the ayala's will. we have a new member of the committee and i would like to introduce him. he is darren lahood whose father i served with him congress some years ago. he represents the district in illinois. he is a former state senator or serving as a state senator when he was elected to congress and before that he was both a state and federal prosecutor. so, we welcome him to the committee. he's going to be serving on two subcommittees research and technology and oversight where he will be bringing all of those legal skills to bear. and so, we are pleased to have him join us today and permanently on this committee. welcome to you. >> i'm going to recognize myself for an opening statement and then i will recognize the ranking member. edwin hubble once said equipped with his five senses man

explores the universe around him and caused the adventure of science. there are fewer greater adventures in the search of life beyond earth and when the hubble space telescope was launched in 1990, planets around other stars haven't yet been discovered. the only planets we knew were those that orbited son. since 1995, however, the first extrasolar planet was detected the rate of discovery of new planets and external solar systems have been truly remarkable. today with the telescope we have found nearly 2,000 confirmed planets that orbit around other stars in our galaxy. of these, 306 y. within the habitable zone of the stars they orbit where water could exist. and 14 are almost the size of the earth. whether life exists beyond earth and if so, how humans can detect it is a critical question. if the definitive evidence of life is found, it may be the most significant scientific discovery in human history.

the search for life in the universe is a priority of nasa and the scientific community. ..

i'm glad she has joined us today. within our solar system the question of whether life exist or existed on mars continues to capture the public's imagination and in the past year nasa's curiosity rover made several discoveries related-- relevant to the search for life on mars and curiosity measured a spike in methane and atmosphere of its research site undetected other organic molecules and drill samples from the mug stone that once set at the bottom of the lake and jupiter's moon shows strong evidence of an ocean of liquid water beaded-- beneath its surface, which could host conditions favorable to life. nasa selected nine science instruments for a future mission to europa and two on the southwest research institute in

san antonio. these instruments will help scientists in the chemical makeup of the potentially habitable environment. last july astronomers with help of the telescope confirmed the discovery of the 452b, the first near size of planet around a some like * this discovery marks another milestone in the journey to find another. the transiting planet survey satellite, which will launch in 2017, and the james webb telescope, which will begin in 2018, will help scientists discover more plans with potential bio signatures in their atmosphere such as evidence of oxygen and methane gas. around the world is relatively small number of astronomers measure the universe and try to filter out the cosmic noise and

interference of satellites and studies-- spacecraft to find anomalies that could represent life. the search for life beyond earth also inspires new generation of explorers and motivates students to study math, science, engineering and computer science. a few months ago astronomers confirmed that palm lag, a 15-year old student discovered xo planet w asp-- 142b, which orbits a star proximally 1000 light-years away in the constellation hydra. it is in our human nature to seek out the unknown and discover the universe around us. the stars compel us to look upward and lead us from this world to another. many americans often gaze into the beauty of the night sky and some may wonder if there is life beyond our pale blue dot. i think our witnesses and look forward to hearing your testimony today and particularly about recent development in the field of astrobiology and the search for life and now will recognize the gentleman from

texas, ranking member for her opening statement. >> thank you, mr. chairman, and good morning and let's meet welcome our distinguished panel of witnesses today. do look for it to your testimony. i want to welcome mr. hood to the committee and to simply say that the first week of this week i visited the curiosity team and france and the excitement is beyond measure. administrative bolden stated in the preface of nasa's strategic plan that when we explore the solar system and the universe we gain knowledge about the dynamics of the sun and the planetary system and whether we are alone. with respect to the question of whether we are alone, in search for life beyond earth is a topic this committee has devoted a lot of attention to over the past

two years. i don't know if we plan to take life somewhere else. i don't know where our chairman wants to go, but i'm interested in following him and i understand the purpose of today's hearing is to get another update on that topic. it is my hope that our witnesses will also take time to discuss how their research activities can be used to help foster excitement in our young people and spur them to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and math. that is important because these young people are the future technological leaders and innovators who will be critical to our nation's growth and progress going forward. while it's exciting to search for intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, i hope we don't elect nurturing the intelligent life here right here in our country. as-- i went to recognize this is a return visit by doctor

jonathan lunine. when you're go he testified before the committee on national research panel report entitled pathway to exploration and revealed the future of human exploration and that was completed pursuant to nasa authorization of 2010. i highly recommend that our new or is on the committee and in the rest of the congress as a whole, for that matter, read this report as i found it to be objective in its endorsement of the goal of sending humans to mars and thoughtful in its recommendation for an exploration program to send humans to the surface of mars. the central goal established by this committee and the house passed nasa authorization act of 2015.

again, i want to think our witnesses and i yield back. >> i think the ranking member for those nice comments. let me introduce our witnesses. our first witnesses doctor ellen stofan, nasa's chief scientist and principal adviser to nasa and millet-- administrator on the science program in science related strategic planning and investment. this is her stack-- second term at nasa and she recently held a number of senior scientist positions at the jet propulsion laboratory. doctor ellen stofan is a recipient of the presidential early career award for science and engineers and earned her bachelor's degree from william and mary, doctorate degrees in geological sciences from brown university. our second witness today is doctor jonathan lunine, director of the cornell center for astrophysics and planetary science at cornell university where he specializes in astrobiology. doctor andrew siemion has extensive search for life on other planets.

he worked as an interdisciplinary scientists on the cassini mission that showed one of saturn's moons may host micro- byatt life and on the james telescope which we will touch which will study the orbits of life in the near future. doctor jonathan lunine received his bachelor's from the university of rochester and phd in planetary science from the california institute of technology. our third witness is doctor jacob being. he also is the leader of the xo planet group, which uses telescopes to detect and characterize xo planets. doctor bean's work has the hubble telescope to make breakthroughs-- about eight, which includes the measurement of the first spectrum of a super earth the planet. doctor bean also develops new instruments for characterization in helping to design the giant

magellan telescope, which will soon be the worlds largest telescope. doctor bean received his undergraduate degree in physics it-- does this and his phd in astronomy from that university of texas in austin. our final witness today is doctor andrew siemion. doctor andrew siemion is an astrophysicist at the university of california berkeley and serves as director of the uc berkeley center for extraterrestrial intelligence research and his research interest includes studies of celeste real phenomenon, instrumentation and he also is a leader of the breakthrough was an initiative, a 10 year 100 million-dollar initiative to search for extraterrestrial life that is possibly the most comprehensive search for alien to medications today and he received his phd in astrophysics from the university of california berkeley. we welcome you all including experts in the field and doctor ellen stofan, would you begin.

>> thank you. i am pleased to appear before the committee to discuss astrobiology and the search for life on earth that if i could have the first slide, please. nasa science missions are providing evidence of possible habitable environments beyond earth and with future technology and instruments underdevelopment we will ask what the solar system and beyond and could indeed, perhaps in at the last 10 to 20 years discover some form of life passer present. our search is making amazing progress. when i was a phd student, scientists suspected planets might be commonplace in the universe, but we had not found evidence. twenty years ago we found at the first evidence of such a planets and today thanks to nasa's space mission and ground-based telescope lab identified nearly 5000 planets orbiting other stars and we now believe that the fast majority of stars in the universe have planets around

them. in july, the kepler mission confirmed that the first the earth sized planet in an inhabitable zone around a semi- start. on mars, a series of national emissions with the rover nearly three years ago have allowed us to make fundamental discoveries. next slide. we now know mars was once a waterworld, much like earth with clouds and a water cycle and indeed some running water on the surface. for hundreds of millions of years about half of the northern hemisphere of mars had a notion, possibly a mile deep in places and indeed we now know that we live in a soggy solar system and undoubtedly in a soggy universe. for instance, jupiter lies outside the inhabitable zone and we would expect water are to be frozen. gets, we have evidence of liquid oceans are three moons of jupiter under the icy crust. using the hubble space telescope we have found signs of water in the atmosphere from planets around other stars.

so, what lies ahead in the next decade of exploration? i would like to describe some highlights. life as we know it describes water, liquid water that has been stable on the surface of a planet for a very long time and that's why mars is a primary destination in the search for life in our solar system. the march 2020 rover mission willed study rocks and soil to understand past horrible conditions on mars and to seek signs of ancient microbial life and if we find evidence on mars, it will likely be fossilized microorganisms preserved in rock layers. march 2020 rover will begin the search, but as a field geologist it will be hard to find. that's why i believe it will take human explorers who can move quickly and make intuitive decisions on their feet to really identify and in doing so in spire that next generation of explorers. over the next decade, our journey to mars involves the development of a commercial crew capability for orbit and the space launch system and o'brien to be gone orbit. beyond mars the presence fy 2015

budget request supports the formulation of a new mission to the jovian moon. if i could have the next line. we estimate it has twice as much water as the earth's ocean and whole has observed plumes of water. a mission could cope potentially among other things analyze the water plumes to determine the composition of those oceans. beyond our solar system, there are callous other worlds that could harbor life. in 2017 nasa will launch the xo planet survey sunlight to look for rocky planets during the habitable zone of the closest stars. we will then use the james webb telescope to analyze the atmosphere of semis planets. the fy 2016 budget request supports the preformation of a wide field of infrared survey telescope with the capability of directly imaging planets around the nearest to start and analyzing their atmosphere. since birth remains for now the

only instance of an inhabitant planet, the search for life requires we further develop our understanding of life on her. through researcher will learn life is tough, tenacious and metabolically diverse and highly adaptable to local in our mental conditions. as for biologists have discovered life in numerous extreme environments and in extraordinary forms from bacteria that can consume chemicals that would be toxic to most of their life, to microbes that live under high levels of radiation. perhaps even more interesting is a possibility that life could exist in the absence of liquid water and that's why sciences are adjusted in exploring some of the more unusual places in our social-- solar system and beyond such as saturn's moon. could such an environment carrboro life? we don't know yet. ultimately, the search for life is a crosscutting theme in all of nasa's space science endeavors you need to get a research in astrophysics, earth science, he lived physics and

planetary science. astrobiology is guided by community instructive roadmap generated about every five years with the next roadmap slated for release later the ship. in addition, in april nasa announced that the mission dedicated to the search for life on planets outside our part-- solar system in the nest-- nexis is an interdisciplinary effort that connects top research teams that provides a synthesized approach in the search for planets with the greatest potential for harboring life. from research to our knowledge of where to go and what to look for to the capabilities of finding it, both within our solar system and beyond, we are making great discoveries. thank you for the opportunity to testify today. >> thank you. doctor jonathan lunine. >> thank you chairman smith, ranking member johnson and members of the committee. thank you for the opportunity to present my views on the search for life beyond earth. these views are my own and they

come from 30 years of working in the field of planetary science at various institutions in the us and abroad. one of the most important outcomes of the last two decades of solar system exploration is that identification of four bodies in our solar system that appear capable of harboring life. these bodies possess a particular set of characteristics that make them the best leads in the search for life beyond the earth and if i could have the first slide, the first of these bodies is mars. in its first billion years mars had abundant liquid water stabilize and protected by much denser atmosphere than the shell we see today. during this time, life might have begun, survived for a while on the service and was extinguished retreated underground as they are masseurs lost. if i could have the second slide, the second of these objects is jupiter's moon, europa, a body the size of our

own moon and has a very large saltwater ocean, twice the water we have on our own ocean. in this ocean is in contact with a rocky core and abundance sources of energy and as of yet we don't know if organic molecules exist inside of the solution. but, we saw it-- strongly suspect we are there and equally important we don't know how far below the surface the ocean mice. knowing that will allow a strategy to be formally did for searching for life there. next slide is titan, a moon that is larger than the planet mercury and the only moon in our solar system to host a death atmosphere of nitrogen and methane. it has revealed nothing clown, rain, river valleys and methane ethane sees. so, we cannot resist asking whether some biochemically novel form of life might have arisen in this exotic frigid

environment. it is a test for the universality of life as an outcome of cosmic evolution and to quote the historian stephen pyne, what the galapagos islands did for evolution by natural selection, titan might do for exobiology. finally, next line. this small moon has a large plume of material emanating from a series of fractures in the south polar region. make a list of the requirements for terrestrial type life, liquid water, organics, chemical radiant and it has an evidence were all of them in the plume. had we actually find the signs of life in these bodies? the evidence will not be entirely been organisms. more likely we'll will detect signatures that indicate that life is at work or was it work in these environments. in contrast to nonbiological processes biology is built from a very limited selected set of molecules and so if we can

recognize patterns in the makeup of organic molecules and their isotopes we then have strong evidence of biology at work. mars finding sources of methane and measuring their isotopes is one way to get at this question and another is to seek or preserved organic materials in the soil, to see if they record the signatures of biology and the mars 2020 rover will do the heavy lifting here. for europa, the europa mission now in development will provide the essential information needed to decide among other things whether organics and water are welling up through the cracks on the surface and whether plumes exist and can be measured. doing this mission, doing it now is absolutely crucial to any general strategy for the search for life. for titan, the search for target is one of the great methane seas but dropping a capsule capable

of floating across the surface. we don't know what kind of biochemistry we are looking for here, so generalized search for pattern and molecular structures and on abundances that indicate deviation from chemistry is appropriate and finally, it provides us with the most report way to look for life. merely flying through the plume as casino has done multiple times with modern instrumentation intended to detect the signatures of life, is efficient to do the search. the long flight time in the outer solar system and into tickler dictate the planning for missions to europa and titan must begin now and must be pursued with vigor if they are to happen in the next two decades. it is remarkable that we have found for destinations in our own solar system where i can actually exist have existed for quite sometime the past. now is the time to actually go search for that life. thank you. >> thank you, dr. lunine. doctor being.

>> mr. chairman, members of the committee. good morning and thank you for the opportunity to serve as a witness for this hearing. my testimony today will be focused on the topic of exit planet in the context for the search for life on earth in the main point i went convey is that an expanded xo panic expiration program with the flagship space telescope is the centerpiece could answer one of humanity's most one-mile questions, is there life elsewhere in the universe. xo planets are planets outside our solar system or bert stars in our son and this year marks the 20 anniversary of the first detection of an xo planet orbiting a son likes star, but progress has been rapid in intervening years and particular the launch of nasa's telescope into visit-- 10-- 2009. the mission has advanced to the point that is focused on finding earth sized planet orbiting

their host stars and so-called habitable zone, which is the distance at which the temperature on earth could be right for liquid water to be present. a handful of earth size exit planets have been found over the last two years. these discoveries have grabbed the attention of the community in the public because they suggest earthlike planets may exist around relatively nearby stars and that we therefore have it within our grasp to search for life on other worlds in a lifetime. the next step towards determining if there are any truly palpable planets or a even inhabited planets is to study the atmosphere of world using the. planetary atmospheres are key factors in controlling the habitability of the planet because they are have reservoirs of elements and planet service conditions. furthermore, planetary atmosphere can be influenced by interactions with the biosphere

and may be a marker of life itself absent direct observation of medication. astronomers have made progress revealing the nature of the atmosphere of hot gas giant xo planets using the hubble space telescope. these investigations have yielded a constraint from the abundance of key chemical species that identification of clouds and determination of temperature mass. astronomers eagerly await the launch of the james webb telescope in 2018 and among its many new import capabilities, the weather telescope will dramatically extend the reach of xo planet and may even have the capability to determine the presence of major molecules like water and carbon dioxide and measure the temperatures of earth size xo planet atmospheres. however, web will be hard-pressed to detect evidence for life, only made possible with planets, extraordinary performance of the instruments and a large amounts signature gas in the planet itself. of flagship space telescope with next generation optics will be needed to detect evidence for life.

the astrophysics community is currently ramping up for a server that will prioritize larger space mission to fall the telescope and is the wise urging of nasa leadership community is currently developing concepts for telescopes that could take in preparation for the selection process. the top priority space telescope in the previous survey currently dubbed the view first will have capability that lay a foundation for future lifeline are telescope. when of the science goals of the debbie first mission is to obtain improved statistics on the frequency of potentially habitable planets and in addition, nasa is currently considering including a next oh planet spectrometer on the telescope in this ensure that-- could not make measurements for earthlike planets butted vance the science technology in that direction. as a final point, it's important to keep in mind a future life find or mission cannot be a

success in the absence of other projects. the need for conference of knowledge to confront the question of life on other planets is wired to go ultimately unexpanded program would be the best way forward. although, a flagship space telescope would be the crown jewel, this program should be driven by the question of life, rather the construction of a single facility. it would take courage and perseverance by scientists, government leaders and the public working together to act on this vision and see it through, but our ability to read-- rice to this challenge is what makes america exceptional from the apollo program to the voyager, hubble program with the recent studying success of the rising mission to pluto and the launch of the telescope a few years away, our country leads the way with projects that are lasting and space exploration. the search for life under planet represents represents the next great space exploration challenge that we continue. mr. chairman, and members of the committee, thank you for this

opportunity to be here as a witness and i would be happy to take questions to thank you, doctor being. dr. siemion. >> members of that city, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. searches for extraterrestrial intelligence say to determine the distribution of advanced life in the universe through detecting the presence of technology. usually by searching for electromagnetic radiation from communication technology, but also by searching for evidence of large scale energy usage or interstellar propulsion. technology is used as a proxy for intelligence. and advanced technology were to exist so too does the advanced life that created. we know of no way to directly detect intelligent life. if other intelligent life exists and possesses a technological capabilities similar to our own, we could to-- detected their technology using the techniques of modern astrology-- a strongly. the green bin telescope in west virginia are superb facilities

for a wide range of astronomy. including pulsar studies that test einstein's tear-- three in general relativity. mapping the gas in nearby galaxy and probing areas of the universe. the sixth-- facilities are among the world's best searching for the faint whispers of distant technology. a variety of radio set experiment turned away at both the green bay periscope including some that allow us to observe in parallel with other astrologers without interfering with her work. a technique we call piggyback observing. several other us and international radio telescopes are also currently being used for radio study including the private allen telescope array of northern california, the low frequency array in europe and the merchants in wide array in australia. many radio study searches are taking advantage of the wealth

of new information on our galaxy xo planet population. now revealed by missions such as nasa's kepler spacecraft. in a new project, a group based at the university of california san diego are using the observatory near san jose to diskette-- look for paul's labors. wavelengths a hair longer than optical like, but better at penetrating the dusty space between the stars. these experiments are funded by commendation of government and private sources including notable contributions from the john templeton foundation. ensuring facilities like the green bank telescope and others continue to exist as a world-class astronomical facilities, it's critical to their continued use and save experiments. one of the most exciting prospects for setting the next decade is the breakthrough this initiative, a $100,000,000.10 year effort funded by the breakthrough price foundation that will conduct the most sensitive, comprehensive and intensive sirs poured mass

intelligent life on other world ever performed. i have an animation i would like to show you illustrating components of breakthrough listen. here we see the milky way galaxy, a galaxy that we now know has tens of billions of planets in the end habitable zone of their star, planets that might have a liquid water on their service and if intelligent life arose on these planets and develop radio technology that admission from their technology would proceed at the speed of light into milky way. for how long. life may arise and may develop intelligence and finally a commutative technology, but that final stage mailing last for a few thousand years. the evidence of their technology , the bubble of their electric radiation will continue to propagate throughout the galaxy and could eventually be detectable at earth. with breakthrough listen we will

conduct operations for these types of omissions from 1 million of the nearest stars to the earth that will be at least 10 times more sensitive than ever performed in these observations will cover at least five times more of the radio spectrum than any previous experiments and we will conduct observations using the green bank telescope in west virginia as well as the parks radiotelescope in australia. it is undoubtedly the next decade been incredibly exciting time for astrobiology. data provided by missions like the transiting exoplanet satellite and the james space telescope virtually guaranteed dramatic insight into exoplanet science including identifying and characterizing some of the nearest exoplanet of the earth. at the same time, we will continue to learn more about the development of life on earth and the potential for life elsewhere in our own solar system. if history is any guide these

discoveries will hide their imagination about the possibilities for advanced lice-- life elsewhere the universe. of thank you. >> thank you, dr. siemion. at the my guess we all have thousands of questions and we are limited in our time by five minutes. i'm absolutely astounded by the announcement by nasa that water may be on the surface of mars. is that the case? when the mars curiosity rover reported no evidence of water, i thought that was the end of it, but if we have this water on the surface of mars, why is it we do not have any photographs of that water? >> indeed, the new results that we just got show that the recurring slope of these features on the sides of craters on slopes that seasonally over time it means water melts, briny water carries the material down the slope and we have been able to that the evidence together

including chemical observation to say that is really what is forming this and we are incredibly excited. the problem is these features are transient and there's not a whole lot of water carrying those, so it's hard to see with the resolution of the spacecraft we see, but again, we can certainly trace the chemical signatures and we also at the phoenix landing site were able to see evidence of liquid water including a little droplet on the spacecraft, so water is they are on mars. it's not in huge abundance near the service, but we know it's at the polls-- >> when will we have evidence of liquid water? anytime soon? >> i'm afraid i can answer exactly when we woke. we feel the evidence we showed yesterday is good evidence of liquid water, but you have to understand when the water is flowing on the surface it's very very hard to detect. >> thank you. question is where are we in your opinion most likely to detect any form of life even if it is bacteria or microbes or whatever will it be mars, roper, on

exoplanet, some technological communication, where do you think the best prospects lie. >> i think it will be mars and i think as you heard from me and dr. lunine, we are optimistic about the 2020 rover and its potential for looking for microbial life. that is the most exciting and a lot of people terms to find microbes or the signatures of the microbes, but i'm really optimistic and i think it will take humans on the surface of mars to really get at the definitive evidence to study the liquid water. >> okay. thank you, dr. stofan. dr. lunine,-- semi study and mentioned for locations, mars, europa, tied in and one of saturn's move-- moons, was that an order of likelihood or do you have a preference a prediction as to where we might most likely

find evidence of some form of life? >> that was actually an order moving outward from the sun. >> okay. >> there was no implied order. the question is whether in any environment that can support life does life actually begin, does it form. i don't know the answer to that and no one else does and that's why my view we need to look at all of the bodies where there is very strong evidence, compelling evidence of what's called a habitable environment, an environment where life could ashley be sustained. >> when we find out, but the thickness of the ice is on europa that is time to-- >> there's a lot of ground work that has to be done. we don't know if there are organic molecules. that europa mission will tell us if they are fresh organics in the cracks and if there are that would be the place to go. >> dr. bean, when do you think

we will have the capability of detecting bias signatures in the atmospheres of exoplanet? >> as i mentioned i think the james webb telescope, which is planned to launch in 2018 via first chance to do that and if we get lucky and five the kinds of planets orbiting nearby stars than we may be up to search for bio signature gases. >> not before? >> definitely not before. >> going to ask you also, what do you think the odds are of actually finding a bias signatures in the next 10 years? likely or unlikely? >> i would say that's unlikely, but we are optimistic that we could take steps towards doing that over the next 10 years. >> okay. i was hoping you'd be a bit more optimistic. one out of three, one out of four, what would you say? >> one out of five. >> that's better than otherwise, okay.

dr. siemion, last question for you. could you briefly tell us that advantage and disadvantage of radio and optical astronomy? i know we are trying both and you seem to focus more and radio in your comments, but there are advantages and disadvantages to both. do you have a preference or not and if so what is the advantage and disadvantage? >> think you're right that historically study has concentrated on the radio portion of the electromagnetic, but as we has developed technology on earth we have moved some of our efforts in study to the wavelength czeslaw and the the truth is we don't know what part of the electro magnetic spectrum we might receive some signal or evidence of a technological-- civilization elsewhere, so it behooves us to search as much as we can. >> thank you, dr. siemion. my time has expired, but a quick,.

in a 20% is actually pretty high considering how historic that would be in a think we all would agree it might be most interesting news in say the last hundred years, so 20% is something i think is not insignificant, so i appreciate your comments. ranking member, the gentlewoman is recognized for her comments about me say going back to her opening statement that it's not often that i hear her say she will follow the chairman. >> if you go to mars. [laughter] >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. today we are speaking primarily about astrobiology that can be carried out robotically. however, humans will one day return to deep space and carry out scientific exploration of bodies such as mars. to that end, it has been over a year since the national

academies release a pathway to expiration study. which you co-authored. that report found that the horizon goal for human space exploration is mars and as you may know this committee agrees with that. has nasa been in discussion with you on the results of that report? if so, what is the status of the response of that report and how can this committee be helpful? >> well, the nasa advisory committee did actually have a a session at one of their meetings on the subject of our report and one of our committee members, barry lynn dittmar was there and had a dialogue with the committee and also folks from nass including bill gersten meyer, so i think there is some dialogue and thinking going on and i look forward to more dialogue on the report. i think it is still very fresh and has a lot to contribute to

the question of how and when it will be moved on, so i look forward to dialogue. >> good. in your view, what if any of the issues does this committee and the congress to address? >> in the context of that report? >> yes. >> well, it to quote from that report, we were concerned about the question of flight rates and the near-term. the question of how the destinations or pathways might be chosen and i still think those are the key operative elements in the regiment-- reclamation of our report. >> 30 years from now schoolchildren will be leading scientific exploration of the solar system and beyond. of their bodies near and far will have changed. humans may have visited mars and maybe even the two of us here in this committee won't be around,

but life beyond earth may have been detected by then. so, i would like to ask all of the panel members, as we think about where we are today and where we might be 30 years from now, is there anything that congress should be considering to ensure that today's school children are well-equipped to lead a new era that could include knowledge of life beyond earth? >> i'm a strong believer that nasa plays on incredibly important role in inspiring the next generation and charlie bolden loves to say that everything we do at nasa is about stem education and every time we launch a rocket, every time we do something like encountering pluto we are inspiring the next generation to want to explore, to question why. i would like to see nasa stand a steady course we have been with obviously this committee supports to continue that exploration and move forward

with moving humans beyond lower orbit. >> this nation has done some credible things in exploring the solar system. one example that excites school kids is that cassini spacecraft can actually probe the large methane seas of titan and determine their depth and composition by sending radio signals through those seas as it flies by titan and so we are actually doing ocean exploration a billion miles away from the earth and that's only one example. schoolkids are fascinated by that and want to be a part of it and in order for them to be a part of it we have to continuity in exploration and these wonderful missions, so that there isn't effectively a generation long in these discoveries. >> to get back at chairman smith earlier question about putting a number on the chance of finding the come i want emphasize that scientific process is step-by-step deliberate process

and so being able to maintain like jonathan said a continuity and funding these programs and continuing this delivered approach, i think it is extremely important. >> i think the only thing i have to add to what my other panel members have said is that the search for life, i think, has a particularly compelling aspect to it for young people. and i think to the extent of that that can be highlighted and taken advantage of to encourage more young people to enter careers in space and science and technology is wonderful. >> thank you very much. of my time is expired. >> thank you ms. johnson. the gentleman from texas is recognized for his questions. >> thank you mr. chairman and welcome all of you panelists. we appreciate and is fastening to hear it testimony. in my district, texas 36 the john says-- johnson space center

provide services for all returned planetary materials that do not require planetary protection laboratories. this has been in operation since a paller-- apollo lunar samples were returned and in the next decades we anticipate patients to collect samples from the moon, comments and asteroids and each of these new collections will require new generation laboratory while the older facilities will require routine made if enough grace. samples to be returned from mars pose greater challenges due to special planetary protection requirements. dr. stofan, what steps is nasa taking to upgrade its facilities and protect against the trance for a viable organisms from earth to celestial bodies which may harbor life? >> we had two different committees that nasa the planet protection group where we take these issues extremely seriously

both for contamination of mars and backward contamination for when we return samples to the earth. so, that's one aspect of where we are and certainly doing research. we are doing testing of all of our spacecraft in the planetary protection area and we also have another group where we reach out into the community of the experts and to advise us on our curé should not have the opportunity just this past year to tour the facility at johnson. it's extremely amazing facility and fun to be able to go there and look at the apollo lunar samples we returned from antarctica and we take that facility, its preservation and eventual expansion as we eventually moved towards brain samples back from mars, so we work closely with the community to understand what is needed and to make sure we will eventually when we do return samples from mars we will have a plan in place. >> thank you very much. this is directed to everyone, but proportion to astrobiology

research in the united states is funded directly or indirectly by nasa? does anyone know? >> no, we had nasa can take that question for the record. i will say i was just talking with someone a few weeks ago and i was at eight conference at ames research center where we were thinking about climate on extrasolar planets and it's one of the reasons i mentioned in my testimony that this whole area of astrobiology is a amazing one and actually makes me think it will be a bit hard to pull the number out. we can get your number on the exact, but when you are thinking about, for example, habitable conditions you have to do helio physics understand stars, the win, the solar wind, the interior of the planet. the work we do here on earth to understand.

planetary science. we are pulling from sony disciplines, which is to me is what makes this area of science at the take so incredibly exciting a fruitful and truly interdisciplinary. >> absolutely. also, one of the most important technological advancements that are needed to further astrobiology's of research and what advancements should be our highest priority to continue this? >> well, i will take one crack at this and i don't want to prioritize these, but when my area is to develop miniaturized instrumentation that can detect the chemical signs of life and also detect biological activity. the smaller the instruments come the easier it will be to send them to the planet seen it from the standpoint of studying exoplanet, talk to my testimony about building a very large space telescope. that is a very high-tech thing that we have to do to take direct images of plants to take spectra from and look for the signatures of i/o signature

gases. that involves the construction of large space telescope, rockets to put the telescopes in orbit, instrumentation to block the blinding glare of the start of this orbit. brats even a manned spaceflight to service the telescopes or construct the telescopes in orbit. >> thank you. >> i think in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence the low hanging fruit is digital signal processing technology and improving our signal to process streams produced a radio telescope then some optical telescopes and also developing receiver telescopes for telescopes that allow us to old facilities in new ways. >> mr. chairman, yielded back the bounds of my time. thank you. >> the gentlewoman from connecticut is recognized for her questions. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you to all of you. i joined millions of americans

on sunday night watching the blood moon and a blue moon earlier this year. i have to tell you in a district like my, connecticut schoolchildren are incredibly inspired by these developments and many of us here on this panel have a commitment to stem education. congratulations, dr. stofan. an incredibly exciting announcement yesterday and we look forward to understanding what that means and we have already had questions today. dr. stofan, you spoke earlier about the need to have human exploration on mars to really understand and to make those subtle intuitive judgments that are necessary. to you anticipate that yesterday's announcement amid the discovery proceeding that changes in any way the priorities of the ordering of that and how does understand, in our role as decision-makers on helping to set priorities that are keeping up with the developing times can make you

know, the one of the most exciting things about yesterday is the fact that we now know there is near surface liquid water on mars and so this idea that jonathan mentioned in his testimony of, again because of this length of water at a time when we know water was stable on mars, that's what makes scientist thinks mars is the place where life maybe could have evolved because not only do you have liquid water, but you have the time to allow the comical reactions to take place. the exciting thing about knowing there is near surface water is saying, maybe there could still be life forms on mars today, deep underground, several meters below ground where the cosmic radiation that affects mars would not affect them, but the idea that is potentially accessible to be studied by again, astronauts and laboratories on the surface of mars and again, as a gilded geologist neumeister go in the field and crack open rocks. i have a strong bias that it will take humans, laboratories,

a lot of work because again, it is one thing if you are looking for something large and looking for something smaller take time and effort and that's why think humans are so critical and that is why nasa has chosen to be on this path and i think the findings from yesterday convinced as we are on the correct path. >> thank you and i have to confess i had a son who did astrophysics and did exoplanet things and i know he has a personal interest in discovering a manned mission to keep up with his fourth grade project from about 15 years ago. dr. lunine, i was particularly struck by her, that a key issue is whether uninhabitable environment life actually does develop. that is sort of the opposite of where we start. we started with the search, is there any life out there and now it seems you are asking a very different question, which is we see a lot of components that we would think ought to lead to life.

doesn't lead to life or does it not? what is the technological breakthroughs ucs needing to support, to answer that somewhat different question and it seems to me that's a different question that i would have thought about five years ago. >> if a different question, but it's a related question. we really have no laboratory model for how life began on the earth. no one has done this in a laboratory and so one of the reasons for going out to environment in our solar system where the conditions for life are apparently there and possible is to see whether life actually began essentially to do the experiment in the field instead of the laboratory. the critical things we need for that are devices to analyze abundances of amino acids, fatty acids, to look for patterns and other molecules that might be part of an exotic biochemistry,

for example, on titan. part of the problem is that it is not entirely clear what we want to look for in some environments. other environments like ours, you roba, it's clear what we want to look for, so chemical analysis is critical and the ability to get out to these planets and sample planets and moons and sample is critical. >> thank you. if we might be able to follow up afterwards with more detail because again our job is in part to try to set funding priorities and they need to take into account these changes, so i think, dr. stofan, your comments about the near service presence of water with compared to say europa where it deep in that presents harder technological challenges may help guide us with as i say not enough money we have to do this research. i wish we had more, but with what we we want to make sure has the most impact and reliable

judgment in guiding us. >> thank you. the gentleman from louisiana is recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i'm one of those teenagers who rushed home to see the original star trek, so this is fascinating. i will ask a question of dr. stofan and i am of your opinion that we have boots on the ground, so to speak to finally answer the questions, so let's bring it closer to home. you referenced the meteor astroid and i am-- i seem you are referencing the meteor back in 84 when it was discovered and if we go to a synthetic biology topic such as ex- inmate as opposed to dna or rna, what are finding me where appropriate in a realistic term as to funding projects in that realm as opposed to something that may be

100 years as far as time travel or space travel is concerned to make i certainly think that this is so interdisciplinary that you really need a multipronged approach and so i think that is what nasa has developed by saying we do need this on the ground and i personally think it's achievable that we meet the president's goal of getting humans in the mars passivity in the 2030s and i think it's doable. in the meantime continuing our robotic exploration like with march 2020, moving with that europa visions and i don't to get an either or. i think it is on and with technology research on the ground and biological research and certainly synthetic biology is an amazing expanding field. , but i think it's all the saints together to help us move forward scientifically and help us refine the scientific questions as we move forward seebeck and you have nasa and

all of these agencies looking for other life forms, doing reforms undulate engineering, is there anyone agency that is spearheading or that these other agencies report to? is there any herding of the, so to speak where this research can come under when big umbrella and people talk to other agencies that actually come up with some formulation? >> well, i think in the area of astrobiology this is why community roadmaps like the astrobiology community roadmaps coming out this year because in my mind going to that community whether it's through the decade old survey process or the academies, astrobiology roadmap is going to the community who in general the scientists nor the funding streams are coming from and they are the ones who are truly pulling in doing this multidisciplinary work, so when

you get the community together and say here's the priority, here are the areas we think have the most potential for advancement in the next five to make 10 years, is that voice of the scientific community that i think helps-- >> botch, is there one voice at this point or has anyone at the top of the heap so to speak? >> at-- i would say nasa is guiding what we are doing and we certainly were close with other agencies. >> does nasa have any rules or regulations that they foresee that would limit our harness this potential breakthrough. i mean, i can see what we have available now with some of the generic-- genetic engineering to some of this stuff could turn out to be kind of bad stuff. >> we certainly don't have a regulatory authority, but i could take that question for the record because i don't have an answer to it. >> just a quick comment on what

you just spoke with a congressman earlier with potential life development. just a personal question, what is your theory on transfer mia, the bringing of life forms into our earth atmosphere on an asteroid or meteor? >> i think it has occurred, certainly read in the earth mars. we know materials are exchanged between those two planets and we have allan hills meteorite and there is some good studies that have another shows amino acids will so drive the trip to the earth through the atmosphere on an asteroid and possibly bacteria as well, so there may well have been extensive exchange of life and biological materials between the earth and mars particularly in the early history of the solar system when impacts are more frequent. >> i yield back. >> thank you. the gentleman from virginia is recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman.

think all of you for coming today. i look forward it to our science, space and technology-- [inaudible] >> to go quickly, dr. siemion, four years we had analysis and it was fun, we had no successful conclusion yet, and i'm fascinated by the $100 million to breakthrough project, but what happens when we discover extraterrestrial intelligence? do we have a plan about what happens next? >> i will just mention the study at home in the program on pcs is still around and you're welcome to download-- download it. i think a lot of people have put thought into what to do when we potentially, eventually discover intelligent life or any kind of life beyond earth. i think there will be a range of reaction.

i think from my part, my personal opinion is probably the most common reaction will sort of the, i told you so. i think many people probably believe life is out there and maybe even intelligent life and certainly the more we learn about the exoplanet population and life on mars i think reinforce the possibility, but the truth is that we really don't know. i think to see what the reaction will actually be will probably have to wait and see. >> to have protocols in place for when we finally get the breakthrough, what do we say back? dr. lunine, you talk about titan and all the methane in ice early understand that most elements only come from the explosion of stars, so you get the gas, but can they develop other than biologically? >> yes, actually methane is a very simple organic molecule and it occurs in many environments in interstellar clouds and in

comments. desert sources of methane that are not from biology. simple to make the laboratory, for example and carbon is very abundant as you alluded to is one of the products of stellar nucleosynthesis, so we can tighten has an enormous inventory of methane that is not biological and was produced by abiotic sources. ..

is there much evidence or any evidence of life on earth may have started someplace else? >> you know, we don't know the answer to that. what we do know is life he told very rapidly on earth after condition stabilized, and that is a condition that makes life elsewhere in the solar system knowing that it defaults relatively rapidly here but we honestly don't know if again, did mars committed bacteria come from earth and go to mars? that's why it's critical to continue the search for life on mars and other bodies to answer that question.

>> it's a fascinating and/or photos. if you could go a little deeper are those being released -- >> i think it was my slide, so in the case the fishers at the south pole have gas and ice emanating from them and they merged to make this large plume was discovered that we didn't do with the existence until the mission and once the plume was discovered, it was directed to fly through multiple times and sample the material within its instruments. one of the important lessons that we get is the flagship missions with large numbers of instruments are able to respond

very reflectively to new discoveries. the instruments actually were designed to sample the atmosphere but once it was discovered that the plume was made of. >> thank you very much. >> thank you mr. chairman for the testimony today. i just wonder if you would give your definition of life. i i think it's something that the scientific community struggled with. certainly there are signs that everybody agrees on that is self replicating, something that consumes that the problem is life here on earth what we've learned from doing research on earth is life in the boundary of what is not life and what is life is a little blurry and

that's why it's going to be challenging to find life on other planets. >> life is a self replicating system that undergoes evolution mutation which also seeks to minimize its local and maximize its order and we use a very small fraction of the possible compound that can be produced from carbon and the fact that we are alive is because we can take in large a massive new trade to make this small set of molecules that folder structure controlled for the energy needed to go to these other molecules and then we expel the rest. so for me, with my physics background it's very high order, very low entropy in a chemical system.

the information we get when we study the planets will also be very basic. that's what we are looking for evidence four in the world. >> there is an advantage going last in a question like that. i don't know if i have a lot to add. i certainly appreciate the thermodynamic appreciation of life that articulated. the only thing i would add to that is many of us assume that life is something that we will know when we see it and the first life we encounter on the earth will be very different than any kind of life that we have on earth.

if you can pick a mission with particular type of mission would you choose? >> you know, i'm going to go with geologists on the surface of mars. that is my big payoff mission. >> i would go with the mission because we have so much evidence that it's a habitable environment and there are missing pieces including whether there are organics and where to actually go search for life. and personally, i think that we have been waiting since 1998 for the mission to to follow up on the galileo orbiter discovery of the ocean under eroba and i would make that my number one right now.

i would like to see a large space telescope that can take the planets are betting to the co- orbiting the tourist trail judaica -- interest real two-acre -- we have a chance to look for to do an experiment to see how life arises on terrestrial environments, so that's what i would like to see. >> i'm not sure what this time choosing from that as a radio astronomer someone interested in study i think that i would be remiss to not suggest that it would be wonderful to put a radio telescope at the far side of the moon. that region of the moon is protected from radiofrequency interference from the earth, something that confuses us in the study experiments and allows us to observe that other low-frequency very effectively. >> you make the choice is really tough, don't you? following up on the last answer,

some people think because we have been to the moon, we shouldn't return to the moon. there's obviously some strategic reasons for going there for the future transportation settings on but i would like to ask each of you your opinion of whether or not we still have a lot to learn from our own. >> highchair to the last panel for the survey and there there's a mission to look around the south pole of the moon where we think that the lunar mantle has come to help us understand the origin of the moon and what that tells us about the origin and evolution of our own planet, scientifically we certainly have a lot of outstanding questions about the moon at the scientific community has articulated the decade-old survey. >> the moon contains the geological record of the first billion years of the history of the earth and that has been been

more or less lost lost me earth because the earth has been so active and so, that for me is the critical aspect of the scientific value in the moon and that is the type that life began on earth and to understand what was happening geologically, we can do no better than turn to the moon. >> i would like to answer the question in terms of the human spaceflight. you gave great scientific answers but for me if we can combine science with a human element that is a very positive thing that will reach out to the public. >> i think i'd agree with doctor bean. i think that a manned mission to the moon would be a wonderful steppingstone. >> i want to thank you all again for your testimony. it's really been wonderful. and i think that everyone enjoyed it.

>> thank you mr. chairman. thank you mr. posey. the gentleman from california is recognized for his questions. >> thank you mr. chairman and ranking member. i really want to thank both the chairman and ranking member for this topic. it comes at a very timely time and as a child growing up in southern california at the heart of the aerospace industry in the 60s and the 70s, it, the apollo missions and the skylab going to the space shuttle it really was pivotal to think about it as a race as human beings we are naturally curious and explorers and we want to find those answers and i think that it's incredibly important work that nasa is doing and the

work that the scientists are doing in fostering the imagination of the next generation. i think we need to do more of that because we don't know what life is going to look like. we don't know what we are going to discover. we don't know what frequencies we should be listening for that we do know that something is out there and if we don't continue to push our imagination and we don't continue we don't know how we are going to get there but about how we are going to send a human being to mars and bring them back. but we do know if we challenge ourselves we will do that. but also in congress and also working with our colleagues around the world because this is

not just a u.s. mission, it is a human mission to discover where we came from and how life evolved but also how it becomes extinct as well. the impact of the discoveries on what's affecting our own planet right now as we do with climate change and the changing atmosphere those discoveries will help us manage our own issues on our planet. i will ask a quick question of each of the panelists and each of you can answer this in explaining why it is important to search for life beyond the planet just as a philosophical element if he were to explain you were to explain this to the elementary school student or the public in general, how might you put such an important endeavor and we will start with. >> there have been people always

looking up to the sky and we wonder it are we alone, so there is that huge for those of the copious but the other piece i like to talk about is when we find life doesn't have rna or dna it is a structured like us and then how can we take that information and look back at life on earth and try to understand better how life evolved and what the conditions are, and so to me you do get a tremendous learning about life in general by finding life on other planets. obviously also i try tried to point out to audiences if they don't buy this science i'd point out to them when we do these human endeavors whether it is exploring the moon, building the next great telescope we challenge technology. we bring good technology jobs to this country. we moved this country forward in our reputation both internationally and at home, and i think there is the inspiration

part of just doing really hard things come accomplishing great things for which the country has demonstrated so ably that we are capable of and i would also like to tell schoolchildren when i talk to them i say my gosh you have so much work to do we have 5,000 planets we need you to go study. we've got landings for human on mars you better grow up and get to work we need help. >> this might be a philosophical answer so i apologize for violating the ground rule that since the last 500 years, we've lived in a kind of copernican worldview where the earth was not the center of the universe or the solar system come it was a planet of the solar system, the sun wasn't at the center of the galaxy it was just a common star in the galaxy. the galaxy is one of hundreds of billions of galaxies in the cosmos and get we are singular. life and intelligent wives and ourselves at the moment we know

of no other form of life, intelligence life and the copernican worldview to say they are all over the place and it's crucial to test that because if that turns out not to be the case, that's going to shatter the worldview. >> so, my answer would be more along the lines of courses are excellent reasons why we want to do that and finding out the answer would be fascinating to change the worldview but also the process tells us a lot about ourselves, tells about our hopes and dreams and about how we can work together as a country and as a society in the world, so for me i want to emphasize the process of looking for that answer whatever the answer may be if it is positive or negative but through the process we find out a lot about ourselves. >> i may be a bit biased but i think that life is the most

interesting property of the universe, the idea that somehow in this largely mechanical universe that we live and we understand today great detail some sort of an organism came to be that good question its own existence that could wonder about the universe itself and where it came from. if we don't understand about and we don't understand perhaps one of the most fundamental properties of the universe that we live in and so we must answer that question. >> thank you. to follow-up on that question if you will allow me just quickly yes or no do you think that life does exist elsewhere in the universe? >> maybe. [laughter] >> mr. chairman and am i allowed to answer by saying i honestly don't know? >> that's a legitimate answer and members of congress should give that answer more themselves. >> i don't know either.

>> i'm not asking if you know i'm just asking if you are -- i also don't know but i think that it would be incredibly strange if we were the only example of intelligent life in the universe and i will quote stephen hawking's very briefly someone much smarter than i am a universe in which intelligent life only exist in one place and a universe in which intelligent life potentially exists in many places are very different places. >> very good. we will go now to the gentleman from california for his question. >> thank you mr. chair and to the panelists. congratulations. i have to say it's refreshing to have a hearing about something so big, so exciting and farther than the eye can see. in washington it gets quite frustrating it feels like we are so focused on just very small

incremental things and people at home get quite frustrated that seems to rule the day but the work that you are doing is so important, so big and will inspire so many future scientists, so congratulations. i have the opportunity to go with the chair man and a few others to antarctica. one of your colleagues joined us on that trip and he told us as we went through the dry valleys that that area he was excited to be on that trip and visit that area does it most closely resembled what we believe believed many of the parts of mars to be comes with this discovery is another step forward in that effort and it is a the water that has been discovered, do we bb that it could support life? isn't too salty, do we know enough about its properties to make that conclusion yet?

the >> it makes us concerned that had a lot of salt so this is where everything we say based upon life on earth that wouldn't be a habitable type of water that being said it is so fundamental that we don't know. >> when i talk about the possibility of titan i don't know if it is possible for the solutions on mars which would be a lot easier to imagine the biochemistry. i'll be sterilized but is there life to that is their life to live in that pollution that would be very interesting.

schenectady has no plan to fix and to the -- examine the place is a potentially it could be habitable places out of fear of contaminating them with earth microbes, so sterilizing his extensive. you think it's time to reevaluate reevaluate sweet and following the legislative discovery? >> i think the community right now not just in the united states but around the world because of the planetary connection is something governed by international policies and procedures we want to make sure that if we find life on mars it's not something we brought from the earth was anita be cautious, extremely cautious as we move towards exploring them however those areas could potentially be the most interesting to explore to the community is going through a process right now of saying okay, right now we don't think

that's the place to run to and contaminate so let's take a measured and very scientific approach to how we might get at exploring those regions. obviously when we send humans eventually to mars, that is going to lead to too much likely broader scale of contamination and so i think it's important as we lead up to sending humans to mars we try to keep mars as pristine as we can. >> 38 million californians are wondering can we get that water to california area [laughter] >> certainly the california drought is something nasa is concerned about and we have been using our satellites to do what we can to help monitor the great state of the certainly seen the alarming reduction in the amount of water in the aquifers and we've been working on some projects with farmers in california and some pilot projects reduced the water usage by as much as 30% of nasa is trying to help. >> i yield back.

>> thank you mr. swalwell. the ranking member of the space subcommittee is recognized for her questions. >> thank you mr. chair man and to the members. i was sort of curious i don't know if mr. foster had a chance but we were sort of speculating over here as to whether there is value in doing the kind of marking marketing of all of these different sources to determine if there was at some .1 general dispersion so there is a relationship between potential life that we might detect in one place and another so i don't know if that kind of work is going on and i wondered if you could speak to that. >> i would be happy to. i assume that you are talking about our solar system. so there's been quite a bit of work done of course to understand how frequently the

material has been exchanged between the earth and mars as i alluded to but also for euroba is it possible to get material to the earth and vice versa and then the answer is the farther out you go, the less likely it is, so the most recent studies that have been have been done which are all computer models say that the chance of cross contamination between the saturn system and the earth is very small and the chance of contamination between euroba and the earth is still relatively small. so one of the advantages of going to the outer solar system in addition to exploring mars is that we may be going to habitable environments which hasn't been contaminated and so if we find life there were signs of life, we have a somewhat higher assurance it had been independent origin of life on earth which is one of the important questions could life

have begun more than once in our own solar system and that's one of the attractions of going to the outer solar system. >> that leaves me then to another question that doctor lunine and doctor bean. in the 20s or so the national academy report of organic life and planet solar systems there is a caution against searching for a model of life that's based on the model that we know here on earth and a conclusion that life is possible and forms different from those on earth, so i wonder if you can talk about the wreck of the nations that came from the report to further inform investigations to detect and identify possible forms of life in other planetary environments and i think in your testimony in your prepared statement you ask whether it should be included in the search because of the use of methane as

a working fluid in place of water, so my question as to what extent were the missions to tighten and other potentially habitable environments be able to investigate habitats of life forms that are different but may be different from those on earth? hispanics of the 2007 report came out very strongly in favor as you noted up looking in environment for the habitability energy liquid organic molecules and if they were found not to have a form of life that would tell us there is something very special book about liquid water and that is one of the recommendations as i recall. the challenge of course is how to look for biochemistry and what do we look for. there is no guideline that the

biology gives us except for the guideline that life will be very selective in the chemical compounds that it uses for the catalyst for building structures and so on and so therefore if we go back to the road or submarine to explore the seas come if we find that he organic molecules are just like what's in the atmosphere, basically everything that's not going to be very promising in terms of life, but if there is a suite of particular molecules and structures made over and over again that might suggest not life itself at least chemical evolution towards life is happening. beyond that it's hard to say very much because we have one example of life on earth. earth. very briefly in places like euroba we would expect many of the basic molecules of terrestrial life uses like amino

acids we would see the life in those environments. >> in the time remaining clacks >> in the context for the search for life on extrasolar planet astronomy might feel that it is a different field. we want to build space telescopes and instruments that are designed to be able to answer questions and we inform the design of those instruments with which we know what we know about on earth but we also know that we are going to find unexpected things and so we want to have flexible instruments as possible and make a complete characterization of the planets as we can just give you an to give you an example, the hubble space telescope were never designed to work in the atmospheres of the solar planets but that has become one of the most impactful things that the telescopes have done just because they were built with a suite of instruments that were very flexible and so we have to benchmark the design for these instruments based on what we know into what we know is limited to the earth but we also want to remain open-minded and

try to answer this question in naturalistic way as possible. >> the gentleman from toronto is recognized for his question was not with trepidation but curiosity because i'm never quite sure where he is going to go but he is recognized. >> i have served a lot of committees and this is by far the most exciting and stimulating energizing committee and the congress, and as i am sitting down here looking up at the top row, where i dipped into the future as far as the eye could see him a vision of the world and all the wonders that would be.

this gives me goosebumps of your mind to say this was intended to do that but we could use it for this. i enjoy the committee. he talks up the challenge and the desire to explore. i have a difference in prayer assessing and funding because i see what you do in your research and service to the investors in the future that will pay for a long time to come and i don't think it is a zero-sum game and i don't think the chairman does either but i would like to see us move forward in a project to get humans to mars and i'm going to yield to my friend from maryland for a question.

>> i think the gentleman from colorado. >> i had one question have one question about how you are planning to use the astrology roadmap than initially thought will it be in major vehicle they will use to establish priority and then what kind of challenges that the agency face that caused a one-year delay to the issuance of the roadmap lacks >> the reason it's taken longer is because the science is evolving so rapidly and it's bringing in the disciplines because you might have bought ten years ago if you were a physicist nothing you do has anything to do with astrobiology

you say i can contribute and so that's been the reason for the delay of the roadmap indicated out as soon as we can so we are happy that it's done and it's about ready to go. how we use those roadmaps is several different ways whether it is to do research, to do a mission they say here is how i'm consistent with the goals and then we can say is this really high priority in the process to say what is the best science and how can we use that to inform our decision making. >> is it important to have them review the roadmap as well?

the >> i can take that for the record. >> we will move back to the gentleman from colorado. i get concerned with these decisions that we find into the public then becomes non- to it in a way that would harm us in terms of again sure that you have the resources that you need and with that i will yield back to the gentleman from colorado. >> to the ranking member of the thing that i enjoy about this is that we are looking forward towards the future and tonight i don't know if you talked about the martian or not but the thing that is so fun about that book, one come he is a wise guy and number two in the advocates about problem solving. whether it is math or engineering or physics or biology, and that's what is so enjoyable about this committee and about the panels that come and speak to us because i see

you all and is looking to the future and solving problems and i thank you for that and i joined the chairman and the ranking committee for having me because it gives me energy every time i come in here. >> you actually beat me in including him because i was going to end by doing that. [laughter] however, just to add one more bit of information here the group you see behind us on the wall is from the hall written by edward from 18901892. i had the entire emotional pages but that is a wonderful excerpt of it and that brings us to the end of our hearing which was obviously informative and exciting to all of us and let me just simply add that when we think that we are somehow limited in what we might explore or what we might detect elsewhere in the cosmos, i think that it's helpful to remember

that we here in the united states wind from the wright brothers to a paulo in 66 years. in 1903 we had the right brothers, these two guys playing a contract and 23 feet above the ground and 66 years later we had 12 people walking on the moon over several years and any country that can do that can certainly continue to explore and learn from that exploration and who knows, maybe even detect some form of life elsewhere. so thank you all for being here come the most enjoyable hearing and i think the members that are here as well and we stand adjourned.

>> [inaudible conversations]

is abigail was the first way to work outside of the home teaching in a private school and lobbied congress for funds to create the first white house library. see the eisenhower created a fashion icon and was marketed and sold the fund aims to win and eager to replicate her style. jacqueline kennedy was responsible for the creation of the white house historical association and nancy reagan as a young actress saw her name mistakenly on the blacklist of suspected communists sympathizers in the 1940s and

appealed the screen actors had ronald reagan for help and later became his wife. these stories and more are featured in the book first ladies provincial historians on the lives of 45 iconic american women. the book makes a great gift for the holiday. giving readers a look into the personal lives of every first lady in american history, stories of fascinating women and how their legacies resonate today. share the stories of america's first ladies for the holidays. first ladies is available as hardcover or e-book from your favorite bookstore or online bookseller. be sure to order your copy today. >> the secretary of the smithsonian institution david now on the future of the museum and research group, the discussion hosted by the aspen institute included questions from the audience area this is about one hour and 15 minutes.

>> [inaudible conversations] good afternoon, thank you all for being here. the director of the aspen institute program and it is my pleasure to curate four or five times a year some of these washington roundtable series we want to thank you today for always supporting these conversations. conversations i curate deal with the arts but not just the arts of society and how they intersect and can be productive and ever more interactive partners with all of the areas in society which is very much a force in keeping with the mission of the aspen institute. saturday we are very happy to

welcome doctor david skorton, the new secretary of the smithsonian who comes to us with a distinguished career as a cardiologist and the president in academia of the university of iowa in the cornell but he was appointed as the 13th secretary beginning this secretary and visited a museum on the mall and endless source of inspiration is at your disposal. and also the tremendous work i'm proud to serve for arts and humanities along with others in this room and the cochair george stevens is here and one of the earliest things we did as partner with richard in the disaster recovery in haiti. this is an activist role of sorts to the smithsonian took on in that instance far be