exposure and prolong exposure in gravity. all of these stressors are present in the i.s.s. environment. operations a dusty, dim environment and gravitational field environment and gravitational field not like our own. we risk sending humans to mars with little or no knowledge of how ma mallian biology responds over years in agraph station -- gravitational field less than earth's. two challenges dominate the landscape. limited crew time and limited access to the i.s.s. we can reasonably anticipate the competition for time will become worse as the facility ages and demands to perform necessary maintenance become more acute. access is really a matter of competing programs. casis sponsored research and

nasa peer-reviewed research is needed. you asked about critical areas of research. the life and physical sciences survey which was completed in 2011 at congress' request summarized the sequence 6 -- summarized an sequenced 65 high priority tasks. furthermore, the study created two research plans. one with the goal of building a research enterprise and the other with a goal of a human mission to mars. more about those goals in a moment. you asked about priorities. prioritizing i.s.s. research isn't a new concept. in fact, we been working on that problem for close to 15 years. but the key question for prioritization isn't scientific. it's programmatic. it is something like this. shall discovery research or

fundamental research or translational research take precedence in the mature years of the i.s.s. program? the answer to that question has to be provided by government. once those programmatic priorities are sequenced can we prioritize the research? absolutely. the l.p.s. survey provided a very detailed scheme that used eight unique criteria to do so. the process for operations, you were curious about that it's well understood. casis receives a 50% allocation followed by human research, then technology demonstrations and what resource remain are devoted to biology, physical sciences and the science mission directorate. you asked about implications for extension. and criteria congress should consider. i think one of the first tests congress should apply can be answered with a simple yes or no question. is nasa prepared to operate a

robust research program through 2024? and in my opinion the answer is an unqualified yes exclamation point, absolutely. the transformation of this organization in the last five years has been nothing short of remarkable in the life and physical sciences. i provided seven examples of that in my written testimony. but there are large knowledge gaps for mars missions that will be one year or longer. the i.g. recently reported on this topic and there are four areas where i'd like to see the report go a little further. first, the i.g. found that extension to 2024 wouldn't provide enough time to mitigation -- mitigate 13 human health risks for a mars mission. i'm not quite prepared to accept that conclusion. there's simply too many degrees of freedom to establish useful risk criteria at this point in time. these risks need the context provided by a thorough taskage sess of future martian operations.

second, the report didn't address powered down masks to any great extent and we may need powered sample return for adegreesal research tasks. third, the i.g. emphasized average crew time as a metric to quantify research utility. it's a good metric but i'm not sure it goes far enough. i think we need to work on the concept of efficiency and evaluate and improve the efficiency of the research time we have. finally, the i.g. noted that research time is constrained with a six-person crew. we need that seventh member. so my top recommendations are the following. prioritize the programmatic goals, review the essential resources for extended ma mailian research including that seventh crew member, a scientist ast rah naught whose nominal responsibility is research. and finally to extend biological experiments to cover a substantial portion of a ma mailian life cycle and incorporate martian gravity egive rents wherever possible.

given those sufficient resources i'm very optimistic that nasa can deliver another decade of rigorous translational research. i sincerely thank you for the support of the program and the opportunity to appear. >> thank you doctor. i thank the witnesses for your testimony. members are reminded that committee rules limit questioning to five minutes. the chair now recognizes himself for five minutes. this question will be for mr. gerstenmeyer. the space-x mission had a new commercial crew docking mechanism, water fit ration device and a new space suit on board. mr. babin: can you explain the impact of the loss of these items on the i.s.s. and commercial crew programs and how do you plan to mitigate these impacts?

>> we'll start with the international docking adapter scheduled for commercial crew. it was lost. we wanted to have two units on orbit before we began commercial crew flights. i believe we'll still be able to support that schedule, we'll take the parts from a third unit being assembled as a spare or backup and work with the contract to go ahead and extend that and get that delivered on time the next docking adapter is scheduled to go in the next several months and we'll figure out the cargo to take it up. so i think we can accommodate that. the biggest impact to us is the cost associated with now having to manufacture third unit from the spare parts that remain. on the multifiltration beds, we think before the japanese transfer vehicle flies in august we should be able to get a new transfer bed manufactured again through the outstanding work of the boeing corporation to help us ex-petite that work and we've

got plans in place to do that. we've been trending down on the toxic, organic compounds on board space station so we're still in a stable configuration with the beds we have on orbit. we'll continue to monitor that carefully but we should be ok. the loss of the space suit, we'll probably now reconfigure one of the space suits we had returned to space station, we'll do more repairs on it on orbit and we'll have that space suit available. we've also put a contract change in place to work with the orbital science organization to carry space suits for us. the impacts will be not sig can and we can accommodate them but there are impacts. mr. babin: mr. elbon? >> i'll add to what he said. the most significant involvement from boeing's perspective is with the docking. the second unit is in florida and will be ready to fly when we

resume flying. the third, the parts are available at our supply for the houston and we're working on assembling the third unit to replace the one that was lost. as mentioned we're, working closely with nasa to understand the walter filtration issue and get those -- the water filtration issue and get those ready to launch in the next supply that gos -- that goes up. i agree we're in good shape to support the orbit. mr. babin: nasa's aerospace safety advisory panel reck nended -- recommended that as nasa assesses life extension, it should look at objectives for i.s.s. use and continue to articulate them to ensure cost and safety risks are balanced. given that human space flight is inherently risky, that needs to be weighed against the value to be gained by the endeavor. what are nasa's endeavors for extending i.s.s. operations

through 2024? >> again on the human research front, there's many medical investigations we're looking at that were described by other panel members about the radiation environment, the microgravity environment. we need to understand those and have those risks mitigated and understood before we commit to longer endeavors in space. those are all in plans and are in place. we have detailed investigations and the current one-year on space station is addressing many of those concerns and that's moving forward. mr. babin: finally for mr. martin. what insight does nasa have into the mishap investigations being performed by orbital a.t.k. and space-x. looking back at the apollo one accident, the challenger accident and the columbia zernt do you believe the investigations benefited from an independent review separate if the contractors or the program?

>> thank you, mr. chairman. my understanding is under the f.a.a., since the f.a.a. granted the license to the private contractors, both space-x and orbital a.t.k. under the contract they are leading the accident investigation. i believe with the orbital mishap that nasa has a separate review ongoing to try to get to the root cause there but there isn't the same kind of independent accident investigation board if it were a nasa owned failure. i think that's -- we're currently conducting a review that's going to look at some of the concerns we have about the independent -- independence of the contractor-led investigation board. but pursuant to the contract and license for the f.a.a. that's the way it's intended to be. mr. babin: ok thank you. that complete misquestions. i now recognize the ranking member, ms. edwards. ms. edwards: thank you mr.

chairman. thank you to the witnesses again. mr. martin's report of september, 2014, fund that nasa's estimate for the i.s.s. budget $3 billion to $4 billion per year through 2024 is overly optimistic. that was reiterated obviously in your testimony and so i'm just really curious from mr. gerstenmaier you could talk to us about the basis for your estimates for projected crew and cargo costs to support i.s.s. and i would note in that, for example, there have been three cargo mishaps in the last eight months. was that factored into your projections for costs, because it would seem that alone would then begin to shoot costs up if those kind of accidents which one could expect might happen over the course of operations over another -- to 2024. so it would be helpful to know

what your basis for those estimated costs are and respond to the challenges that mr. martin has laid out in his september, 2014, report. >> we've been looking and working very aggressively to look at cost management and cost control. we've consolidated some contracts into smaller number of contracts. we're also using competition to attempt to drive down the cost. we're in the process right now, we're in a blackout period of where we're going through cargo resupply number two contract award, we've got extremely good competition from that activity and believe competition will help us control and cull those costs down. i think we're actively working, we're aware of the cost issues and the challenges in front of us. the teams have objective acquisition strategies, we have

effective consolidation plans and we're revufing most -- removing costs from the program as we can and we believe we can hold those costs down and provide objective evidence of what we've done and seen in past contracts versus future contracts. ms. edwards: mr. martin, since i heard from mr. gerstenmaier, since your 2014 report is it still your assessment that nasa's projections are overly optimistic and in your analysis would you factor in three mishaps, failures, in a year in terms of looking at the costs? >> i'm not sure whether they factored how many accidents in but i do think their cost projections are overly optimistic and continue to be. over the life of the program, the i.s.s. has shown an 8% increase annually over the life of the program from 2011 to 2013 there was a 26% increase

for i.s.s. moving forward, as nasa considers extending the life of the station to 2024 it's projected that in 2024 59% of station ex-pensions will be for crew and cargo transportation. that's a big piece of the pie. ms. edwards: just curious for all the panelists if you look at nasa's rationale for extending to 2024, they include research and technology discoveries that benefit society, enabling human exploration to mars, establishing commercial crew and cargo to sustain commercial use of space. just curious as to whether any of you believe that nasa -- what nasa's top priority should be? that's a big list in itself and kansas kind of hard to figure out what should be first versus fourth. >> thank you very much for that question. it's a great one.

it's extremely important -- it's an extremely important one for this subcommittee to take on. the three bigies are the idea of discovery science, what are the big science questions that we want to have answered? we may not recognize the utility of those for a period of years. a piece of research equipment we flew on my mission in 1998 was largely used in last year's nobel prize winning awards. so that's 16 years to recognize some return on that investment. but it's a very important return nonetheless. there's also translation, this idea of what do we need to do in order to go further? of course you mentioned the commercialization aspects. we have contended in the scientific community for many years that it is not our job to sequence those priorities. it is the job of government. it is the job of either the executive branch or the legislative branch, and i'll leave it up to you to sort out which is which, but i believe you've been clear at this point,

when i look at the authorization language for this year, you said mars is very important, but it's not an either-or, but that nasa will also maintain a fundamental research program. i think you've told us mars is the answer and when you look at the research that remains to be done, the risks that sit in the red, most of them, about half of them, are associated with the extended dureation on mars, a mission of approximately three years' duration. i don't know of another research program that will provide us extended research capability to answer though three-year questions. the i.s.s. is our choice for that. i think that's how it should be used. ms. edwards: thank you. thank you, mr. chairman. mr. babin: thank you. now i'd like to recognize mr. brooks. mr. brooks: thank you, mr. chairman. mr. gerstenmaier in light of recent launch failures is nasa

reassessing their insight and oversight approach for commercially provided vehicles that service the international space station? >> as part of the accident investigation with the space-x event that occurred, we have part of our commercial crew program representatives are part of that activity with space-x. they are actively involved in analyzing and understanding what occurred on the cargo vehicle with an eye toward any design changes, process changes, any hardware changes that need to be made in the crew program. so we're actively involved in transitioning that information from this failure directly into the crew program. mr. brooks: thank you, i appreciate that response, an effort on behalf of nasa. in my experience, nasa has a tremendous amount of insight and expertise. and i would encourage nasa to show the leadership that you indicate they are showing and the management skill you indicate they are doing to

assist with commercial crew so that they can be more successful than they have been most recently. this question is with respect to mr. el bin and mr. gerstenmaier. the loss of the space-x vehicle two weeks ago has been described as a big los. part of that loss was a replacement space suit for the international space station. what are the implications to the international space station program for the loss of this suit? >> as i described earlier, we'll probably take one of the suits that's on orbit and refurbish it on orbit instead of returning it to the ground and then we'll develop the cape to believe the transport suits on all our cargo vehicles so we can bring suits up as needed. >> the space suits thems are not part of our sustaining contracts, we do however, help nasa with the analysis necessary to figure out which activities need to be done on e.v.a.'s so

we make sure space station can continue to operate with the capabilities that exist there. >> what was the cost of the lost space suit? >> i don't have a specific cost. i can take that for the record. it's -- we have 13 space suits available to us. they are from the shuttle program. this was one of those suit, we will not replace that suit. it will continue to be lost and will not be replaced. we have sufficient suits remaining in inventory to continue operating safely through the 2024 and beyond time frame. mr. brooks: the items nasa has had on recent losses, who is absorbing the cost of the lost items being transported to the international space station? is that the commercial crew provider or is it nasa? >> for the nasa item the losses are borne by nasa. we estimate the nasa cargo loss roughly at about $110 million or so on the space-x flight.

the researchers they're responsible for their hardware and bear the loss from the research hardware that was lost and that's how it splits out. mr. brooks: is there going to be any future effort by nasa inas much as we're hiring private -- in as much as we're hiring private contractors, for the materials lost because the private contractors were unsuccessful in launching their vehicles? >> our contracts today have a final milestone payment associated with successful delivery of cargo in orbit. obviously they will not receive payment for that accomplishment of that milestone. and we're investigating the advantages and disadvantages of having essentially insurance provided for these other capabilities, or to provide for lost cargo in the future. we haven't made a decision yet on whether is cost effective for us or not but we're taking a look at that to see if it's effective to have insurance or if it's better we indemnify and

the users bear the risk of the loss. mr. brooks: the moneys that will be withheld as payment to the private entity spacecraft providers is that enough to offset the loss that nasa has incurred? >> it offsets a portion but not the entire amount. mr. brooks: american taxpayers can rest assured that at least we'll have recoupment of some losses american taxpayers have suffered as a consequence of private sector providers' failure to provide the represented craft. >> yes. mr. brooks: that's all, mr. chairman. i yield the remainder of my time. mr. babin: thank you. i now recognize the raking member from texas -- the ranking member from texas, ms. johnson. is she here? mr. bera of california. i'm sorry. mr. bera: thank you, mr. chairman. i thank the ranking member for

this hearing. when -- as a child growing up in southern california and the aerospace industry in the 1960's and early 1970's, it was remarkable what we could accomplish as americans when we dreamt big. when we think about the international space station it's an engineering marvel. something that's over time, has -- as the witnesses have noted, 15 years of uninterrupted humans living in space. remarkable. when we think about this and when we think about where we want to go, we have to continue to think big as a nation. we have to not be afraid of thinking and addressing the issues. particularly as, you know, we dream about human space travel to mars. we don't know how we're going to get there. but that should not daunt us and that should not stop us and it should not stop us from making the investments to allow us to continue to incrementally dream big.

that's what we've done throughout our existence as human beings. we've not been afraid to explore. we've not been afraid to ask those questions and certainly this body has a responsibility to continue to push for the next generation of discovery. that said, as, you know, we increase and we move to this coordinated role between what the public invests in partnership with commercialization of space, the last few months have been a bit concerning. we've been fortunate that the accidents did not have human beings on there and only cargo but as we look at this partnership, commercialization and human space travel and taking human beings to the space station and beyond it is a bit worrisome. my question let me direct it to mr. martin you touched on new york light of these recent accidents and the investigation

of these accidents could you elaborate and maybe expand on nasa's role in making sure there's a transparent investigation? i mean there is some concern if just the commercial entities are investigating without nasa's role. >> under the contracts, this is commercial space flight. the f.a.a. gives the license. under the contracts the contractor leads the accident investigation review, unlike past challenger accident or something like that where nasa itself would convene an independent accident investigation board my sense is that nasa is a member, sort of an advisory member of orbitals and soon to be space-x's accident review board but they're not leading that activity. perhaps bill could go deeper on that. >> the nasa team is participating directly with the f.a.a. team and ntsb on the

space-x accident board. they developed a fault tree and the way they disposition -- they position all fault items is nasa f.a.a. and space-x have to agree about the fault of the accident. it's the engineering teams, led by space-x but represented by the government and the government can say whether we accept or do not accept their explanation for what the root cause was. it's an effective way for us to have good insight in. we can have our own research on the side and contribute directly to the conclusions and make sure we're representing the government. we have the best from f.a.a. and the best from nasa participating in those. mr. bera: do you feel confident that there's transparency there and that we as a body, congress, will be able to see that transparency? >> so far it's been extremely transparaphernalia.

it was the same with the orbital invest. we had that same transparency with them. it's been effective. we can show direct evidence of where that transparency is and how it's being implemented. mr. bera: great. with that, i yield back. mr. babin: thank you. i'd like to recognize the gentleman from florida, mr. posey. mr. posey: thank you mr. chairman. mr. gerstemaier, we know that planning for the i.s.s. began 20 years before it was actualized and now we're less than 10 years out from the administration's proposed extension to 2024. does nasa have plans for some sort of station in lower earth orbit beyond 2024? perhaps some sort of public-private partnership? perhaps with our current international partners, for a replacement or does nasa intent to leave any station entirely to

commercial companies? >> at this point we're looking to see if we can leave low earth orbit to commercial companies. we're allowing them to do informations on station to see that they can get a market return it makes sense to do that. we believe the agency's role is to push further out into space, to go into the region around the moon, the proving ground region of space. we will move our research and endeavor into that further region. it helps the agency get prepared to take bigger missions, ultimately toward mars. at this point we're envisioning a low earth orbit to be private sector activity and use the remaining lifetime of station to let the private sector understand the impact on see if it helps them. mr. posey: that's great to hear. most capsules are optimized to get crew and cargo back and

forth to the i.s.s. what role will capsules play once the international space station reaches the end of its life? >> again for the commercial crew program and the commercial cargo program, the companies have an interest beyond just the nasa need. they're building these capsules, they'll own the intellectual property and be able to operate them for their own purposes. if this private station we discussed earlier is available, they can use this transportation system to deliver cargo to it. they can deliver crew to it. etc. outside of the government. so this will essentially allow the private sector to go get transportation services on its own from these companies we have enabled through the initial startup contracts on i.s.s. mr. posey: that's great. the space shuttle and x-37, examples of reusable spacecraft that lands on a runway, have had track records of success. has nasa ruled out using

runway-wapeable vehicles in the future? >> the short answer is noo. in the orion vehicle it's geared toward deep space vehicle where wings make it difficult to re-enter the atmosphere. but for low earth orbit, winged vehicles are very nice and have winged -- and have many advantages as we saw through the shuttle program. mr. posey: thank you, mr. chairman. i yield back. mr. babip: i'd like to recognize the gentleman from virginia, mr. beyer. mr. beyer: on one hand we had three unfortunate losses, on the other hand, it seems the commercial space industry is getting ready to go exponentially. adding great value to our economy and our civilization. new satellites, internet, space tours of mars even. can you help us put these in the

proper perspective, especially compared to train and airline and automobile accidents 30,000 deaths last year by the way, nasa tragedies and all the transportation accidents in history, are we looking at the relatively two or three that have come up in the right perspective compared to the last 150 years? >> that's an interesting question. again, i think the positive thing is that in both -- in all three of these cases there's been no loss of life. that says our basic processes and procedures are in place. we protected the public, we protected the launch site, we did the right things. i think the important thing is to not get so fix stated on the problem but -- fixated on the problem but how can we learn from the problem. as a developing transportation system, the more we fly there will be small problems, they're acceptable in this case. as we described earlier, the impacts are not devastating,

they hurt research but are recovererable. the real tragedy will be if we don't learn from the events and understand the engineering behind the failures and imprufle overall. just as the aviation industry has suffered a lot of failures throughout its history, the reason for its success today and the safety in the aircraft industry as a result of lessons learned an those lessons being applied to build better, safer aircraft, we need to do the same in it space industry and take the learning from these events, internalize it, make design changes, change the way we build spacecraft and build a more robust transportation system. i see this as a painful but maybe somewhat necessary learning process. it's excellent to learn on cargo. we do not want to learn on crew. we will learn from cargo and apply those lessons to crew. mr. beyer: thank you for your positive attitude.

the safety advisory panel identified microorbital debris as a major threat, how does nasa address the concerns about orbital debris? >> we have shielding on board our space station and spacecraft that can protect for some debris. we cannot protect for all debris. we have recently implemented some changes to the progress vehicle, the progress launch that just occurred last weekend. it had new debris shields on the progress vehicle we're continuing to improve the debris protection capability. then we actively train on orbit just as we train terrestrially for fire drill well, train for evacuation drills of space station in case we get hit by a piece of debris that penetrates the pressure shell. we're prepared in that event. it is our highest risk and we look across the risk scenario we're protected with shielding levels we can protect for at this stage of the station's life.

mr. beyer: thank you very much. doctor, you testified that during the 2000's it was a result of nasa's priorities that the space flight was hard hit. scientists left the field. do you have any concerns about the level of the work force and expertise in that field today especially as we get ready to think about manned missions to mars? >> thank you very much for the question. i'd say the short answer is no, you're absolutely right that those particular functions were very hard hit. we saw about an 80% decrement in science portfolios and the physical sciences. one of the great things haas happened since 2011 is nasa has reinstituted a ground-based program. if you look at the number of people apply they're in the hundreds per solicitation right now. there's an active funding that is happening and bringing research up to the station. so you're starting to see that

coming back. what's even more interesting about it is you're seeing maybe some of the youngest scientists that are really schooled in the entrepreneurial spirit saying, this is something i'd like to take an opportunity to and check out. the i.s.s. research conference this week was about three times bigger than what it was a year ago. so there's a growing spirit and we need to continue to feed that spirit. i think great things will happen as a result. mr. beyer: thank you for your enthusiasm. i yield back. mr. babin: now i'd like to recognize the gentleman from oklahoma mr. bridenstine. mr. bridenstine: thank you mr. chairman, and thank you to all our panelists for coming and testifying before the committee. mr. gerstemaier, i appreciate your long and distinguished service at nasa going back to negotiating on the mir program in the 1990's. that's where i'd like to start today. when you think about right now

given the recent accidents that we've gone through, we are seeing how important our reliance is on things like the russian progress cargo spacecraft and of course the russia oy soyuz crew -- soyuz crew. given how the relationship has changed between the united states and russia, and even with even heard that the russians have talked about pulling out of the international space station what is your judgment on how this relation can go forward, how is it going on the civil space side given the strained relations in other areas? can you share with us your opinion on that? >> on the civil space side, the relation between the united states, or between nasa and the russians is very strong. we exchange data every day back and forth. we pass many commands to the space station, russian commands

through u.s. assets. we use their assets, as you said, for transportation. we're very much mutually dependent on each other for operations in space and the relationship is extremely strong, extremely transparent, in spite of the governmental tensions between the two governments. so there's a -- the challenge of human space flight kind of transcends a little bit the toughness of the outside world and we're working together extremely effectively with the russians. the recent progress loss, they've been sharing data with us. bev won, to -- we've been work together to act ily fly crew on the 23rd of this month with the russians. they've been open with us, sharing data with us, they understand our needs. so the relationship is extremely strong between the civil space side. mr. bridenstine: how confident are you they'll continue the relationship beyond 2020? >> they're continuing the

process. i think it's likely that when their federal program gets approved this year, there will be an extension of support through 2024. >> we have heard the i.g. has a report indicating that the operations of the i.s.s. are going to become more difficult because of the ability to take replacement parts to the international space station. recently, boeing had a report that might not have contradicted but dealt with some of those issues. can you share with us the boeing position? they were suggesting that beyond 2020 things get really difficult. i think your report suggested 2028. can you share how you're dealing with those issues? >> sure, thanks for the question. the study that we did looked at things like the structural integrity of elements on board. the ability to survive micromitorite kind of penetration, and came to the conclusion that through 2028 is completely feasible relative to the hardware that's on orbit. the other part of the question

is, what about the logistics, resupply to replace boxes that fail on orbit computers, etc. and to supply the crew. based on the logistics model nasa has laid out and is using for the procurement of cargo resupply services too that kind of volume and up mass is sufficient to support the logistics resupply that's necessary based on our analysis. we think through 2028 is completely doable. >> thank you. thank you for that testimony. mr. gerstemaier, i appreciated mr. posey question about what comes next after the i.s.s.? clearly whether it's 2020, 2028, we could lose partners, you know, we don't know when we might lose certain partners. we have to think about what comes next. i would like to just follow up with that. canna is a provide a report to

congress on its plans for a road map? or a timeline for certifying and testing post-i.s.s. a post-i.s.s. station? i understand his question was about commercial and things like that, that's of interest as well but it would have to be tested and sertfid nasa would have to be involved, correct? can you provide a timeline to congress for that? >> the way we need to think about this is the next private space station, i don't believe it will be as massive or big as the space station we have today with the international space station. it could be as small as, there's been discussion by the space-x corporation of using their crew transportation modules, called dragon lab, where they can do individual investigations. we've talked to oor bital about using their cargo vehicle as a temporary space station in low earth orbit. i think when we think about the private sector taking over, we don't need to think about a massive invest ofment the space

station. they can learn what research benefits them. if it's in the pharmaceutical area, materials processing, protein crystal growthing they can build a place to do that that can be much smaller. i think the private industry can do that on their own. nasa's role is to move the human presence further. we want to go around the moon, there could be habitation capability, again supplied by private sector but i think nasa's next focus is some kind of habitation facility in the vicinity of the moon. mr. beyer: roger that. i yield back. mr. babin: now i'd like to recognize the gentleman from colorado, mr. perlmutter. mr. perlmutter: thank you, mr. chairman. mr. administrator it's good to see you. some days you're here after we've had successes, some days you're here after

disappointments. i'm just glad we're moving forward. this is a risky business you all are in. we recognize that. we don't want to have disappointments, we want to have mostly successes. i was -- i became more comfortable in understanding the kind of oversight that goes with the contractor-led invest process that in fact you are very involved and that there has to be some kind of signoff as part of all of this. because oftentimes we have everybody looking over everybody else's shoulder. this seems to be a pretty sensible way to approach it and i appreciate that. my questions are generally for you, dr., and for you, ms. oakley. just really on what our research is doing on the space station that will help us as we move forward for sending our astronauts to mars and for you, so we have the researcher and

the futurist, if you will, sitting next to the one who has to figure out how do you pay for it and what's the return? i'd like to have you answer just generally, how do you see the space station advancing our goal of going to mars? and i'd like to ask you, ms. oakley what do you see in terms of the costs and the benefits from an accountant's point of view? i'll turn it over to you two. >> to make sure ms. oakley has time, i'll be brief. there are three issues we're dealing with here. they are the biological changes that we see in this continuous reduced gravity environment bone and muscle are some of the largest. it is this very energetic radiation environment that we understand to a large extent from the standpoint of solid tumors but when we look at interactions of things like effects on the brain

accelerated cardiovascular? >> is this why you have one kelly on the space station and one on the ground? >> it is. it's a unique experiment because they're identical. it gives you the chance to look at what's due to the environment. then of course there are behavioral issues. remove -- we're moving in that futuristic role, right now the i.s.s. works in concert with the ground. when we go to interplanetary operations, those crew members will be working quite autonomously from the ground. it's a matter of distance system of how people function independent of this planet will be very different than how we operate on the i.s.s. today. >> the bottom line is nasa does need a robust program on the space station to achee longer term exploration goals. however, nasa has to be able to pay for it and the congress has

to be able to pay for it and that relies on a robust commercial participation and low earth -- in low earth orbit to be able to do some of the things nasa needs to divert funding for the longer term exploration goals to. so like mr. gerstemaier was referring to, being able to establish those markets to do some of the research that's going to be required to support the long duration human exploration flights is going to be essential in getting them to pay -- and getting home to pay for it is also going to be essential buzz going to mars is expensive. mr. perlmutter: are you comfortable with the accounting and auditing that's gone on to date on this program? >> on the international space station program? i haven't looked specifically at the accounting associated with that. what i will say is that i haven't seen any cost estimates associated with extending the international space station program beyond 2020. and i think that that's going to be key for the understanding of

approving the funding and for everybody getting a very good understanding of what it's going to take to do the extension, to do the science that's required, and to do it safely. mr. pefrl mutter: thank you -- mr. perlmutter: thank you. just one more question. to mr. martin, we have had some incidents now where there have been some failures. we had some schools in colorado that had experiments on both the orbital launch and also most recently on the space-x. same school. they kid it twice and lost both. how do we account for the cargo that's lost? how -- is there any compensation to those people? or those schools or whatever? >> there is not. i think cases on the two flights of space-x and the or-- casis on the space-x and orbital lost

many sets of experiments. the school students in your district losses estimated over $100 million, that's gone. taxpayers lost that mr. perlmutter: shaung. -- thank you. i yield back. mr. babin: now i recognize the gentleman from california, mr. knight. mr. knight: thank you. as a police officer who does investigations on accidents we have seen a big change in our accident investigation over the last 50 years. i would expect to have seen a big change in investigations over space problems over the last 60 years. it hasn't been easy going to space in the 1960's, it isn't easy today. can you give me an idea of how investigations go today and how we can either move through the process making sure we're going through and hitting the points and making sure that we're

coming -- becoming safer as we move through the investigation but also making sure we can go quicker because the faster we can move the faster we can do more of this. >> kind of our underpinning is first of all, we need to be careful we don't jump to conclusions or assume we know what the failure is to begin. with we do a very methodical process where we gather the deata. we need to make sure the time sin cronyization of that data is all critical. these event os cur in mill seconds. if you have a camera that's running and the time is on that, you have to make sure the time on the camera is identical to what's coming from the spacecraft. is the timing of when the event occurred on the spacecraft or recorded after it's received on the ground so the radio delay time is important. the first thing is to gather the data, get it time synchronous and then sort through the process of building what we call a fault tree.

we brainstorm. there's electronic tools available to build a fault tree for you. they ask inquisitive questions. you lay out the failures that could have contributed to the event. which ones have to occur maybe with another event. then the team crosses off those events as they move forward. in terms of speed, what we're seeing here in the case of space-x is because they're very much a vertically inlt grated company they do almost all their work in house, they immediately went to testing certain components. even though they showed up on the fault tree they said why don't we build up a test rig right now and be prepared to go test. so even these short number of days between the event and now they're actually off in a laboratory doing stress test tests on components that may contribute to this more methodical process i laid out. enge the advantage and the speed pieces we can use tools, we can use analysis, we have software and then we can do physical hardware tests in a much faster

time than we did before. mr. knight: i agree. i spoke to several companies like virgin after spaceship two went down, they were jumping on it quickly and learning things very fast. it seems to me that the investigation process and now with private companies being involved, it seems like it is going a little faster. that is a good thing. we want to make it safer. i know everyone wants to make it as safe as they possibly can and that's the truth. space flight still is in its infancy and we're still learning and we will be for hundreds of years yet. and the faster we can get through some of these investigations, the faster we can move and progress. doctor, i just had one question for you because i think that there was some good conversation there that we've got an astronaut working today and

we've got one on the ground. and i think that we'll get some good information there on what effects are on the body when we actually send people to mars on such a long, prolonged space flight. can you give us an idea of what we're going to look at in the next 35 years or maybe shorter as administrator boldin thinks of when we'll go to mars and the effects on the body, not just radiation but the time in space. >> mr. knight, i apologize i forgot my crystal ball this morning. i'll do my best. mr. knight: you're a kinesiologist, you should know this. >> 10 years ago, i would have told you i expected to see 50% bone loss from a human being. we thought that's what gravity confers. we've seen with some of the

implementation strategies for countermeasures on the i.s.s. that we're looking probably a lot better than that. i'm not willing to say that we have bone completely mitigated at this point, but some of the loading strategies are considerably better. we've also seen newly emergent risks and that's always a problem. one in particular with vision of astronewts. that's actively being worked on by nasa. there's been a number of ground based research protocols. s that great example of how nasa quickly identified a problem, immediately engaged the scientific community to try to affect solutions. mr. knight: thank you, mr. chairman, i yield back. mr. babin: i'd like to recognize the gentleman from ohio, mr. johnson. mr. johnson: thank you. i'm a big fan of space exploration, big buck rogers fan, "star trek," all those things growing up with them as a kid.

i say that jokingly but i can tell you that sitting in my living room floor between the summer of my ninth and 10th fwrade year and watching neil armstrong and buzz aldrin land on the moon captivated me as it did the rest of the world and i'm not -- i've never gotten over that. so i have tremendous respect for what you folks do and the discoveries that we're making through our space exploration process. mr. gerstemaier one question for you to start off with. the i.s.s. has not yet been extended by congress. however, the administration has proposed to extend to 2024. how many of our international partners have agreed to extension and what steps is nasa taking to build a coigscoligs of our international partners for an extension? >> the canadian space agency has

agreed to extend to 2024 so we have one partner on board, the canadian space agency, we do a lot of -- who do a lot of robotic activities. the russians, potentially by the end of this year could be onboard with an extension to 2024. the japanese are also actively looking at starings extension. they could do that -- looking at station extension. they could do that possibly by the start of their next fiscal year in april of 2026 -- 2016. the japanese are actively working with that and we're working with them. the european space agency are working through their overall budget process. they've committed to support us on the orion capsule. the teams in ohio are working with them on the european service module that sits underneath the orion capsule. they're pretty much committed, they're not committed to station yet, they'll probably do that in 2017 formally but they're doing all the activities of getting with the member states and

member countries to approve. they see, again, tremendous benefit. it's just working through their big governmental process. i think all partners are heading towards station extension to 2024 in a varying time frame. mr. johnson: how significant a partner are the russians? we're pretty dependent on them in terms of getting there and back? >> yes, we're dependent on them for crew transportation. we also use them for altitude adjustments of space station. they provide the propellant to reboost the station. they're dependent on us for solar ray or power generation. they also use us for commands and other activities. we're mutually dependent back and forth. mr. johnson: are you having any discussion i'm sure you've heard the testimony of the -- of the potential incoming new chairman of the joint chiefs who

has stated that the russians are our biggest security risk security threat. i mean, we're kind of in a dichotomy with the russians here. are you guys concerned about that? and what's your backup plan? >> again i would say that first of all, from a civil space standpoint, as i described earlier, we have a strong relationship with the russians and will continue d -- and we'll continue to do that. i think we need to look at what happens if the russians pull out in certain key areas. we're working hard on the commercial crew program. we want to end our seoul reliance on the crew -- our sole reliance on the crew transportation system as soon as we can and funding for that is critical to have u.s. capability to augment the russians in december 2017, or so time frame. i think we're moving out on crew transportation. the other areas that i described where we're dependent we have workarneds and we can put --

workarneds and we can put systems in place to recoup that. i think it's advantageous to us if we can cooperate there's adadvantages to us. that's the right way to go forward. these endeavors require taos work together but we need to be not so naive that if a problem occurs we can't continue on without a certain partner. mr. johnson: i guess, you know, we've had some failures with commercial -- with the commercial avenue. i certainly -- i'm sure that you are but i hope there's a lot of discussion going on because if we continue to experience similar failures that -- like we had with the commercial cargo program and the russians were to back out, our options become smaller. and fewer. mr. chairman, i yield back.

mr. babin: thank you. i'd like to recognize the gentleman from california, mr. rohrabacher. mr. rohrabacher: thank you very much, mr. chairman. i remember when the space station was first approved, only won by one vote in this committee. one vote. i voted for it. don't disappoint me. don't disappoint me now. does anyone here know the level of co-2 in the atmosphere of the space station? do you have an internal -- you have an internal atmosphere what element do we put co-2, a lot of talk about co-2 in the planet now. what does co-2 do in the space station? >> i believe it's -- we've been

holding it low because of the potential eye problems. i think we're running about three millimeters of mercury of partial pressure of co-2 on board station. mr. rohrabacher: how does that compare to the co-2 in the atmosphere here? >> slightly higher in the atmosphere in the room here. we've typically allowed prior to the intercranial pressure problems associated with vision, we allowed it to go up to the order of six or so millimeters of mercury, dramatically higher than the environment here. slightly higher levels onboard station than here. mr. rohrabacher: have there been any health related problems with this increased level of co-2 that astronauts breathe in during their time in the space station as compared to what they'd breathe in here? >> again the -- we're not sure but we think it could contribute to the intercranial pressure

problem which causes the eye and vision problem we described -- described. at higher elevated levels of co-2 you can get headaches and other physiological problems. we try to control it as low as we can. we have a russian device that removes carbon dioxide and a u.s. device that removes carbon dioxide and we have some absorbent material that removes it and we have a next generation piece of equipment that will fly out on the capsule that helps -- that will be used. mr. rohrabacher: so we exhale co-2 all the time so you have to be concerned with what the human body itself is exhaling. in terms of the future of space station, do we have plans to expand, put different elements onto the space station at this

point? >> currently on the u.s. side, we just reconfigured the permanent multipurpose module from one location to another location to make room for a docking adapter we discussed earlier to let commercial vehicles come. that's about all we're going to do on the u.s. side. there's no major new additions coming. the russians talked about a solar power platform to provide solar energy for their segment. the russians have also talked about a multipurpose logistic modules they may add. the russians may add additional modules but we on the u.s. side don't have any major additions. mr. rohrabacher: a company has developed a space habitat, the inflatables. is there any use of this technology? mr. gerstenmaier: it will be added to space station next year as a demonstration

capability. this is an expanded module that will be added to the outside of the station it. will stay there for about a year or year and a half. its purpose is to investigate the advantages of an expandable module, so instead of a rigid i had pressure shell, it's to understand what we can gain from the expandable technology it. has a very thick wall so it may be better from a microimmediate yote penetration stand -- micrometeor penetration standpoint. so the idea is to get it on orbit, actually take those claims, test them on orbit with space station, use the unique capabilities of station, condition firm -- confirm it if -- confirm if that is something we want to use moving forward. mr. rohrabacher: and it might be cheaper than the traditional way of building a space station which is something we should be concerned about. let me just note two things. one is that orbital debris continues to be and always was an expanding concern.

i believe that this is something nasa should look at not just in terms of space station, but we should be thinking about international cooperative effort to just deal with the debris problem. that's something we need to -- this committee should be dealing with at least in the time ahead. and second and last of all, let me just note that your report on your cooperation with russia during this time period, when there are i say frictions going on between the united states and russia, i think demonstrates a very wonderful aspect of space. that is that once you get up there, you look back down on the earth and some of those problems don't seem as important or you put it in -- we're able to put it in perspective and i'm happy to hear that we are thant russians are putting these frictions in

perspective to the point where we can work together and create a better world while we're doing it. thank you very much for demonstrating that to all of us. >> we have just had votes called. i want to thank the witnesses for their valuable testimony and the members for all of their questions. if we'd had time i'd like to have gone through with a second round. mr. babin: but the record will remain open for two weeks for additional comments and for written questions from members. it's our hope that the office of management and budget will work more expeditiously with nasa to put together responses to these questions. the committee is still waiting for nasa 'responses to questions for the commercial crew hearing from six months ago. please send back the message that these delays were not acceptable. the witnesses are excused and this hear something adjourned. thank you. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy.

visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015]

>> c-span gives you the best access to congress. live coverage of the u.s. house, congressional hearings and news conferences, bringing you events that shape public policy and every morning, washington urge -- "washington journal" is live with elected officials, policymakers and journalists and your comments by phone, facebook and twitter. c-span created by america's cable companies and brought to you as a public service by your local cable or satellite provider. >> house republicans yesterday canceled a planned vote on a spending bill because of a dispute over the confederate flag. congress had been debating the spending bill for the interior department and the environmental protection agency

. democrats attached two amendments to that bill dealing with the confederate flag. one would prohibit the national park service from selling confederate flags. the other banned the display of confederate flags on graves in federal cemeteries. both amendments passed by voice vote. but late wednesday night, republicans proposed an amendment that would have reversed those prohibitions on the confederate flag. democrats objected and rather than hold a vote on the pro-confederate flag amendment, house leadership pulled the interior e.p.a. spending bill from the floor on thursday.

later in the day house minority leader nancy pelosi offered a resolution that would have required the mississippi state flag to be removed from the capitol because mississippi's flag includes the confederate flag. >> mr. speaker, pursuant to rule 9 i rise in regard to a question of the privileges of the house and i send to the desk a privileged resolution. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the resolution. the clerk: raising a question of privileges of the house. whereas at 4:00 p.m. today, july 9, the governor of south carolina will sign legislation to remove the display of the confederate battle flag. whereas on december 20, 1860, south carolina became the first state to secede from the union. whereas on january 9, 1861, mississippi seceded from the union stating in its declaration of immediate causes that our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery, the greatest material interest of the world. whereas on february 9 1861, the

confederate states of america was formed in a group of 11 states as supported sovereign nation with jefferson davis of mississippi as its president. whereas on march 11 1861, the confederate states of america adopted its own constitution. whereas on april 12, 1861, the confederate states of america fired shots upon fort sumter in -- sum ter in charleston, south carolina effectively beginning the civil war. whereas the united states did not recognize the confederate states of america as a sovereign nation but rather as a rebel insurrection and took to military battle to bring the rogue states back into the union. whereas on april 9 1865, general robert e. lee surrendered to general ulysses s. grant at appomattox courthouse in virginia, effectively ending the civil war and preserving the union. . the

confederate states of america used the jack. whereas since the end of the civil war, the navy jack, confederate battle flag has been appropriated by groups of symbols of hate terror and intolerance and supportive of the institution of slavery. whereas groups such as white supremacist groups frighten, terrorize and call harms to groups of people with they have hateful intent, including african-americans and hispanic and jewish americans. along with mississippi house speaker and other state leaders have spoken out and advocated for the removal of the confederacy on mississippi state

flag. whereas many members of congress, including john boehner support the removal of the confederate flag from the grounds of the south carolina's capitol. speaker released a statement saying i commend the governor and other south carolina leaders in their effort to remove the confederate flags. in his second inaugural address the month before his assassination, president lincoln ended his speech with these pa powerful words which are meaningful today as when they were spoken on the east front of the capitol on march 4, 1865. with malice toward none with charity for all, with firmness in the right as god gives us, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds and for his

widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a lasting peace with all nations. whereas the house of representatives has several state flags with imagery of the confederacy throughout the main structures and house office buildings, whereas it is a fact that symbols of the confederacy insult many members of the general public. whereas congress has never recognized the symbols of sovereign nations within whom it has gone to war, whereas continuing to display symbol of hatred oppression that nearly tore our union apart that is known to have been through many groups would damage the reputation of this august body, institution and offend the very dignity of the house of representatives. and whereas impairment of the

dignity of the house and its members constitutes a violation of rule 11 of the rules of the house of representatives of the 114th congress, now therefore be it resolved that the speaker of the house of representatives shall remove any state flag containing any portion of the confederate battle flag other than a flag displayed by a member of the house from any area within the house wing of the whol and donate any such flag to the library of congress. the speaker pro tempore: the resolution presents a question of privilege. the gentleman from california. >> i have a motion at the desk. the clerk: mr. mccarthy of california moves that the resolution be referred to the committee on house administration.

the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order. gentleman is recognized for one hour. mr. mccarthy: this raises an important question and the house would be best served by committee action. i'm moving to refer it to house administration. i yield back and move the previous question on the motion. the speaker pro tempore: the question is on ordering the previous question. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. the ayes have it. the previous question is ordered. ms. pelosi: mr. speaker, i ask for a recorded vote. mr. speaker i ask for a

recorded vote. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady asking for a vote on ordering the previous question. ms. pelosi: -- refer to committee. the speaker pro tempore: the question has not put that question. ms. pelosi: may i have a parliamentary inquiry? mr. speaker, parliamentary inquiry. i'll wait until the -- recorded vote. the speaker pro te [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] >> the vote on the motion was 23 to 1976 which means nancy pelosi's resolution to remove confederate flags from the u.s. capitol is being referred to a house committee before any other action. but the controversy over the confederate flag is not over in congress and it could slowdown upcoming spending bills.

"politico" reports house republicans are concerned democrats will offer amendments banning the flag from federal cemeteries. the house had been scheduled to consider the financial services spending bill next week. but according to "politico" that bill will likely be pulled from the house floor. unlike, congress -- unlike congress, though, the south carolina legislature was able to reach a consensus on the confederate flag. voting this week to remove it from the grounds of the state cop toll. this morning at -- capitol. this morning at 10:00 a.m. the flag was lowered as the governor, state lawmakers and thousands of others watched.

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[captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] >> just before the flag came down, president obama this morning competed -- -- tweeted --

>> this reaction from house speaker john boehner saying in a statement quote, i command governor haley, the legislature and the -- >> here's some of our featured programs for this weekend on the c-span networks --

>> get our complete weekend schedule at c-span.org. >> conservative pollster and author, kristen soltis anderson

. >> when you take a look at where people's eye balls are going these days, it used to be folks were focused on the television and so political advertising became very heavily focused on ads. but technology's changed so that now if you walk into a room not just of 20-year-olds but of 60-year-olds, what are they looking at? they're looking at their phones. so for folks in the political world who want to reach the next generation or just reach into the future, understand what the future of political advertising's going to look like, things like candsy crush or whatever the latest game is i think candy crush may be fading in popularity, but there's always something new that's popping up. finding ways to get your message in front of people, where they're paying attention, i think is really important. >> sunday night at 8:00 eastern and pacific. on c-span's "q&a." >> the heritage foundation today hosted a discussion on threat from isis and the best strategies for the u.s. to combat violent extremism.

this is an hour and a half. >> good afternoon. welcome to the heritage foundation. of course welcome those who join us on our heritage.org website as well as the c-span network. we remind everyone online and on the network that questions or comments can be sent to us at any time, simply emailing speaker@heritage.org. we will of course post the program on the heritage home page following today's activities. and the last task for those in-house is to please check that cell phones have been silent as a courtesy to our speakers as well as those recording the event. hosting our discussion today is lisa, who is our senior research fellow for south asia

and our asian studies center. she focuses on america's economic security and political relationships, specifically with pakistan, india afghanistan and the other nations of south asia. she's served on the senate foreign relations committee and been a senior advisor in the state department south asia bureau, served at the central intelligence agency as a political analyst on south asia and for a period of four years was also in the political officer to the beamsies in islam bad and new delhi -- islamabad and new delhi. please join me in welcoming lisa curtis. lisa. [applause] lisa: thank you, john, and thank you all for joining us today for the program. a view from the front lines of islamist u.s. is, perspectives on terrorism -- insurgency, perspectives on terrorism and the middle east and asia. terrorists massacred 3 tourists

in tunisia, attacked a factory in southern france, beheading the owner, and conducted a suicide attack at a kuwaiti shi'ite mosque, killing 25. while these event mace not have been directly connected they're indicative of the pervasiveness of the terror threat that we face today. the most immediate threat stems from the rise of the islamic state in iraq and syria. and the phenomena of foreign fighters in which muslims from around the world are flocking to syria to fight with the islamic state. the state department terrorism report that was released in april highlighted the fact that there were 16,000 foreign fighters from over 90 countries that had joined in the fight in syria. exceeding the rate of foreign fighters that had gone to afghanistan, pakistan, iraq, yemen and somalia in the last 20 years. and although the u.s. has degraded core al qaeda

leadership in pakistan's tribal areas, we still face an al qaeda threat. it has evolved, we face more of a threat from al qaeda affiliates throughout the middle east and north africa. and here i would like to note a heritage foundation publication from four years ago titled "a counterterrorism strategy for the next wave" which drew attention to this evolution of al qaeda. and this report came out at a time when the white house was trying to down play the global terrorist threat and diverting resources from that fight. so in that report we call on the administration to step up the fight, to be proactive and develop a strategy that matched the evolving strategy of the terrorists. one major question is what does the rise of isis mean for the future of al qaeda? what is the impact on u.s. policy given that these groups

share the same deadly anti-west ideology? for now they're competing for ideological influence and financial resources. but is it possible that they might merge in the future? or will one subsume the other? so the answer -- to answer these questions and discuss other important issues, we have a very distinguished panel of experts with us today. first, we have dr. sebastian. he currently serves as the major general matthew c. horner distinguished chair of military theory at the marine corps university. previously, he was a associate dean of congressional affairs in relation to the special operations community at the national defense university. a graduate of the university of london and former fellow at harvard's kennedy school of government he's an associate fellow with so com's joint university and an adjunct professor with georgetown university. he's also a regular instructer with the special warfare center

and school in fort bragg and for the f.b.i.'s counterterrorism division as well. he's tested before congress and he's also briefed on several occasions the c.i.a., odni and nctc. then we have ms. sara carter. sara's an award-winning investigative reporter whose storied have ranged from national security and terrorism to ground breaking immigration coverage. formerly with the los angeles news group the wyoming and the washington examiner, she spent the past year working along the southwest border covering national security for the hit tv documentary "for the record." she's now a senior reporter with american media institute. sara spent more than seven months in afghanistan and pakistan since 2008. she has won awards for her work on afghan women and children addicted to opium in afghanistan and she's also imbeded with u.s. troops on afghanistan's border with pakistan as well as traveled to pakistan's tribal areas with

the pakistan army. she's the recipient of two national headliner awards, one for a story on a child born into the mexican mafia, and another for a multiple part series called beyond borders that involves ground breaking investigations on immigration and national security. our third panelist, last but not least ms. catherine zimmerman. catherine's a research fellow at the american enterprise institute and she's the lead analyst on al qaeda for a.e.i.'s critical threats project. her work is focused on the al qaeda network, particularly al qaeda in the arabian peninsula and al-shabab, which is al qaeda's affiliate in somalia. ms. zimmer-mass -- ms. zimmerman has testified before congress about the threats emanating from al qaeda and she's briefed members of congress, their staff and members of the defense community. so with that i'm going to turn the floor over to our first speaker, dr. gorka.

[applause] dr. gorka: good morning ladies and gentlemen, or good afternoon. it's a real pleasure to be back here at heritage, an institution that's always a real pleasure to speak at. today, for truth in lending, i'm not going to address the topic. because i'm not coming back from the front lines. this was advertised as an assessment from the front lines. i'm going to tell you what the people who have been to the front lines have told me. i work very closely, as you heard, with our green berets, members of the intelligence community and our marines. and i'm going to report to you a very abbreviated summary of special -- especially of the work that we've been doing for uusoc. in the last two years we've

supported commanding general charles cleveland whose just retired as the commander of the green berets, and we've compiled two reports on the use of irregular warfare by groups like isis, but also a nation state actor such as iran and russia. and also a very in depth study on the central gravity of isis. i'm going to talk to you very briefly about those reports and also the doctrine, the strategy that isis is following on the ground today. so what is the current threat environment? the current threat environment is a very, very ugly one. whether you are a christian girl in nigeria, kidnapped against your will because of what you believe whether you are aia zitty hounded up a mountain topped by isis or someone somewhere in syria and iraq who got on the wrong side of isis and had to be crucified or whether you're one of these poor wretches who was decapitated recently or the

unfortunate lieutenant of the royal air force. this is your reality. and it isn't just, of course, a reality thousands of miles away with all the current cases that the f.b.i. director has admitted we are investigating in america. this is very much a threat to the united states as well. so, let's go straight to the analysis of isis. this is the report that we have compiled for general cleveland. if you want to have a copy, we have permission to release this now. you will see my email at the end of my presentation and we'll be glad to share this with you. what's the baseline analysis? the baseline analysis, this is all unclassified, is very simply based upon four metrics, isis is much more dangerous than al qaeda. i am not going to tell you a.q. is dead. far from it. far from it. i'm very glad we have somebody here to talk about a.q. but isis is a graduate-level threat. this is far more dangerous than al qaeda for four reasons.

number one it is its own self-generated fully fledged transnational insurgency. al qaeda, in all the places where it existed in the last 14 years, was a parasitic terrorist organization that attached it self to indigenous insurgencies, whether it was al-shabab in somalia or whether it was the taliban in afghanistan, it did not generate its own mass base of mobilization as a true mooist insurgency should or one that follows mao's rule book for mobilization. isis is different. isis is its own self-generated insurgency. and of course the big difference between a terrorist group and an insurgency is that an insurgency holds territory in daylight. and this we know now, isis holds more territory than the territorial expanse of the united kingdom. it is a graduate threat. more importantly, what we don't talk about, it is the world's first transnational insurgency. not just international all insurgencies are to a lesser or

greater extent international with foreign support or foreign fighters this is one that operates and holds territory in at least three countries. in the 20th century, insurgencies were always about one thing. taking control of the country within which the insurgent group was established. whether you're mao in china or in colombia. this is different. isis has much greater -- grander ambitions. it wishes to create a global caliphate. next will be jordan and saudi arabia and on and on and on. with boko haram's act of feelty -- feelity now boko haram territory in nigeria is also under the control of the caliph. this is stunning that we have one insurgency that controls territory in more than one nation in the middle east and now also west africa. second, completely open source, it is the richest threat group of its type in human history. let's just leave out the elicit oil sale through turkey, the sale of antiquities, the kidnapping and everything else.

just look at two events in the last year. after the second raid by isis on the iraqi national bank, isis netted $823 million in cash. $823 million. if we look at the 9/11 commission report which did the financial forensics of that attack 9/11, the whole operation, from safe houses to student visas, to flight school training, cost $500,000. that means that isis has the equivalent at least in cash of 1,600 9/11's. should they wish to do that, that is a very large threat. thirdly, as c.j. cleveland -- c.g. cleveland has used the word staggering, which i agree, the recruiting capacity of high sis is mind boggling. you just heard that we have figures that if in historic perspective, we have never seen before. 19,000 foo foreign fighters in nine months.

these are the kind of figures that al qaeda had wet dreams about. and isis made it a reality and they're keeping on this drive to recruit. lastly, most important of all, in the macro of strategic context, is the declared caliphate successfully. al qaeda never did. the taliban's pathetic little caliphate was never a caliphate. this is a real caliphate. for 90 years, since the disillusionment of the ottoman empire, they've been demanding a rere-establishment of the caliphate, whether muslim brotherhood, this is the only group that has successfully done it. this puts it at the pinnacle of the extremist islamist threat. lastly, unfortunately, it has no peer competitor. unfortunately everybody in this room knows it's very easy to estimate, the number of insurgencies defeated by air power alone since the invention of air power is exactly zero. thank you. air power prepares the ground

for ground troop wloss take back the territory. therefore we will never defeat isis. with air strikes. somebody has to take the ground back. i'm not saying the 82nd airborne has to deploy tomorrow, but somebody has to. egypt, jordan, the iraqis themselves, the kurds. but somebody has to contest that soil. so why is isis so successful? well, a lot of it has to do with its name. in d.c. we have a childish argument is the islamic state of iraq in syria or the levant? both of those are wrong. when you do your intelligence preparation of a battlefield, you start with what the enemy calls themselves. you're not permitted to make up your own labels. we wouldn't call the soviet union, you know, misguided democrats. now would we? [laughter] all right. so what did isis call itself? before declared caliphate? the islamic state of iraq and alsham.

hugely important. why? because alsham, as every good muslim knows, is a very powerful term in islam. it relates to the story of end times, of judgment day. just like in christianity, the plains are expected to see the final war between the anti-christ forces and the true believers, well, guess what? al-sham is that of islam. it is explicit. the final holy war before the end of the world and all humans are judged by allah will occur on that territory in al-sham. the final holy war. think about what that name says. as an information operations the tool to all those hormone-laden 17-year-old muslims around the world looking for some meaning. not only did he name his threat group after al-sham, he captured al-sham. and his message is, you want to

claim your soul in jihad, the clock is ticking, gentlemen. come on down. this is the only way to explain more than 20,000 foreign fighters recruited in less than a year because of the significance of the territory that has been captured and the name of the threat group. and of course the problem's a little bit bigger than iraq and syria. this is from the isis twitter feed. this is the visual that was splashed all over the internet after the declaration last june of the caliphate. as you can see, their game plan is a little bit larger than iraq and syria and it's not about just assad or maliki's corruption. it is a global caliphate. the last thing i want to do is get you inside the mind of isis today. i want to give you that you are playbook. -- i want to give you their playbook. unless you're looking for the g.p.s. coordinates of a high value target, everything you need to know at the strategic

level about the global jihadist movement is available on that super classified system called google. [laughter] it really is stunning. there is no polygraph at the strategic level for isis. if you want to know what they're doing right now in syria, iraq, libya and elsewhere, you need to read this book. this is an egyptian that we killed a few years ago or rather the pakistanies killed a few years ago. the book is called the mastery of savagery. if you know your u.s. military doctrine this is the anti-petrino manual. this is the antidote to our f.m.-324. and this is exactly what they are using today to run their operations. if you're interested in the book, send me an email and i will send you an unclassified english language translation. but to summarize it, the operations undergoing now in the middle east and north

africa are in three phases. he said that to beat the infidel, you must break your operations down into phase one. vexation operations, classic warfare where you do dramatic irregular warfare attacks. not the scale of 9/11 but dramatic attacks. that prepare the ground for phase two. phase two is the spreading of savagery phase. this is where you coordinate your irregular warfare attacks with the goal of dislocating the local government from its capacity to govern. so you're challenging the syrian government, the iraqi government next, the saudi or jordanian government from actually being able to govern its territories. and if it's true if the reports i have received that on day ramadi fell they were in excess of 200 vehicle-born i.e.d.'s detonated on that one day, we are in phase two. coordinating that means they are following this textbook and they are on phase two.

and lastly, the most important phase, is the administer savagery the consolidate and expand. here we want to stabilize held areas. just like we did with our coin manual. but here the purpose is to unite the populations of the fighting force, to implement shari'a law, to provide services and here is the real value added. what he's doing here in the final phase, and don't think of this as a phase that ends in a few months or years. this can last for a century in this phase what they are create something a giant f.o.b. a giant forward operating base. which can be used as the platform from whence to deploy more phase one or phase two operations into neighboring territory. this is what i call the hybrid caliphate. the big difference with this is that prior jihadi strategists were purists. use violence to achieve the goal of the caliphate. he says, yes of course, we want to achieve the caliphate, but you can't just click your fingers with violence and then create a caliphate.

there has to be a transitional phase. his transitional phase is this phase three, where you act like a quasi-state, you don't reject the west failing model, you just could opt it as a transitory face toward caliphate and this unfortunately, ladies and gentlemen, this works. as we have seen. so, most important question, so what? what does this all mean? to conclude, number one. isis is far more successful and deadly than al qaeda for very identifiable reasons. it's not magic. there's no voodoo involved. number one it understands irregular warfare. it's read the right books. u.b.l. and a.q. followed the gavaris model of irregular warfare which is wrong and ended up with him dead at the age of 39. this threat group has read their mao. they understand that to win you have to outgovern the government. right now they're advertising for less jihadists online and

more engineers and nurses. that tells you they've read their mao. secondly they have a very expective exploitation of a mobilizational ideology of global jihadism across the internet and social media. everybody in this room knows the facts right? we are having our lunch eaten every day by isis on social media. we aren't even scratching the surface of what they are doing in terms of information warfare. second, the caliphate will continue to grow unless it is challenged on the ground and in the ideological domain. to deny the relevance of ideology as this administration does, to say it's all about economics and jobs for jihadis well, it's like a bad "s.n.l." skit. i'm very glad the president made some noises in this direction this week, but i want to see some proof that we are prepared to talk truly about the ideology that is being used to mobilize. lastly the enemy threat

doctrine of isis and the global jihadist movement must be better integrated, i put it in better because i don't think it's integrated at all must be integrated into the strategic response or we will be condemned to w whmbings ack-a-mole. your children, my grandchildren will be killing jihadis 100 years from now. if you want to go deeper, i wrote an article on the central gravity of the jihaddest movement -- jihadist movement. if you want the real graduate level analysis, an organization my wife was affiliated with, the westminster institute published this book recently called fighting the ideological war. this is a book that ali said is the only book president obama needs to read to defeat isis. in "the new york times." we took the very best strategists from the cold war that worked for the reagan administration and undermined the soviet union and we put them in a room with the very best experts of jihad and asked

for a game plan. this is the book that came out of it. if you'd like more of the information or any of the books, you can contact me by email. everything i do that's for public consumption is on my website. all my lecture, my videos and my articles are commercial sites that support the government and music. and lastmy my wife has a not for profit that maps the growth of the jihadi ideology which is council on global security dworling. toes may be of use. i'd like to say thank you to heritage, to jim. it's been a real pleasure. [applause] lisa sara. i think she'll dress us from her seat. sara: yes. i'm not going to go over what seb just spoke about. my focus has been mainly south

asia and isis, for this discussion. and the potential that isis will encroach in this region is growing daily. i have -- i'd like to read something to you. a document that i obtained in the region, an isis document. i'm going to read just one portion of that and i think it will fit into what seb spoke about. al-baghdadi is very focused on the end times. his focus is on -- his mindset is to launch this final battle with the west, with the rest of the world, to see a fundamental change between, not necessarily in the way a christian might see armageddon but a change and shift in the world powers and system. that is his ultimate goal.

here is a little piece of what's been floating around in the fattah recently. talking about al-baghdadi. his blessed brilliance shines through his practical life. he's filled with the honor of god and his informed approach to matters of faith is unparalleled. before the u.s. attacked iraq, he had acted as a sermonizer and a scholer in various mosques. he was also highly regarded in academic circles. the purpose of life was to purify one self 6 6 -- one self, follow prayer, establish the caliphate and wage jihad and warfare until all faith is oriented to allah. this is the important part. although he was primarily focused on inciting slaughter. this isis document is so

significant because it gives us a look into the mind of baghdadi and what his intentions are. and you would say, well south asia, what is he trying to do there? he's looking for more recruits. he's looking to gain and spread the caliphate wide enough that it spreaded us -- spreads us so thin that we'll be incapable of tackling on all these fronts. it's a brilliant stage. he built up his financial base, he got his recruits, and if you believe what they're saying, 16,000, i think that's even minimal. i think it was 20,000-plus foreign fighters that have gone into syria. and in ramadan alone, according to some of my sources last year more than 6,000 and from the documents that i've seen from the united states from chechnya from europe across

north africa, in the month of ramadan alone 6,000 fighters. in afghanistan the situation is obviously very tenuous. you have fractured taliban groups, you have certainly the united states and pakistan in a geopolitical situation that is seemingly never-ending. but you also have pockets inside the region that isis is now encroaching on. and this isn't just a hypothetical. this is a fact. it may not be widespread yet, but they do have a plan. and if i can just go back really quickly and just read one more thing that i think is important. when he talks about -- you talked about the -- seb, the name and how important that is, for him islamic state

caliphate, you know, the islamic state caliphate was the transformation, i mean, on june 29 last year, when al-baghdadi walked on those steps, and i've been talking to specialists, you know, about his mannerisms and how he moved and what he did, i mean, he was very methodical. he knew what he was doing. he knew what he was doing as far as reaching the muslim population those disenfranchised sunnis who feel that there's no place for them to turn to. that the world is kind of somehow working against them. and he uses that to his benefit and to the benefit of his movement. and like seb said and i'm sure like you'll be talking about, you know, the war, and this is coming from a reporter who's been on the ground in the war zone quite a bit and who spent some time in pakistan and had

an -- been able to experience the region it's not something that you can win with drone strikes alone. i mean, the commanders on the ground, even when you talk to old mujaheddin fighters, and i've had that opportunity to speak with them, would say, you know, you're not going to win this with a drone strike. you're not going to win this battle by trying to build a state at the same time you're fighting a war. this is a never-ending battle that's going to evolve. and a lot of people didn't listen to them. we thought, oh, we're going to wraup the war, we're going to -- wrap up the war, we're going to leave afghanistan, we're going to tie a bow on iraq, we're going to walk away. this is about an ideology. and unless we understand this ideology and this leader and those leaders underneath him, we will never be able to defeat him. because you can't defeat an ideology unless you're able to exploit it, right? you have to understand where he's coming from in order to

teach something different, to deliver a different message. now, for me, looking at -- back to afghanistan and looking at the region in itself,coming out is the fear crisis may conduct operations in the region, whether in india or afghanistan. recently yesterday we saw a drone strike that killed approximately eight isis members and the leader in that region right now. there is a concern among u.s. intelligence officials that i have had the privilege to speak to, as well as pakistani officials. mostly their government denies isis'presence. that is not what i'm hearing