall, when he said recently: 

‘‘Launches speak louder than words.’’ We have got to get on with 

it. That will tell the story better than anything will. 

I welcome any of your questions at the end of this. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Smith follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF PATTI GRACE SMITH

Good morning Chairwoman Giffords, Ranking Member Olson, and distinguished 

Members of the Subcommittee. My name is Patti Grace Smith and I am one of the 

Board of Directors for the Space Foundation. On behalf of myself and Space Foundation CEO, Elliot Pulham, I want to thank the Subcommittee for providing the Space 

Foundation the honor to sit before you today to talk about enhancing the relevance 

of space to address national needs. 

I applaud the Subcommittee for picking today to hold this hearing, on the 40th 

anniversary of Apollo 11 lifting off the pad on its historic mission to the Moon.

Background 

Before I begin to address the questions the Subcommittee asked me to discuss 

today, I’d like to provide the Subcommittee with a little background on the Space 

Foundation. 

Our mission: To advance space-related endeavors to inspire, enable, and propel humanity. 

In 1983, a small group of visionary leaders in Colorado Springs saw a need to establish an organization that could, in a non-partisan, objective and fair manner, 

bring together the various sectors of America’s developing space community and 

serve as a credible source of information for a broad audience—from space professionals to the general public. The Space Foundation was founded March 21, 1983, 

as an IRS 501 (c)(3) organization ‘‘to foster, develop and promote, among the citizens 

of the United States of America and among other people of the world . . . a greater 

understanding and awareness . . . of the practical and theoretical utilization of 

space . . . for the benefit of civilization and the fostering of peaceful and prosperous 

world.’’

As the global space community has evolved, so has the Space Foundation—embracing all facets of space—commercial (including telecommunications and other 

satellite-based services), civil, and national security. In fact, the Foundation is one 

of a few space-related organizations that embrace the totality of this community 

rather than focusing on a narrowly defined niche. 

In the 26 years since its founding, the Space Foundation has become one of the 

world’s premier non-profit organizations supporting space activities, space professionals and education. The Foundation’s education programs have touched teachers 

in all 50 U.S. states and Germany. It sponsors and conducts the premier events for 

space professionals anywhere in the world today: the National Space Symposium, 

the Strategic Space Symposium in Omaha and the Space Business Forum in New 

York City. 

Outside of Colorado Springs, the Space Foundation’s largest presence is in Washington DC. This is where our government affairs team and our Research and Analysis (R&A) team reside. Our government affairs team are not lobbyists, but rather 

work to promote and educate decision-makers about space writ large. They hold informational and educational briefings on a variety of civil, commercial and national 

security space issues. The R&A team works year-round in producing white papers 

and most prominently, the annual Space Report. The Space Report is the Space 

Foundation’s ‘‘flagship’’ publication. The Space Report is a snapshot of the global 

space economy. 


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As I mentioned earlier, my role with the Space Foundation is as a member of the 

Board of Directors. Our current chairman is retired General Tom Moorman Jr. 

USAF (Ret.), our Vice Chairman is Dr. Bill Ballhaus, our treasurer is Mr. Lon Levin 

and our secretary is Mr. Marty Faga. I’d like to point out to this committee that 

its one-time Chairman, Bob Walker, was also on our board and even served as its 

Chairman. 

Now, that I’ve provided some information for those of you who may be new to the 

Space Foundation and what we do, I will begin to address the questions presented 

to me.

How relevant is space to addressing important national needs, and what 

noteworthy benefits have been achieved as a result of past space-related 

investments?

I am not saying anything new when I say to you that space is absolutely essential 

to all facets of modern human existence. Space is the bedrock of America’s economic 

and strategic power. According to The Space Report 2009, the global space economy 

has grown to $257 billion, a number that is not insignificant. 

In the macro-sense, The Space Report 2009 cites in-depth how space enables a variety of important national needs:

• National security: The U.S. military could not fight as effectively and efficiently as it does today without the aid of space systems. Other nations seek 

to emulate this capability because they have seen how powerful it is. With 

each new generation of military space systems, troops farther down the chain 

of command are given access to powerful space-enabled tactical capabilities 

that were once only available to senior commanders.

• Governance: Policy-makers need accurate data on a variety of issues ranging 

from climate to urban planning to resource monitoring. Remote sensing from 

space has provided this data and will continue to do so as long as the investment is made in new space systems for this purpose. When natural disasters 

such as Hurricane Katrina occur, satellite communications are often the only 

way for emergency responders to coordinate their efforts in the absence of terrestrial infrastructure. Technology developed to detect stresses in the frame 

of the Space Shuttle has been adapted for use on Earth and is now helping 

to monitor the structural integrity of bridges and other structures to ensure 

public safety.

• Economy: Financial systems rely on GPS satellites for accurate timing of 

transactions. Satellite-based Internet connectivity offers a practical way to 

bring rural populations into the Internet age and join the information economy—one of the Administration’s goals.

• Transportation: I personally know that space is integral to the Next Generation Air Transportation System being implemented by the FAA, which will 

enable cleaner, safer, more efficient air travel. On a local scale, metropolitan 

authorities in several cities have implemented systems like the one now in 

place for D.C.’s Metrobus service, which allows passengers to check on the 

Internet or by telephone to see when the next bus will arrive. Innovations like 

this encourage the use of public transportation, thereby reducing pollution 

and traffic.

Additionally, The Space Report 2009 enumerated an exhaustive list of ‘everyday’ 

space products, services and benefits. Some of the most prominent:

• Weather prediction/disaster mitigation

• Resource exploration/exploitation

• Erosion monitoring and management

• Global communications

• Guidance/navigation/timing

• Population forecasting

• Attaining a better understanding of our place in the universe

• The numerous spin-offs that have directly enriched the lives of people all over 

the world. Investment in space constantly generates new products and spinoff 

technologies that U.S. companies can build and market.

In The Space Report 2009, one new emerging area that more and more Americans 

are using via their iPhones and other hand-held PDAs is that of ‘‘geoinformatics.’’ 

This is a very unique convergence of GPS, and remote sensing to enable the user 

to have real-time location-based content. The average user of such capabilities will 


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be blissfully unaware that space-based systems helped him find a flower shop at the 

last minute on his anniversary, he’ll just be glad he has it and soon will take it, 

much like all other space enabled capabilities, for granted. 

I would posit to the Subcommittee that a ‘‘day without space’’—a day without 

space generated benefits for American consumers, would be a shocking, if not, traumatic experience for most Americans. 

The inspirational value of space activities is equally important, but I will address 

that point later in my testimony.

What does the Space Foundation recommend be done to maximize the benefits to be realized from the Nation’s space activities and the relevance of 

those space activities? How important is it for those activities to be aligned 

to national goals and objectives?

First off, I want to commend President Obama on his decision to review the entire 

U.S. space policy. Like each of his predecessors since President Eisenhower, the 

President realizes the importance of space and is making space a priority. 

Secondly, I feel that most of our space activities are pretty well aligned with our 

national goals and objectives. Whether decision-makers realize it or not, many of our 

goals and objectives depend on and are enabled by space assets. 

Thirdly, however, I feel I must touch upon a larger problem in order to address 

this question. In order for the U.S. Government to maximize the benefits of its investment in space, it needs to improve the acquisition of those systems. They should 

be developed faster and with more management discipline. We all know of space 

systems that have been over budget and behind schedule. 

Currently we are facing a number of gaps across the entire range of the civilian 

and national security space systems. From human space flight, to solar radiation 

detection, to next generation GPS, to missile warning, to climate and weather monitoring, there are, or soon will be gaps in coverage and capability that will hamper 

our ability to derive benefits from space. These gaps will also force us to be reliant 

on foreign space systems. I also would say that it is beyond a coincidence that we 

are seeing such a systemic gap problem in so many areas. Once we get back to better management of space systems, we can deploy more systems more often and accrue more benefits from them. 

Fourthly, we need to modernize the export control regime to allow U.S. space companies to compete effectively in the global marketplace. This is one area in which 

the U.S. already generates a positive trade balance, but it could be significantly 

larger and would provide more funds for U.S. companies to develop new jobs and 

innovations that help both the domestic space industry and the broader U.S. economy. The Space Report 2009 shows that the commercial sector now makes up 68 

percent of the global space economy, so regulatory changes have the potential to 

generate considerably more R&D funds than direct investment by the government.

How important is the inspirational component of the Nation’s space activities, and what would be the most effective ways to use space activities to 

motivate emerging generations of Americans to pursue studies and careers 

in science and engineering?

In one word: essential. 

Let me put this in perspective for the Members of the Subcommittee. While most 

of you have vivid memories of the Apollo moon landings, I am willing to bet you 

that the vast majority, if not all your staffers do not. Let alone were they even alive 

when the landings occurred. The post-Baby Boom generations do not have the memory of the Apollo, but instead the Challenger or Columbia disasters. 

Furthermore it is not like the 20 and 30 somethings of today do not care about 

space. They do. These people are the most hi-tech infused generation in the history 

of humanity. However, being active or even somewhat participatory in the U.S. Government’s space enterprises do not feel like a viable option. Instead they are going 

to other places where they can feel like they are making a difference. For example 

the amount of young people who are involved with Burt Rutan’s spaceship developments on behalf of Virgin Galactic and future customers, the early Gen Y workforce 

SpaceX has assembled or elsewhere like the Google Lunar XPrize show that space 

is relevant and is important to young adults. 

I am also happy to report to the Subcommittee that The Space Foundation employs a variety of programs and initiatives that educate and raise awareness about 

the importance and impact of the space industry:

Space Foundation education programs support teachers and Pre-K–12 students 

with standards-based curriculum that integrates science, technology, engineering, 

and mathematics (STEM) into all content areas:


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• NEW HORIZONS Space Education Program, a community-centered, science 

enrichment program that infuses STEM education into a community through 

student enrichment programs, teacher workshops, field trips, town-hall meetings, and astronaut and space professional visits.

• Space Discovery Institute, week-long, intensive, graduate-level, in-residence 

courses that provide Pre-K–12 educators with space-related STEM education 

knowledge and content that is instantly transferable to the classroom; participants can earn continuing education credits, graduate credits, or work toward 

a master’s degree in multiple related disciplines.

• STARS Program (Science, Technology, and Academic Readiness for Space), a 

hands-on science enrichment program based on each school’s academic needs.

• National Science Standards Lesson Bank, free downloadable Pre-K–12 national science standards-based lessons.

• Teacher Liaisons, advocates for space science education who: receive Space 

Foundation training and resources to further integrate space into their classrooms; participate in workshops and education programs at the National 

Space Symposium; and can receive specialized Space Foundation and NASA 

training with optional graduate-level credit, exclusive professional development experiences with optional continuing education credit, and special 

space-oriented student programs created just for them.

• Space Career Fair, an annual event in conjunction with the National Space 

Symposium that provides students and transitioning military personnel opportunities to network with the largest employers in the space industry, to 

submit resumes, and, occasionally, to interview for jobs.

• Jack Swigert Aerospace Academy, an aerospace-focused public middle school 

created and managed in conjunction with Colorado Springs School District 11 

that drives STEM proficiency through a space-related curriculum, enhanced 

on-site laboratories and learning opportunities, and involvement with Space 

Foundation programs.

How well does the public understand the relevance of the Nation’s space 

activities to meeting national needs and realizing societal benefits? Is there 

a need to ‘‘get the message out’’ on the relevance of those space activities 

and the benefits to be derived from our space-related investments? If so, 

how can that message be most effectively communicated?

Not very well. Far too many audiences are made up of the ‘‘space choir.’’

One of the ways the Space Foundation communicates this message to the larger 

public is by means efforts such as the Space Foundation’s Space Certification Program, which enables companies to show that their product has a space technology 

heritage. This provides benefits in both directions, enabling the company to show 

off its high-tech space pedigree and by illustrating in a tangible manner the way 

in which space activity improves the lives of the ordinary consumer. 

At the end of this month, your colleagues on the Aviation Subcommittee will be 

holding a hearing on next generation navigation. Undoubtedly there will be a major 

portion of this hearing focused on satellite-based capabilities. I think this highlights 

just how almost invisible and ubiquitous space has become. 

I think the public at a very basic, fundamental level ‘‘gets it’’, but not much beyond that. The public gets understandably frustrated when they hear of budget and 

schedule problems. On the other hand, one only has to look at the interest from the 

general public in the Mars rovers, or the recent, and final, Hubble mission or to 

have witnessed the thousands, young and old, that assembled in the Mojave desert 

in 2004 to witness the historic first private human space flight as evidence that 

there is a thirst and an interest in what we do in space. 

Honestly, I’m not sure a message campaign is the best way to move forward. We 

live in an age of almost constant message barraging. From pop-ads on the Internet, 

to seemingly constant political campaigning, I think a ‘‘command and control’’ ad 

campaign would not do much. If anything it could have the opposite reaction. 

These younger generations are so technologically saturated, the space industry 

needs to take advantage of that and utilize these new channels to reach out and 

get kids excited about space. If kids get excited about it, the rest of the public will 

follow. I would also mention that you’d be surprised how much things like Facebook 

can help spread enthusiasm about space. The peer-to-peer discussions and sharing 

of information and enthusiasm for space is something that can surpass an ad campaign. Witness astronaut Buzz Aldrin’s recent use of web 2.0 technology when he 

teamed with rapper Snoop Dogg to create ‘‘Rocket Experience’’ message about space. 


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For the larger public, not to sound flippant, but I think simply executing missions 

successfully will do more to help than anything else. I must paraphrase Arianespace 

CEO Jean Yves Le Gall, when he said recently, ‘‘launches speak louder than words.’’ 

After all this is a generation that is about achieving things that have never been 

done, working as hard as necessary to achieve a breakthrough and talking less and 

doing more.

Conclusion 

I again want to express on behalf of the Space Foundation our deep appreciation 

for allowing us to come before you today. I stand ready to answer any your questions. 

Thank you.

BIOGRAPHY FOR PATTI GRACE SMITH

Patti Grace Smith served as Associate Administrator for Commercial Space 

Transportation for the Federal Aviation Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation, where for eleven years (ending February 2008) she headed the line of 

business responsible for licensing, regulating, and promoting the U.S. commercial 

space transportation industry. Smith joined the Department of Transportation in 

1994. Smith has over 28 years of experience and knowledge of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the 

U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT). 

In an era of unprecedented private sector progress toward commercial human 

space flight, Smith worked hard to foster an environment where safety always 

comes first and innovation can flourish. During her career at the FAA and DOT, 

Smith was instrumental in the growth and change that the U.S. commercial launch 

industry has experienced, facilitating both technological and infrastructure developments and initiating and fostering greater cooperation and partnerships between 

aviation and space functions in the Agency. During her service at the FAA, key 

milestones were achieved that include the Mojave Air and Spaceport becoming the 

first inland Commercial Spaceport licensed by the Agency, and the launch of the XPrize winning, historic SpaceShip One, a launch licensed by the FAA. Smith also 

oversaw the development of rules for human space flight mandated by congressional 

passage of the Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act of 2004.

Under Smith’s leadership at the FAA Office of Commercial Space Transportation, 

the FAA became the recognized global leader in private human space flight. Smith 

initiated and helped forge partnerships with the Air Force on common launch safety 

standards, and kept safety, regulatory matters and insurance issues constantly in 

the public forum. She worked closely with FAA lines of business to draw on aviation 

expertise where appropriate to space issues and to address the impact of space flight 

on the National Airspace System. Smith was named by Space News as one of the 

top ten people in the U.S. space sector. 

Smith also held positions in the private sector at the National Association of 

Broadcasters, Westinghouse Broadcasting Corporation, and Sheridan Radio Network; and in government at the Department of Defense and the Federal Communications Commission; and the Senate Commerce Committee. Smith is currently an 

aerospace consultant with Patti Grace Smith Consulting working with Virgin Galactic (The Virgin Group), CSSI, Inc., the Tauri Group and a number of other aerospace 

companies. She is on the board of SpaceDev (now Sierra Nevada), Space Foundation, American Astronautical Society, the American Bar Association’s Air and Space 

Law Forum Board; the X Prize Advisory Committee Board, and the Conrad Foundation. 

She is the recipient of numerous awards for her accomplishments in communications, external relations, and commercial space transportation. She is a regular 

speaker at a number of industry events.

Chairwoman GIFFORDS. Thank you, Ms. Smith. Ms. Myers, 

please. 

STATEMENT OF MS. DEBORAH ADLER MYERS, GENERAL MANAGER, SCIENCE CHANNEL, DISCOVERY COMMUNICATIONS 

Ms. MYERS. Thank you so much for inviting me here today. It is 

a great honor. 

Since we are a media company, today, I am going to be sharing 

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sions to life. Our audience loves space programming, and I think 

it is because space captures imaginations and allows people to 

dream, really to think outside themselves, and marvel at the unknown. 

Discovery is the brainchild of John Hendricks who, 24 years ago, 

believed that Americans would watch a network devoted entirely to 

programming that captures people’s innate sense of curiosity of the 

world. He was personally inspired by a lifelong fascination and a 

love of space. Well, today, Discovery Communications, and especially, the team I am proud to lead as General Manager of the 

Science Channel, is rallying around President Obama’s call to restore science to its rightful place. That call to action was absolutely 

music to our ears. 

There is a barrier simply in the word science. Many of us struggled with science classes and children, and the cliche ́ that we 

struggle against constantly is that science is dry and it is boring. 

And the key to developing a larger audience is igniting people’s 

imagination, and encouraging them to be endlessly curious, because science really is creative. It improves your life every single 

day. 

So, here on the Science Channel, we are experimenting with 

brand new ways to immerse and make people excited about 

science, and to create content and programs that immerse people, 

exactly what you were saying, on air, online, in Facebook, on Twitter, bringing all this great content to where people will consume it, 

and connect and explore it. We are developing alternate reality 

games, and we are even bringing this content into our classrooms. 

We are calling this Science 360°, and space is a really important 

part of this. 

We have hosts and we have experts that include stars in their 

field, like Dr. James Garvin, who is the Chief Scientist at NASA 

Goddard, Dr. Michio Kaku, who is the co-creator of the string theory. They are our popular hosts, and people love the programming, 

when they bring space sciences and physics to life. 

And we also have a campaign that I would like to share with 

you, called the Brains of Science, and it features role models like 

astronaut Buzz Aldrin, who seek to inspire a whole new generation, and get them excited about why they choose their careers, especially Buzz, as an astronaut. Take a look. 

[Video] 

So, our job is to find great science communicators in space and 

science, and help them bring their message to life. But on top of 

that, we are also seeking out ‘‘A’’ list celebrities who have a passion 

for science, and can bring even more people to the genre, because 

they bring in a larger ground. Whoopi Goldberg, for example, who 

is passionate about inspiring a love of science and learning in 

women and young girls. She is creating a science game on-air and 

online. 

And we reach out to science organizations that have traditionally 

worked in their own silos, and we are working to bring them together. For example, we came to NASA with a big idea. Academy 

Award-winning actor Morgan Freeman has this lifelong passion for 

space, and he is fascinated by the great mysteries of the universe. 

So, this new alliance between Morgan Freeman and NASA is reVerDate 0ct 09 2002 12:32 Mar 02, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00043 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 Z:\DOCS\50745.TXT SCIENCE1 PsN: COMSCI

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sulting in an eight part series that we are very proud to be launching in April, and this is executive produced and hosted by Morgan 

Freeman. 

[Video] 

Space programming is one of our most popular genres that we 

run on the network, and we sprinkle this content into a lot of our 

programming. When we cut back on space coverage, we hear about 

it immediately from our viewers, and boy, are they vocal. In fact, 

so many people crave this information that we devote an entire 

week of it in our annual Space Week, which rates highly on-air and 

online, and people write in and Twitter in, and tell us all the time. 

NASA also played a critical role in Discovery Education’s 3M 

Young Scientist Challenge. They hosted this year’s annual middle 

school competition, and this a wonderful challenge that is designed 

to inspire the next generation of great science communicators. Will 

Smith is the producer of our special on the Young Scientist Challenge, and he personally produced this spot to run across in our 

schools. Take a look. 

[Video] 

He was wonderful to work with, and not many people know that 

he was accepted to MIT. He wanted to be an engineer, and he is 

passionate about space and engineering, and finding new ways to 

get young people involved in considering that it is school to be 

smart, and ways to go into careers in space and in science. 

We also bring original content directly into our schools nationwide through our Discovery Education division. Discovery Education Streaming offers classrooms thousands of science videos and 

digital content that teachers can easily integrate right into their 

classroom lectures, and they are able to customize the way that 

they are able to teach kids. Are they better to learn through hearing or reading, or bringing things to life? It is a wonderful tool. 

So science and space, it is alive, it is optimistic, and it is the future. So, I want to express my sincere thanks for allowing Science 

Channel and Discovery Communications to show you our passion 

for space and all genres, really, of science. 

We are proud to answer the call and be a champion for this critical movement to bring science back to its rightful place in the 

United States. 

Thank you, and I am happy, later on, to answer any questions, 

because there is so much more to tell you about. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Myers follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF DEBORAH ADLER MYERS

Chairwoman Giffords and other distinguished Members of the Subcommittee on 

Space and Aeronautics, thank you for your invitation to testify today on this important topic. I’m proud to represent Discovery Communications and discuss our efforts 

to further the excitement and endless possibilities of science in general, and space 

in particular. 

Discovery is the brainchild of John Hendricks, who, in 1985, believed that Americans would watch a network devoted entirely to documentary and non-fiction programming that captures people’s innate sense of curiosity of the world. He was personally inspired by a lifelong fascination and love of space—he grew up in Huntsville, Alabama, home of NASA’s George C. Marshall Space Flight Center, watching 

in awe as man achieved the impossible. 

Today, Discovery Communications, and especially the team I’m proud to lead as 

General Manager of Science Channel, is rallying around the call to action issued by 

President Obama on April 27th. He challenged our nation to restore science to its 


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rightful place because science is more essential for our prosperity, our security, our 

health, our environment, and our quality of life than it has ever been before. 

That call to action was music to our ears. For the last year, we have been working 

on a four-part strategy to get people of all ages excited about the sciences—especially space and its related fields. 

The strategy includes:

1) Experimenting with various ways to make science exciting and entertaining;

2) Finding and training strong science communicators including the ‘‘rock 

stars’’ of science and pop culture and training a new generation of science 

communicators;

3) Aggregating science by bringing together traditionally siloed organizations to 

create partnerships and exchange information;

4) Delivering all of this content and information in a way that allows adults 

and kids to access it—on air, online, in gaming, on phones and digital devices not yet created and, in schools.

The ability to connect our science programming on all these platforms is what we 

call Science 360°. I’ll go into each of these in a little more depth. 

The first part of this strategy is to reinvent how we talk about the field and make 

it entertaining. There is a barrier simply in the word ‘‘science’’—many of us struggled with science classes as children, and in fact, studies show scientific engagement 

among students dips in middle school. The cliche ́ we struggle against is that science 

is boring and dry and something I might not understand. The key to bringing it to 

a larger audience is sharing the great stories and creativity of science. We want to 

ignite the public’s imagination, engage them in the quest for answers, and encourage them to embark on journeys to solve scientific puzzles. We bring science to life 

by making it relevant to people’s everyday lives, celebrating the ingenuity in all of 

us. 

Science Channel’s mission is to be the creative magnet for all people—adults and 

kids who share a passion for innovation and the sciences—from space, technology 

and engineering to physics and the Earth and natural sciences. Our job is to keep 

experimenting to find the best, most creative ways to bring these genres, stories and 

challenges to life by entertaining and inspiring. We believe that if you capture people’s imaginations, they will connect and engage. 

The second part of the strategy is finding and training strong science communicators, those who have a gift for making science accessible and relatable. They make 

the hard stuff easy to understand and have an enthusiasm for getting people engaged. They are our hosts and experts—the rock stars of science, like Jim Garvin, 

chief scientist at NASA Goddard who participates in many of our space programs; 

Dr. Michio Kaku, co-creator of String Theory who explains black holes, time and the 

physics of the universe; and Dr. Basil Singer who takes us on space adventures. 

Sometimes they share their stories in short-form segments like our Brains of 

Science Campaign, which features people from all the sciences talking about their 

work and why they entered their chosen field. It’s a great way to get people excited 

about different careers in science. 

To bring an even larger audience to the Science Channel, we seek out ‘‘A-list’’ celebrities who have a passion for science and space and want to share that passion 

with an audience and particularly kids. Whoopi Goldberg, who is passionate about 

inspiring a love of science in women and young girls, is doing a trivia-based game 

show and a companion online game that can be played simultaneously at home. 

We’re also working with Morgan Freeman, who has a love of space, and Will Smith, 

who was accepted to MIT before he decided to pursue his acting career. Celebrities 

are just one of the ways we bring new audiences to our networks. We entice new 

viewers with credible, enthusiastic celebrities and hold their attention with the entertaining information we present. 

In addition to the current superstars of science and Hollywood celebrities, Science 

Channel is actively seeking out and training new science personalities. We created 

a science talent school where we take rising stars in the major fields of science, including Dr. Jennifer Eigenbrode from NASA and Dr. Hakeem Oluseyi from the Florida Institute of Technology, and groom them to be science television communicators. 

We will then use them throughout our programming and in some instances create 

series or specials around their area of expertise. Currently we are training 10 people 

a year and we hope to expand the program. 

The third part of our strategy is partnerships, which are critically important to 

our success. Half of our battle is keeping track of all the amazing work going on 

around the world so we can bring our audience breakthroughs and innovations in 

all fields of science. Reaching out to science organizations that have been individual 


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silos and working to bring them together and share their work with the public is 

a big priority for us. We work with research centers, universities, science media, scientists and leading organizations—anyone who wants the public to understand and 

celebrate their work. Our partnership with NASA is an example of a success story. 

We came to NASA with a big idea. Academy Award-winning actor Morgan Freeman has a lifelong passion for space. He’s fascinated by the great mysteries of the 

universe and trying to find answers to questions that have been asked for all of civilization, like: Is there other life in the universe? How did we get here? Is time travel possible? We wanted to bring Mr. Freeman’s passion for the topic to our audience 

and asked NASA if they would host us for a day-long brainstorm about their current 

research and planned missions. They discussed with us the profound implications 

of what their upcoming missions could tell us about our world and ourselves. The 

result of that conversation is an eight-part series we’re launching in April hosted 

and executive produced by Morgan Freeman. 

NASA also played a critical role in our Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist 

Challenge, an annual competition for middle school students designed to inspire the 

next generation of great science communicators. The finals of last year’s competition 

were held at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. The inspiration our students felt 

when they worked for several days inside NASA alongside working scientists will 

forever change their lives. The event was also filmed by Science Channel for a television special, executive produced by Overbrook Entertainment, which aired earlier 

this year. 

Science Channel also had the privilege of partnering with NASA to film their 

amazing achievements and then bring them to the viewer at home. Together we created two live television specials in the past year, tied to their Mars and Hubble missions. In addition to traditional televised programs, these specials also spoke to audiences in media formats that they prefer, with extensive web sites that allowed 

people to explore at their own pace and new media tools, including NASA scientists 

posting Twitter updates and answering viewers’ questions in real time as the actual 

missions unfolded. We also aired short-form content throughout the day with mission updates. 

Space is one of many genres that we program on Science Channel, and our viewers tell us that it is one of their favorite subjects. Beyond our anecdotal evidence, 

our ratings research confirms that our viewers love this genre—last quarter, space 

programming rated 25 percent higher than our network average. Our television 

shows cover a wide range of space and exploration topics—from space travel to 

string theory and wormholes to black holes. We start from the Big Bang beginning 

and go right to the edge of what we know is possible in the future. We’ve brought 

back classics like COSMOS and created our own original series like When We Left 

Earth and Meteorite Men. 

When we decrease our space coverage we hear about it immediately from our 

viewers, so space-related topics and segments are also woven into many other series 

and specials. In fact, so many people crave space programming that we devote an 

entire week of our evening television schedule to our annual Space Week, which 

rates highly on air, and online. We launched a new series during Space Week this 

year called Exodus Earth, where we explored what would happen if for whatever 

reason we decided to leave Earth. The series looked at where would we go, how 

would we live and what would be waiting for us. At Science Channel we constantly 

experiment with different kinds of story-telling devices to bring topics to life. 

We’re also bringing our content to teachers and students. Reaching tomorrow’s 

scientists today is critical, so Discovery Communications’ Education Division, which 

combines scientifically proven, standards-based digital media and a dynamic user 

community to empower teachers to improve student achievement, has created services to engage students in scientific inquiry. 

Utilizing America’s broadband network, Discovery Education streaming, Discovery’s flagship service, offers American classrooms thousands of science videos, delivered via the Internet, correlated to state standards, and in three- to five-minute 

clips that teachers can easily integrate into their classroom lessons. In addition, Discovery Education also produces specific digital content services for both elementary 

and middle school classrooms, called Discovery Education Science, which propels 

school curricula with standards-based digital content, virtual labs, simulations, and 

more. Together, these services help educators encourage exploration, stimulate critical thinking, and deepen understanding of science. 

While the promise of digital content to positively impact student engagement in 

science is great, any plan to integrate digital content or other educational technologies into classroom curriculum is doomed to failure without ongoing professional 

development, supported by school districts. Discovery Education works directly with 

school districts to provide professional development strategies that model best pracVerDate 0ct 09 2002 12:32 Mar 02, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00046 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 Z:\DOCS\50745.TXT SCIENCE1 PsN: COMSCI

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tices: namely, strategies for providing students with consistent feedback, utilizing 

cooperative learning structures, embedding digital content into instruction, and promoting the creation of content for the web in an effort to better engage 21st century 

students in science instruction.

Advisory board 

Underpinning all that I’ve discussed here today is the world-class board of advisors led by our Chairman John Hendricks. Members include representatives from 

the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the National Science Teachers Association, the Florida Institute of Technology, Hudson Alpha Institute for Biotechnology, 

The Franklin Institute, National Academy of Sciences, Electronic Arts, Popular 

Science, and, of course, NASA. Our advisors play a critical role in making sure we 

know about amazing research and technologies. They help us find new science communicators. They assist us with developing programming and they help us shape 

our efforts to do even more in the areas of science literacy and education. 

In conclusion, I want to express my sincere thanks for allowing Science Channel 

and Discovery Communications to show you our passion for space and all genres of 

science. I think our audience loves space programming because it’s a quest to discover the great mysteries of our time. It allows people to dream, to think outside 

themselves, to wonder about what else there is in the universe and to marvel at 

the beauty and fragility of the world in which we live. 

Science isn’t just something you learn in school—it’s alive, it’s optimistic, it’s the 

future. We’re proud to answer President Obama’s call and to be a champion for this 

critical movement to bring science back to its rightful place in the United States. 

Thank you.

BIOGRAPHY FOR DEBORAH ADLER MYERS

As General Manager, Science Channel, Debbie Myers leads the development, production, scheduling, research, marketing, digital and communications efforts, with 

direct responsibility for driving the revenue and ratings for the brand. In her role 

as Executive Vice President of programming for Discovery Emerging Networks, 

Myers also spearheads the development, production and programming units for Investigation Discovery, Military Channel and HD Theater, some of the fastest-growing networks in cable. Charged with commissioning and creating brand-defining series and specials for all four networks, Myers also leads the effort to attract top scientists, experts and personalities to appear on air and online. 

Since joining the Emerging Networks group in March 2008, Myers has launched 

more than 40 new series, including 20 for Science Channel, and secured major programming deals with Morgan Freeman, Whoopi Goldberg and Paula Zahn. 

Myers first joined Discovery Communications in June 2005 and has been responsible for thousands of hours of content across all of Discovery’s networks, including 

the launch of TLC’s franchise Little People, Big World. As Vice President of production and then Senior Vice President of programming, daytime and fringe, for TLC, 

Myers oversaw the launches of LA Ink, Say Yes to the Dress, Big Medicine, Take 

Home Chef and Take Home Handyman and managed continuing series including 

What Not to Wear, Miami Ink and A Baby Story. 

Prior to joining Discovery, Myers ran her own production company, Aha! Entertainment, where she created series and pilots for NBC, Paramount, VH–1 and 20th 

Television. Myers was also instrumental in launching several cable networks, including E! Entertainment and Oxygen. She served for eight years as Vice President 

of programming and development at E!, where she created and ran 17 signature series, including the Emmy Award-winning Talk Soup and E! News. 

Myers is the former Governor of the Production Executives group of the Academy 

of Television Arts and Sciences.

Chairwoman GIFFORDS. Thank you, Ms. Myers. We appreciate 

that. Well, speaking of new media and Twittering, and MySpace, 

and blogging, one of the best space technology folks, that we are 

going to hear from next, is Miles O’Brien. 

STATEMENT OF MR. MILES O’BRIEN, JOURNALIST 

Mr. O’BRIEN. I have been tempted to tweet this whole time. I 

have been tempted to tweet, but I probably should pay attention. 


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Madam Chairwoman, it is nice of you to invite an unemployed 

journalist to this event. Of course, it is harder and harder to find 

employed journalists, especially in my beat. I have been covering 

space for more than 17 years now. I am a pilot and an airplane 

owner, and I come to the space beat as an enthusiastic supporter 

of all things that fly, well, maybe not mosquitoes. 

I appreciate the adventure that is inherent in exploring a frontier. In fact, I spent several years trying to convince NASA to give 

me a ride in the Shuttle to the Space Station, and I did have a deal 

that we would have announced about a week or so after the safe 

landing of Columbia, in February of 2003. Unfortunately, that was 

a different story. 

In all, I have covered about three dozen Shuttle missions, including John Glenn’s flight, with no less than Walter Cronkite as my 

co-anchor. And I got to ask him a lot of important questions, like 

would you like a little more cream in that, sir? Actually, when I 

first met him, we were talking about how we would cover this mission together, and I made the mistake of telling him he didn’t need 

to worry about the Shuttle, that I would handle that, and all he 

had to do was regale us with tales about the Mercury 7 days. He 

was visibly upset, and he asked me to get him a report on every 

Shuttle mission, all the who, what, when, where, why, whether the 

mission succeeded or not, and I asked him if he wanted that for 

all 94 missions at that time. And his eyes were wide open. He said 

there have been 94 missions? And to paraphrase Lyndon Johnson, 

if we have lost Walter Cronkite, we have lost the Nation. 

Now, some of this has to do with novelty. Lindbergh’s flight was 

news. When I flew the Atlantic in a little plane a few years ago, 

no one cared, except for my wife. John Glenn’s first mission was 

news, and certainly, the intrepid crew of Apollo 11 was the obvious 

lead story for days 40 years ago today. 

But I just came last night from covering the launch of the 127th 

Shuttle mission, and this room, of course, is a choir, but who outside of this room knows what they are doing, or who is aboard the 

Space Shuttle right now, or that there is a mission at all? Now, 

part of the problem is NASA has served up a mission that seems 

mundane, I emphasize seems, no more interesting than watching 

airliners depart a national airport, and in fact, the Shuttle was sold 

to Congress with the promise that it would make space travel 

cheap and as easy as airline travel. And, as if to make it all seem 

real, even though it wasn’t, the Agency sort of went out of its way 

to make it look ho-hum. Then, of course, Challenger happened, and 

the story changed. 

But there is also another factor at work here. Apollo is NASA’s 

greatest accomplishment, to be sure. It is also its biggest curse, in 

a sense. It was a story that sold itself, and in fact, the media frenzy 

at the time was so great, in those heady Moon race days, that the 

Agency really had to build some walls and moats, and hire PR people who were more like the palace guard. And unfortunately, a lot 

of that culture remains in place. And that is aided and abetted by 

the astronauts who live in the palace, and only open the doors and 

let us in for brief audiences, usually on their own limited terms. 

Now, the sad irony is, these people are some of the most amazing 

people I have met. There is even twin commanders on the Shuttle, 


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I hear, and if they would just get out of the palace, and let the public in a little more, I think they would sell the program better than 

any piece of hardware we are latching onto the Space Station. 

Which leads me to the guys and gals who make the hardware, 

the engineers. God love them. They make the magic happen, but 

they just don’t get the communication thing. The public affairs mission is simply not a priority within NASA. Matter of fact, it isn’t 

even on the list of requirements for missions. Forty years ago, they 

were fighting to keep the cameras off the Apollo spacecraft. After 

all, they simply just add weight. There was nothing in the mission 

requirement for it. 

Now, imagine if that thinking had prevailed. It might not have 

prevailed, but that some kind of debate rages on, as they are designing the Orion capsule. Public affairs should always be a mission requirement, and a high priority requirement. And I know 

that this committee has recognized this. NASA Authorization Bill 

of 2008 gets into this issue of participatory exploration, and how 

important that is. 

We have got to take that first step and go further with it. You 

know, the TV cameras are worth their weight in gold, because they 

let the public participate in the exploration. And let us not forget 

who is paying the bills here. You know, you leave the public behind, there won’t be any missions, much less requirements for missions. 

Which brings me to some of the places where NASA is doing a 

good job engaging the public. You know, think of those little rovers, 

Spirit and Opportunity, explore Mars, making the Energizer Bunny 

look like a piker. Now, this is an example where the scientists and 

engineers have natural common ground with the PR folks. The images from the other worlds feed the scientists as well as the public 

interest, and it happens simultaneously. How brilliant is that? 

You know, this all started, you will recall, with Pathfinder years 

ago, the first big Internet webaganza, if you will. Average people 

could see the images as they came down from Mars at the same 

time as the scientists at the Jet Propulsion Lab. They were peeking 

over the scientists’ shoulder as they were doing their job exploring. 

That is heady stuff. That is engaging. 

That trend has continued. Phoenix became the first spacecraft to 

tweet. It was the idea of a former colleague of mine, Veronica 

McGregor. She is at JPL now. She got the idea from, where else, 

her kids, as a way to let people know about the landing during the 

Memorial Day weekend. It happened on a Sunday, Memorial Day. 

She just thought it might be one way to make sure people knew 

it happened. Well, she got a tiger by the tail. The thing went viral, 

tens of thousands of followers, tons of detailed questions from space 

geeks the world over, but it broadened beyond the choir very quickly, and that is the magic of this new media, is that in an exponential fashion, friends tell friends, and on it goes, and suddenly, 

the public is engaged in a mission they may not have heard anything about. And were interested, with questions that Veronica, 

frankly, said were better than she got from the mainstream media, 

I must confess. 

Now, to their credit, in Houston, they saw this, and they saw 

how potent it is, and astronaut Mike Massimino became the first 


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46

person to tweet from space, in between space walks to fix the 

Hubble Space Telescope. Now, that is a giant leap for webkind. 

And speaking of Hubble, the granddaddy of all missions where 

science is also a good PR message, look what happened when 

NASA tried to cancel that mission to repair Hubble. Engagement 

led to anger, and ultimately activism, and it changed things. 

So, that brings me to my final point. The agency is dispersed geographically by centers of expertise, by geography. It doesn’t really 

speak with one voice. It doesn’t have a cohesive public relations 

strategy. Public affairs here in Washington needs to have more authority to direct these far-flung PR operations, which kind of answer to their flowcharts in a balkanized fashion, and frankly, PR, 

public affairs here in Washington, needs a budget. The current 

budget is zero right now. And you get what you pay for. 

There is no doubt the mission is the message, ultimately, and 

NASA needs to be taking us places where we haven’t been before, 

and that will capture the fancy of a jaded public. But the message 

is also part of the mission, and it should never be an afterthought. 

Thank you for inviting me. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. O’Brien follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MILES O’BRIEN

Nice of you to invite an unemployed journalist to testify—of course it is harder 

and harder to find employed journalists—especially on my beat. 

I have been covering space for more than 17 years now . . . I am a pilot and airplane owner—and come to the space beat as an enthusiastic supporter of all things 

that fly—and the adventure that is inherent in exploring a frontier. In fact, I spent 

several years trying to convince NASA to give me a ride to the space station—and 

we had a deal—that we would have announced a week or so after Columbia would 

have landed in February 2003. 

In all, I have covered about three dozen Shuttle missions—including John Glenn’s 

flight—with Walter Cronkite as my co-anchor. I got to ask him a lot of important 

questions—like would you like a little more cream in your coffee sir? 

Actually, when I first met him—and we were talking about how we would cover 

the mission together. 

I made the mistake of telling him he didn’t need to worry about the details of 

the Shuttle—I would handle that—and all he needed to do was regale us with tales 

of the Mercury 7 days—he got very upset—and asked me to get him a report on 

every Shuttle mission—all the who what when where why’s a hows—I asked him 

if he wanted that for all 94 missions at that time . . . he said greatly surprised 

‘‘there’ve been 94 missions?’’

Paraphrasing Lyndon Johnson—if we have lost Walter Cronkite—we have lost the 

rest of the Nation. 

Some of this is novelty—Lindbergh’s flight was news—but when I flew the Atlantic in a little plane a few summers ago—no one cared. John Glenn’s first mission 

was news—and certainly the intrepid crew of Apollo 11 was the obvious lead story 

for days—but I just flew in last night form covering the 127th shuttle launch—and 

who knows who is aboard and what they are doing up there? 

Part of the problem is NASA has served up a mission that seems mundane—no 

more interesting than watching airliners depart from National Airport. And in fact, 

the Shuttle was sold to Congress with the promise it would make space travel as 

cheap and easy as airline travel—and as if to make it all seem real (even though 

it wasn’t)—the Agency went out of its way to make it look ho hum—before Challenger. 

But there is another factor at work here. Apollo is NASA’s greatest accomplishment to be sure—but it is also its biggest curse. It was, after all, a story that sold 

itself—and in fact the media frenzy was so great in those heady moon race years 

that the Agency had to build some walls and moats—and hire PR people who were 

more like the palace guard. 

A lot of that remains in place—and that is aided and abetted by the astronauts—

who live in that palace and only open the doors and let us in for brief audiences—

usually on their own limited terms. The sad irony is these people are some of the 


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47

most amazing people I have met—and if they would just get out of the palace—or 

let the public in a little more—they would sell the program better than any piece 

of hardware they might be latching onto the space station. 

Which leads me to the guys and gals who make the hardware—the engineers—

god love them—they make the magic happen—but they just don’t get the communication thing. The public affairs mission is simply not a priority. Matter of fact it 

isn’t even on the list of requirements. Forty years ago, they were fighting to keep 

cameras off the Apollo spacecraft—after they simply add weight—and do nothing for 

their mission requirements. Imagine if that thinking had prevailed . . .. 

Well it may not have prevailed—but the debate is still alive and well as they design the Orion capsule. 

Public affairs should always be a mission requirement—and a high priority requirement. The TV cameras are worth their weight in gold because they let the public participate in the exploration. And let’s not forget who pays the bills. Leave the 

public behind and there won’t be any missions—much less requirements. 

Which brings me to some of the places where NASA goes a good job engaging the 

public—think of those little Rovers Spirit and Opportunity—still on Mars making 

the energizer bunny look like a piker. This is an a example when the scientists and 

the engineers do not have some natural common ground. The images from other 

worlds—feed the scientists—as well as the public interest. 

This all started with Pathfinder years ago—the first big ‘‘web-aganza’’—if you 

will—average people could see the images at the same time as the Martians at the 

Jet Propulsion Lab. Peeking over the scientists shoulders as they explore! What 

heady stuff! Talk about engaging! 

That trend has continued—Phoenix became the first spacecraft to tweet—and 

quickly became one of the first twitter sensations—my former colleague Veronica 

McGregror at JPL got the idea from her kids—of course—as a way to let people 

know about the landing on a Memorial Day Sunday—she got a tiger by the tail—

and went viral—with many tens of thousands of followers as fast as a speeding 

spacecraft—there were tons of very detailed questions from the space geeks—but 

soon it broadened—as the choir started telling their friends. The public was engaged—exponentially. 

To their credit—in Houston they saw this how potent—and astronaut Mike 

Massimino became the first person to tweet from space in between space walks to 

fix the Hubble Space Telescope. A giant leap for web-kind. 

And speaking of Hubble—the granddaddy of all missions where the science—is 

the best PR message—and look what happened when NASA tried to cancel that 

final repair mission—engagement led to anger and ultimately activism. 

Which brings me to my final point—the Agency, dispersed geographically as well 

by centers of expertise and excellence—does not speak with one voice as it should. 

Public Affairs here in Washington needs more authority to direct the far flung PR 

operations—and frankly they need a budget—which currently is 0. You do get what 

you pay for. 

There is no doubt the mission is the message—and NASA needs to be taking us 

places where we have not been before to capture the fancy of a jaded public. 

But the message is also part of the mission—it should never be an afterthought.

DISCUSSION

IMPROVING NASA’S COMMUNICATION WITH THE PUBLIC

Chairwoman GIFFORDS. Thank you, Mr. O’Brien. 

At this point, we are going to begin our first round of questions, 

and the chair will recognize herself for five minutes. I will keep my 

question, actually, down to one, because we have several representatives of the majority that represent NASA centers, so let me be 

brief. 

It was not by coincidence that we had our first two panelists talk 

about the how and the why, why this is such an important aspect 

of who we are as Americans, and who we are, in terms of policymakers and people that really care about our national interests. 

The second part of our panel, we heard about the how do we attempt, how do we do a good job, or hopefully do a good job at getting that message out to the American people. 


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So, my question is, in terms of Members of Congress, specifically, 

what are the things that we can and should be doing, besides someone like myself, a single Member, who was going into the cloakroom a few hours ago, and saw the Tyra Banks show on television, 

switched it to the NASA station, to make sure that my fellow Members could watch the coverage of the fortieth anniversary, instead 

of watching the Tyra Banks show while we were in between votes, 

and also, the White House. 

What are the steps that the White House could be doing? We 

talked a little bit about that, but in terms of really making this relevant to the American people? And General Lyles, let us start with 

you. 

General LYLES. Madam Chairwoman, let me, I am glad you 

asked that specific question. I would like to sort of piggyback off 

of Miles’ comments and also Debbie’s. 

One of the major things I think the Congress could do almost immediately is to make sure that the civil space agencies, and particularly, NASA, understand that communication, that PR, that 

public affairs, that marketing are okay, that to some extent, they 

are a form of communication. They are certainly a form of education, and both of those, to me, are seeds for inspiration. 

Let me give you the context of why I say that. I serve on the 

NASA Advisory Council, and for the last two or three years, the 

Advisory Council, at different times, in conversation with the 

NASA Administrator, almost begged the Administrator and the 

Agency to find ways they can better get the word out about everything that NASA does. And the immediate response was Congress 

has told me I can’t do that. 

There is language, probably appropriation language, that precludes NASA from spending any money on anything that looks like 

marketing. I take a broad definition of the word marketing, because to me, it does equate to communication and education, and 

all the things that Debbie and Miles were talking about. I think 

one immediate thing is to look to see if there are restrictive language, even if it is a perception of restrictive language, that precludes NASA from doing the kind of things that Miles so expertly 

pointed out, I think that would be very, very helpful. 

Chairwoman GIFFORDS. Thank you. Ms. Smith, please. 

Ms. SMITH. I definitely think that the public affairs and the messaging is extremely important. I think, having been in a government agency myself, I think that one of the things that agencies 

often are conflicted about is, especially those that are regulators, 

such as FAA, the conflict exists about how can I carry out that 

message? Is it possible to carry out that message, and at the same 

time, promote and encourage the industry that I am responsible 

for? 

My old office, the Office of Commercial Space Transportation, I 

would say, did an excellent job in drawing the bright line between 

safety and promotion, but recognizing that in order for us to foster 

the further growth and development of our industries, we have to 

promote them, and there is nothing wrong with the government 

doing that, as long as it understands what its principal mission is, 

and in our case, it was to protect the uninvolved public. 


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I also think that, in terms of what Congress can do, one of the 

challenges that I faced in that role was talking to Members of Congress and their staffs, who very straightforwardly and honestly 

said, you know, this is not necessarily a bread and butter issue for 

me. I don’t hear from my constituents on it in the same way. 

I think that Congress has an obligation to make that message 

come alive, and to recognize that if it affects the economy and the 

national security of our nation, then yes, it is a bread and butter 

issue. 

So, what are the ways to bring it right down front for the constituent? And I think, looking at where we are right now in the 

world of space and the United States, we really are at a crossroads, 

I think. The need for a real clarion call that takes us forward into 

the future, and we all have a role to play in that. Congress has a 

role. The executive branch has a role. We, as citizens, have a role, 

and those who are business people in the industry, to carry that 

message forward. 

So, I think, first and foremost, making it a bread and butter 

issue. It is. It affects you in your daily lives. It is a part of our national economy and national security. Carrying that message forward in a more prominent way, I think will go a long way to engage those constituents who are very, very interested in this, but 

may not know just how to bring it forward. 

Chairwoman GIFFORDS. Okay. Ms. Smith, I am going to end with 

you. I would like to hear from the other panelists, but I really want 

to get to the other Members here. So, maybe if you have particular 

points, you can weave them into your answers to their questions. 

Congressman Olson. 

HOW SHOULD NASA COMMUNICATE ITS CONTRIBUTIONS TO

SOCIETY? 

Mr. OLSON. Well, thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I will kind of 

follow up. We didn’t plan this before, but I also, I would like to ask 

Ms. Myers and Mr. O’Brien for the first question, and if we have 

time, General Lyles and Ms. Smith, but it is right along that same 

line of communication. 

How do we communicate how beneficial NASA has been to our 

society, from a technological, from a national security perspective, 

and from an inspirational perspective? And you all talked about 

what Congress and the government can do, but one thing I find 

when I meet with constituent groups, we just had a group up here 

yesterday, from all the NASA centers, you know, some employees. 

And they all ask what could I do? What can I do to help you, or 

to help make sure that the American public understands how important this is for our future? 

Ms. Myers and Mr. O’Brien, I would like to give you the first 

crack at that. What can we tell our constituents? What could they 

do to make a difference? 

Ms. MYERS. I think part of it, sorry, part of this is really underscoring the importance of matching up national agencies with private businesses, private sectors, so that we can figure out together 

how do we tell these great stories? So, it is putting those partnerships together, and encouraging those partnerships to happen, so 


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that we can help work with people to understand what the stories 

are about, and how best to share that with the public. 

Depending on the goals, depending on the type of stories, it is 

hero stories. It is talking about people who go into space, and the 

dangers that are there. That makes them stronger and braver as 

heroes. It is trying to find the way to make it relevant into people’s 

lives. It is, when you have all this great information, it is that partnership with the people and the companies and the agencies and 

the journalists, and the talent that can help bring that to life. 

Another part is to find great science communicators. We have 

started an experiment called Talent School, where we have gone 

out, and we have worked with different agencies in space and 

science, and we have found people that are really smart, they have 

the twinkle in the eye. They have a great stage presence about 

them. But how do we take what they do, and teach them how to 

connect with viewers at home, and teach them how to put that language into ways that resonate with everyday people, so everyday 

people care about it? So, I think it is inspiring people, inspiring 

people to work together with companies and with broadcasters and 

with journalists that can help tell their story in the best way possible, because they are great stories. 

Mr. OLSON. Mr. O’Brien. 

Mr. O’BRIEN. You know, I think the irony is, at 40 years after 

the launch of Apollo 11, NASA suffers from a bit of timidity when 

it comes to unleashing the message. 

Now, they have a natural legion of foot soldiers, evangelizers. Everybody I meet who is involved in space is deeply passionate about 

what they do, love what they do. They are committed to their jobs 

in ways most people are not. And unfortunately, if they attempt to 

blog about it or tweet about it, they get shut down. This happens 

all the time, because the concern is that they will be off message. 

It is important to empower the Agency, and thus, its foot soldiers, to know that they can be a part of this. If a flight controller 

wants to tweet and let her social network in on what is going on 

inside mission control, assuming we are not, you know, in some 

sort of mission-critical situation that would cause danger to somebody, why not empower her to do that? But instead, the message 

is you can’t. 

So, I think what Congress can do is, to the extent that they can 

streamline the rules for NASA and make it easier for them to do 

marketing, but also, to the extent that they can avoid the tendency 

to get on the phone every time something comes across the bow, 

that might offend somebody and somebody’s constituency, because 

what that does is it cows the Agency. And they need to be empowered, too, because if you unleashed the power of that workforce, 

and allowed them to spread the word, we could just stand by and 

watch them win the country over. 

Mr. OLSON. Just a little food for thought, based on the comments 

earlier, about how NASA could market itself. I had one of the constituents yesterday, it is not legal for the government, but a very 

interesting idea, what if we put a little NASA sticker on every 

product that was influenced, or had some benefit coming from 

space. 


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You would look around this room. Every piece of electronic gear 

would have a little NASA sticker on it, and somehow, we need to 

communicate that to the general public. 

And I appreciate your time. 

Chairwoman GIFFORDS. Thank you, Congressman Olson. Next, 

we are going to hear from Parker Griffith, who represents Marshall 

Space Center. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. The comments are interesting. You know, the day 

after the revolution, the revolutionaries become the establishment, 

and I appreciate Mr. O’Brien’s comments. And I think we are suffering from that right now in our space program. 

I am from Huntsville, Alabama. Took care of many of the space 

scientists that came in from Germany, so we have a real dedication 

there. Mr. Hendricks, we are grateful to him, in no uncertain 

terms. 

In the ’60s, you could cut the tension in America with a knife. 

I see the young people here. We were not allowed to wear Army 

uniforms on the street. We would get stoned or spit on. The society 

was in turmoil. We were coming loose at the fringes. The Yale, 

Berkeley, Harvard campuses were in revolt. Kent State was in turmoil. We had blood in the streets, and yet, we stayed committed 

to a space program through the death of John Kennedy. 1968, we 

lost Robert Kennedy. 1968, we lost Martin Luther King. Our society was questioning itself, but we stayed with the commitment to 

space. 

We are seeing a challenge today on our space program. We must 

remain strong. Ares I, Ares V, is not an option. It is essential to 

the United States. We represent six percent of the world’s population. In order for us to maintain our superiority, in order for us 

to maintain what we know we can achieve, space is absolutely essential. It is the high ground scientifically, whether we want to 

know what is in the Van Allen fields, or it is essential for us to 

maintain our military superiority. 

I certainly agree and appreciate the panel. You can tell I am fascinated and dedicated to space. I am an oncologist by training. 

What has happened in space has allowed our CT scans, our MRIs, 

the miniaturization of our instruments. The development of drugs 

in space is our next frontier. We have to do this. It is no longer 

an option. So when we hear it discussed as can we afford it, yes, 

we have to afford it. 

So, thank you for being here. I really appreciate it. I have one 

question for Mr. O’Brien. You said on a blog that you were tired 

of hearing that we cannot sustain our space program during hard 

times. The truth is that $18 billion, NASA gets a fraction of 1 percent of the U.S. budget. Chump change, I used to tell people, it is 

about what we spend collectively on coffee each year. I appreciate 

you, by the way. Stay with it. 

Mr. O’BRIEN. Yeah. Thanks. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. In your opinion, what should we be doing to let 

taxpayers know that the return on investment from our investment 

in space is absolutely huge? We have to market this. 

Mr. O’BRIEN. So, maybe we should put the meatball in that 

Starbuck’s latte. What do you think? 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Absolutely. 


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Mr. O’BRIEN. What, we get Starbuck’s, but no bucks for the 

stars? You know, something like that. I don’t know. I think that 

the more we remind people of what we spend, and really, in the 

context of all that has transpired in this country in recent months, 

when you consider the size of these bailouts, the NASA budget just 

seems so tiny. It really does, and shouldn’t NASA get a bailout, 

too? And it doesn’t need much to keep going. It really doesn’t. 

And you know, it is, in a sense, it is a testament to the success, 

and the fact that there is a natural interest in this, that people assume we spend all this money on space and on NASA. It gets tremendous bang for its buck, and it is very difficult to quantify its 

value to our society, in the way it inspires our children, in the way 

it provides high tech jobs, in the way it ensures national prestige. 

Look, India would love to have a manned space program. Per capita annual income in India, about $800. Now, if Calcutta can afford it, can’t Cleveland? And what is it that they are learning that 

we have forgotten? 

Mr. GRIFFITH. One last comment, Madam Chair. Thank you for 

allowing me to comment. The great danger here is that we are 

going to be sitting in our living rooms with our feet propped up, 

having our gin and tonic, and the NASA touchdown, or the space 

touchdown on the Moon are going to be two Chinese. And I think 

the line is drawn. The challenge is there. It is another 1957 Sputnik moment, and we have to meet that challenge. 

Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Chairwoman GIFFORDS. Thank you, Mr. Griffith. Now, we are 

going to hear from Congresswoman Kosmas, who represents KSC. 

COMMUNICATING THE VALUE OF THE ISS TO THE PUBLIC

Ms. KOSMAS. Thank you, Madam Chairman, and I appreciate everyone who is here today. Kennedy Space Center is in my district, 

and I have become a very vocal and outspoken cheerleader for 

space. 

As I tell my constituents, I live about thirty miles up the river 

from Kennedy Space Center, and I have seen the Shuttle launches 

from every imaginable place, whether it is a rooftop or a boat, or 

the top of a car. We have seen, the beach, anywhere you can imagine seeing one, we have seen them. But since being elected to Congress, I have had the pleasure of having a little greater view, and 

I want to say that I have been preaching in my district very much 

the same kinds of things that you all are talking about today, that 

we are missing an opportunity to ensure that the next generation 

is inspired by what we do in space, and that they understand the 

significance of it. 

And so, I am, again, I am part of the choir that you are preaching to, and now, I am preaching back to you. But at the same time, 

I think it is important that we do put a focus on how important 

this is to our lives and to our national security. I liked your comment, General Lyles, that communication and education are seeds 

for inspiration. I think that is a really good quote to use. 

I also appreciate what the Space Foundation does, and I love the 

TV. What I had envisioned at some point, was that someone would 

do a commercial like what you were talking about, and literally 

take it from an average person’s life today, and withdraw, one by 


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one, it is kind of the counter to putting a sticker on something, is 

to say take away, one by one, all of those developments that have 

been created as a result of our interest in science and technology 

that began with our space exploration, and see what is left. Because I think the next generation would be shocked to know how 

sparse many things would be, many arenas would be. 

So, that is just my one, two cents worth. I have been working 

very hard, as I have said, within my district, to ensure that the 

people there are working in the school systems, that we are advancing the STEM programs, and that we are doing all of those 

possible opportunities of bringing astronauts into the schools and 

everything, to do this. We also, the Chairwoman and I, have taken 

a CODEL, of our Congressional delegation, of our fellow 

Congresspeople, to Kennedy Space Center, to see a launch. Unfortunately, it was scrubbed, but we had a really good opportunity to 

tour the Space Center, and for others to, in this body, who provides 

the opportunity for NASA to do what it needs to do for them to get 

a firsthand feel for how exciting it is, how challenging it is, and 

how inspirational it is. 

So, I have anointed himself as the cheerleader within Congress, 

along with the Chairwoman, to make sure that we bring along our 

colleagues, in order to see the importance of it. 

I had one question. Again, I really appreciate all the comments 

here, but this is for Mr. O’Brien, and it has, it references a comment that you made also on a blog. In the time period when the 

Shuttle retires and the Orion, the time between those two things, 

known as the gap, the only symbol of U.S. human space flight will 

be the International Space Station. And in May 2009, you did a 

blog about human space flight and the Hubble, and you said: 

‘‘Sadly, most Americans do not fully appreciate the amazing accomplishment that the International Space Station is. They overlook 

its incremental role in pushing out the frontier, and they see it 

more like a big public works project.’’

And I think, you know, we have talked a lot about the Shuttles 

and the launches, but we haven’t talked a great deal about the 

International Space Station, the investment that the United States 

has made in that fabulous frontier. 

Could you suggest to me some ways in which you think we might 

be able to advance the recognition of how significant that is? 

Mr. O’BRIEN. Aside from sending me there? 

Ms. KOSMAS. I want to go too. 

Mr. O’BRIEN. Let us go together. 

Ms. KOSMAS. Okay. 

Mr. O’BRIEN. That would be a great story. 

Ms. KOSMAS. You are on. 

Mr. O’BRIEN. I, you know, I think we don’t know the story of the 

Space Station yet, because it just finally got a six person crew. 

Imagine that. There are going to be 13 people on that Space Station for the next couple of weeks. The toilets better keep working, 

I will tell you that, right. 

It is very exciting, after all these years. You know, I remember 

looking at the sketches for Freedom in the mid-’80s, and to finally 

see it looking like those sketches is very exciting to me. Why that 

hasn’t resonated with the public, you know, it is, you know, who 


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likes to watch buildings being built? You know, six year old kids, 

right? It is a lot like that. It has been very slow, incremental process, an amazing engineering challenge, which in many respects, 

some would argue exceeds on an engineering level what was accomplished in Apollo. It is an amazing thing, but it is still only 250 

miles above us, and it is difficult, and it requires a little bit of nuance to explain to people why that is important, when you are talking about looking at new horizons, new worlds, and exploring the 

solar system. But it is all part of the picture. 

I don’t think that message has come through very clearly. That 

could be some of the media’s fault. That could be a little bit of 

NASA’s fault. It could be that the public is kind of jaded. You 

know, some of this is, they go to see a movie, they go to see Star 

Trek, and they expect NASA to have warp drive, you know, or you 

know, they still think there is an antigravity room at the Johnson 

Space Center. So, in some respects, Hollywood has been a terrible 

foe of the reality, because it pales by comparison. The real thing 

is awfully darn hard. But that is what Kennedy challenged us to 

do in September of ’62 at Rice University. Do it because it is hard. 

Ms. KOSMAS. Well, thank you very much for that answer. Do I 

have any time left? 

Chairwoman GIFFORDS. Yeah, Ms. Myers, would you care to comment? 

MODERNIZING PUBLIC RELATIONS ON THE ISS 

Ms. KOSMAS. Ms. Myers, would you like to comment? 

Ms. MYERS. Just want to add on top of that, too. Now, if you can 

get us to be able to capture the stories on that Space Station, of 

all these people living together, and hands-on, how they are doing 

their work, and see it and feel it, and it is real, and it is real people, real passion, real stories. It is like a smart version of Big 

Brother that is going on. So, again, make it relatable to people. 

Open it up, so that they can twitter and talk to us. Make it real. 

Make it alive. These are heroes. These are great stories, willing to 

be captured. Don’t make it so sanitized. Bring it to life. 

Ms. KOSMAS. Well, that would require overcoming the timidity, 

right? 

Ms. MYERS. That is right. 

Ms. KOSMAS. Okay. General Lyles. 

General LYLES. If you don’t mind, just one comment about the 

Space Station. There is a great story to be told about what it is, 

but also, the story that needs to be told about what it could be. One 

of the major things at the Human Spaceflight Commission that 

Norm Augustine is trying to, is currently chairing, and I am a part 

of, is looking at is what happens after 2016? Currently, the budget 

plans for the Space Station run out for the United States at 2016, 

so the fact that the Space Station has been declared a formal National Laboratory, as a possible testbed for great science, and there 

are great science experiments that are possible up there with the 

infrastructure currently on the Space Station, if something isn’t addressed about how to extend it beyond 2016, which obviously includes budgetary, then none of the possibilities are going to be realized. 


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That is one of the things the Human Spaceflight Commission is 

going to be looking at, but it is more than a story of what it is. It 

is a story of what it could be and should be. 

Ms. KOSMAS. I completely agree with you there, and I hope we 

are able to assist in extending the time period budgetarily. Yes, 

Ms. Smith. 

Ms. SMITH. And I think that that also requires engaging all of 

government in this endeavor. And what I mean by that is, the fact 

that the Space Station allows experimentation, scientific experiments to go on, maybe this is something that NIH needs to be more 

aware of, and to identify parts of its budget that could be allocated 

to increase the number of experiments on the Space Station. We 

have got conditions that we are trying desperately to solve, and 

space provides a ready opportunity, a laboratory for experimentation that I know, as a public member of board at NIH, that work 

is not being exploited. The Space Station is an opportunity to conduct those experiments. 

Ms. KOSMAS. Thank you very much. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

REDUCING MISSION RISK

Chairwoman GIFFORDS. Thank you. Next, we are going to hear 

from Congresswoman Edwards, who represents Goddard. 

Ms. EDWARDS. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and thanks so 

much for holding this hearing. You know that is a passion of mine 

to tell the NASA story. I spent several years at Goddard Space 

Flight Center, working on the Spacelab project, and feel really passionately about the story that NASA can tell. 

I think one of the challenges has always been, and I think part 

of the reason that I ended up actually at Goddard was because, not 

because I was an engineer by training initially, but because I was 

an English major, and because they needed people who could communicate all of the wonderful technical work that was being done 

to the rest of the world. 

And so, I am glad to have been able to share in that experience, 

and you know, having grown up, also, on the space, you know with 

the space program sort of embedded, I feel that passion, but I am 

not sure that it is a passion that is widely felt across the United 

States. And you hear that from our colleagues, and I think this is 

part of the challenge that the Chairwoman expressed, among our 

colleagues who, you know, with a lot of other national priorities 

and needs of the American public, often stack that against the 

space program, and say, what do we get out of it? Well, our job, 

NASA’s job, really, is to share with the American public what it is 

that we, indeed, get out of the program. 

And I know, apart from my work experience at Goddard Space 

Flight Center, that what we get is we get lives that are saved and 

changed. When I was in a car accident four years ago, but for 

NASA’s airbags in my car, I don’t know that I would be sitting here 

today. And I think that we have to tell that story in a real way 

to the American public, and so, I share the passion that each of you 

has expressed in very different kinds of ways, want to acknowledge 

Discovery Communications. I know that half of the building is in 


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the Fourth Congressional District in Maryland, of Discovery Communications. That is an interesting block. 

But I want to say also, and just ask you to respond to it, is that 

we have the challenge at NASA, of exploration and science and 

risk-taking, and I would like you to focus on that risk-taking, because that requires a lot of investment, and sometimes, it works, 

and sometimes, it doesn’t. It is the nature of exploration and 

science. And we tend to, in the public, we can highlight the failures 

when it doesn’t work, and not how we build on that in science, because we build toward the next success. 

And I would like you to share with us ways in which you think 

that NASA can even communicate some of those failures in the 

most positive way, for the public to understand why the investment 

is needed, and sometimes, why it works and it doesn’t work. Ms. 

Smith. 

Ms. SMITH. Yes. Share the risk, is what I would say. We have 

an entrepreneurial new space community that is galvanized to be 

a part of the future of space. NASA has an excellent example of 

how it has approached it in its COTS program, where the risk is 

shared, because if the company, if the private company, does not 

meet its goals, it doesn’t get paid. 

I don’t think that the government needs to take on all of the risk 

when it has such a willing partner. What would happen if lowearth orbit were turned over to the entrepreneurial community, to 

the new space community, and NASA could get on with its exploration mission? That is a current question, a question in need of 

an answer, but also, in a way that galvanizes the entrepreneurial 

spirit, which has been so much a part of our nation, in a real way, 

in a beneficial way. 

Share the risk. 

IMPROVING COMMUNICATION TO THE PUBLIC

Ms. EDWARDS. Ms. Myers, I wonder if you could comment on 

that, in terms of the way we communicate with the public? 

Ms. MYERS. I think people can relate to, you learn more in failure sometimes than you learn in success, and that science is a journey, and exploring and growing is a journey. And I keep bringing 

everything back to how do you make it relatable, how do you tell 

these great stories that go on? And I think it is the honesty of 

there are big goals that people are out to do, and that NASA is out 

to accomplish, and it is sharing those stories, so that when it fails, 

you explain it. You see people go through okay, we are excited. We 

think this is all going to happen, and when it fails, you tell those 

stories. What did you learn from that failure that can push that 

out? 

It is getting people invested in their minds, in ways that they 

can relate to, and in their hearts, so that these become something 

that you feel invested in. And I think if you go back to the space 

program in the ’60s, we were all rooting along. We are all invested 

in there. These were our heroes. And how do we make those stories, how do we make those risks relatable and connect to it, and 

I think that is part of it? A different spin journalistically, than to 

capture people’s imagination and take them along for the ride. The 

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cause science is about questions, and when you have those questions that are out there, you get the answers. That leads to more 

questions. And if you don’t keep experimenting, you don’t move it 

forward. 

Ms. EDWARDS. Well, thank you very much, and Madam Chairwoman, my time has expired. 

Chairwoman GIFFORDS. Mr. Rohrabacher, would you like to go 

now, or would you like to wait until after Mr. Wilson? 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I can hold on for a few minutes. 

Chairwoman GIFFORDS. Okay. We will go to Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson. 

EXAMINING NASA PROMOTION TECHNIQUES

Mr. WILSON. Thank you. 

Mine is not so much a question as one that, I live in Ohio. Unfortunately, I don’t have a NASA center in my district, but we certainly do have NASA Glenn in Ohio, and I was just amazed when 

I was elected, and actually started learning more about NASA 

Glenn and what really happens. The amount of jobs that have been 

generated throughout our state, the amount of research, and the 

very things that I just sort of took for granted, as a lifelong Ohio 

resident, that those were not, I didn’t know they were connected. 

And I think that was talked about earlier. 

And so, mine is a question of, one of the gentlemen said he 

thought it would be a good idea that everything that was generated 

from NASA research would have a little NASA sticker on it. That 

is the best idea I have heard in a long time. And I think it is very 

good. 

I like the idea, because really, so many times, even those of us 

who live in Ohio, and have been around NASA Glenn all of our 

lives, don’t realize the intensity in our lives that has gone on there. 

So, how do we do a better identification, or a better education, if 

you will? 

General LYLES. Congressman, I am going to be a little bit parochial myself, since I commanded Air Force Materiel Command at 

Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. I had the same 

problem in the United States Air Force, with all the technology 

programs we were involved in, and particularly, I would use Ohio 

as an example. We never did a good job of communicating, communicating to the public and the state that you had Glenn Research 

Center, you had Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, the center of all 

technology for the United States Air Force, but nobody ever talked 

about it. 

And it was sort of self-imposed. We don’t, we did not have great 

communicators who could tell the story for us, people like Debbie. 

And where we did have communicators, we didn’t do a good job of 

educating them on the facts, so they could get the story out, and 

utilizing their great communicative skills. 

To me, I have always used one three word term for great management. It is communicate, communicate, communicate. And 

somehow, if we could take that seriously, and do a better job of 

bringing all of the right people to get the word out, I think we can 

do a far better job in Ohio and the other 49 states, and even the 

world, for that matter. 


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Mr. WILSON. You know, I attended the fifty year celebration last 

fall, and it was held in Cleveland, and it was amazing the amount 

of people, and certainly, the astronauts that have come, the heroes 

that have come from Ohio, but yet, it doesn’t all connect. And I 

think that communicate, communicate, communicate is a big part 

of where we need to be. 

Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. 

Chairwoman GIFFORDS. Thank you, Mr. Wilson. Excuse me, Mr. 

Rohrabacher. 

WILL THE PRIVATE SECTOR PLAY A GREATER ROLE IN THE

FUTURE? 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much. I apologize for being 

late, and we run from one thing to another here on Capitol Hill. 

And General Lyles, nice to see you again, and we have followed 

each others career for so long now, and I congratulate you for all 

the wonderful things you have done, and the rest of the panel as 

well, in terms of space. 

Let me, however, put a little bit of a different twist on communicate, communicate. I think, I see, when I was a young reporter, 

one of the first stories I covered as a younger reporter was when 

Senator, I even forget his name now. He was, it will come to me. 

In California, and he was only one term, so I don’t need to remember him, but he was endorsing the Space Shuttle, and anyway, 

when I went there, there was only a couple reporters who showed 

up, and it was there in Downey, where they had the markup of the 

Space Shuttle. And when I went in, there were five PR men there 

ready to meet my every need. Would you like a cup of coffee? How 

about some tea? Would you like a sandwich? How about this big 

packet of information? Pictures? Would you like to get a picture 

here? Five of them. I was making $100 a week, and I think they 

were making $500 a week each. 

I think NASA has a lot of money that it spends on promotion. 

It does. I mean, even to this day, I will look at the NASA Channel. 

There is a lot of promotion going on. I think where we are weak 

is not communicating. I think where we are weak is not focusing 

on specific things that we can do in space, and we can show specifically how they impact on the lives of our people. And there is such 

an array now of things that we depend upon from space. Spacebased assets, I used to only be able to call my grandparents when 

I was a kid, like once a month at most, and it was a $5 call, you 

could barely hear it. You had to go through operators who hated 

you for bothering them, and because of our space-based assets, that 

call, that was $5 in those days, and in this day’s money, it would 

be like $25. And we brought down the calls where people can call 

up their loved ones and communicate. Space-based assets. 

And we could go through the whole thing now, where spacebased assets have made such a significant change in our lives, I 

don’t believe the American people understand that. It is not necessarily communicate, communicate, but looking specifically at 

what things that have changed lots, not some guy, where they see 

the guy taking a space walk, and we get all sorts of pictures of the 

guy taking the space walk, and it looks like fun, but how are our 

lives changed? How will our lives change in the future? 


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I was just, I have this question for General Lyles. Do you see, 

first of all, I see the private sector playing a much greater role now 

than what it did in the past, and do you see the commercial space 

in, efforts will actually play a greater role as well in the future of 

this trend, toward having commercial enterprises, rather than just 

government-run enterprises in space? 

General LYLES. Congressman Rohrabacher, it is great to see you 

again, and the answer is absolutely. One of the recommendations, 

key recommendations of our National Research Council study was 

the need to look at the infrastructure and strategies on how people 

are involved in the space activities. 

And it wasn’t so much to imply that there shouldn’t be leadership and expertise at the NASA centers, but the NASA centers 

need to figure out a way they can open up the aperture, if you will, 

to allow commercial entities, academia, and others to sit at the 

table, and to provide solutions to help solve the problems. 

Today, the perception is, everything is NASA-centric. That may 

or may not be true, but commercial entities, and certainly academia feel they have been left out, in some cases, as our report 

points out, and we think just changing the way you approach business and the way you approach allowing people to work the solution will go a look way towards achieving that goal. 

WHAT SHOULD NASA DO REGARDING SPACE DEBRIS? 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. We are not talking about major new expenditures. We are talking about making sure we open up the way we 

do business, so that people who, on the outside of the circle, can 

now get involved, and they are already involved in some ways, but 

expanding that. 

One other question about this. To get the, to utilize space and 

the potential of space, we are facing a huge roadblock that nobody 

seems to want to face, and that is space debris. And I personally, 

of course, have focused a lot of my activity in this committee on 

near-Earth objects which are coming down and space debris. 

I would just ask to the committee in general. Shouldn’t we be focusing on that effort, to clear that space debris, so that we will 

open up new opportunities, without having to worry about a bolt 

coming through somebody’s new space station, or space project? 

General LYLES. Well, my answer is, I think there is attention, 

greater attention now to that particular problem. And something I 

think, again, our report points on, there is a need for greater integration and coordination amongst the different agencies, particularly the civil space agencies and DOD, on how you address common problems. 

And one common problem is what do you do about space debris? 

It is sort of a global commons, if you will. There is international 

interest in this. This is an opportunity to bring a lot of different 

players to the table. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. It certainly is. Yeah. 

General LYLES. Commercial, international partnership, et cetera. 

I think it is sort of a ripe sort of example for people to tackle as 

an enterprise. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. That is exactly right, general. We can bring 

people like the Russians and other people in, and the Europeans. 


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We can make this an international effort that would clean up the 

skies, so that we can use those heavens. 

Anyway, thank you very much, Madam Chairman. 

Chairwoman GIFFORDS. Thank you, Mr. Rohrabacher. And remember, we had a pretty interesting hearing on space debris about 

two months ago, and hopefully, we will follow up with that as well. 

Mr. Grayson, please. 

VIABLE SPACE-BASED BUSINESS MODELS

Mr. GRAYSON. Thank you. 

Interesting movie in the theaters right now called Moon. I don’t 

know if any of you have seen it. The premise of the movie is that 

there is a manufacturing operation on the Moon that mines helium-3 and sends it back to Earth for use in fusion reactors on the 

Earth. 

I am not going to ask you for a movie review, but it does raise 

an interesting thought, which is what are the possibilities for actually using space for economic purposes? At this point, historically, 

we only have one successful model in that regard, and that is satellites. Satellites are a viable business that provide economic benefit that exceed their costs, and therefore, has functioned as a business over the past couple of decades. 

We are starting to see the beginnings of a second business like 

that, like tourism, space tourism. And over the course of the next 

decade, we will see how that pans out, but it looks like there is the 

possibility that we will be able to, again, provide goods and services 

that exceed the costs of production, and therefore, have a viable 

business model. 

What I would like to know from all of you, in my three minutes 

and 53 seconds remaining, is what other potential models do you 

see in the future? What models can be viable economic uses of 

space in the next 20 years, or even the next 50 years? 

Let us start with you, Ms. Smith. 

Ms. SMITH. Certainly, there are companies that are looking at 

other uses of space for business purposes. One such company, Virgin Galactic, I am consulting with them. And while their core business will continue to be space tourism, they are looking at nonspace tourist markets, solar energy, atmospheric testing, using the 

White Knight captive carrier vehicle, which has the capacity and 

the ability to provide itself as a testbed for other kinds of testing, 

as a business. Bigelow Aerospace, with its space habitats, has already offered a number of business opportunities to other countries 

who want to do astronaut training on platforms, when our Space 

Station is not available, other parts of the world might look at that 

as a business opportunity. 

So, I think that people who are in this for the long haul, and 

many of the companies that I have worked with in the past and 

continue to are, are looking at playing it full out, all the way out, 

exploiting all of the opportunities that exist in space for business 

purposes, but also, to benefit mankind. 

Mr. GRAYSON. Well, some of the other opportunities that have 

come up over the years, but haven’t reached fruition yet are other 

forms of energy production. We have heard of that. 

Ms. SMITH. Yes, solar energy. 


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Mr. GRAYSON. Zero gravity high precision manufacturing. That is 

one that has come up from time to time. Occasionally, biotechnology applications. I want to know what you think are the 

cutting edge, the ones that are most likely to come to fruition. 

What about you, Ms. Myers? 

Ms. MYERS. Would like to do a little bit more research on that, 

and get back to you on it. 

Mr. GRAYSON. Okay. General? 

General LYLES. Congressman, I, you are talking mostly about 

commerce and business in space, and utilizing space. I have also 

always wanted to focus on commerce as a result of space technologies. 

The best example of that, of course, is GPS. Nobody could have 

envisioned when the GPS program was started by the Air Force, 

where it would lead, in terms of all the services. And I think, when 

you look at the technologies that will come out from energy perspective, with the electric propulsion for satellites, advanced materials even greater than the ones we have today, lighter, more durable, et cetera, those technologies generated as a result of space activities, I think, will change the way we do things around the world 

in so many different ways. 

It is commerce as a result of space, not in space, but to me, that 

is just as viable and just as valuable. 

STREAMLINING VIABLE AEROSPACE BUSINESS MODELS

Mr. GRAYSON. All right. So, it seems like we have a number of 

different alternatives here. They are all possibilities. What do you 

think that we can do to try to see that those are more likely to 

come to fruition? In other words, how do we make the future come 

faster? And Mr. O’Brien, I haven’t picked on you yet. 

Mr. O’BRIEN. Well, see, I am a big believer that the area we 

should be looking at is space-based solar power. I think that is, 

when you start looking at the numbers, and you start comparing 

it to say, building another nuclear plant on the ground. It is not 

that far off, and one way that you could get that going is, there are 

certain applications, specifically at the Pentagon, for example, 

where there is a need to get remote power to remote installations, 

and in order to keep an encampment in a hostile part of the world 

going, can be very expensive and very risky, as you convoy in fuel 

and whatever you need. 

Wouldn’t it be nice if the government, perhaps, started looking 

at some, maybe some seed money to think about small, space-based 

solar power applications that could take care of forward bases for 

the Pentagon? They certainly have a lot of money, right? 

Mr. GRAYSON. Well, it is a very interesting subject, but my time 

is up. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

IMPROVING OUTREACH TO CHILDREN

Chairwoman GIFFORDS. Thank you, Mr. Grayson. When I think 

about how we make NASA and space more relevant to Americans. 

It is really making NASA relevant to all Americans, and you know, 

I mean, from my vantage point and Members of the Committee, we 


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look out and we see you, but we also see the portraits of former 

Chairs of this committee. 

And if you look around and you see all of the Chairmen, they 

look surprisingly similar in many ways. And I know that, obviously 

Mike Massimino was the first astronaut to twitter from space, but 

now, we have the first astronaut twittering in Spanish in space, 

and that, of course, is Jose Hernandez. And you know, it is true, 

NASA has done a much better job recruiting astronauts and training astronauts that don’t, aren’t all the same type of American. But 

I am not convinced that we are doing a good enough job reaching 

out to a more diverse audience of kids. 

And I was just hoping the panelists could talk about ways that 

we could do that, either from an educational standpoint, or a marketing standpoint, or what NASA is able to do. Ms. Myers. 

Ms. MYERS. This is a subject I am very passionate about. It is 

making, reaching out to kids in school, reaching out to make it 

come to life, reaching out to empower kids that it is cool to be 

smart. Because for so many years, the smart kids didn’t feel empowered to be smart, especially in the inner cities. So, that was 

why we turned to a Will Smith, who is a role model, and said you 

are smart. You did it. You grew up in Philadelphia. Be a role 

model, and inspire kids that, to get excited about science, space, innovation, capture their imagination, and to make it something 

proud to be involved in. 

And to empower teachers, to give them the tools that they need, 

because kids learn differently. They learn as individuals in different ways, and it is a new generation that grows up with video 

games and twittering, and on the net, and they watch TV differently than any generation. So, empowering those teachers with 

the tools to be able to capture kids’ imagination. 

And I think we all have to do a better job of getting kids excited 

about what careers exist. Because we don’t tell the stories of the 

people, and what lights them up, and what gets them excited about 

their jobs. And when you talk to people in the space program, and 

you have a conversation of why did you get into this, or tell me 

what you really get excited about at the end of the day, or what 

are you working on, they become childlike, and it is contagious. 

We have to do a better job of getting those messages to kids, so 

that they see a bigger array of jobs to choose from, and we get 

them excited that they can change the world. And it is important 

subject. 

MARKETING ROLE MODELS TO THE PUBLIC

Chairwoman GIFFORDS. Let me just touch in on something. I was 

speaking with a woman astronaut a couple of days ago about how 

many women there are in the United States Congress, and our percentages are actually very similar, the women in the astronaut 

corps and the women in Congress. And while I think for men going 

into politics, there is sort of the sense of, well, I am the best person 

for the job. Of course I should get elected. I can’t say whether or 

not it is the same for someone who goes through the rigorous aspects of what it takes to be an astronaut, but I know, as a woman 

in politics, for me, it was meeting another woman and seeing her 

do it, and realize if she can do it, I can do it. 


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Ms. MYERS. Right. 

Chairwoman GIFFORDS. So, it wasn’t so much even having the information. And again, I think that is a story that you will hear 

from women that intended to go into this area. So, I am just curious whether or not the message also should be different for a different audience, whether it is different gender or different ethnic 

background, whether or not those messages should be different, 

and reach out to those large populations we have in this country. 

Ms. MYERS. It is that relatability factor. It is so important that 

we need those role models, and that we change to whoever we are 

trying to appeal to and speak to, present those role models and 

make it real, make that connection come to life. So absolutely. 

CREATING A ROLE MODEL: EXAMPLE

Chairwoman GIFFORDS. Mr. O’Brien. 

Mr. O’BRIEN. I think NASA should really go out of its way to put 

those role models forward. I mean, I really do think it is important 

to hear from those members of the astronaut corps, and make sure 

they are front and center. That should be a very high priority, 

when it comes to any public affairs campaign. 

And just when you talk about, you know, engaging kids, you 

know. It is really important that they also have a sense of 

participatory exploration. I am on the Board of Directors of the 

Challenger Learning Centers, which I know you are all familiar 

with. My first experience there was just amazing. I walked in with 

a CNN crew in tow. This is a room full of middle schoolers, and 

usually, a room full of middle schoolers plus camera crew leads to 

havoc. And they are waving, they are making, they act like kids. 

They act like kids, you know. 

And I walked there, and they are in this mission control center, 

and we are getting the camera in their face, and they are like get 

away from me, we are trying to save the Space Station right now. 

I thought wow, this is magical. Imagine that. This is something 

that really has engaged kids, you know. You know, that is how kids 

learn. They didn’t know they were learning. They were having a 

ball. And who knows how many of those kids, you know, I am convinced one of those kids will be on Mars one of these days, you 

know. Probably went to a Challenger Learning Center. 

And I was just at one recently, the Lower East Side of Manhattan, and it was in the midst of astronaut Scott Parazynski, recently 

summated Mount Everest, and I was part of that project, helping 

him tell his story in, you know, viral Web 2.0 way. I never got to 

leave my laundry room. He got to go to Everest, but in any case, 

I brought down, we did kind of a two way conversation with these 

kids using Skype with, you know, this astronaut at Everest, to a 

group of kids across all ethnic origins and socioeconomic, you name 

it. 

And kids are kids. They were fascinated by the whole thing, and 

there was nothing about it, I didn’t detect a barrier. Nobody in that 

room said I can’t do that. As a matter of fact, everybody was like 

wow, this is cool. I want to be a part of this. So, it really isn’t rocket science, but it does take money, and it does take effort. 

And you know, the kind of science teaching I got, unfortunately, 

kind of turned me off, and I ended up a history major, and the rest 


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is history. But who knows? Maybe if I had gone to a Challenger 

Learning Center, I would have gotten my ride on the Shuttle already. Who knows? 

TELLING THE STORY OF ASTRONAUT DIVERSITY

Chairwoman GIFFORDS. Thank you. General Lyles. 

General LYLES. Congresswoman, let me just echo one of the comments made by Miles. As I mentioned, I serve on the Augustine 

Human Spaceflight Commission, with Sally Ride and Leroy Chiao, 

an Asian American astronaut. 

We were down at Marshall Spaceflight Center a week before last, 

and just walking through some of the activities and facilities there, 

and there, on the wall of one of the buildings was a poster I have 

never seen before, and it was a poster that had very small pictures 

of all of the astronauts. Now, obviously, you can imagine the number of astronauts, so the pictures had to be very small, but it immediately jumped out at me how diverse we already have in our astronaut corps, but we don’t do a good job of spreading the word, of 

getting the word out about that. 

We certainly need to do more. I absolutely believe in that, but 

let us take advantage of what we currently have, and tell that 

story. It just blew my mind away, to look at that poster and see 

the diversity that already exists in that astronaut corps, which 

could be role models to so many different kids, so many different 

inner city places, and around the world, for that matter. 

Chairwoman GIFFORDS. That was absolutely correct. Mr. Olson. 

A NEW NATIONAL SPACE COUNCIL: ADVISOR OR MISSION

COORDINATOR? 

Mr. OLSON. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and one question 

for you, General Lyles. 

In your report, you advocated for the creation of an entity like 

the National Space Council, to coordinate the activities of the various Federal Government space organizations. Do you envision this 

entity being a governing body that would coordinate the actions of 

the various space agencies, and direct their programs to comply 

with the consensus of the group, or would it be strictly an advisory 

role? 

General LYLES. Congressman, I think it is probably more on the 

lines of an advisory role. The last thing that NASA or any of the 

other civil space agencies, or even DOD, for that matter, DOD 

space need, is another bureaucratic layer in between their activities and what jobs they have to get done. 

What we see the need for, however, is better coordination and integration of the various space agencies, to look for those common 

grounds, look for those things that they need to work together, to 

leverage the resources and capabilities of the various agencies, and 

probably more than anything else, a common theme this afternoon, 

to educate each other on what they are working on, what they are 

involved in, what the challenges are, so we can take advantage of 

lessons learned and best practices from each of the different agencies. 


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Our report specifically said that the President should charge two 

senior executives in the Administration, we specifically mentioned 

the National Security Advisor and the head of OSTP, to figure out 

the right policy and process. We stopped short, because the Academy does not like to tell the country, tell the government how to 

do business and organize, we stopped short of saying National 

Space Council, but that is sort of the role model, or the model that 

we thought would be appropriate. There needs to be a process, 

needs to be an institutionalized sort of organization to make that 

happen. 

INSPIRING AMERICA’S YOUTH

Mr. OLSON. Thank you for that answer. And I would like to just 

make one closing comment, sort of follow up on everything we have 

all been, talked about, about what we need to do to inspire America’s youth. And one little story, and some of you may have heard 

this before, but it is just a great story. I love it. 

Our youth, the love of space and human space flight is in them. 

And I saw it firsthand. I watched the STS–119 launch back in 

March, with 60 kids at a third grade elementary school in 

Sugarland, Texas. Now, as you can imagine, those kids, they came 

in about 25 minutes before the launch, and as seven and eight year 

olds would do, they just, you know, sat down. I talked to them a 

little bit about what was going to happen, what they were, expect 

to see, and opened up for questions. 

These kids grilled me. I mean, they grilled me for 24 and a half 

minutes, and good questions. And you know, we got down to 25 seconds left on the countdown, and they cut to a camera angle that 

had the big mission clock, you know, with the front of the Shuttle. 

And of course, didn’t see this coming, but you know, anybody else 

in the room could have. Those kids started screaming out the 

countdown at the top of their lungs, you know, 25, 24. And they 

are howling, and having a ball. But then, the most, the best part 

of it, the most inspirational thing happened right down as the 

countdown got down to about 5, and the main engine started to 

come down to life, and then, the solid rocket boosters fired, and she 

left the pad. And when she did that, every kid in that room was 

quiet and just stared at that TV, watching that Shuttle climb up 

into orbit and into space. 

NASA has the power to inspire. It is out there, and we just need 

to find a way to tap it. Thank you all for coming today. 

Chairwoman GIFFORDS. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Olson. You 

know, it wouldn’t be a Space Subcommittee hearing, if we didn’t 

have a chance to hear from Mr. Ralph Hall. So, Ralph, I just wanted you to, I know you didn’t have a question, but we would love 

to hear from you. 

Mr. HALL. Thank you, Madam Chairman. What a great chairman 

you are, and thank you for, not even bad to look at. And I have 

tried to get in touch with you when your husband was out of this 

world. 

Thank you. I have been in a very unhealthy atmosphere of a 

health bill, I was giving opening statements, so I am still kind of 

goofy, but this is very important to me, and this is a great witness 


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group here. And I am sorry, I did get to read some of the opening 

statements. 

I didn’t get to hear the questions, but I really thank you, because 

what you tell us is things that we need to know for the future, and 

I am sure I have an idea of what you said. But what we are all 

saying now is, I don’t know about what part of the R&D that we 

are entitled to or we get, but we need just a little more of it, because we need to close that four year gap in there some way. 

And I tell this story, and I told it to the gentleman who is heading up the study, the former CEO of, Norm Augustine, that, and 

my kids hate for me to tell them stories about the Depression and 

World War II, but I make them listen, and sometimes, I tell them 

a story, and then I will wait about ten minutes, and I will start 

over telling it again, and their eyelids will click at one another, you 

know, hit one another. And I am just practicing for when I really 

get in that shape, you know. Got to be looking ahead. 

But I told Norm about the last days of the Battle of Midway, before the Battle of Midway, which won the Pacific and ended the 

war against Japan. We had one carrier that was really fighting 

shape. We had another carrier that it was to take seven months 

to repair it, to where it could leave the port of Honolulu. And Admiral Nimitz went aboard, and that was on a Monday, and after 

his speech to them, he told them that that carrier was going to go 

along with the other carrier, and they were going to be a certain 

spot northwest of Midway, waiting for the Japanese to attack. We 

had broken their code. We knew they were coming. We knew where 

they were coming from. He said this ship will be ready no matter 

what it takes. 

And that is what I want somebody to say to them. It is money, 

and if we can’t close it on that four years, either from one side, 

using the bird we have, and I don’t know any better way to put 

it than, other than robbing off of the other two, but to make it as 

safe as we can, and get two years down to meet the two years that 

we could encourage the completion of our goal. 

It has to be done. We just don’t have any choice. We can’t be subject to Russia’s whims, and we can’t lose Japan and all those other 

people, as partners as they are now. We have got so much to lose, 

and NASA is great, but I don’t think they have been great enough 

to let the word go forth of how great they really are, and what they 

really do for us, and what they have done for people my age, and 

the fallout from health. We simply have to have our Space Station, 

and we need to accept nothing less than that. We just got to fight 

and battle and scratch for it. I think everybody here feels about the 

same way I do about it, and I certainly thank you all for your testimony. 

Chairwoman GIFFORDS. Thank you, Mr. Hall. Mr. Rohrabacher. 

REWARDING SCIENTISTS AND ENGINEERS WITH

COMPETITIVE PAY

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Yeah. I just would like to make sure that 

there is one point that needs to be on the record, at least. And that 

is, I think that inspiring young people is more than just fluff, and 

a lot of times, when we take PR approaches, that it turns out to 

be just fluff, and young people can see through that. 


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And as I say, when I went to that first press conference, they had 

five PR men for NASA, and all focused on the fluff, and here is the 

pictures of the astronauts having fun in the space walk. That is 

less inspiring than having NASA being involved in projects that 

really are going to affect the lives of the people on this planet, and 

that we are fully capable of. 

If we are going to inspire young people, we need that, we need 

substance, and we have got, the potential for substance is there. 

We have now reached a plateau where we have got so much in our 

foundation, intellectually, that it is almost unlimited what humankind will be able to do in the future, because of what we have, the 

plateau we have already reached. 

If we are going to have young people, just again, this last point, 

the young people are not going to be inspired if engineers and scientists are not paid as much as lawyers. I mean, it is as simple 

as that. Right now, you are not going to inspire young people to 

get involved in engineering and scientific endeavors, if they know 

that engineers and scientists drive around in old jalopies, and the 

lawyers drive around in sports cars and live in beautiful homes, 

and the engineers can barely afford to pay their rent. 

We have got to make sure our engineers and scientists are paid 

well, and to do that, I know this is going to go against everybody’s 

grain, we should not be bringing in engineers and scientists from 

India and China and elsewhere to lower the amount of wages that 

will be paid to our own people. We need to build our own capabilities up, make sure that when someone becomes an engineer, and 

sort of bringing down the pay level, by bringing people in from 

overseas, we should be paying more money to our own engineers 

and scientists. 

That starts right in education. We have to pay our teachers who 

teach science and engineering more money than we do those teachers who are teaching history, I am sorry, I am a history major, but 

there is lots of people who want to teach history. We need the scientists and engineers teaching our kids, and the kids need to know, 

they are actually, we reward something because we need those 

skills. We need to pay the teachers who teach that more money 

than someone who teaches basket weaving or gym or history or 

whatever. 

So, those things, if we are going to inspire people, let us be serious about it. That is where you start, by making sure the kids 

know they are going to, that their own lives are going to be able 

to be better by earning more money, by getting into those professions. 

Enough said. Thank you. 

Chairwoman GIFFORDS. Thank you, Mr. Rohrabacher. Yes, Ms. 

Smith. 

Ms. SMITH. One of the things that the Space Foundation is not 

timid about at all is going into failed situations, such as failed 

school districts, with space programs to revitalize, to inspire and 

encourage students to get into American science. 

We recently stood up such a project in Colorado in a failed school 

district, and using space as a curriculum there. I think that, as we 

look at K–12, and where does it need to start, and whether it is 

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propriate for it to start wherever it starts, and that we have got 

to galvanize the interest of students, get them more excited than 

they have ever been about math and science, and the potential, and 

the possibilities that space provides. 

Having people know what some of those benefits are is a beginning point. I was talking to a group of 13- to 20-year-olds last 

week, and talking about the fact that at the gas station, that your 

credit card is cleared by a satellite in space. Do you know that? 

They went no, no I didn’t know that. How does that happen? There 

are too many of those examples like that, that if highlighted, I 

think we would be able to bring this message closer to the average 

citizen, and we have got to do that. 

Chairwoman GIFFORDS. General Lyles. 

General LYLES. Yes. I agree 100 percent with Congressman 

Rohrabacher. But I might point out that where, perhaps, resources 

are not available to pay people the way they should be, the other 

thing I have found that galvanizes and incentivizes and motivates 

engineers and scientists is having great things to work on. 

Last week, I was at, as part of the Augustine Commission, we 

were out at SpaceX, and talking to Elon Musk’s team out there. 

Bunch of young engineers and scientists. Every one of them said 

exactly the same thing. They are not there for the pay. Right now, 

the pay is not there. They are still early beginning stages of their 

organization. They are all there for the excitement of what they 

can possibly do to contribute to the space program. I have seen the 

same thing in the Air Force, as you know. We don’t pay our civil 

servants a great deal of funds, but they are all there, because of 

the excitement of what they can do, and the possibilities of the 

technologies that they can get involved in. 

So, that is another way we need to try to motivate the engineers 

and scientists. 

MATCHING NASA’S BUDGET WITH GOALS

Chairwoman GIFFORDS. Well, I have one final question, and it actually stems from the wisdom of Mr. Hall, when he mentioned the 

gap that we are going to have with, only now, seven Shuttle 

launches remaining. 

Mr. Lyles, or excuse me, General Lyles, this is for you, and looking at your report and the comments made, there was an observation that NASA is inadequately funded to pursue many of its responsibilities, and that the Agency is being asked to accomplish too 

much with essentially too little. 

The report language says: ‘‘A coordinated, sustainable set of 

strategies should ensure that responsibilities are realistically 

matched to available resources. Such a match does not exist today. 

For example, NASA has a central role in civil space, yet by any 

reasonable measure, it is inadequately funded to pursue many of 

its responsibilities.’’ It goes on to say, the report, that: ‘‘Rather than 

requiring that a broad and ambitious program should be fit into an 

arbitrarily constrained budget as has been the case in recent years, 

a sustainable strategy would first define the program that the Nation is committee to undertake and then realistically define the resources that are required to accomplish that program.’’


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Would you please elaborate for the committee how you were able 

to reach that conclusion, and what exactly you meant? 

General LYLES. Well, Madam Chairwoman, I think just looking 

at all the things that are on the plate for NASA, and again, our 

study was of broader civil space activity, but we, in that particular 

case, were looking at NASA. All the things that are on the plate 

for it, for the Agency, all the missions that they are being asked 

to do, all the visions, if you will, for what we would like to have 

out of NASA, whether it is space exploration, whether it is the first 

‘‘A’’ in NASA, aeronautics, and they are heavily dependent upon to 

contribute to the aeronautical domain for FAA and others, if you 

will, that the resources do not match all of the things that they are 

tasked to do. 

And our recommendation was that we take sort of another look, 

if you will, not at taking away any of the missions, because I don’t 

think any agency is better equipped or better stated for doing the 

things that we have asked NASA to do, but figuring out, how can 

we set the strategy for when some of those things get accomplished. 

I was part of President Bush’s Implementation Commission for 

the Space Vision, the Aldridge Commission, back in 2004. And one 

of the things we recommended in even taking on the broad exploration mission was a statement we called go as you can pay. Recognizing that the resources may not be there to do everything we 

want to do in the timeframe, but structure a program so you could 

have successes, and move forward, and get closer to your goal, even 

within the available budget. But don’t give up the goal. 

So, that was sort of the notion for why our study sort of came 

up with that particular statement. Let us figure out what should 

be the pace, what should be the structure, what should be the milestones that we achieve with available resources, if we can’t get 

more to add to the mission? 

Chairwoman GIFFORDS. Well, I think I can speak for, on behalf 

of the entire subcommittee and the full committee, that we are 

anxiously awaiting the report from the Augustine Commission, and 

I think the Nation really is waiting, as well. 

I have no further questions. Any other Members? 

Mr. HALL. Madam Chairman. 

Chairwoman GIFFORDS. Mr. Hall. 

Mr. HALL. What would you think of a bailout for NASA? 

Chairwoman GIFFORDS. Well, Mr. Hall, I believe Mr. O’Brien had 

recently, actually, it has been about half an hour, suggested a 

NASA bailout. 

Mr. HALL. I don’t know anywhere they could spend it any better. 

And we ought to go demanding those things. You know, Jay Leno 

got right to the point, when he said that those automobile makers 

ought to keep on making automobiles, and those folks on Wall 

Street ought to start making license tags. And we need to bear 

down on them, and back NASA up. And it is money, and if we are 

throwing money away like we are, right, left, and sideways, why 

can’t they put it somewhere where it really means something, to 

everybody from K to 12 to graduation from college, and some brilliant people like you four, tell them we need that. 


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We ought to start a write-in right today, urging that this $450 billion laying up there somewhere, out of that first $800 billion, 

and we just $3 or $4, or maybe $4 or $5 billion. A little old billion, 

a little bitty billion dollar bills. 

Madam, thank you for a good job. 

Chairwoman GIFFORDS. Thank you, Mr. Hall. 

In closing, we, of course, have to congratulate our new Administrator at NASA, Charlie Bolden and our new Deputy Administrator, Lori Garver, talking about diversity. We are going to have 

an incredible new team, from the Obama Administration, that begins today. 

And I think reflected for many of the Members, you know, we 

hear this tremendous concern, our national economy, our energy resources. What is happening in health care, what is happening in 

terms of global terrorism? And in terms of, I believe, representing 

the best foot forward that our country can make is having a strong 

space program. And that is something that I know that we are 

going to work collectively on. 

So, I want to thank our panelists for being here today, our witnesses, for helping us remind the Nation, this great promise, and 

this great potential that NASA brings to us, and the ability to communicate that greatness to America and to the world. 

That is the end of our hearing, and I would like the Members to 

know that the record will remain open for two weeks, and if there 

are additional statements being made by the Members, they can 

submit those questions, follow up questions on the Subcommittee 

to our witnesses, and the witnesses are now excused, and the Subcommittee is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 3:57 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 


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Appendix: 

ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS


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ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS

Responses by General Lester L. Lyles [U.S. Air Force, Ret.], Chair of the Committee 

on the Rationale and Goals of the U.S. Civil Space Program, Aeronautics and 

Space Engineering Board, National Research Council

Questions submitted by Chairwoman Gabrielle Giffords

Q1. You testified that ‘‘Today, the perception is, everything is NASA-centric. That 

may or may not be true, but commercial entities, and certainly academia feel 

they have been left out . . ..’’ You went on to say, ‘‘as our report points out, 

. . . we think just changing that way you approach business and the way you 

approach allowing people to work the solution will go a long way towards 

achieving that goal.’’ Are there any examples from previous years in which the 

way that NASA worked with commercial entities, academia, and other institutions was particularly effective? If so, what made those institutional relations 

so effective?

A1. First, the committee was concerned that over recent years NASA has strayed 

from focusing its energies and expertise on advancing the frontiers of cutting-edge 

development of new technological capabilities and has diverted too much of its attention and resources to the operation of proven elements of space systems. NASA 

needs to be the creative engine that concentrates its energy on pushing the technological envelop, and it needs to leave the relatively more routine operation of proven 

systems to the private sector. Second, NASA has shifted towards protecting the 

work of its field centers at the expense of drawing more broadly on the expertise 

of some of the nation’s premier universities and other private sector institutions to 

pursue civil space program needs.

Q2. What are the implications of your committee’s recommendations on aligning 

space with national priorities for Federal agencies? Was the committee suggesting that NASA’s mission focus be changed? For example, what would you 

envision NASA’s role in addressing national priorities such as the provision of 

clean and affordable energy to be relative to the Department of Energy’s role? 

Is there a risk of diffusing the objectives for NASA to the point that the agency 

becomes ineffective?

A2. No, the committee did not mean to suggest that NASA’s mission should change 

but, rather, that its mission should be more consciously assessed in terms of how 

it supports broader national needs. For example, in the case that you cite regarding 

national energy issues, the committee meant to emphasize that NASA should recognize that (a) its climate research program plays a critical role in providing information that will help policy makers assess the implications of alternative energy policy 

decisions and (b) its advanced technology programs are relevant to searches for new 

insights to energy technology challenges. The capacity of civil space activities to 

serve foreign policy interests is another example of how NASA can align itself with 

broader national priorities. So the committee certainly does not intend to diffuse 

NASA’s objectives but, rather, to encourage the government to think about NASA’s 

role in the context of how it has the capability, within reasonable boundaries of the 

civil space program, to serve a range of broader national interests.

Q3. Your report’s first recommendation—Placing emphasis on aligning space program capabilities with current high-priority national imperatives, including 

those where space is not traditionally considered—provides a broad policy basis 

upon which the committee’s other specific recommendations are made. Are you 

saying that your other recommendations cannot be implemented without successfully establishing such an alignment? Do we risk missing unintended breakthroughs from broad R&D research if we primarily focus on these national imperatives?

A3. That is not the committee’s intention. The committee feels that the over-arching 

need is for the civil space program to be understood and supported for its role in 

supporting broad national priorities. Nevertheless, there are important actions to be 

taken both in support of that broad national context and to facilitate a meaningful 

civil space program at any level. However, it is difficult to cite specific examples of 

actions that are needed and that would not also advance broader national interests. 

For example, a strong program of scientific research, a strong Earth observation 

program, rationalization of export controls so as to promote a more competitive U.S. 

aerospace industry, and a more robust space technology development program are 

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gram a stronger tool to advance broader national priorities. Hence, the recommended actions are needed to meet the broadest national needs and to sustain 

a viable space program.

Q4. Your report states that ‘‘National space policy too often has been implemented 

in a stovepipe fashion that makes it difficult to recognize connections between 

space activities and pressing national challenges.’’ The report goes on to recommend that the President ‘‘task senior executive-branch officials to align agency and department strategies’’ and identity opportunities for how space activities 

can address priority issues for the United States and, to an extent, the world. 

Could you elaborate on, what specifically, this recommendations means in practice? To what extent can Federal agencies with different missions and requirements be aligned? What would you envision as the challenges in carrying out 

this recommendation and what are your thoughts on how those challenges 

should be addressed?

A4. The recommendation was to urge for a process to gather the technology needs 

of various federal agencies, and, to see if these needs can be addressed by the technical capabilities of the space program. One way to do this is a broad agency call 

for technical needs that can be examined by NASA for applicability to its programs. 

The technical needs could be from any agency. Likewise, this process could be applied in the reverse. That is, other organizations (e.g. 000) may have technologies 

that can satisfy NASA’s needs. The broad purpose of this recommendation is to do 

a better job of leveraging the technical capabilities and resources of agencies rather 

than have them all do their own thing.

Q5. Your committee’s report recommended that ‘‘NASA should revitalize its advanced technology development program by establishing a DARPA-like organization within NASA as a priority mission area to support preeminent civil, national security (if dual-use), and commercial space programs.’’ Could you elaborate on what led the committee to make this recommendation? How would the 

goals and priorities of this organization be established? How would it differ 

from NASA’s former Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC)? Should aeronautics technology development be included too?

A5. Our report explained that ‘‘Because of budget pressures and institutional priorities, however, NASA has largely abandoned its role in supporting the broad portfolio of civil space applications, and the [nation’s] space technology base has thus 

been allowed to erode and is now deficient. The former NASA advanced technology 

development program no longer exists. Most of what remained was moved to the 

Constellation Program and has become oriented specifically to risk reduction supporting the ongoing internal development program.’’ We then called for a program 

that would be ‘‘focused not so much on technology that today’s program managers 

require, but on what future program managers would wish they could have if they 

knew they needed it, or would want if they knew they could have it.’’ We also recommended that the program ‘‘should engage the best science and engineering talent 

in the country wherever it resides—in universities, industry, NASA centers, or other 

government laboratories-independent of pressures to sustain competency at the 

NASA centers’’ and that priorities should be driven by an extensive, independent, 

assessment of the current state and potential of civil space technology. A rejuvenated NIAC could be one element of such a program but not the only one. 

The committee did not address NASA’s aeronautics technology program, but in 

my personal opinion, NASA’s Aeronautics Mission programs are an example of this 

problem. Previously, there was little focus on the fundamental aeronautics needs of 

NASA or agencies the agency supports, e.g. the FAA. In the last couple of years, 

the Aeronautics Mission area has developed a ‘‘Fundamental Aeronautics’’ program 

that addresses the basic aeronautical sciences and engineering needs of the future. 

This Fundamental Aeronautics program has been especially valuable in nurturing 

and sustaining critical expertise in universities and research companies.

Q6. Your report’s second recommendation is aimed at NASA and NOAA taking leadership in forming an international satellite-observing architecture capable of 

monitoring global climate change and its consequences and support the research 

needed to interpret and understand the data in time for meaningful policy decisions. In particular, you call on NASA and NOAA to plan for transitions to continue demonstrably useful research observations on a sustained, or operational, 

basis. As you know, such transitions have been difficult in the past. What must 

NASA and NOAA do to make them successful? How should the broader issue 

of transitioning NASA R&D into applications and operational utility to serve 

national needs be managed?


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A6. The 2003 NRC report, Satellite Observations of the Earth’s Environment: Accelerating the Transition ofResearch to Operations, concluded that ‘‘the [current] transition process in general is largely ad hoc . . . and no mechanism is available to ensure that the transition process in general is efficient and effective.’’ To put it more 

starkly, no one either at NASA or NOAA is explicitly accountable for planning for 

and ensuring that transitions are accomplished. Therefore the report’s principal recommendation called for establishment of ‘‘a strong and effective joint NASA-NOAA 

office to plan, coordinate, and support the transitioning ofNASA research to NOAA 

operations.’’

With respect to the broader issue of transitioning NASA R&D to serve broad national needs, the committee’s recommendation for a DARPA-like organization to 

support a preeminent advanced technology program should have responsibility for 

facilitating research-to-applications transitions as part of its charter.

Q7. Your committee’s report deals forcibly with the risk of human space flight. The 

report also characterizes the high return to be achieved for conducting human 

space flight. Is there a mechanism capable of clarifYing the tradeoff of risk 

versus benefits for space activities? If not, what are the key areas of risk and 

benefits that should be considered in human space flight? What are some examples of transformative outcomes?

A7. As you note, the report says that worthwhile human space flight activities 

should have the potential for producing transformative cultural, scientific, commercial, or technical outcomes. Such results could include achievement of a fundamentally new understanding or perspective, a more comprehensive approach, an essential new enabling capability, or the opportunity to visit and observe some unique 

new location. The risk-benefit tradeoffs for human space flight are probably not 

quantifiable. But the committee felt that an acceptable U.S. human space flight program should be able to serve broad national interests in terms of technological development, economic growth, and inspiration, and should be of such a caliber that 

they demonstrably contribute to U.S. global strategic leadership. Examples of such 

transformative outcomes in the past would include the Apollo Moon landings, successful engineering and construction of the ISS, and the repeated repairs and upgrades of the Hubble Space Telescope.

Q8. Your report recommends that the U.S. government, under the leadership of the 

White House, ‘‘pursue international cooperation in space proactively as a means 

to advance us. strategic leadership’’. The report recommendation goes on to list 

several goals that this strategic international space cooperation should involve 

including partnerships in global change studies, expanding partnerships in the 

use of the ISS, and engaging developing nations in the use of space technology 

to facilitate sustainable development. How did the committee envision the potential implementation of this recommendation? How would you envision this strategic leadership be carried out so to align with the US government’s foreign policy goals and agency roles and responsibilities? For example, is this a topic to 

be included in a G–8 Summit agenda? Do you see a risk in ‘‘sharing the fruits 

of our ingenuity’’, as you put it, with others?

A8. There are many areas where other nations have achieved technological capabilities that are competitive with those of the U.S. Examples include Europe and Japan 

in Earth observation and robotic scientific spacecraft, Europe and Russia in space 

launch vehicles, and Russia in human spaceflight systems. In cases such as these, 

the risk of collaboration is not about losing our competitive edge by sharing with 

others but about losing an opportunity to play global leadership roles and remaining 

competitive by cooperating and collaborating with others. In other cases, the U.S. 

has an unquestionable technological lead, for example compared to third world countries in using space observations to benefit agriculture and other terrestrial economic sectors. In those cases, the U.S. can also exert leadership to promote global 

well-being without putting its technological advantages at risk. A third kind of 

interaction involves opportunities to cooperate with countries where we also compete 

geopolitically, because civil space activities provide a means to promote peaceful 

nonthreatening partnerships even during times of international tensions. This was 

the case with U.S.-USSR cooperation in human spaceflight during the height of the 

cold war. This might be the mode for future U.S.-Chinese cooperation in space. 

Decisions about which modes of cooperation to pursue and about which elements 

of the program to utilize need to be made at the highest levels of the government. 

They need to be made in the context of how U.S. foreign policy is framed to serve 

the national interest. Once those decisions are made, then there are a variety of 

platforms, including the G–8 and existing international space fora, at which proposals can be introduced to foreign partners.


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Questions submitted by Ranking Member Pete Olson

Q1. Your committee recommends the creation of a DARPA-like organization within 

NASA. What budgetary needs would the creation of such an office require and 

if an increase would not accompany it, where would such funding come from 

within the current budget?

A1. In testimony before the committee, former NASA Administrator Michael Griffin 

suggested that a proper budget for a good advanced technology program would be 

about ten percent of the agency’s development budget or approximately $1 billion, 

and I think that is the right level. Our report was very clear about the fact that 

there must be a realistic match between NASA’s assigned responsibilities and its 

resources: ‘‘Rather than requiring that a broad and ambitious program be fit into 

an arbitrarily constrained budget as has been the case in recent years, a sustainable 

strategy would first define the program that the nation is committed to undertake 

and then realistically define the resources that are required to accomplish that program.’’

Q2. Please elaborate on the differences as you see them between the benefits to having a long-term vision as opposed to a more short term one? How, in light 

ofPresident Bush’s Vision announcement in 2004 and two subsequent Authorizations by Congress, did the program become ‘‘unfocused?’’ What can be done to 

prevent such a thing from occurring in the future?

A2. In my opinion, the long-term vision presented by President Bush in the ’Space 

Exploration Policy’’ of2004 seems to have gotten off-track both at NASA and in the 

budgetary process involving OMB. NASA focused many of its resources and efforts 

on the Constellation program. Some basic science programs, and other developments, were not funded if they did not seem to support Constellation. This was not 

helped by OMB, which did not support programs that were not linked to Constellation. The solution to this is to mandate that any such program be balanced between 

long-term needs and short-term efforts, which may actually be enablers for future 

capabilities.

Q3. You talk about aligning space program capabilities in areas not traditionally 

considered. What are some of those non-traditional areas?

A3. NASA’s core mission has always revolved around space exploration, space 

science, and space technology. The committee did not intend to redirect NASA from 

those roles but to encourage attention to how those areas could serve a broader 

range of national interests. For example, space technology programs can benefit 

from and contribute to the state of the art in advanced materials, computational design and modeling, batteries and other energy storage devices, fuel-cell and compact 

nuclear power systems, fault-tolerant electronics, optics, and robotics. These areas 

are important in energy and transportation management, medicine, and many manufacturing sectors. Another example, which extends to both NASA and NOAA, relates to the fact that Earth remote sensing measurements from space and studies 

of the science of climate change are critically important for energy policy decision 

making, because alternative choices about approaches to meeting energy demands 

can have profound and profoundly different environmental effects.


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ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS

Responses by Patti Grace Smith, Member of the Board of Directors, The Space Foundation

Questions submitted by Chairwoman Gabrielle Giffords

Q1. Your written testimony refers to the use of new communications channels such 

as Facebook to reach out to kids and get them excited about space. Do we know 

whether or not social networking media sustain interest in space? What happens 

to those Facebook users beyond their online interaction? What content do you 

think will be most successful in sustaining kids’ interest in space?

Q2. The trends described in The Space Report 2009 regarding interest and achievement in the math, science, and technology subjects vital to the space industry 

give me pause, especially the finding about 18% and 23% of U.S. high school 

seniors being proficient in science and math respectively. Are there any initiatives that the Space Foundation has undertaken that give evidence of increasing 

student engagement in math and science? If so, could you briefly describe them?

A1. We’ve seen in the past few election cycles that people who connect through social networking sites, can and will translate their on-line interest with real world 

activity and support. The Wall Street Journal, CNN, Forbes and other established 

media outlets have all reported that companies are investing a lot of time and energy into understanding and eventually harnessing the power of these social networking sites for their own business interests. Those of us who care about our future as a space faring nation need to take this seriously and see what we can learn 

in order to engage and sustain the interest and support of young people. 

I also feel I must point out the incredible amount of usage of Facebook and Twitter during the recent political unrest in Iran. These can be powerful tools. 

One caveat I must provide the subcommittee is that usage of social networking 

is not an across-the-board phenomenon. Now that Web 2.0 has been around a few 

years, researchers are finding that better educated, more affluent children are utilizing it more than less affluent children. Our community cannot have a one-sizefits-all approach. We need to be flexible and adapt communication abilities that fit 

whichever audience we are seeking. 

As for content, I think we need for it to be-honest, compelling and present nearterm opportunities for young people. We also need to be ready to jump onto whatever comes after Web 2.0.

A2. We have an entire education department that works with students and teachers 

K–12 on improved STEM curriculum. In my full testimony I touched upon those 

specific programs. In my oral testimony in response to a question about education 

I briefly mentioned the brand new program the Space Foundation has embarked 

upon with a school district in Colorado. 

Colorado Springs School District 11 (D–11) has approved a proposal to create an 

aerospace-focused middle school in the former Emerson Middle School in partnership with the Space Foundation. 

The new school, which will be named Jack Swigert Aerospace Academy in honor 

of former astronaut and Colorado native John L. ‘‘Jack’’ Swigert, will open this fall 

with a space-related curriculum designed to drive proficiency in science, technology, 

engineering, and mathematics (STEM). It is located at 4220 E. Pikes Peak Ave. in 

southeastern Colorado Springs. 

The Space Foundation will:

• Deliver on-site space-related education programs for students and teachers;

• Provide opportunities for students and teachers to participate in Space 

FOlindation programs that bring space industry leaders and leading-edge 

technologies to the Colorado Springs area;

• Provide enhanced professional development for Swigert Aerospace Academy 

teachers;

• Create state-of-the-art teaching facilities and equipment; and

• Develop an on-site National STEM Teacher Training Center that will serve 

the entire district as well as bring in educators from throughout the country.

Student Programs 

Among the student programs provided at the new space school will be a customized version of the Space Foundation’s Science, Technology, and Academic ReadiVerDate 0ct 09 2002 12:32 Mar 02, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00080 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 Z:\DOCS\50745.TXT SCIENCE1 PsN: COMSCI

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ness for Space (STARS) curriculum. STARS includes 90 minutes of Space Foundation-provided instruction each week as well as follow-up classroom activities on topics such as rocketry principles, astronomy, earth systems science, and principles of 

flight. Students may also have opportunities to attend education sessions at the National Space Symposium and to interact with government and industry space leaders. 

Teacher Programs 

The Space Foundation will ensure that teachers have the skills to provide spacerelated instruction in the classroom through a series of in-service, professional development, and training programs. The Space Foundation will also conduct its Colorado Springs Space Discovery Institutes at the Swigert Aerospace Academy beginning in 2010. These intensive week-long classes provide ready-to-use space-related 

STEM lesson and activity plans and can be applied toward master’s degrees in a 

variety of science and space studies specialty areas. 

Teaching Facilities and Equipment 

The Swigert Aerospace Academy will house three learning labs to enhance classroom learning opportunities:

• The Mission Control Lab, which will open during the second semester, will 

simulate launch, flight and landing of a plethora of satellite space missions.

• The Planetary Rover Lab, which will open during the 2010–2011 school year, 

will include construction of a simulated Martian terrain to be used for robotics missions using student-designed-and-built robots.

• The Science on a Sphere (SoS) Lab, which will be built if adequate philanthropic support can be secured, will house a room-sized global display system 

that uses computers and video projectors to display planetary and solar system data and images onto a six-foot-diameter sphere. Developed by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), SoS can illustrate many compelling images, including atmospheric storms, climate change 

trends, ocean temperatures, and celestial bodies.

Although primarily for use within the Swigert Aerospace Academy, the labs can 

also host classes from other schools within the district and students from other districts, providing additional financial resources for the school.

Question submitted by Ranking Member Pete Olson

Q1. Compared to other industries, can you give an overview of the state of the aerospace’ industry, particularly in regard to its growth?

A1. Aerospace is not immune to the larger global economic forces currently at work. 

Major aerospace companies have begun to have layoffs due to expected flat budgets 

at NASA and the Department of Defense on major new sophisticated programs. The 

most recent forecast from the Aerospace Industries Association (AlA) has forecasted 

for the near term future reduced federal R&D budgets that will impact American 

aerospace. Recently both Boeing and Airbus have had trouble delivering new flagship airliners on time to their customers. 

The most recent Commercial Space Transportation Forecasts from the FAA’s Office of Space Transportation, which looks ahead through 2018, project an average 

annual demand of26.7 commercial space launches worldwide from 2009 to 2018. The 

forecasts are a decrease of3 percent compared to the 2008 forecast of 27.4 launches 

per year. Twenty-eight commercial launches occurred worldwide in 2008. Additionally, Forecast International (FI) projects 636 expendable launch vehicles to be produced over the coming decade, worth approximately $48 billion. 

As stated in our 2009 Space Report, the recent credit crunch has also impacted 

the ability of commercial space companies to obtain capital. This crunch may delay 

the acquisition of replacement satellite systems by commercial satellite fleet operators. Companies with strong balance sheets in this period of economic uncertainty 

may also see to build alliances with industry partners or seek outright mergers and 

acquisitions.


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ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS

Responses by Debbie Adler Myers, General Manager Science Channel

Questions submitted by Chairwoman Gabrielle Giffords

Q1. In Mr. O’Brien’s prepared statement, he said that NASA’s Public Affairs needs 

to ‘‘speak with one voice.’’ At the same time, he testified during the hearing that 

NASA workers ‘‘need to be empowered’’ and ‘‘spread the word.’’ He mentioned 

being allowed to twitter as one example of empowerment. That of course raises 

the issue of how to approach having NASA speak with one voice while also encouraging empowered workers to speak as individuals without being concerned 

about being ‘‘off message’’ can be reconciled. What is your reaction to Mr. 

O’Brien’s statements?

This notion of ‘‘staying on message’’ while also having freedom of expression is 

something we’ve considered at Science Channel as well. We often have new hosts 

and presenters on our series with personal interests in Facebook, Twitter or other 

forms of social media. Some are also working journalists, either professional 

bloggers or print reporters. We’ve developed guidelines to help our social media-inclined talent understand how we talk about Science Channel and when it’s appropriate to share information. 

What could be very exciting for NASA is developing a program that would allow 

chosen employees to begin using social media. NASA could identify the best people, 

at all levels of the organization, not just at the top, who would be ambassadors to 

spread the word about their agency and specific missions. Once selected, they would 

be trained and given ground rules, then encouraged to reach out to their social networks or create new ones. Allowing a large, but selected group of people to authentically spread the word about their work would give NASA a greater voice and allow 

the personalities and passion of the employee base at the agency shine.

Q2. What do you view as the most significant barriers for NASA in communicating 

the relevance and inspiration of space to the public at large? What would you 

recommend be done to overcome those barriers?

A2. The biggest challenge is how to make what NASA is doing understandable and 

exciting to a general audience. Public-private partnerships could help overcome this 

barrier. Science Channel and other private companies play an important role in getting the word out. IfNASA could create a forum for regularly sharing information 

about their upcoming missions and research, it would allow the private sector to 

help them get the general public invested in their success. Quarterly briefings to 

media organizations would allow NASA the opportunity to not just tell us what the 

data says, but also what it really means, or could mean to the future. At Science 

Channel, it’s our responsibility to take the work of NASA and make it relevant to 

people’s lives—our job is to take the information provided and craft it into amazing 

content that lives on television, online, mobile and devices yet to be invented.

Q3. Your prepared statement speaks to the interest that your viewers have in space 

and notes that ‘‘it is one of their favorite subjects’’ and ‘‘space programming 

rated 25% higher’ than your network average during the last quarter. How do 

you reconcile the interest that your viewers express with the oft-expressed notion 

that there is waning public interest in space?

A3. We look for great space stories and present them in a way that engages our 

audience and inspires them to think and feel. It’s important to note that we aren’t 

presenting research papers or showing missions in real time (unless we are live)—

instead we have the tremendous luxury of following a project for months and editing 

it into a riveting hour of television. That’s very different than watching a silent 

space walk in real time—we can explain what’s happening, provide background 

about the dangers the astronauts face and put the mission in the context of human 

achievement. It takes a team of incredibly talented producers and editors, as well 

as willing astronauts and scientists, to make this hour of television. 

Customizing content for different audiences is not a ‘‘one size fits all’’ format, it’s 

an art form. We seek to make people feel a connection to space. We’ve found that 

viewers want information for their brains, but they need us to capture their emotions at the same time. In short, we do not believe that interest in space is waning, 

but that the citizenry is simply demanding that space information be presented in 

engaging and accessible formats that make space relevant to their lives.

Q4. In your written statement, you note that ’’we bring science to life by making it 

relevant to people’s everyday lives, celebrating the ingenuity in all of us.’’ That 


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gets to the heart of this bearing. How do Science Channel and Discovery go 

about making space relevant to people’s everyday lives? In that regard, you note 

in your prepared statement that ‘‘the cliche we struggle against is that science 

is boring and dry and something that I might not understand.’’ How does Discovery work to entertain without compromising depth and scientific accuracy?

A4. Scientific accuracy is absolutely essential to all that we do without it, we’re a 

pure entertainment channel. What we’ve found is that a mix of approaches to 

science is critical to success. We have nights of very deep science, including physics 

and mathematics. But we’re also programming lighter nights, with a science trivia 

show or an engineering competition series. It’s important to appeal to people with 

widely different interests in (and understanding of) science. We give them a base 

of knowledge and encourage them to sample our more challenging fare. If presented 

in the right way—with engaging experts and great visuals, with a storyline that 

makes it clear that this science matters, that it’s part of their lives—then we’ve succeeded. We also provide a depth of resources online for people who might want to 

learn more—this is hosted on a combination of ScienceChannel.com and 

HowStuftWorks.com. And, finally, we’re experimenting with new ways for audiences 

to connect with our mission and content, through Twitter, Facebook, gaming and 

mobile devices.

Q5. For what purposes and with what type of content does it make sense to use social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, for outreach on space activities and 

when does it not make sense?

A5. Social and new media is absolutely critical to the future success of our business. 

This is an entirely new language for the current generation. What we’ve found is 

that when people feel like they can see behind the scenes, they get a sense of ownership and connection. When we open up our content and mission via social media, 

we give a voice and personality to Science Channel and we provide a more intimate 

relationship to our audience. 

A majority of our time has been spent on Twitter outreach—it’s an instantaneous 

assessment of what our viewers like, what kinds of information they seek out and 

how they’re reacting to our website or programming. We have a very active Twitter 

channel where we host scientists, talent and our own staff members for live sessions 

and we also re-post information that we think is pertinent to our audience—like interesting articles from Popular Science or a science magic show in New York City. 

In the space genre, we actually hosted a NASA scientist on our Twitter live during 

the Hubble repair mission. Our audience loved it—their questions were answered 

in real time as they watched the launch. 

It makes sense to use Twitter if you have the time to create a ‘‘personality’’ for 

your feed. It helps to have just a few people creating a voice for the organization 

and then host people who can provide a greater depth of information. Imagine how 

exciting it would be for people to tweet with a former astronaut during an important 

mission. Or with a NASA Mars expert during the next Hollywood feature film that 

has a storyline about a colony on the red planet? Using Twitter would make NASA 

exciting and more three dimensional.

Q6. In your prepared statement, you refer to Discovery’s partnership with NASA, 

and other entities, ‘‘to film their amazing achievements and then bring them to 

the viewer at home.’’ You also noted how a dialogue with NASA about its research and future missions led to an eight-part series you’ll air on the big questions in space. How well are these types of partnerships working? What are the 

best ways to leverage the strengths of both NASA and outside communications 

entities to inspire, engage and educate about space and the benefits of space to 

society?

A6. The partnership with NASA Goddard that lead to the series with Morgan Freeman has been a tremendous success. Our first meeting set the stage for a deeper 

partnership and we are now creating an ‘‘advisory committee’’ to help us shape the 

program further. NASA has provided us with access to scientists, footage and technology and will serve as our technical advisor on the series to ensure accuracy. Our 

goal is to take what NASA is doing now and project it three more steps into the 

future, so the accuracy of our projections is critical.

Q7. 1A provision in the NASA Authorization Act of 2008, which became Public Law 

110–422, focuses on ways to enable public participation in space exploration 

missions to the Moon, Mars or other bodies by using technologies that can deliver a rich, multimedia experience of the actual exploration mission to the public through broadcasts and the Internet. What are your thoughts on how digital 


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communications and communications technologies might help bring the public 

closer to experiencing space exploration?

A7. As discussed above, there are a multitude of options. NASA could have a former 

astronaut or other expert available to twitter during a key mission, or have interactive quizzes or fast facts available on a dedicated website page so that viewers 

could follow up on or dive deeper into topics they find to be of particular interest, 

or partner with media companies who can provide access to supplemental entertainment and educational resources such as space-related movies, documentaries, or 

books, or reach out to schools by showing missions in the classroom over broadband 

connections so that teachers can guide students’ experiences as part of their curricula.

Questions submitted by Ranking Member Pete Olson

Q1. What might Congress do to enable better and more effective partnerships between private broadcasters and government agencies?

A1. Congress’ information-gathering and lawmaking authority well positions it to 

ensure that public-private partnerships exist. Simply knowing that Congress feels 

this is critically important is very motivating. Pose the questions to us and challenge the public and private sectors to come up with solutions together. I recommend starting a media advisory committee to work with NASA and NOAA to 

help them better communicate their messages to the media. We need better access 

to scientists and people who want to tell their stories and we also need to help those 

people learn how to make their stories compelling. I would welcome the opportunity 

to help the agencies with this process and with setting up engaging quarterly briefings for media.

Q2. What obstacles have you seen within NASA that, as a government agency, prohibit it from publicizing its achievements?

A2. Because NASA’s core mission is not one of story-telling or self-promotion, but 

rather one of scientific exploration, it can benefit from public-private partnerships 

with entities whose primary mission is to educate and inspire the pUblic. We were 

incredibly lucky to find a champion at NASA Goddard to help us navigate the agency and this has been critical to the success of our partnership and our ability inform 

the citizenry about the exciting things NASA has done and plans to do. Congressional encouragement of such partnerships and NASA’s ongoing education of its 

partners about what it is doing are essential to the creation of vital and productive 

partnerships-partnerships that tell engaging stories and make space relevant to people’s lives in ways that would be difficult for NASA to do alone.

Q3. Regarding NASA’s communications and messaging strategies; what is NASA 

particularly good at? In what forum and on what subjects is NASA the most 

effective?

A3. NASA is at its very best when something BIG is happening, such as potentially 

finding water on Mars. No one is better at the big finds, providing free footage, access to experts and amazing resources to media.


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ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS

Responses by Miles O’Brien, Journalist

Questions submitted by Chairwoman Giffords

Q1. In your prepared statement, you stated that ‘‘the agency, dispersed geographically as well by centers of expertise and excellence -does not speak with one voice 

as it should. Public Affairs here in Washington needs more authority to direct 

the far flung PR operations . . ..’’ In addition, you testified during the hearing 

that the NASA workforce needs ‘‘to be empowered . . . because if you unleashed 

the power of that workforce, and allowed them to spread the word, we could just 

stand by and watch them win the country over.’’ You mentioned allowing workers to twitter as one way to help empower them. How do you reconcile the need 

for the agency to ‘‘speak with one voice’’ while at the same time allowing each 

individual worker to speak as an individual and not be concerned about being 

‘‘off message’’?

A1. The remarks may seem inconsistent, but I am talking about the difference between strategy and tactics. The Public Affairs Office in Washington needs to have 

more direct authority over the PAO offices in the field centers and the EPO personnel assigned to specific mission directorates. All of these entities have tremendous autonomy to conduct public relations as they see fit. This leads to inconsistencies, inefficiencies and parochial interests trumping the greater good for NASA on 

a national level. NASA must have a single entity that is seeing the big picture when 

it comes to messaging. All that said, there is tremendous untapped potential to harness the enthusiasm, passion and knowledge that NASA foot soldiers possess. Social 

networking is an amazingly powerful tool to engage people in the adventure of space 

in a very personal way. NASA’s workforce should be empowered to engage people 

in this manner—but just like the PAO and EPO offices in the Centers and Directorates—the people who engage in social networking must be aware of the boundaries and the overall priorities of the agency. NASA is filled with smart people who 

want to do the right thing for the agency (and for the great goal of keeping the public engaged in space) so I suspect the agency might be pleasantly surprised at how 

effective this approach might be. Loosening the reins is not without risk, but the 

upside far outweighs the possible occasional embarrassment that might arise.

Q2. What do you view as the most significant barriers for NASA in communicating 

the relevance and inspiration of space to the American people and to the public 

at large? What do you recommend be done to overcome those barriers?

A2. The biggest barrier is timidity and fear. Frankly, NASA has become so worried 

about making a misstep that will offend a member of congress, an OSTP staffer or 

the general public that it often delivers a message that is bland to the point of banality. The irony is NASA, an agency that knows as much about risk (and managing 

it)—is risk averse when it comes to talking about that very risk. This is a problem 

that primarily infects the piloted space side of the house—and has deep roots in the 

way the space shuttle program was sold to Congress. NASA sold the STS as a routine ‘‘airliner-like’’ avenue to space—and thus downplayed the tremendous risk of 

flying a space shuttle. This gave the public good reason to tune out when the missions flew—and then alienated and angered people when it became tragically apparent that it was not the case. NASA should embrace the risk—and speak candidly 

about it. The public will be all the more fascinated if they know the real stakes 

when people push the high frontier.

Q3. For what purposes and with what type of content does it make sense to use social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, for outreach on space activities and 

when does it not make sense?

A3. It makes good sense for NASA workers to share the day to day excitement and 

challenge associated with their jobs. What is it like to be faced with a huge problem 

that no one has solved—and have to think up a solution—and by the way—human 

lives are at stake . . .. Or how do smart people decide where to land on a distant 

planet. And what are the trade-offs between weight, capability, budget and time as 

you build a spacecraft. What amazing findings have NASA’s armada of spacecraft 

yielded—and what do they tell us about the universe? Are we alone? What do NASA 

people think? Why are they so excited to go to work every day? Why is learning 

something really hard, like engineering or physics, so worth it? Why does an astronaut with a family believe it is worth risking his/her life to go to space? It goes on 

and on . . . NASA is a narrative rich environment. There are so many good stories 


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to tell that would engage people. The areas where NASA folks on the social nets 

should steer clear should be obvious: talking about operational decisions in real 

time, commenting on agency policy or making political statements. But if NASA can 

trust its people with the lives of its astronauts, surely they can be trusted to speak 

freely (within boundaries) about their work with the public.

Q4. There’s an ongoing national conversation about the news industry being in jeopardy, and the role of journalism in society. With regard to science, we depend 

on skilled journalists who can sort through the complex issues, who can report 

in a balanced way, and who can help people understand what they need to know 

about current science and research, and how it impacts their families and communities. This matter is particularly relevant to today’s hearing on the relevance 

of space to people’s lives. To what extent does the quality of journalism about 

space affect the public attitudes, understanding, and awareness of space?

A4. The skilled journalists who have expertise in this realm are still out there—

but they are no longer at the mainstream outlets—which have gone out of their way 

to ignore science and technology coverage—Even in the face of evidence there is a 

large audience with an appetite for the content. That said, the mainstream outlets, 

with few exceptions, are in their own race to the bottom and no one in Congress 

or at NASA should spend much time pondering cures to what amounts to a terminally ill patient. The good journalists are finding homes in new places. They are on 

the web, blogging. tweeting and meeting their audience on Facebook. They are producing video content for virtually no cost at all-and they are informing an audience 

that finds them wherever they are in the world. The good journalists are still out 

there but they are in a different neighborhood. They are no longer constrained by 

the confines of Michael Jackson, Balloon Boy and Tiger Woods and thus they are 

providing much more in depth coverage than ever. This only further buttresses the 

case that NASA needs to be a player in this league.

Q5. You are now covering Shuttle launches for web viewers through a website. Does 

the difference between a general audience, as is the case for national news outlets, and a space-specific audience, as is likely the case for most space websites, 

alter the way you report? Are there any conclusions you would offer as to how 

space activities might be reported more effectively to the general public in order 

to generate and maintain viewer interest?

A5. Clearly when I am on for six straight hours, I have time to indulge viewers in 

minutiae and details that would never see the light of day on CNN. But as a history 

major. I come to the technical field always cognizant of the Humanities Nation. You 

need to be unafraid to delve into the world of the left brain—while always operating 

from the right brain. It is possible to introduce an audience to complex ideas—so 

long as you are learning with them. This is how you keep viewers engaged and that 

is where NASA, an organization of scientists and engineers, often misses the mark 

with the general public. Not everyone speaks the language 

of space—indeed most people are positively phobic about it. Finding people who 

have a foot in the world of the arts and language—and no fear of the technical is 

the key to pushing NASA outside its bubble.

Question submitted by Ranking Member Pete Olson

Q1. What obstacles have you seen within NASA that, as a government agency, prohibit it from publicizing its achievements?

A1. See response to number 2.

Q2. Regarding NASA’s communications and messaging strategies; what is NASA 

particularly good at? In what forum and on what subjects is NASA the most 

effective?

A4. I would give a gold star to JPL—for allowing the public to engage in a special 

kind of participatory exploration. They were the first to allow people to see science 

at the same time the scientists got the raw data—and they have never blinked since 

then. Their efforts to pioneer the use of Twitter and other social networks remain 

in the vanguard for NASA. In Houston, there are pockets that have understood this 

and have pushed the social networking envelope—but it is in spite of Public Affairs—not because of it. The lesson here is there are passionate people champing 

at the bit to share their love of space with a larger audience. NASA must find a 

way to give them some freedom—or ultimately the agency will become irrelevant.

Æ


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