captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2008 question for charlie. you mentioned that you passed your brain trust over here with trying to come up with a new strategy for mars exploration, can you be more specific? so far i've heard two things, you want things to be cheaper, you don't want medium class missions and someone also gave the example of sensors, msls to gather data about deep space radiation. other than that can you be more specific about what you mean? >> let me be specific about what i do not mean. we are not merging directorates. we are not merging human and science exploration. we're looking for synergies.

we're realizing, oh, i can give you -- well, let me not deal in hypotheticals because that's what i've asked them to go off and do. as i mentioned, i do not want to try to define a mission, because that is something that the science community would find probably offensive if the nasa administrator decided that he had an idea of how we should now go into mars exploration. i understand your frustration at the nasa administrator not beint i've sworn off on that, and that's what i've asked john and the group to do. they are coming up with a conceptual form at how we can strategize with our international partners and how we can go back to the nrc and the decadal service group and go to academia and industry and find out how do we synergize in order to give us best science return for our dollar and also

support the continuing path thas challenge of being able to put humans in the martian vicinity in the mid-2030s. it will be several months before say, okay, we've met with the europeans, we've met with the science community,e' music so here's the strategy we want to do and here's some concepts of things we can do. it won't take rsuse 've got to lay out a plan if we are going to realize -- if we're going to0 mission window which ission. so, it will be months, not years. >> eric, thank you. go o >> hi, i'm with "science" magazine. i saw in the budget numbers that there's already been quite a bit of money spent on the mars

orbiter. i think something like $30 2011. now, since that is not going to apply in 2013 because back to mars is canceled, what is the public going topent? basically two questions, how much money has already spent on back to mars and where are we going to see that return? >> i'm not going to you how muc6 because i don't know, but we'll get you an answer. again, i'll tell you, you know, what we're trying to do is live within our means, live within the budget that we saw we had. we're trying to carry out this ambitious programs by putting our head together with our european partners and others to get us a strategy that will get

us a well defined exploration program that will put us in the martian environment in the mid-2030. but we'll have to give you an answer on how much has been spent on the 2016 mission and the formulation of a 2018 mission because we hadn't gotten any farther than formulation. [ inaudible ] >> -- out there or something -- >> you're asking me a question i cannot answer for you, and i am answer. probably the best people to ask are the folks out at jpl. we are told by them that, you know, they have people and to g happens in a lot of our cases, we're able to take the crown jewels from any program and use them on others, and that's -- when you talk about synergies and looking at a strategy for going forward, you would probably hope that yile or take

things that you've done already. >> some of those deeper specific questions we can address during the telecon. the schedule's on nasa.gov. let's take one more question over here and then we'll take a couple from twitter, and then we'll go to the field centers. >> hi there, i'm karen lopez. ic, data chick on twitter. the rest of us, can benefit from all the nasa missions is via access to open government transparency and open data initiatives at data.nasa.gov. have budget pressures made any changes to those programs? will they continue to expand? >> you want to take that? >> sure. okay, so, nasa -- a couple things. one is that you know the administration has very vigorous open government initiatives, and nasa's a participant in that, and it recently went international and we have an international event coming up in

april, april, i think, april, where we'll be gathering together folks from around the world virtually, of course, to work on things. so, we have a very vigorous program. and a large part of what we do in open government is, as you said, we leverage off of things that the programs do already, make their data available, make it accessible. open government is a little bit more to point them in the right direction. so, really open government is really a philosophy at nasa that we try to put as much as we can out into the public in the most understandable way possible, and so we're doing that. you know, the open government initiative has taken us in a few different directions and we will continue that. and we plan to keep on going forward. but when you talk about open government, it's really -- it's hard to predict because we're going to do so much, right? we're going to have so much data coming in and all of that. and so, you know, nasa's very exciting place to work because we have apps on our iphones from nasa and a whole bunch of

things, so we're already out there in terms of open government and enjoying it. not in the near future, we're going to assess -- i'm looking at my partner here, i'm the senior accountable official for open government and the cio over there and we're both looking at the cio and it's mainly her folks that do it. and so the -- i think we're really going to assess after this international event how to keep those kind of things going or not. >> let's take a question that we received from twitter. it says with the iss budget remaining steady over the coming years, what plans does nasa have to increase utilization and return? >> i think one of the things you're seeing already, we have finally put in place nongovernmental organization to help us recruit researchers and research for the international space station, bring some enhancements to its operation. we want to better utilize it. we want to make sure we can

expand its use through 2020. what will be critical for us, however, as i mentioned before, is for us to speed the development of commercial cargo and crew capability so that we can support the international space station with american crews on american vehicles using american technology. that's really important for us. and i would say, you know, that's -- the iss is critical for any deep space exploration future. it's also critical for bringing benefits back here to earth. whether it's drugs like the salmonella vaccine that most of the work which was done on the iss for -- i think they are called biocapsules being developed right now. they are all done to benefit humans on earth and hopefully they'll have some benefit for astronauts, but we're tryingo bn earth and the iss is doing that here. >> one more question here and then out to the kennedy space

center. we've got several along the same theme and i'll try to parse them out, but some people are expressing concerns that we reward large projects that have significant cost overruns and they're asking how we can better fund the long-term projects and get costs under control so we don't cannibalize other programs? >> as the question implies, these are very difficult fiscal times and we are trying -- we are doing all that we can to be fiscally responsible to make sure that our programs fit into the provisions of the authorization act that came from congress and help us with the ambitious programs that we want. we've instituted programs like joint confidence level analyses. if you look at programs like grails, juno, the last -- i forget, but some of the more recent missions that we've launched have come in on cost, on schedule because we are now -- we've refined our

management training, our management techniques. we pay much more attention to detail when it comes to cost and schedule, so i think you're going to find that we are doing projects on time and on cost. the other thing that i will say, before you can go out and ask for big projects, you've got to demonstrate that you can do little ones well, and that's what we're doing. we're making slow, steady progress. if you look at where we are with the james webb space telescope. since we replanned that mission we send every month an accounting of how we're doing on meeting milestones and meeting costs. and i'm very proud to say that from the time that we did the replan and we started that documentation, we are on time or ahead in some cases. on cost or below what we estimated the cost to be. and through diligence and really paying attention to it, i think we can do that. >> all right, let's go to some of the field centers.

we'll begin at the kennedy space center in florida. your question? >> yes, hi, my name is dan, and from wvh-tv and my question has three dates. i missed part of your last answer, i hope this isn't a repetiti repetition. what's your best estimate for the first crew launch of orion, the first crude launch of the sls, and what -- how are those different from the last budget, if any? and the third date is the first launch from american soil of an astronaut on a commercial vehicle, what will be your best guess for when that happens, please? >> i'm not going to guess, i'm going to cite for you what is in our plan and i'm sticking with it. it's my story and i'm sticking with it. the plan date for the first launch of a -- from a american soil in an american commercial spacecraft is no earlier than

2017, and we are confident. as i said, if we can get the budget we're asking, then we're confident we can hold to that budget, if not better. the next plan is -- let me just go through what we briefed before. first flight of orion will hopefully be 2014 and it's an exploration test, run by lockheed as a matter of fact, and we will take the data that they gather from that. it will accelerate the vehicle in two orits of earth so that its re-entry velocities and pressure will be similar what we experience coming back from moon or a deep space mission so we can verify the vehicle will be as good as we think it will be. the second date a 2017 for the first integrated flight of orion on the sls, that is uncrewed. and the first crewed flight is scheduled for 2021. so, that's it. >> and just a reminder about

3:30 we'll be having a media teleconference with the human exploration folks who can give you additional information on dates and future planning. we've got a question from the ames research center out in california. >> yeah, i'm from kcbs radio in silicon valley. we're concerned about ames, wondering how much ames' budget will be cut and how it will affect missions here. and what is the status of the hangar? >> let me answer the second one first. we continue to be in contact with the community out there, the congressional delegation, and we're working to do what's in the best interests of the community and the taxpayer. in terms of ames' budget, they have a brief that's coming up this afternoon where pete will be giving you the details, and i would rather that usurp what he's going to give you.

>> okay. we'll come back here for a couple of questions from twitter. we have one that asks, have the fy-13 budget priorities been developed with stakeholders in congress? >> we always do. >> right. >> we'll take that as a yes. >> yes. yes. >> we'll take it as a yes. let's come back here for a couple of questions. here on the end. right behind bill. >> yes. i would like to paraphrase, when the pharaohs built pyramids they didn't revisit it every year. you have an annual budget cycle driven by law and you don't have the ability to move money between years. i don't know if it is legally possible, but if you had the flexibility to move money between years, wouldn't that help you to reduce overruns due to delays of projects and also to avoid some of the tough choices you referred to several times today? >> yes.

>> we do have a limited amount. the moneys that are given us for our programs usually last two years. they aren't annual. and then -- and we do have limited reprogramming authority within each year where we can move money between accounts, it's limited, 5%, 10% whether you're in or out, but it's not like we're locked in when the appropriation is gone. >> we'll take a couple of questions here and start to wrap things up. how about here, brian? >> hi, i'm karen higgins, and since we're concerned about instability and trade-offs of funding, for example, shifting funds from one project to support another mission, what other options might we consider if the public overwhelmingly supports a project and is willing to voluntarily put personal funds toward a particular project, is there some way to access this funding

stream, for example, something similar to an alumnus project at a state university or, for example, start-ups? >> we do have a donations account and we have received donations over the years. and we work with the donees on what it is they would like to see done. and we would love to see more, so, our focus is on spending the taxpayers' dollars as best we can. >> let's come over on this side. right here. second hand. >> thank you, my name's nathan johnson, also george washington law school here in d.c. this question is for mr. bolden. you said flagships are essential for this nation. coming up to the election year, there are candidates who have offered their ideas for flagships particularly with human exploration.

are there any flagships that we have to look forward to, is it orion or sls or commercial? >> there are two flagships the public should look forward to with great anticipation and angst. the first one is the mars science lab. critical. i would encourage people to follow it with great interest. the hardest part of that is yet to come. we're going to do something that we have not done before in putting a vehicle that size on the surface of another planet. that's hard work. you look at these guys shaking their head and there will be a lot of people biting their fingers in august because we'll be really proud when curiousfy is finally safely on the surface of mars and we'll be able to say we accomplished something that was never ever done before in the annals of humanity. the second one is the james webb

telescope which i believe will be an incredible asset to humanity and the world. it is going to take, i firmly believe, because i participated in hubble, and i can remember having the discussion with people, okay, hubble will answer all the questions in the world. i said i don't think said. one thing i said based upon my faith it will cause us to have more questions than we ever dreamed possible, and i'm not a scientist, but i can tell you hubble has created more questions for learned people than we ever imagined. i think james webb is just going to dwarf it,retimes the capabil hubble. so, let's be patient. let's eat this pie that we have. let's gobble on, you know -- nibble on the two flagships that we're trying to work before we bite off another one. they are two incredible missions that we can look forward to. >> let's come back over here to the left. mark matthews.

>> charlie, what do you think is the biggest step that your administration has taken to reduce cost overruns in large-scale projects and how much money do you think you've saved by doing that? >> i won't be able to answer how much we've saved because we won't know until each project has come to its end, mark, and i won't take any credit for what's been done because joint confidence level analysis was critical. that started before i even knew how to spell it and before i was administrator. getting a clean budget was an incredible accomplishment of beth and her folk, and not a lot of people understand how hard that was. that was nine years of effort led by a team, terry buoy who recently retired, i mean, he deserves a lot of credit for just shepherding that and making it happen. so, i think when people are fair with us, they will recognize

that we took the work that was begun by a group of people before us, and we've tried to refine it and demonstrate that we can be responsible to the american taxpayer, and i'm very proud to say i think we've done that. o >> one final question over here. >> a.c. tourney, part of the tweeters here and also part of the space generation. there are three major programs in the budget that i would like to talk about, probably, commercial $830 million and orion at $800 million, $900 million, and then sls, and those are the three primary that congress might be interested in doing. can you prioritize of those three programs what you will fight for the most? is it commercial crews? is it the orion? is it the sls because there are

people afraid the commercial crews are a large target in this budget cycle? >> this budget cycle which represents an a big push in a challenging fiscal time represents the commitment of the congress, overwhelmingly bipartisan of the congress, agreement of the president when he signed that act into law and also when he signed the appropriations for 2012 under which we're operating right now. that laid out the three priorities for this agency as sls/mpcve, and the james webb space telescope as critical for science and understanding of our universe, and enhancement of the international space station and extending its life to at least 2020, shored up by the critical need for an american capability to get humans and cargo from here to the international space station and low earth orbit all of which will enhance the

american economy and bring good jobs here. so, we've written a budget that says what we're fighting for, and that's what the congress and the president agreed to, you know, and that's what we're sticking with. >> all right. i'd like to thank everyone for joining us here today. want to give everyone enough time to get to the follow-on telecon that we have starting at 3:30. you can listen to those if you are not participating in them by going to www.nasa.gov/newsaudio. complete schedule of those telecons and additional budget information is available online at www.nasa.gov/budget. thank you for joining us. have a good afternoon.

president obama unveiling his $3.8 trillion budget proposal on monday, a number of his cabinet secretaries are heading to capitol hill this morning to testify about the newly released request. at 10:00 a.m. eastern c. spcht 3 will have live coverage of a senate finance committee hearing with treasury secretary tim geithner. and over on c-span, defense secretary leon panetta and joint chiefs of staff chairman general martin dempsey will testify before the senate armed services committee on the defense department's budget. it calls for $525 billion in discretionary spending, which is a 1% decrease from last year. that gets under way at 9:30 eastern.

former mississippi governor haley barbour spoke monday at a weeklong conference hosted by general electric on u.s. manufacturing and competitiveness. during his 30-minute remarks, governor barbour discussed the need for an educated workforce and mississippi's effort to attract more manufacturing jobs in the wakes of hurricanes katrina and rita seven years ago. >> ladies and gentlemen, please welcome chairman and ceo of ge, jeff immelt. >> thank you. thank you very much. it's my distinct pleasure to introduce today's luncheon speaker and that's governor haley barbour. all of you know haley was a two-term governor of mississippi. as i mentioned earlier this morning has been a great partner in attracting business and really has been focused on

workforce training as a way to make mississippi competitive. he is a fantastic leader on the national stage, several times ran the republican national committee and things like that, but did a great job in mississippi. the one quick story i'd like to tell is i was responsible for the business council in 2005. and this is kind of an association of the 100 or 125 biggest companies in the united states and we happened to have a meeting two weeks after hurricane katrina, and i invited the governor of louisiana at the time and governor barbour to come and speak to this group. the governor of louisiana didn't come. governor of mississippi, haley barbour, came. and with no notes for an hour described to the ceos in the room, you know, the crisis management. by that time it was only two weeks after the disaster. the leadership lessons of dealing with that. but looked everybody in the eye and said, look, i'm going to make mississippi a pro-business

state. i'm going to make it come back from this crisis, and he really lived up to everything he said he was going to do and then some. so, it's my great honor and pleasure today to introduce governor haley barbour. >> thank you, jeff. thank you. and thank you all of you for being here. i have to mention about jeff's story about the business council. i feel like i knew initially that certainly it proved be the case it's going to be the private sector that rebuilds any area after a megadisaster, and that's why two weeks after the storm i was willing to talk to the 125 biggest companies in the united states because despite the help we needed and received from the federal government, from our sister states, from charities and everything else, at the end of the day if you're going to rebuild your community, the private sector's going to

rebuild your community, and that's what has happened on the mississippi gulf coast thanks to companies like general electric and i appreciate telling that little story. i'm going to talk to you in a minute about manufacturing. about america being competitive in manufacturing from the perspective of a governor. and i want to make plain to you if i don't get but one thing across, what i want to get across is we in mississippi haven't given up on manufacturing. you know, they tell a great story, some of you all here are old enough to remember ed sullivan, remember "the "ed sullivan show"" on sunday nights, more than half of the tv sets in america would be tuned into ed sullivan. he had conrad hilton on his show. conrad hilton a guy who created a new business, the luxury hotel chain, kind of a business and

the bill gates of his day. and hilton walked on the stage and ed sullivan turned to him and said if you were going to tell the american people one thing, what would you tell them? conrad hilton never hesitated and said put the shower curtain inside the tub. there was a guy that knew what was important to him. and if i can't get but one thing across to you, we in america need to emulate what we've tried to do in mississippi, that is, don't give up a manufacturing in america. because we don't have to. i come from the poorest state in the country. a small state. a state where when i was a young lawyer 40 years ago, companies that came to mississippi came looking for strong backs and low wages. today they come looking for strong minds and willing to pay for it. general electric is a great example of that.

because we can compete. as a governor four different times when i was governor, we had companies close plants in mexico and move the work to mississippi. and we'd do that all over the united states. before getting into that too deeply, i do want to comment on what a great partner general electric is. jeff is very generous to say our state is a good partner. we'd like to think we are. but it's easy to be a good partner when you have a great partner like general electric. they have a couple of facilities in my state, one of which when it was announced, i think those of you who recognize mississippi's image and i understand that mississippi has suffered with a negative image most of my life, but they decided to open this plant in mississippi, general electric, for th