ve. >> so it's true that that future is already here but the future's not evenly distributed. we don't have those same resources in every local community. >> here is a snapshot of two cities in our greater southeast michigan community. less than 40 mile's apart. detroit and anne arbor. the two offer a striking contrast to their results and responses to the federal mandate. of the 21 largest urban districts that the national center for educational statistics measures dps performed the lowest on fourth and eighth grade reading and

math. in june, 2011, governor rick snyder was secretary of education education introduced a revolutionary experiment to improve michigan's lowest performing schools, taking the bottom 5% and consolidating them into a state-run district. as a result, 15 schools formerly part of the detroit public school system are now in the hands of the educational achievement authority. many have cited the lack of a democratic process to elect board trustees. >> whenever you have a governor who takes and consolidates all of that and says, i, the governor, can decide on behalf

of all, that's problematic. because you're really diminishing diversity. you're diminishing different views, perspectives, people's ability to weigh in and have their voice herd. we think of anne arbor as so beautiful and diverse and we don't really have in our picture that one in four students comes to us with so he shall owe economic needs.

>> it creates an opportunity for success -- >> we know without opportunities to go to museums, do extra science activities go on trips, our students will be somewhat

behind. these are often disinfranchised communities. they're economically stressed. they need all sorts of economic support if, in fact the schools in them are to thrive. >> for instance in places like finland where they have a system that the often regarded as one of the best in the world, they have a much much more narrow achievement gap because when they recognize areas with high persistent childhood poverty, they give the schools more assistance and help those families to bring those kids up to the level of proficiency that

they need to. we're certainly not doing that in michigan. we're almost doing the opposite. >> there's enough fires for everybody to pick up a bucket. we need media exposing the problem. we need people advocates for homeless. we need educators.

good afternoon. i'd like to thank each of the distinguished witnesses for being here. a half century ago, john f. kennedy made a commitment that like the great pioneers that came before us we too would set sail on a new sea and send man to the moon. we embarked upon that endeavor as a nation because opening the vistas of state promised high cost and hardship and enormous

reward. we need to ensure that the united states remains a leader in space exploration in the 21st

century. an american astronaut occupies on the russian soyez costs $70 million. it is imperative that the united states has the ability to get to the russian space station without the assistance of the russians. america should have the capability to launch a rescue mission to the space station should that prove necessary.

america should not have to acquire russian rd-180 engines. the commercial crew program is critical to restoring this capability. i'm encouraged by the progress both with regard to commercial cargo and commercial crew.

1.9 billion. the united states accounted for 6 of these launches. there is more that can be done to create long term predictability for the united states commercial stays industry so that launch activity will continue to grow. there is no limit to human imagination or for the desire for exploration. every one of us every little boy and girl, man and woman, has looked up at the night sky and wondered that lies out there. that is the mystery, that is the vision behind america's space exploration. america has always led the way in space exploration and we need to reclaim that leadership. and with that, i recognize my

friend, the ranking member of the full committee, senator nelson. >> thank you mr. chairman. blossoms are breaking out all over washington because what you just said, you and i completely agree on. as a matter of fact, i offered in on the armed services committee an amendment to start and it passed. it's part of the defense authorization bill. to start the process. as a matter of fact, we authorized $100 million. senator mccaine was a cosponsor of that to develop an alternative to the rd-180.

indeed we should not be reliant on the russians to ride. we have in the past in the two and a half years that we were down after the loss of the space shuttle columbia earlier in the last decade. that was our only way to get up to the space station. and they were a reliable partner then but now, look at we can't predict what vladimir putin is going to do now. this was part of the speeches that i was making a decade ago

as we were trying to get this thing off the ground. i am just heartened that you came off with such a strong statement about the commercial crew because this is going to be a way that we can get americans on american rockets quicker back into space since the space launch system and its spacecraft this subcommittee has always been nonpartisan. and the subject of the national space program is a nonpartisan issue.

so i'm looking forward to cooperating with you as we tried last year. it didn't happen on getting the authorization act. we need to get the organization act out of here. just for the remaining six months of this fiscal year. and then let's start looking to the additional fiscal years behind. and with that i'll just stop my comments. if i may insert my comments that i had prepared in the record for opening comments. and i'll just send by saying thank you. >> thank you, senator nelson for your very kind comments. i hope they are not used against you in the next campaign. >> i was going to say the same thing to you. yours is a little more immediate than mine. [laughter]. >> and i want to thank each of the three distinguished

witnesses that are here. this is a wonderful way to begin the new congress and the jurisdiction of this subcommittee by focusing on the overarching goals that nasa should be focusing on and i cannot think of a more distinguished, experienced, and more respected panel than the three witnesses that are here with us today. we first have colonel walt cunning ham, dr. buzz aldrin astronaut, apollo 11 pilot. and michael masomino astronaut and mission specialist for the shuttle program. and i thank you for joining us. we will begin with colonel cunning ham's testimony. >> thank you, sir. i appreciate the opportunity to

share my thoughts on where i believe our space program has been slipping and some of the things i believe nasa must do to maintain america's lead in exploration exploration exploration.

we accomplished landing on the moon in eight years. today, 45 years later, the next frontier mars seems decades out of reach. primarily because we do not have a national commitment. our apoll low program made america preeminent in space and the world's most technological advanced system. the spinoffs have infiltrated virtually all areas of our industry. while nasa's portion of the federal budget peaked at 4% in 1965, it's been below 1% for the past 40 years. while nasa has accomplished many things and made space flight much more routine, we have not challenged the next frontier man's exploration of mars.

that's only possible if our government initiates and provides funding for such a program. nasa has been subjected to more and more political pressure over the years and the agency has grown increasingly more political inside leaving employees much less willing to express their feelings freely and the agency much less attractive to today's young professionals. for example, nasa is still unable to reduce the number of space centers they operate around the country in order to lower their overhead costs. congress and local districts have always won out.

a aany mars exploration program will have international partners. in that partnership nasa should take a long leadership role as they did in the apoll low program and not just be another partner in an international partnership. iss that we gave birth to in the 1970s is probably the most impressive piece of space hardware ever placed in orbit.

some people suggest that private space companies should collaborate with nasa for space missions beyond earth's orbit which means sharing the cost. while commercial companies will always contract with nasa for the hardware and technology, the government will always be expected to pay the cost of exploration funded by tax dollars of course.

space exploration does not satisfy these criteria. government agencies are not for profit. guide, develop, and manage the technology. our country's return on investment is the private industry commercialization of the technology that's developed. anything it could do could be more efficiently done with other projects. while we work on overcoming the problem of radiation exposure and trying to speed up travel, we should return to the moon to develop a crew facility for

semipermsemi semipermanent living. nasa should continue to exploit manned and unmanned missions but humans will always be much faster and more efficient because we can think and act in realtime. there are two things i believe we should focus on also. eliminating permanently any dependence on other countries for launch capability. two, find some ways for nasa administrators to become less subject to changes in the administration every four years.

the human desire to explore will be satisfied if not by americans, then by others. humans somewhere will certainly return to the moon and then to on to mars. i believe we have the resources and technology but to we have the will to tackle the next frontier mars? thank you. >> thank you, colonel cunning ham. dr. aldrin. senator cruz, senator nelson nelson, committee on space science and competitiveness. i wish to thank the committee for the opportunity to speak to you about the future of american human space flight enterprise. this is truly an honor and i applaud you for raising this issue so early in this session.

america must be the world leader in human space flight. there is no other policy area which so clearly demonstrates american invasion and enterprise than human space flight. american leadership is more than simply getting one step ahead of our global competitors. american leadership is inspiring the inspiring the world by consistently doing what no other nation is capable of doing.

for commercializing crew and cargo transportation to the international station could expand to provide transport of crews with life boat rotations to two redundant stations on either side of the moon. the u.s. will lead other crews from these stations for distant controls of the assembly and check out of habitational

systems. also intricate rovers will provide ice to rocket fuel resources and other resources. we also have a reliable developed and test most of the systems needed for mars. we should participate in lieu lunar development. let's establish a lunar infrastructure which barters visits to the surface on international landers. deploy outbound cycling spaceships that orbit between earth and mars without requiring a great deal of propulsion.

each successive mission would only have to send astronauts landers, and the minor provisions. en route provisions are reusable on the cycler. radiation protection. we've developed a means for bringing people back for certain

contingencies. i provided most of the detail in my written statement. then we'll have a much more complete version of this plan once the study of my cycler concept is conducted by an aldrin-perdue study to be finished near the end of april. in closing, i encourage you to think about the ability of free markets in space to reduce the cost and power of american ability to solve the most difficult technical challenges. there's no more convincings way to demonstrate american leadership for the remainder of this century then to commit to a permanent presence on mars. i thank you for your time and look forward to the committee's

leadership. thank you very much, dr. aldrin. >> chairman cruz ranking members, and members of the subcommittee. thank you very much for having me here today. i've got to do some cool stuff in my life and this is right up there. really honored to be here. thank you. i want to describe to you a few things that i've learned as an astronaut. some benefits that our space program has provided for our country and the whole world. i want to tell you a story from one flight that i think wraps it up. the first benefit i want to tell you about is how the human exploration program can benefit science and life on earth. and there's lots of examples we can use but the one i'm most familiar is the hubble space

telescope. it's given us a window into the universe out there. it's found black holes, dark matter dark energy. inspired many people to continue studying the universe and shown us the beauty and wonder of what's out there. none of that is possible without human exploration. the second thing i want to point out is international cooperation. when i was a new astronaut in 1996, we were starting to work with our international partners to build the space station. none of the elements had launched yet. and sitting here listening to the briefings as a new person not really knowing what was going on at the time i wondered how are we going to make this work? how do we work with all these

countries, europe japan, russia. the u.s. was clearly going to be a leader but how are we going to work with everybody? different cultures languages, systems of measurements. but i discovered that when we all had a common goal it didn't matter what country you were from. with that common goal we were able to achieve a great thing, the international space station. so international cooperation is the second benefit that i discovered of the space program. and the third is inspiration for young people. i'm sitting next to two of my boy hood heros. i watched this man walk on the moon when i was six years old and it changed my life and inspired me to become an astronaut. not many younger than me can remember that but the ones that are at least my age and older that i trained with can point to

what walt and buzz did as what inspired them. these kids want to change the world, they want to be entrepreneurial. they see the space program as a way to do that. they see these smart and successful entrepreneurs helping the economy through space and they see these people as role models for them to follow. so it's not just nasa doing big

projects it's also this entrepreneurial spirit. the story i want to tell you. on my second space flight -- first space flight, second space walk, i had a chance to walk around during the space walk and at hubble we're about 100 miles higher. i was able to see the curve which you are of the earth. there are no words to describe how beautiful our planet ature of the earth. there are no words to describe how beautiful our planet is. what went through my mind is if you were in heaven and could look down, this is how beautiful our planet is. and then i thought, no it's more beautiful than that. i felt like this is what heaven

must look like. i felt like i was looking at paradise. that's how beautiful our planet is, it's fragile, it's a paradise paradise, and we need to take care of it. thank you. >> thank you for that powerful and eh rock tav imageryvocative imagery. i would like to start by just asking the panel, how good a job are we doing today leading the world in space exploration and how could we do better? >> we're not really leading the world. >> hit your microphone please. >> we have a facility up in space and we've invested a lot in it. we've gone to it put it

together, gone to it for quite a while. and then we changed our spacecraft to move to another program and that program didn't come together because of problems with the booster not being powerful enough so we had to go to another booster to take a spacecraft from a company that hasn't built a spacecraft before. so it was gaining weight and wasn't able to put itself and the lander into lunar orbit so we had to make the lander even bigger. and that same rocket was being used on five so it appeared as though we were not able to get the crew up there with the existing rocket so we continued to develop the orion and sort of shelved the heavy lift vehicle and without orion going

somewhere there's no point in continuing the lander. so the program really fell apart. excuse me. >> just tell us if that's a call from the space station. [laughter] [laughter]. >> colonel cunning ham, you talked about what you perceived to be excessive politics at nasa and the challenges that it presents. i was curious if you could elaborate on that and what steps could be taken to help nasa focus on what should be its core mission. >> i mentioned a little bit of the politics from outside of nasa that's increasingly over the years grown increasingly on nasa. and it's had a lot to do with

controlling the projects went into and what they did not. but also in my opinion it's affected the agency itself. people inside nasa are just not willing to speak their mind on things to get them done. some of these programs money has been spent on and they've been canceled and we tried to single stage it one time. i think a billion dollars on that. so what's happened is nasa has changed. in my opinion, they've become a much more risk-averse agency over the years. for example, we all realize that until we launched the hubble space telescope is the greatest telescope we've ever had. well, we're going to have the use of the hubble space telescope for at least another five years it looks like but that would not have halved had

we not had the last servicing mission that went up there to service it. and that mission originally was going to go up a couple of years earlier and was canceled at the time because they were saying it was too risky and canceled it because they lost people on columbia. it's a mental type of thing. we lost a crew on apoll low one. there are people who are fortunate they are still alive on apoll low 13. fortunately another administrator came on after that one and that administrator looked at it and decided it was worth the risk. and we have the greatest telescope in history. so i don't know how to do this. our society is moving more risk averse but we need to have an agency that understands you got to take your chances and get out there and push the fireman tier.

i would welcome the views of the witnesses on this panel as to what the top priorities of nasa should be, which of those projects yield the greatest benefits, what order should they be staged in. and to what extent should the focus be on manned exploration versus robotic exploration. >> i can't tell what you agree and i'm not an expert and totally up on internal affairs at nasa at all anymore but as i watch it i find that what nasa has been trying to do for over the last couple of decades, they recognize that the public at

large is looking for a demand for going to the next frontier which happens to be -- it's mars now. and so they've also attempted then to rationalize whatever they were working on as a step along that program. some of the things that they proposed certainly will have scientific value to scientists. will they help us on that program? i doubt it. and there are other ways of doing it. for example, you don't hear nasa really talking about returning to the moon now. i used to be one of those that was not wild about stopping at the moon in order to get back to mars but i began to realize that we have to have a facility that's going to keep people alive on mars and it's going to be a whole lot cheaper and easier to develop on the moon than the other way. so i just think we need to get back on a program that has the

moon as an intermediate step only as it fits in to the next frontier, mars. . i do think nasa has a plan to take us away from lower earth orbit. we have the cargo going to the station. now the astronauts with the commercial crew. that's the plan. i think it's going the right direction. but the opportunity, ability to leave the planet leave our orbit is common to all of those

things. maybe that's the right answer. but i think they are taking the right steps to get away from lower earth orbit. maybe the idea is that we plan on leaving, take those steps now, and it might be clear where

that destination is going to be a few years from now. >> let me see if i can integrate these things together. in the 60s and 70s we learned how to go and land on the moon and do things there. to do that again 50 years later just does not seem to be something that would be attractive to the people involved or the people who are supporting this. we did not build permanent there. other countries will build landers while they are doing that we can build the permanent structures. but those structures will be the same ones in the same design that we will do at the moon. in order to build those on the moon, we need a fairly redundant facility on the near side and on the far side to robotically

build those. we can design them with our concepts of a base and we know that europe has a company that builds pressure vessels for the space station and they can get additional resources from south korea and india so they can build the modules that will go to the moon based on our design. they need to be standard. and we have uneven terrain and a gravity field so you pick one off of the landers and put it where you want it. now, another lander is over here. pick this one up and bring it over. they won't line up. you've got to level them. you've got a difference in elevation. you have to account for that. there's too much -- with a

scientist who knows about atroyeds a robotic scientist. that's a crew and a robot at the same atroyed in place. now, that's with the inflatable. when we get to the rigid, we can send orion on the rigid. we can do that in a year. takes a lot longer to do it to mars. when we come back we can exercise aerocapture maneuvers that need to be done at mars. so we'll be doing these things and we'll be landing different people will be building and landing and we'll be getting this -- these habitats. the different habitats and we condition it.

each path that is out bound, we reuse the same facilities.

so i look forward to working with chairman cruz and the ranking senator nelson on legislation before this committee including america competes act, the commercial space launch act, and nasa's reauthorization. and i also want to thank senator nelson as our previous chairman under his leadership, the senate passed the bipartisan nasa authorization act of 2010. very few senators have been astronauts like senator nelson. he may be the most passionate advocate for space exploration who's ever served in the congress and i'm honored to serve with him on this

committee. now, dr. massimino, congress passed the last nasa authorization act in 2010 as i mentioned. this law continues to guide nasa as a multimission agency. and to quote that multimission from the statute quote, balanced and robust set of core commissions in science aeronaughtic -- aeronautic --

aeronautics, whatever that meant to whatever our country was -- whatever our country needed that it was important for us to try to contribute what we could. so you make the example of -- you mentioned earth observations, for example. well on the international space station, it was a great engineering project. international. amazing that this thing is up there, this great laboratory and we can do a lot of basic research up there. but in addition to that we're able to have this amazing perch in our planet for beautiful

photos. i have not found any -- i would throw the challenge out there, do you find anything else that could inspire kids young people, to study those fields other than the space program, i haven't found it. it encompasses so many different areas, it excites them. it's something they think is really cool. it's the future. it's making a contribution back to the planet. they just love it.

but that was 28 years ago. actually, more than that now. but it was 2011 2008 years since i wrote this letter to nasa. and i stood with my colleagues in the house of representatives

as we watched the closing of the chapter of the space shuttle program. so i was 9 years old writing a letter about how i wanted to be an astronaut. obviously i failed miserably at it. but 28 years ago standing in the house of representatives with my colleagues around the country watching this program come to anened the program that made me so interested in achieving more. we follow the phrase go west young man and that's who we are. i'm so concerned about the testimony today that the comments that you made that we aren't capturing that imagination like we once were. that we're not driving new innovations. it goes to the heart of what you're talking about today in the orion program. i want to get to that. we did the test launch. we did the test launch of the

orion december 5th, 2014. now it doesn't look like we're planning to carry astronauts until 2021. can this country afford to wait until 2021?

>> by the time that started getting implemented, it was said to another person i wonder if we should have put a cockpit in the booster. okay. it was canceled. we had to rush into the shuttle. we would love to have a program like that now but it was because jealousies of individuals and wanting to do things and the companies wanting to take a business that would get more money and maybe bring it back to

where their states were doing things. that was inexcusable to me. and there are other examples like that. i think we're making not so good choices many times. >> thank you mr. chairman. >> i want to welcome our guest, i dear personal friend and thank you for what you've done for this country as we have built

this amazing thing we're discussing today our american space program. the goal is to go to mars. the goal is to get nasa beyond low earth orbit. and the question is over the course of these years as we target the decade of the 2030s with the budget that we're going to have, how do we do it? how do we develop the technologies technologies, the systems that will get us to a foreign body such as mars with a crew and return them safely.

i want to ask you to comment on the plans to capture an atroyed, bring it back into a stable lunar orbit and send a crew up there to land on. as part of the steps as we prepare all of the things i just mentioned. eventually to go to mars in the decade of the 2030s? >> thank you, sir. i think we need to remember one thing overall, going to space is hard. i think we need to remember that only one country has done this and that's us. we did it a long time. but still the united states of america is the only country that was able to figure that out.

it's not so easy going to space. it's not too easy -- it's even harder to go beyond earth's orbit to placing like the moon and mars. if we decide we're going to take an incremental approach the atroyed mission, i think there's definitely a lot to be learned there. we're taking those steps with the reserge on the space station. how do we keep them healthy, the changes to the body. how can people withstand the journey to mars land a

spacecraft work, and then come home. this is tough stuff. we may or may not be able to do all that in one big swing. it may be too much to do in one swing. but the first step is get the big launch vehicle going like we have with a successful test flight and the other ones that are planned are far in the future but these are tough things to do. i don't know if more budget would make it quicker. i don't know. maybe it would. maybe it wouldn't.

they did tests out in the desert dropped them out of airplanes. landing tests. a lot of cockpit design work was done. so these projects were cut. there's a penalty to pulling everything back. whether we go to the atroyed, the moon, mars it's important to keep the momentum going of keeping the spaceship ready. keeping your options open until you're really sure which one you want to go to because you might find you might not pick the

right one off the bat. >> it's always going to be expensive for what we're talking about trying to do. i mentioned that for 40 years the nasa budget has been less than 1% of the federal budget. for the last 15 years, it's been driving down to 0.4% of the federal budget. unless the country which really is the congress here decides to put more money in it this is just talk that we're going

through here. the budget has got to go up for nasa. that's another reason why i feel very strongly that nasa has to be operating more efficiently and not doing some of the things which would be marginal. you have to focus it on what has to be done. nasa's budget is way too low to do what we've talked about doing here. >> absolutely. and i'd like to point out that i have this study at perdue to be done at the end of april. i've assembled 25 other institutions which are supposed to be unbiased and teach the general background. so if we can come back with a number of questions some of them are yes no maybe. some are tell me shortly. how do we get the public behind what we're trying to do? they're going to know what i'm trying to do briefly because i'm

going to show them and i can give them my assumptions. what is the strategy to get the people behind us and what kind of strategy do we need to fund something in 2040?

why can't -- why did we refuse them to come to our space station? it doesn't make any sense to me. we should be doing that sort of thing together. building on at this time sharing the things we're doing. they have a lot of things to do on the moon. we can help them with their perm understands. work together.

the combined mission is better than a robot or better than a crew mission. don't these people talk to themselves in washington? why do i have to come up and say if you combine the mission it's a whole lot better and you can do it where an atroyed is like the national resource council said we should do. but maybe that's not essential. i happen to think it is where you can fly orion with a longeration support system. we're going to be rotating crews up and down not just to the space station. we're going to do these things and we're going to build but we don't have to put all the money in building those habitats. foreigners are going to want them and we're going to want

them there and we're going to want them at mars. the foreigners have to land. okay. we're going to develop a very sophisticated landing system and we're going to be landing so many people at mars that we can take them along on the first landing. >> thank you very much. i want to ask one more additional question. each of the three of you are learned scientists and national

heros. and if i've understood your testimony here today correctly, each of you has discussed as a major objective a grand goal for nasa going to mars. >> i would ask each of you to take a moment to address the american people and in your judgment explain the benefits to america and to the world of going to mars. and what will be required to accomplish that objective.

>> rarely does a time come when we gain the potential of really demonstrating to ourselves and the rest of