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 explorat

dr. aldrin. dr.massimino. >> german cruz ranking member nelson and the udall are members of the subcommittee. thank you for having me here today. i got to do some cool stuff in my life and this is right up there. i really wanted to be here. thank you. i want to describe a few things i learned as an astronaut some benefits our program is provided not only for her country but the whole world in three of them i want to point out from personal experience. to tell you a story from one of my spaceflight that wraps it up. the first benefit i want to tell you about is how the human expiration program can benefit science and life on earth. there's lots of examples we can use. the one i'm familiar with is the one i got to participate in that is the hubble space go. out of my slides were to the hubble space telescope. hubble has given us great discovery. so far won nobel prize. i think there's more coming. twenty-fifth anniversary of the telescope orbit is coming this spring. it has given us a window into the u