A Review of the President’s Budget Request for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration

On science, space and technology will now come to order. Good morning, everyone. Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare recesses of the committee at any time. Welcome to today's hearing entitled a review of the president's budget request for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, year twenty twenty seven. I recognize myself now for five minutes for an opening statement. Just three weeks ago, the world watched as Artemis two lifted off from the launch pad thirty nine B at Kennedy Space Center. Over the course of nearly ten days, the mission carried four astronauts around the moon and back, taking them deeper into space than any humans had ever traveled before. I was very proud to be in Florida for this awe-inspiring launch. I was also very honored to be in Houston to welcome the crew back home. The mission was the result of years of planning and was almost flawless in its execution, maybe except for the toilet. For more than two decades, this committee has advocated for continuity of purpose, specifically to enable NASA to carry out programs of this size and this complexity. In February, this committee unanimously reported a bipartisan NASA reauthorization bill to the House that maintains that continuity of purpose across the agency. I look very much forward to working with Ranking Member Lofgren and our counterparts in the Senate to get a bill to the President's desk very soon. Last month, NASA hosted an event called Ignition where the agency made several announcement reg- announcements regarding changes to the Artemis architecture and other agency initiatives. Among these announcements was a commitment to develop a crewed base at the Moon's south pole to significantly increase the cadence of robotic lunar missions and to conduct a nuclear demonstration mission to Mars. Several of these initiatives represent an exciting future for our space program. But we would not fulfill our role as authorizers if we did not gain an understanding of the purpose and the price of such missions, as well as their impacts on other programs within the the NASA portfolio. During NASA's uh ignition event, the agency announced its intention to build and install a new government module on the International Space Station. It would then encourage commercial companies to attach to this new module. This is a significant departure from the commercial low-earth-orbit development program that NASA has pursued to date. This new proposal must be supported by budget, technical and policy analysis, as well as discussions with international and commercial partners. We also must understand the time-line over which this new approach will unfold and how that impacts NASA's presence in low-earth-orbit. The Office of Management and Budget's proposed uh budget for fiscal year twenty twenty seven requests eighteen point eight billion for NASA roughly a twenty three percent cut from amounts appropriated by Congress in fiscal year twenty twenty six many of the proposed budget cuts were rejected by Congress previously and I am confident that they are going to be rejected again both the President and Congress have provided explicit direction for NASA to undertake a range of activities, from exploration and science to aeronautics research. We must ensure that NASA is funded at a level that allows it to pursue those missions. I simply do not believe that this budget proposal is capable of supporting what President Trump himself has directed the agency to accomplish over the course of his two terms nor what Congress is dir- has directed by law. To be clear, I'm a conservative Republican. I am a budget hawk. Our nation is nearly thirty-nine trillion in debt. We must address this alarming situation, and soon. But we must be smart in how we do so. Short-changing NASA is simply not smart. We face competition from China across all aspects of space activity. China aims to send astronauts to the lunar surface before the end of the decade. If we do not carefully address the future of NASA's activities in low-earth orbit, the Chinese space station could become the only human-tended platform and the only option for countries seeking to collaborate on microgravity research. China also conducted several impressive science missions and plans for more. We must ask whether this proposed budget maintains United States' civil and commercial space dominance or if we risk ceding that leadership to our adversary, China. Only through Congress, our commercial space sector, and the administration working together can we ensure continued US leadership in space. I look forward to learning more about the administrator's plans, including what he discussed at NASA's ignition event last month. So I want to thank you, Mister Administrator, for appearing before us today, uh, and,

Well, uh, thank you, Chairman Babin, for today's hearing, uh, and the budget request for NASA. I wanna give a special welcome to Administrator Isaacman, who of course we know is newly minted in his role for only four months. Uh, I really appreciate the passion and the vigor that you're bringing to your service and I look forward. uh to our discussion on NASA's future. With the thrilling Artemis-two mission still fresh in our minds, NASA gave us a taste of an inspiring, bold and bright future for the agency. I want to congratulate you, Administrator, and all of NASA and its industry and international partners on Artemis-two's success, which was a proud and up- uplifting moment for America. At least from the outside, everything appeared to go smoothly. An outcome uh that rests on the grit, blood, sweat, and likely tears of employees, thousands of employees. These workers sacrificed attending children's birthdays, anniversaries, family vacations to put in the demanding work required to prepare Artemis two for its lunar journey. And the exploration ground support team deserves a loud shout out and our thanks. However, on day three of the mission while Integrity's crew were ninety-nine thousand nine hundred statute miles from Earth. Preparing for their lunar science observations, the president and Rustvot released the fiscal year twenty twenty-seven budget request. As the chairman has noted, and like the twenty twenty-six request, OMB once again tries to argue that NASA and the United States will continue to lead in space and earth science, human exploration, aeronautics, and space technology, while all but uh exploration would see draconian cuts. Cuts totaling five point six billion, or twenty-three percent, from the fiscal year twenty twenty-six enacted level, uh, is not wise. These reductions do not exactly send a welcome home message to the Artemis-two crew or to the NASA workforce for that matter. Uh, the request, the twenty twenty-seven request for NASA I think was largely locked down before you, Mister Administrator, assumed your position, but it should uh come as no surprise that we have concerns here in the science committee. Exploration would see disproportionate increases under this proposal, the rest of NASA would not. Uh, slashing space and earth science, aeronautics and space technology, while our society increasingly disp- depends on space assets and services to function, That's just not a winning strategy. Um, after all, the aerospace and aviation industry contributed seventy-four billion positive manufacturing trade balance in twenty-twenty-four, yet the request would cut aeronautics by thirty-five percent. And attempting to zero out the office of STEM engagement, which is authorized in law, by the way, uh, when we have this golden opportunity to build on the inspiration of Artemis-two, to engage students in STEM education and careers, that just doesn't make any sense. I fully expect, as the chairman has mentioned, uh Congress to reject this request as we did in fiscal year twenty twenty six. Uh yet, as our Democratic staff reported last week in great detail, NASA did not wait for Congress to act. NASA took premature and misguided actions to implement the fiscal year twenty twenty six request before Congress acted on a full year appropriation. I hope today's discussion uh reaffirms the importance of respecting Congress's role in shaping the agency's direction, and abiding by the decisions that Congress makes about how appropriated funds are spent. Now, while uh today's uh hearing uh is primarily on the budget proposal, that's not the only question about NASA's future. In late March, just about a month ago, NASA unveiled an extensive array of new initiatives titled " Ignition" to include a moon base, changes to the Artemis architecture, a potential new approach for low Earth orbit operations following the end of ISS, a series of new science initiatives, a nuclear-powered spacecraft to Mars. I hope to hear more about these activities because while they sound interesting and they sound ambitious, I'm not aware that we've yet seen the plans or cost or schedule estimates for them. They weren't included in uh OMB's uh budget request. Uh, so, um, I'm hoping we can be further enlightened. They are an ambitious and exciting proposal. Uh, Mister Chairman, before I yield, I would like to an- ask unanimous consent to enter into the record our democratic staff report.

Without objection.

I would note that all of the activities described in this report occurred before the current administrator was in his position. It was not anything that he did. And I would close with this, uh, Mister Chairman, as you have said yourself, You are a conservative Republican from Texas. I'm not. But we see this the same way. And I am hopeful that we can work together and make sure that our country, uh, remains in the lead, uh, when it comes to space. And I yield back, Mr. Chairman.

I'd like to thank the ranking member. And now let us, uh, let me introduce our witness today. Our witness today, of course, is our four month, uh, longevity, uh, Doing a great job I think so far and as uh Mister Jared Isaacman, uh our new uh NASA Administrator, I wanna thank you for joining us today, sir. And I'd like to recognize you now for a five minute opening statement.

Thank you, Chairman Babin, Ranking Member Lofgren, and members of the committee, I am honored to speak before you today to provide an update on the state of the National Aeronautic and Space Administration and to present the President's budget request for fiscal year, twenty twenty seven. Now on July twenty ninth, nineteen fifty eight, NASA was created to undertake and achieve the near impossible. And on July twenty th, nineteen sixty nine, when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon, that's exactly what we did. In the decades since, American ingenuity was on display, as the shuttle program took flight, the International Space Station was constructed, and telescopes, probes, and Martian rovers were launched to help unlock the secrets of the universe. The last two decades are a different story. The GAO's twenty twenty-five assessment of major NASA projects identified roughly fifteen billion in cost overruns since two thousand and nine. Just as an example, Dragonfly was initially proposed six years ago at eight hundred and fifty million dollars for development. We are optimistic it will launch in twenty twenty-eight at a cost of three point four billion. Our flagship X plane, the X-fifty-nine, was conceived eight years ago as a four hundred and sixty-eight million dollar program with a first flight expected in January of twenty twenty two. The program to date is close to eight hundred million and first flight occurred in late twenty twenty five only recently resuming operations. The future enhancements to the SLS rocket, referred to as block one B, which is a performance upgrade to co-manifest cargo that industry is already capable of supporting at lower cost, required the mobile launcher too and the exploration upper stage. ML two was awarded in twenty nineteen on a three hundred and eighty three million dollar cost. contract for delivery in March of twenty twenty three. The ML two program cost was on track to one point eight billion dollars with years more to go. Similarly, EUS, the exploration upper stage, began with a contract value of nine hundred and sixty two million. It has grown to over two billion and the Inspector General assessed SLS block one B would likely reach five point seven billion. Of course, we are absolutely riding high at this moment. The nation and the world paused as four brave astronauts on Artemis two flew around the moon, NASA made the headlines we were supposed to make, we showed the world the moon again, and we showed humanity Earth again. I wanna congratulate the crew of Artemis two, the NASA workforce, our contractors and partners, for delivering this moment and for all that will inevitably come next. As President Trump so correctly said when speaking to the crew from space, "today you have made history and made all of America really proud. You really are modern day pioneers." The pioneering spirit championed by the President has breathed new life in our country's effort to master the stars. But for all the Artemis two mission has accomplished, how we arrived at it was far from perfect, and the decisions of previous administrations that led to these deficiencies deserve some careful reflection. Almost the entirety of the SLS program is repurposed, decades old space shuttle hardware. I certainly understand why the shuttle program was ending and it was very important at the time to look after the industrial base. I will also say that was at a time when we did not have a geopolitical competitor challenging America in the high ground. but perpetuating the past does not help us realize a better future. Even after over a hundred billion of taxpayer funding to date, and most recent and successful Artemis two mission, we would not have launched again until late twenty twenty eight with the aim of putting astronauts on the moon under the previous plan, a plan with no hope of achieving this national imperative. You do not fly rockets like this every three plus years and expect success. Further, you do not make each vehicle a work of art by materially changing the configuration You also do not build the base in orbit above the moon, when the scientists, the engineers, the astronauts and certainly the space loving community wanna be on the surface of the moon, which is already very hard to achieve. So like many, I wanna see more missions of science and discovery. Under the previous administration, NASA, with the support of Congress, rightfully cancelled the Mars sample return mission that was conceived to cost up to four billion, and in just a few years ballooned to over ten billion, with two billion in taxpayer funds that have already been spent. This is not good capital allocation or execution, and adding dozens of other inform- informulation or life-extended science missions alongside it does not necessarily make things better. American exceptionalism is being challenged in the high ground of space. To win, we cannot establish programs that are designed to be too big to fail, but at the same time, too costly to succeed. Nor should it be throwing more money at the problem, but rather fixing the problems, and contracting, concentrating resources on the mission, and delivering outcomes. The President's fiscal year twenty-seven budget, alongside the resources and the working family tax cut act, focused the agency on these priorities. Return to the moon, increased launch cadence and land American astronauts on the surface by twenty, twenty eight, consistent with the directive laid out in executive order one four three six nine, ensuring American space superiority, which was issued by President Trump last December. In parallel, build with industry a moon base. This includes landers, rovers, power and communication, tech demonstrations, so we can master the skills needed for future crewed missions to Mars, alongside all the scientific payloads those systems can carry. Ignite the orbital and lunar economy. Work alongside industry to expand commercial astronaut payload and monetization opportunities on the space station. Send demand signals for landers and rovers in support of a moon base, and transition to one or multiple commercial space stations by twenty-th- thirty. We have already awarded private astronaut missions five, six, and seven in that regard. The budget supports the Nancy Grace Roman telescope that will launch at the end of twenty twenty six with a hundred times the field of view of a Hubble a thousand times the scan rate we will launch Dragonfly the nuclear powered octocopter to Saturn's moon of Titan in twenty twenty eight along with a nuclear power and propulsion demonstration that includes a scientific payload bringing billions in taxpayer investments from decades of failed programs into real capability in space, and by twenty thirty deliver fission surface power to the moon. We do presently inhabit just one planet, and understanding earth science is paramount, for ag- and it's paramount for agriculture, industry, and natural disaster response. We do value this science, and intend to work with industry to get after this data more affordably. The president's budget supports investments in aeronautics that will advance civil, commercial, and national security aviation, especially next generation air transportation systems. for safer air traffic control. We're rebuilding core competencies at NASA, moving the work of thousands of contractors to civil servants, bringing up hundreds of millions in resources in support of NASA objectives. And inherent in everything we do at NASA is inspiration. It does not come necessarily from pamphlets or flyers but from missions like Artemis landing astronauts on the moon, X planes, and breathtaking images from space telescopes and rovers, moments that inspire children to dress up as astronauts for Halloween. and grow up to contribute to humankind's greatest adventure. I have communicated to the NASA workforce across every center I have visited, in town halls and in letters, if we can concentrate the resources entrusted to us on the needle-moving objectives, why we exist as an agency, while clearing away needless bureaucracy, obstacles, and policies that impede progress, and unleash the brilliant minds at NASA, then returning to the moon and building a lunar base will be pale in comparison to what we can achieve in the years ahead. Thank you, Mister Chairman.

You're welcome. Thank you. Uh, and I'd like to recognize myself for five minutes, uh, for questions. Uh, Administrator Eisenman, uh, first, very quickly, if you don't mind, when will NASA submit its fiscal year twenty-six spin plan to the committee?

Uh, Mister Chairman, my, uh, my understanding is NASA did wrap up that process, uh, in early April and it's with review in the administration. Um, I'm hopeful it's, uh, it's presented, uh, shortly, sir.

OK, uh, it's it's impossible to fully assess this budget request, uh, without knowing, you know, how much, uh, uh, each program, project and activity are going to be, uh, what that we received last year, particularly given the disparity between the, uh, President's budget requests and the newly proposed ignition activities.

Right. Sure.

OK. Uh, we just witnessed an amazing Artemis-two mission. Um, eh, uh, I I can't it's hard for me to even even describe how how proud I was. of our our our agency our country and and and what and the these um uh these a- the astronauts and the a- the entire team yet the administration is once again proposing transitioning away from SLS and Orion even without alternative operational systems at this present time the president tasked NASA with returning to the moon by twenty twenty eight if HLS and SLS and Orion commercial alternatives continue to be delayed What are what are you going to to uh to be doing to ensure that you made the President's direction? And uh you said recently that you'd probably be out of a job if you don't deliver, and I don't want to see that happen, Mister Administrator. We went too long without a permanent administrator. So if you can

Sure, Mister Chairman,

Yeah.

uh first of all I I ably agree with you completely. If we're gonna go through the trouble of building a moon base, we better be able to send astronauts there with with great frequency on it. So uh we have not uh canceled or done anything uh with you know with the SLS program other than to standardize it so we can increase launch cadence so that amazing rocket that we all just uh witnessed uh launch just weeks ago we can see with greater frequency so trying to as I mentioned in my my remarks not turn each one into a work of art cuz it's hard enough to do it at the current rate standardize launch faster we're adding emission with SLS in twenty twenty seven to demonstrate the interoperability of the Orion spacecraft with the So in twenty twenty eight we can protect for potentially two additional SLS launches, uh, for crewed astronauts to the surface and moon before arrival. We also put a demand signal out to industry for two different pathways, so we can assure crewed access to the moon base that we are building. I have no doubt from my interactions with industry, the SLS players are all coming together and that will likely be one of the pathways, almost assuredly Orion, as it is the only crewed vehicle that we have right now that can bring astronauts back from the moon.

OK, I certainly hope you'll finish the second mobile, uh, uh, mobile launch platform as well that is nearing completion and ensure that SLS has an upper stage uh to meet the hundred and thirty ton to orbit requirement directed by statute and I look forward to hearing your back-up plans to ensure that we meet uh the President's direction. Uh, next, earlier this year you announced a new workforce directive uh to increase NASA's internal expertise by converting thousands technical engineering and operational roles from contractor positions to civil servant positions. I've seen firsthand how NASA, JSC, civil servants play such an important role in providing institutional knowledge and core capabilities. I've also seen how robust how a robust contractor workforce, the envy of the world, quite frankly, uh can provide NASA with agile and cost-effective solutions to evolving NASA needs. As you implement this new workforce directive, how are you planning to balance those priorities and ensure that you don't swing the pendulum too far in one direction?

Uh, Mister Chairman, I completely agree with you on that assessment. It takes the contributions of the civil servant workforce, our contractors, our commercial and international partners to undertake the endeavors that we are we are pursuing right now like putting American astronauts back on the moon so we can stay uh that said I will say in my first month or so when I made it a point to visit every one of the uh hear from the workforce directly, host town halls, establish inboxes, receive feedback. I was surprised that greater than forty thousand of NASA's workforce is essentially full-time contractors. They don't support anyone else. They work exclusively for NASA. This is at an expense of over four billion dollars a year to to some various staffing related agencies and I'll tell you, so they're not doing that for for free. Now, some of these roles absolutely are best served as contractors. They're outside of our core competencies and we rely on them heavily and we're grateful for that service. But some examples, sir, are mission control in Houston. Uh, I do think a core competency for NASA is to be able to build rockets, launch rockets, and support rockets when they're underway in space at mission control and some engineering support staff. Uh, and that we should look for opportunities to bring them into civil service. And they, and they welcome that. Now, I'm not making the picks here, Mr. Chairman. I'll tell you, I, uh, delegated this down to the center directors. So those at JSC, KSC, Marshall Space Flight Center, those are the center directors. The local

OK, I'm out of time. Uh, I have a couple more questions and perhaps maybe later. Um, but I'd like to, uh, to go to the, uh, ranking member for her questions. We will alternate between majority and minority here. So, uh, Ms. Lofgren, if you you're r- recognized.

Uh, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and uh, thank you for uh, your testimony, uh, administrator, as well as um, the energy that you're bringing here to the agency, which is admired and appreciated. Um, I wanna draw your attention to an email that we've put up on the screen. Um, mmm, the Democratic staff of the committee uh, obtained it and it was put in our report that I sent you earlier. Uh, it's an email from the Project Manager of uh, NASA's Electrified Powertrain Flight Demonstration Project, or EPFD, to the EPFD project team that was sent uh May thirtieth, uh twenty twenty five, obviously before you were here. Uh you may wanna, I think you've read it before, but I wanna read the first three sentences of the email for the record, because I think they tell the whole story. Uh " On the very same day that um NASA's full fiscal year twenty twenty six budget proposal was released, The Project Manager writes to her staff, "Dear EPFD family, I'm the bearer of sad news. The President's budget and OMB have zeroed out EPFD for fiscal year twenty-six and beyond. The agency has requested an orderly shutdown of the project by September thirtieth. Mister Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to put this email into the record."

Well, without objection, great.

Mister Isaacsman, this email is really smoking gun evidence. that NASA implemented the fiscal year presidential budget request last year without congressional approval. Now, it wasn't just EPFD. It was not just the Aramatics Research Mission uh Directorate where EPFD was located. It happened all across NASA. Now, the timeline matters here. As I said earlier, you weren't in charge, you didn't make this decision, and I won't ask you uh to uh defend the decisions of your predecessors or discuss them. But I wanna make sure that as you move forward in this agency, that you will adhere to the law, what Congress has enacted. Uh, doing uh uh adhering to the proposal is not what the law requires. Um, the law requires that um, NASA adhere to what Congress passes. And I think there was damage done to the agency uh last uh uh last year. um, that even though Congress acted to fully fund the agency, the damage was done. So can you tell us how you're going, I know that it's an awkward position as administrator, you're part of the team, the Trump team, and I understand that, I respect that. But how are we going to uh, have confidence that you will adhere to what Congress passes, not what Russ Vogt says?

Well, uh, Congresswoman, I appreciate the question. Thank you for showing me the email and also I, I did have an opportunity to review the First, let me just say from the get-go, of course, we will always follow the law at NASA. And even if certain matters took place prior to, uh, when I was confirmed, I believe in extreme ownership. I did go and research, uh, the various, um, uh, positions that were taken in your report so that I could have a greater understanding of it and what I could share with you ma'am with respect to this situation specifically perhaps the project manager, uh, used some incorrect wording in the first sentence or two, is that it has been a long-standing practice at NASA to always adjust uh, and I, what I would refer to as just a prioritization of resources based on the lowest, of either the House, the Senate, or the the PBR mark. The head of the aeronautics research directorate made the call on this one, that based on a prioritization of resources, did not feel this was a, this was a program that should continue going forward. Uh, of course after FY twenty-six appropriations it was resumed, but I'll tell you, even having conversations, They did decide to revise in some respects, based on the merits of this project relative to others in aeronautics, if this is something we should invest in long term. And I do think, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, there are times where NASA's capital allocation execution has not been great and hasn't served those that are uh hasn't served the taxpayers well or the outcomes that we're trying to achieve within the agency.

Well, I just uh, as the chairman has indicated, we are uh unified here on both sides of the aisle in supporting the agency but we expect a collaboration on these issues and um not um action that is outside of what Congress uh is authorizing and funding through the appropriations process. Let me just ask one other thing. Uh the professional staff on our side of the aisle has been asking your staff um which missions or projects in the budget proposal uh would be cancelled. And we have, we've been told that uh your sta- your professional can't tell us that. We need to know what that is um because we need to understand a list of the new missions or projects that the budget uh request uh would cancel in order for us to do a full and professional analysis of that. So can we get that from your staff please?

Uh, so ma'am uh absolutely we're happy to make time available to review everything that's within NASA's plan, and I just make my commitment here, I I am here at NASA

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My time is expired.

Yes, ma- thank you very much. And now I'd like to recognize Representative Baird from Indiana.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and And thank you uh Mister Administrator for being here, we appreciate you sharing uh the technology and the desires and the budget requests that are necessary. You know I think uh I really think that we learn a lot from the missions that we go to Mars or the Moon or whatever because there's side benefits and we learn about uh metals and all the kinds of uh technology that that plays into the private sector so um so we appreciate we appreciate you being here. Sure. So I guess my first question deals with um Sorry about that. So in in your testimony you noted that understanding earth sciences is paramount, yet the physical twenty-seven budget for the science direct uh directed that was submitted to Congress is over fifty percent smaller than the funding Congress enacted in twenty-six. So can you help me uh and the committee understand where will you expect to cut the savings, or cut the cost and the savings uh where they will come from within the science directed?

Yes, Congressman. So, uh, we'd be happy to review and set up a session with you or your team to go mission by mission. What I would say, generally speaking, most of the cuts related to missions that were in formulation, uh, and that is because we believe that we are at a time now where industry is maturing capabilities I mean you have constellation providers that are printing off satellites these days that can incorporate new instruments that they're in the future, maybe a better, more affordable way to get after the data so that NASA can apply resources to initiatives like Nancy Grace Roman telescope or Dragonfly that no one else in the world is capable of doing. So you have informulation missions, and then you have those that have been up for a very long time that have moved past their or in some cases moved past their general useful life. What I can assure you, sir, there are no gaps in our earth science capabilities. I mean, I can rattle off, you know, ten missions, GRACE, ICESat, Landsat. You have multiple Landsats plus additional Landsats that are coming, NICER, PACE. we are continuing to maintain a robust portfolio of earth science satellites up there to avoid a gap, but we are acknowledging that at some point in the year - in the - in the future, there is probably a more efficient transition to commercial satellites for earth observations in space weather, sir.

So that leads me to my le- next question, which is uh with the - with the increased commercialization of space activities, what role do you believe NASA should play regarding the collection, and the dissemination of earth science information by the commercial providers. So how do you fit in and how do you see that responsibility?

That's a, that's a great question, Congressman, and and one that often comes up I would say on the broader NASA mission, which is there is always a place for NASA in this. We should constantly be recalibrating our mission to doing the near impossible what others are incapable of doing, uh, and freeing up what we've already mastered to industry, where competitive dynamics can improve the quality and capability of the service, and ideally make it at lower cost. And we, and and I would say, sir, we've just witnessed this on full display, you know, when you think about it, sir, six years ago, if we wanted to put an American astronaut in space, we had to book it through Russia. And now we've already got NASA crew, twelve up there, we just saw three American astronauts and Canadian astronaut go around the moon. Amazing things happen in a very short period of time when NASA's at its best. We will apply those skills to commercial providers, and we are talking to multiple through RFIs we've issued to ensure they have the capabilities to provide continuity of this earth science data where applicable uh so we can free up resources to do more of what I just described.

I can certainly appreciate the that not having depend on adversaries for

Sure.

some of the needs that we have I'm gonna change to one more question I got about fifty three seconds but you know in your testimony you mentioned that we'll be moving thousands of contractors to civil servant roles so how many how many new civil servant positions do you expect to hire?

Well, sir, uh, we have two different workforce initiatives underway right now. One is we, we do have, I mean, we have approximately fourteen thousand five hundred civil servants. We have forty to forty-five thousand full-time contractors. You wouldn't notice the difference of them. They, they sit side-by-side with everybody else at, at all of our centers. And we are paying a premium for workforce flexibility. And we, we intend to exercise that flexibility at certain centers with certain core companies to m- competencies to move them over for civil servant. The overall workforce size is unchanged in this. We - we gain some operational efficiencies, we rebuild core competencies, and we save some money along the way. Separate from that, sir, we have our pipeline of how do we bring in new talent? We have uh over - we bring on over two thousand approximately interns a year. We take the top one percent. And then we're working with OPM on an industry exchange program to grow and elevate our talent so the next generation of engineers, pioneers, scientists, uh, grow up within the organization and contribute.

Thank you very much, and my time's out, so I yield back.

Gentleman yields back. Uh, now I'd like to recognize um Representative Bonamici from Oregon.

Uh, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member. Thank you so much, Administrator, for being here today. Uh, happy Earth Day, uh, and and also congratulations on this successful and incredibly inspiring Artemis-two mission. Uh, I'm gonna follow up on Doctor Babin's question. Um. or Dr. Baird's question, sorry, uh about the Earth science program because what NASA does in space is amazing, but also significant work uh on the Earth as well. Um the Earth science programs deliver a lot of foundational data uh that, you know, communities, farmers, emergency managers rely on to make decisions, decisions about wildfire risk, drought, extreme heat. And the NASA's Landsat program, it's been around since nineteen seventy-two. It's been a lifeline. Uh actually in my home state of Oregon as a state increasingly frequent in intense wildfire seasons, for example. But the fiscal year twenty-seven budget proposes to fund one final government satellite for Landsat. And then it signals a transition to a commercial model, but provides a little detail about how that transition would occur. So I'm gonna ask you, Administrator Isaacman, um, can you guarantee uh, you th- this with this proposed phase transition to commercial, Uh, I just wanna note that that, you know, gaps in climate or land use data sets are barriers to access good compromise modeling and higher resp- uh, and hinder response effort. So can you guarantee that a commercialization strategy will prevent any gaps in data and public access and also what is NASA's contingency plan if private capabilities are delayed or if they fail to meet the standards the public depend on for extreme weather and wildfire response?

Uh, great question, Congresswoman, thank you. I, I would say guaranteed NASA, it's uh, we we we often undertake incredibly challenging endeavors. I would say it's a I have extremely high confidence in our ability to deliver on this. And let me explain, ma'am. We currently have several Landsats that are still up there now, and they are doing great work. Landsat ten, uh, which I believe, forgive me, is somewhere in the early twenty thirties is when we intend to launch that program right now. So you have existing satellites Plus you have the new Landsat uh ten programs. So we're talking now many, many years into the future when we should be giving consideration to that transition. And that's taking place now at a time when industry capabilities are maturing extremely fast. As I pointed out, six years ago our only way into space was via the Russians. Now we're on NASA crew twelve. Artemis is launching. There's constellations of communication and observation satellites. Uh, not just uh Starlink, you have Blue Origin, Planet. Black Sky, and all of them have reached out to us and said, give us this mandate and we can incorporate these tools. Now we're proceeding carefully at it. We've put RFIs out to gather the data, but I'm quite confident by the time Landsat-ten or anywhere close to it is terminating that we have the capabilities from commercial providers.

I appreciate your confidence. We've uh spoken a lot on this committee over the years about public-private partnerships I just want to emphasize the importance of uh public access to data,

Yes, ma'am.

how critical that is. Um I also want to want to follow up. on the um point that the ranking member Lofgren made about the proposal to eliminate NASA's office of STEM engagement also serve on the educational workforce committee uh and this this office has served as a pipeline really for the next generation of scientists and engineers for for decades and and I wanna uh explain that this to me raises serious concerns about support uh for America's future scientific workforce and we saw how the uh the the the captivation of young people and and what that meant to watch

Oh, Congresswoman, I would just say that uh that inspiration and as a result,

Mm. Mm. Mm.

STEM engagement is inherent in really everything we do, To your own point, ma'am, when Artemis two launched a human space exploration initiative, the world paused and took notice. And I do believe, you know, thanks to the good work from uh Reid, Victor, Christina and Jeremy on that, there will be more kids dressing up as astronauts for Halloween. And it's not just in human exploration, it's missions like Dragonfly and the Nancy Grace Roman telescope. So uh I think it is NASA focusing on and achieving our near-impossible mission that sends that powerful message of inspiration across the world. that does inspire that next generation of pioneers.

I I appreciate that. Um, I I also think it would send a strong message of support and inspire to maintain, uh, the the office, uh, of STEM engagement. NASA's mission really does depend on world-class data and a strong prepared workforce to carry the mission forward. Uh, so and and in my opinion this budget would weaken both of those in extreme weather, as it worsens and NASA's scientific achievements dominate headlines, This is the wrong time to eliminate the programs that have this demonstrated success. So thank you for being here. I yield back.

Thank you.

Yields back, and now I'd like to recognize the uh representative from Florida, Mister Wes, Mister Webster.

Thank you, Mister Chairman. Uh, Mister Heiglickson, the International Telecommunications Union, uh, World Reconna- uh, uh, Radio Communication Conference is gonna be in Shanghai next year. Um, One of the agenda items pertains to the lunar communication frequencies. And can you speak to any plans to promote the the adoption of the Luna L uh, Luna net, uh, which is a NA uh, NASA-led communication and positioning, navigation and timing service for the lunar region at the conference?

Uh, yes, sir, Congressman. I what I would tell you is I am certainly tracking the uh the conference in Shanghai. I understand there's gonna be a delegation there that's representing uh United States interest. That said, I fully expect that we will be focused at NASA on actually implementing lunar communications on the surface of the moon while they're there talking about it. Uh, and I expect not only to be doing that through uh existing lunar net pathways, but working with American industry and our international partners on phase one of the moon-based construction to test out a variety of surface and actually on-orbit communication methods to prepare for that enduring presence we're gonna build on the surface of the moon.

Uh, does holding the conference in Shanghai concern you? Do we impose any kind of risk to United States or NASA, uh, and their leadership team, or interest in establishing lunar communication standards?

Oh, sir, I I would say it would only it would only concern me, Congressman, if we were waiting for the outcome from that conference to make our determination. Instead, we will be focusing on landing uh landers and rovers on the surface of the moon, uh and already beginning experimentation for what does and doesn't work in that uh unique environment. So we are we are pressing ahead, so we have our mandate to get our astronauts back to the moon and to build the moon base so we can stay.

Well how will uh will initiatives announced uh during the NASA ignition event, including moon base, serve as additional tools to further strengthen your position? and ever to promote US norms and standards in space?

That's a great question, sir. And, uh, I think we've intentionally designed the moon base, uh, architecture to experiment with what does and doesn't work, uh, in the lunar environment, which is the whole phase one, to inform subsequent phase two and phase three build-out. What we're doing, Congressman, is we're actually drawing on the playbook that worked really well for NASA in the nineteen sixties when we had Mercury before Gemini and Gemini before Apollo and a lot more Apollo missions before we landed. Uh, this is, this is the unknown, and we haven't been there in a long time and we should experiment. So, uh, undertaking that effort to do lots of landings, lots of rovers, not with the expectation that everything's gonna work great or to build the the glass dome with the crops and ferris wheel in it but get things on the surface of the moon and start learning about mobility, power, communications, or surface improvement and use that to inform subsequent endeavors. Uh, I think this is a, uh, the correct pathway to ensure we have a sustainable presence on the moon.

How is NASA leveraging uh the Artemis program uh and Artemis Accords as tools, kind of a soft power to position uh United States as a leader in space, uh and that reflects our values?

I really appreciate that, that question Congressman. So we invited uh all of the Artemis Accords signatories to the ignition event which we hosted, uh just a week or so before the Artemis two mission itself. launched, more than half of the Artemis Accord signatories were able to attend all of the international space agencies and we told them with the sheer quantity of landers and rovers that we are gonna put on the moon in the years ahead we could raid the pantry at every NASA center for flight instruments tech demonstrations and scientific material and we would have so much extra mass and volume capacity. So we challenged American industry, American university and our international partners and said, put your teams to work on instruments and payloads and we will incorporate them and land them on the moon. So I have no doubt right now you have students in American universities and at our international partners in the Artemis Accords that are working on hardware today that will be on the surface of the moon in the years ahead they're all very excited to be on the moon sir.

Thank you very much. Uh, have another question, Yield back.

Gentlemen Yields. Now I'd like to recognize uh Representative Ross from North Carolina.

Thank you very much, Mister Chairman, um, good morning and um thank you Chairman Babin and Ranking Member Lofgren for convening this very important hearing at this important time. And I also thank you, Administrator Isaacman, for appearing before the committee to talk about the President's budget requests for NASA. As we've talked about earlier this month, we all watched history being made as astronaut Christina Cook became the first woman to fly around the moon. The Artemis-two mission has ushered NASA and the American people into an exciting new era, leading the globe in discovery on the moon and deeper in space. It undoubtedly inspired countless future astronauts and scientists to picture themselves exploring the possibility of space. I'm proud to represent North Carolina's second congressional district, home to world-renowned institutions of higher education, like North Carolina State University, that are shaping the next generation of scientists, engineers, and astronauts like Christina. Christina, in fact, is a proud alum of NC State and began her NASA journey in two thousand and one as an undergraduate student. With the support of an NC space grant, in undergraduate rese- and in undergraduate research scholarship, she was able to intern at the NASA Academy, at the Goddard Space Flight Center, and take an important step toward her future as a record record-breaking astronaut. Based on the President's budget request for fiscal year twenty twenty-seven, however, as we've heard from um my colleague from Oregon, the Office of STEM Engagement the same office that supports space grants like the one Christina received, would receive no funding, cutting off young scientists from life-changing opportunities that these programs provide. Ending these grants at a time when this nation just witnessed the wonders of space will thwart the education and dreams of the next generation of scientists who could propel us to new heights and horizons. Administrator Isaac Zeman, NASA's Office of STEM Engagement, particularly the National Space Grant College and Fellowship Project, or Space Grant, has enabled the education and careers of countless scientists, engineers, and astronauts. And you've stated that a dedicated STEM engagement program is unnecessary, because if we can execute our mission and get the inspiration, the STEM education will take care of itself. I beg to differ. I would argue that we have seen these programs bridge the gap between inspiration and opportunity, particularly in North Carolina and with one of our Artemis astronauts. What do you say to young students who are thrilled about Artemis two and ask about participating in a space grant internship program, like Christina Koch did, or to the next human exploration rover student who would want to pursue this kind of activity. They will be zeroed out. Their future will be zeroed out.

Uh, I appreciate the the the question, Congresswoman, and uh I'm certainly very proud of Christina and uh and her accomplishments on the Artemis two mission which were which was outright historic, and uh great appreciation for the schools in North Carolina. In fact, I myself spent time at Duke for flight physiology before going to space. I would just say, ma'am, that the the uh OSTEM budget does not encompass all of the grants or internships. In fact, Uh through other uh divisions within NASA, our pathway internship programs for example, we issue hundreds of internships every year independent of STEM, uh s- independent of the OSTEM office, and we also put out hundreds of millions of dollars in grants outside of OSTEM as well. So I I agree with you that we do need to bridge the gap at times from just the pure inspiration the missions provide, to get students hands-on at times. The grant program does that and certainly our internship program do it, it's just not exclusive to OSTEM.

Well,

I would say that we are at a point where STEM education is more important than it's ever been. And we are in a global race to have the best and the brightest in this country, have more opportunities. So I urge you to reconsider this. And I yield back. Thank you.

Yields back, I'd like to recognize um Representative Salinas. Oh, I'm sorry, I'm going to the wrong end of the room. Representative Bagich from Alaska. Thank you.

Thank you, Mister Chair. Mister Isaacman, uh, as we examine NASA's budget request, our national launch infrastructure is facing significant bottlenecks. Demand from commercial providers, national security payloads, and NASA's own science and exploration missions have outpaced capacity at our traditional sites on the east and west. coasts. Given that reality, I want to highlight the proven capabilities of the Pacific Space Port complex in Alaska located in the high north, PSCA is positioned to deliver efficient launches into polar and sun synchronous orbits. Additionally, it has minimal population overflight and has year-round operational potential. It already supports both liquid and solid fueled vehicles, and has demonstrated the ability to accommodate small to medium class launches. In your view, how does NASA assess the strategic value of expanding operations at Alaska's underutilized high-latitude spaceport to relieve congestion at Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg?

Well, Congressman, I completely agree with you that, um, w- I mean, we need to make the absolute most of every one of our launch complexes that are out there, including, uh, yours in Alaska right now. And to be quite honest, I think if we look at the traject- trajectory of the commercial space industry, and what's gonna be necessary for the future,

Uh, I wanna mention the outstanding work also being done at the University of Al- Alaska system, particularly the University of Alaska in Fairbanks and in Anchorage, in partnership with NASA, their Geophysical Institute, Poker Flats, research

i i do congressman in fact uh it's been a priority of mine as i i i I take seriously every single dollar that Congress affords NASA, and I wanna maximize the scientific exploration and discovery value of every cent of it. So we've taken very close look at every dollar that leaves the agency. Uh, so whether that's from small business, tech development initiatives, to uh to grants to university, with the idea of optimizing the process for speed. I don't like things taking any longer than they need to, and making sure those dollars go in line with agency's most pressing objectives. An example up in Alaska for sure would be some of our sub-or sub-orbital research that goes to Aurora. We've seen some absolutely spectacular pictures, I think, over the last couple years as the sun's been angry with us. Uh, and I know Alaska contributes greatly to that scientific study. Uh, and I think it's a good example of where our grant dollars should be going.

So, uh, just one last, uh, question. Um, just yesterday NASA canceled their space port operations and center services solicitation. Nana Regional Corporation, which is an Alaska native corporation, expected to receive that contract, yet was notified two weeks before that the solicitation was canceled. And I understand the workforce directive to restore NASA's core competencies. This decision has impacted an important relationship and creates uh some concern for contractors. And my question is, will you commit to having your team meet with my office to discuss the cancellation letter received by NANA and discuss how best NASA can work together with NANA and other contractors going forward?

Uh, yes Congressman, and I, I would say, I mean, that if that took place yesterday it might not have uh made its way to my, my desk yet. Uh, so I can't even say if that was directly related to the workforce initiative, though I broadly, you know, even though it's the center directors that largely make the determinations of which core competencies should be rebuilt, generally speaking I have said building rockets, launching rockets, and operations of those rockets are good areas that maybe NASA should be extremely good at, in that regard. I, I can't say though that that is what's applicable.

Fully agree with with your comment regarding core competencies. Organizations can pick one, maybe two core competencies and the rest are not, by definition, core. So, appreciate that, look forward to the discussion and appreciate your service in this role. Thank you very much and I yield back.

Yes, sir.

I'd like to recognize uh Representative Salinas from Oregon now.

Uh, thank you, Chair Babin, and um, Ranking Member Lofgren, and thank you, Administrator Isaacson, Isaacman, for being here today. Like my colleagues have already said, um Artemis two was an incredible success and I congratulate you and uh your partners who made this happen however I do share some of these concerns about the proposed budget and some of the shifting priorities at the agency. Um in a recent interview with Science Magazine you stated, and this is in quotes, we should do probably do everything we possibly can to understand our home planet, which I wholeheartedly agree with. But then you went on to say that for NASA to assemble scientists and put out papers on politically charged issues, whether or not this is an impending climate catastrophe is not helpful to the broader NASA mission. So what are in politically charged science issues and who would decide on them?

Congresswoman, I think the as that conversation uh transpired, the point I was trying to make is it is absolutely an obligation of NASA to understand the only planet that we inhabit. And we have a lot of sci- we have a lot of satellites that are capable of doing that right now, and we're ensuring continuity to continue to gather that data. And then I believe we should make that data available publicly, and let the academic institutions across the nation and their scientists and subject matter experts put out the reports on those positions, as opposed to for every administration changing, assembling a team of scientists that take their particular political view on Something like climate change. Gathering the data, no question vitally important, making it available publicly, also very important.

Thank you. So have you or would you get involved or issue direction on the types of papers that our NASA scientists can actually publish?

I have not taken any position, directive, written or otherwise on what papers we should or shouldn't publish. That was my feelings that I expressed during an interview a couple months ago, um, to uh, to the publication.

Thank you. The scientific community has consistently recommended, through the highly respected decadal survey process, that NASA pursue a balanced mission portfolio that includes large, strategic science missions, also known as flagships. Flagships are the most complex, ambitious scientific endeavors the agency pursues with transformative capabilities that advance the highest priority scientific questions. The administration's budget request abandons meaningful pursuit of future science flagships, after the Roman Space Telescope launches this fall, across any space or earth science discipline. That is a bleak vision of US space science and it is in direct contradiction of the National Academy's decadal surveys of NASA's authorizing statutes. You yourself said at your first Senate commerce uh confirmation hearing that the agency could and should have multiple flagship science missions at once. Why now is the Trump administration abandoning flagship science missions? How will you maintain a balanced mission portfolio without them, and have you consulted with the national academies on this topic?

So, thank you for the question, Congresswoman. Um, this is, this is a, I will, I'm gonna have to challenge myself to be as concise as I can, cuz I love the subject, and I wholeheartedly believe we, we need more flagship science missions. In fact, as much as I would say it's good to be balanced, the reality is now as commercial industry evolves and we have more standard bus architecture that's more affordable more constellations, We actually probably can undertake a lot more affordable, low uh, of the lower end of the spectrum science missions, freeing up resources to do more flagship. I'm I'm fully in support of that. The decadal process is i- is extremely useful. I would love to recalibrate the time frames down, uh, because I actually think taking advantage of a very mature launch market right now, AI tools, we can actually gather the data and formulate positions on what should be subsequent missions a lot faster than the current process it is itself. So, My feeling on this, uh, it with, and with respect to the budget, is as we evaluate informulation missions that can be extremely costly, uh, I mean we spent two hundred million dollars last year on an informulation mission that was cancelled by the previous administration, so I, I don't always think those are the, the best use of dollars. We could free up resources to undertake more decadal recommended flagship missions, and that is something I would like to be dir- uh, you know, driving in that direction as much as possible. And there is another one coming after Nancy Grace, of course Dragonfly is very much a, uh, a flagship mission l- set to launch in twenty eight.

Thank you. I'm almost out of time. I yield back.

Yields back, and now I'd like to recognize Representative Van Ips from Tennessee.

Thank you, Mister Chairman, and thank you, Mister Isaacman, for being here today. President Trump has launched America into a golden age of deep space dominance. E- earlier this month, NASA's Artemis-two is incredibly successful. Artemis-three is slated to test our operational capabilities. before the Artemis-four lunar landing mission in twenty twenty eight. It's certainly an exciting time for Americans looking to the stars. We are building a moon base, moving beyond exploration to establishing a sustained lunar presence. We are transitioning to commercial space stations, fostering a vibrant space economy in low Earth orbit. We're developing advanced nuclear prop- propulsion technologies propelling us to Mars. As you stated, sir, the American pioneer spirit is alive and well in the President's FY twenty-seven budget request. reinforces these objectives while responsibly stewarding taxpayer dollars. A lunar base in commercial space stations opens a new world of possibilities for industry, including the collection of resources essential for American growth. Metals such as nickel and cobalt, which are critical for battery manufacturing, a growing industry in Tennessee's seventh district, in an area this committee has highlighted as a major resource gap. The moon holds helium-three, a rare form of helium,

Thank you for the question, Congressman. So I would say that you have to look at this budget,

Mm-hmm.

uh, and couple it with the, uh, President Trump's working family tax cut act, uh, signature legislation which gave the ten billion dollar plus up to NASA to be able to return astronauts to the moon and to build the moon base itself. That's where we're drawing on substantial resources of which moon base objectives for sure is tech demonstrations so we can master the skills someday necessary to go to Mars. It's certainly economic as well with in-situ resource manufacturing that we'd be able to do those demonstrations and ideally unlock a lunar economy to fund hopefully lots of moon bases someday and then of course it's scientific Uh, as I mentioned, we could raid the pantry of every NASA center and we wouldn't have enough, uh, we would have so much excess mass and volume for scientific instruments that we welcomed the contributions from many. And to your point, sir, on, uh, on resources and, uh, rare, you know, rare, uh, minerals, we also have other tools available to us that I think are exciting. For example, the America Competes Act allows NASA to put competitions out, binary outcomes, you either did it or you didn't, and, and receive awards for doing extraordinary things in one area in particular,

Thank you. A- AI has been another priority for this committee.

Mm.

Numerous technology leaders have noted that energy is the primary bottleneck for terrestrial AI infrastructure. Last month, SpaceX filed with the FFCC for authorization to launch up to one million satellites to operate as an ordable orbital data center system, other orbital compute projects like StarCloud and Google's project Suncatcher, aim to contribute to these endeavors. How does NASA plan to facilitate an orbital economy that can help realize aspirational solutions to challenging problems we face at home, such as energy constraints?

I appreciate the question, Congressman. I think it's actually vitally important, uh, for America's interest in leadership, uh, to lead the world in AI. And now I naturally understand why a lot of the big tech companies that realize terrestrial bottlenecks to building out data centers have looked uh have looked to space as an application where you can take advantage of our our fusion reactor that's up there um and i fully support it i i have to say that i've uh you know pounded the table for a long time on how imperative it is for us uh to unlock a true orbital economy to fund the future we all wanna see in space someday because i don't think we'll have you know dozens of uh commercial space stations space hotels and outposts if it's perpetually funded by So in that respect I I wish industry the best in that pursuit. And we will do everything we can at NASA to help, subject matter expertise on materials. We have test facilities across the nation, so when their satellites get up there they stay intact and do not come apart in ways that could damage other satellites or potentially deny access to low earth orbit we have test facilities subject matter expertise and we will do all we can not to mention tracking capabilities to enable industry in this important pursuit.

Thank you, sir. Thank you for your leadership.

Thank you, sir.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back.

Yes, sir. Thank you very much. I'd like to uh recognize uh Miss Gillen from New York.

Thank you, Chairman. Thank you, Ranking Member, for holding this important hearing and thank you, Administrator, uh for coming and visiting with us today. So like millions of Americans and the members of this committee, we were so proud watching the entire NASA team on the successful completion of the Artemis-two mission. And uh I congratulate you and congratulate all of NASA. So I represent a district on the south shore of Long Island in New York, and it has been the proud to power America's space program. The original lunar module, Eagle, was built on Long Island, and we are home to Brookhaven National Laboratory and leading universities like Hofstra, Stony Brook, Molloy and Adelphi. Uh, I, that is part of the reason why I passed an amendment to the bipartisan NASA Reauthorization Act during this committee's mark-up to expand research and technology consortia like the successful Lunar Surface Innovation Consortium. So, Ambassador uh, Administrator rather, you have laid out ambitious plans to expand NASA's capabilities. Would you be willing to work with my office to find ways that we can strengthen the research and tech tech technology consortia regions, like we have on Long Island?

Uh, thank you, Congresswoman. I absolutely uh would welcome those conversations. I think it takes the contributions of the best and brightest from across the nation

Thank you, I appreciate that. Thank you. I appreciate that. Uh, so as you may know, the NASA Authorization Act of twenty twenty two directed NASA to research and develop new technologies to reduce aircraft no noise. This is something that I hear about quite a bit. Uh, my district on Nassau County faces unacceptable levels of noise pollution from JFK Airport and LaGuardia Airport which are two of the busiest airports in the country so I'm wondering if you could give us an update on how the progress uh is being made in that in those studies um provide us maybe with a report and if you will commit to continuing NASA's cleaner quieter airplanes research um because it would be much appreciated by folks in my district.

Yes ma'am uh so I just I'd say broadly in aeronautics that um you know somebody with a decades of business background myself I am I I do try and scrutinize a lot of the uh investment that we put into uh you know, co-industry development efforts and question at times is this something, uh, that NASA should be funding because it's a, you know, it's radical evolution of airframe and propulsion design, uh, or is this something that industry should be doing because for competitive forces this helps them sell a quieter or more efficient engine. Um, and I think there's, there's examples of both that I've found, some that we absolutely should be putting more resource into, uh, and, and some that I, I don't necessarily, uh, agree with because I don't necessarily know if funds the, the future in airframe and propulsion design, Uh, but with respect to say if X fifty nine specifically our our quiet, uh, supersonic demonstrator, we've taken great action to get it in gear. Uh, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, that's a program that's nearly double its original, uh, cost estimates and had flown once, uh, uh, when I was confirmed into this position and wasn't planning to fly again for some time as it went through maintenance, um, which was kind of concerning as a pilot right after its first flight. And, uh, and now it's flying, uh, all the time. In fact, it was flying throughout almost the entire Artemis two, uh, operation, which I was really pleased with. So we are accelerating the timelines to get to the data that you're looking for, which is get through the, uh, envelope expansion phase, start flying over cities, measuring, uh, you know, the the sound from the sonic boom and using that to inform future faster airframe, uh, faster airframe and quieter airframe design. So that's on track right now.

Well, that's great to hear. And you mentioned throughout your testimony, um, that about the private public partnership and working with people in the private sector. So I have spoken to many uh airline I'm on the aviation subcommittee as well. I speak to many airline industry professionals and and talk about the ways we can incentivize them to develop uh the technology to quiet down our skies and wondering if there is some outreach and connection between what you're doing over at NASA with the aviation sector to try to work together and take advantage of of different opportunities to share research.

Yes ma'am, so we are uh, I mean I can tell you this as the the big A, the first A in in NASA, this is an area that I have a great appreciation for. And believe me, I want nothing more than to see the aeronautics division inside NASA back to its uh, it's what I would call its glory days of decades past doing like almost the unimaginable cuz I I think in between rocket launches a cool X plane is a great way, not only to learn but also inspire the next generation. And I've been challenging industry. Please don't give us the proposals on how to squeak out three percent more fuel efficient,

Excellent. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you. My time is uh expired, so I yield back. My time is uh, expired, so I yield back. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you, Chairman.

Heels back, and now I'd like to represent uh uh uh recognize uh the representative from Florida Herr- Mister Herodopolis.

Thank you, Mister Chairman. Mister Administrator, thank you very much for taking the time. Uh, we're really grateful for your service. Uh, a lot on your plate before you got this job and you're doing a heck of a job in this job. And uh, I was honored to stand with you as you watched the Artemis two take off from Kennedy Space Center and and there you were at the landing as well and just a, a tremendous success for NASA and it really is a testament to the entire team at NASA, for making this happen and I think the leadership shown by our Chairman as well and others and we could not be more thrilled at what's happening in space right now. But as you know we face a major challenge from China and and specifically you put out some very bold idea which is appreciated. I think uh the energy that I sense in talking to so many folks at Kennedy Space Center where I represent is is not only contagious but is is growing and uh it's just a thrill. Uh could you walk me through some of the changes as we get ready for Artemis three and and some of those actions and the standardization of the SLS rocket, and and why you think this is the best path forward for us to win this new space race against the Communist Chinese.

Uh, I absolutely appreciate the uh, the question Congressman, and uh I do wanna talk about that competition for a second. Uh, this is, this is not necessarily like the nineteen sixties where it turns out in hindsight, we had an almost unlimited schedule margin. No one's been back to the moon since Apollo seventeen when American footprints last set foot on the moon. This is different now. Uh, I say it often that the uh the difference between uh winning and losing will be measured in months not years. And that should create a sense of urgency. And uh and that should cause us to rethink some of our our historic approaches, to get extremely focused. You know, prior to having a geopolitical uh rival, I I don't blame us for spreading thin at times and trying to, you know, work with everybody and and try and, you know, bring goodwill around the world under our mission. But when you do have a competition, you do not want to lose. Uh, so I would say yes, we have outlined some ambitious and bold uh programs. That's what we should do at NASA, but most importantly, sir, I would say we've outlined achievable plans. So Artemis one flew Nove- uncrewed November twenty twenty two, didn't fly again till April first of uh of twenty twenty six. That is not a good cadence for that rocket. That is a very complicated rocket, five prime contractors, I don't know how many subcontractors in it, on decades old designed hardware that people aren't as familiar with, you need muscle memory to do that. So our proposal coming out of it is let's get back in the business of launching moon rockets with frequency. Let's standardize. Why would we launch this two times and then do a dramatic departure to the upper stage of a completely unproven piece of hardware that's I think four billion or so over budget. Why don't we work with the OEM that was making it, that acknowledged there was some shortcomings here, and pick something from one of their JVs that's in production that's got decades of flight heritage, put that on top of the rocket, standardize the the the launcher, launch again in twenty seven, so we're borrowing from the playbook that worked for us in the nineteen sixties, not jumping right from Artemis two around the moon, waiting three and a half years to land on it, launch again, rebuild muscle memory in twenty twenty seven, test the interoperability of the Orion spacecraft and the landers in low earth orbit where if something goes wrong you're not all the way out there, two hundred and fifty thousand miles away, you're just a couple hours from being in the water, learn from that and then get incredibly good, rebuild core competency so we can turn that launch pad not in years but months, so you have two at-bats in twenty twenty eight to make sure we get to the landing before our rival does. And in parallel, sir, we wanna be on the moon, not above the moon looking down on the Chinese. Gateway was an interesting concept in twenty uh seventeen when we weren't faced with a a Chinese rival that could potentially beat us back to moon. Now we want infrastructure on the surface, we want American standards on the moon for power. uh, for communication, for mobility and logistics, for crewed rovers, uncrewed rovers, surface improvements, and habitation. Uh, and I think working to get that infrastructure on the moon in parallel, so when our astronauts land in twenty twenty eight, they can get in their rover and drive around their moon base is the ultimate priority.

And, and just for my quick question as well, it's not as sexy as, as going to the moon, but infrastructure is very important. It's, it's the, it's the wherewithal so we can do this not only from Kennedy space center, but other, other places as well. Um, are you open to the idea, as, as our previous uh questioner from the other side talked about, these, these public-private partnerships are so important. And we know we have so many infrastructure needs. Uh, if you just visit, of course, those locations, are you open to the idea of the private sector making those investments with NASA, if that serves our purpose as well?

Um, uh, absolutely, Congressman, I, I think that uh people often ask, you know, what's different from the, the nineteen sixties moon rays versus uh, versus the present. And there's certainly a lot of differences, but one of which is that the taxpayers don't have to foot the entire bill. I mean, you're talking almost four and a half percent of the, uh, of the discretionary budget during the Apollo era. Now we're at a lot less, but you have some of the wealthiest, uh, individuals and companies in the world contributing their resources to a capability essential for American leadership in space and frankly for, for all of humankind. And if they wanna come and invest in launch infrastructure, uh, that can help, uh, enable a capability critical for national security, I welcome it because Honestly, sir, if this trajectory continues, we're gonna need to make use of, you know, every every inch of the land at Kennedy Space Center, Vandenberg, up in Alaska, Wallops, and who knows, in the years ahead we might even need an entirely new set of launch complexes out there.

Well, thank you. And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. And thanks for your pragmatic leadership.

Thank you, sir.

Uh, gentlemen yields. Uh, they have called votes. And, uh, there are two votes from what I understand. So we're gonna stand in recess, uh, subject to the call of the chair. Uh, Mister Administrator, uh, I hope you can, uh, stick around until those two votes are done.

I'll be here, Mister Chairman. Thank you.

Great. Adjourned. Recess, rather.

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yeah

yeah

yeah i was just like i mean it was like a little bit like a little bit like a little bit like

yeah yeah

yeah

yeah yeah yeah she's like a little bit more aggressive and like you know she's like yeah

a little bit like a little bit aggressive and then like

way more aggressive and like you know she's like battered and she's like

yeah yeah

yeah yeah yeah yeah no i really like this one yeah right you yeah and then you know it's like the the whole thing is like i don't know it's like you know oh really then you know i don't know what it's like but then you know you're like yeah do you guys like cheese yeah so is it good yeah yeah it's really good that would go in front of the the one that i like that was like yeah so like even though it would be almost as simple yeah like as simple as like seeing like hmmm i had an issue with like the stage because like yesterday or the day before i was like what am i gonna do doing on Sunday ummm i was seeing a few people playing football and yeah oh yeah cool yeah i was in the big orange zone it was like oh so i was like i'm gonna say you know you never mind like like i'm gonna get an extra yeah that's why i was like i mean i was like that's just something i actually do not remember i think it was just like yeah i don't remember it being in the middle but you know they're not really emailing you know they're just like downloading it and then when you get a message from them they're like yeah yeah you don't wanna get a message from them no we don't want you to do that so we we can just get a free download from them and then you can just like download it from them hmmm and then you can just like download it from them and then you can download it from them and then you can just like get it back and then you can just like download it from them and then you can just like download it from them and then you can just like download it from them hmmm those are the only way to do it right right we might just like find a product that will like promote our product and improve it also. Mm. Um, we could also get in touch with the business and get them to download it. I don't want to like do that on my own. No, Mm. yeah, it's a tough one, but it's a tough one. I don't want to go there and say, Mm. yeah, I don't want to do that. no way i didn't like it then yeah i thought it was like a new style yeah you didn't like the food but i was like new yorker so i was like what do you do like do you like well you know what i mean food or do you like the food do you like the food do you like the food i was like an eric uh i i like food but like i didn't like it i mean i did like i really enjoyed it i didn't like it so i was like what do you like do you like the food so i think it's like a new kind of like a new kind of like food ummm hmmm you know like when you have like a yeah yeah you know like a yeah so like a yeah i uh yeah like a yeah oh that's cool so like a actual like that is not ummm hmmm not a big deal yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah well i got probably like ok so one back end transfer like two or three times yeah yeah yeah so i was like oh this is pretty much my problem so then like i was like yeah yeah oh i didn't use it well and then like i had to do it again yeah yeah yeah so i like my current plan you know always um oh using the phone now i use the computer i can go to work now i can go to work yeah i can go to work now i can go to work now yeah you know like after you leave the uh uh next door you go to the bathroom and then like yeah after you're in the car you go to the bathroom and then you're like oh it's like you're at the door and it's like a little slip in the back there and then you go like what no no i just went to the bathroom and then you go to the door and then you go to the bathroom and then you go to your parents yeah i know i was going here but now i'm going to oh yeah yeah so the yeah old school like r. a. and then right ooh yeah ummm there's a oh wait wait yeah ummm hmmm yeah yeah yeah hmmm oh oh yeah yeah and then i was like oh we have to circle back yeah that was scary you know but i feel like if i did it all like the consequences are so much more like um you know it's simple and like really hard to get you know return or close to it yeah so i'm more like a regular athlete so i'm i might do that but i don't think i'll use that that much right like even if i'm more maybe every day i'll do it once and you know then i didn't do that ummm i was talking about the song the something like oh ok ummm i was talking about like you know like you oh yeah know like you know like you know like you know like ok you probably you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you know you can find it on facebook a little bit like you know like you know like you know like you know like you know like you know like you know like you know like you know like you you know like you know like you know like you know like you know like you know like you yeah yes yeah yeah yeah ummm hmmm yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah i feel like i'm a little bit of a musical type of a yeah kind of a but but it's really worth it i like the sound of it yeah yeah yeah i think that's why i like the sound of the music oh yeah ummm hmmm yeah yeah oh yeah yeah you know and then five and then you go to the yeah um oh yeah home food market and then you go to the yeah home food market and then oh yeah oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah it's like i don't usually go to the home food so you go to yeah yeah sinford but i was in l. f. you know the home food market and then you go to the home food market and then you go to the home food market and then you go to the home food market yeah girl you gotta train your guts on how to do it but you don't even know how to do it you're waiting like how about you you got an invite and then you go to work and i didn't know then you go to the gym and then you have to run out of the gym ok also you have to go to the break so what and then yeah you're right but the whole idea is like the last hour there is a plan and then you have to do it but i'm like i don't know where to go oh i thought they were like like you know they're like you know like you know like you know like yeah hmmm yeah they're like i was like you know they're like i was like like you know like you know like like you know like you know like you know like you know like yeah like i don't know like you know like you know like you know like you know like absolutely not you you know like you know like you know like you know like they they don't you know they're just so like you know like you know like things they want to do but i don't know like you know like you know like i was just like oh this is not helpful and i was like oh yeah i'm very hmmm sorry yeah and then once you build up your stuff and then you can go to the kitchen and then you can come back tomorrow and do the it works right the work right but then i was like oh that's so annoying cause i'm like i'm exactly the type of hmmm exactly the type of person that's trying to get that stuff so i was like yeah we will be in a lot of trouble if we don't get to work tomorrow so i think yeah i'm gonna get a meeting and then i'll be like yeah we'll be in a lot of trouble and then we'll be back i remember that yeah we'll be back in a little bit but i do not i don't know how many people so it's not really a problem for me you know yeah it's true no i was like oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah you know that's what you know yeah yeah yeah i was thinking uh no i didn't know that yeah hmm maybe but you know like a lot of people like yeah you know like a lot of people like like a lot of people like really like i don't know a lot like like what i've done like one thing is that i don't know what i'm into like like i'm not into that much like like like uh like like like like like you didn't know what i was into right alright you know like i said you know like i said you know like i work with like yeah yeah a lot of new people and i was like oh yeah i'm gonna do like a new project and then i was like yeah yeah i'm gonna do like a new project and then i was like oh yeah i'm gonna do like a new project and then i was like yeah oh yeah hmmm yeah i had to do a lot of work on that one yeah yeah ummm hmmm but then i was like oh it's not bad but you have to you have to oh yeah take it out on yourself so then i was like see they're like i am hmmm not as well yeah cause i was like hmmm hmmm yeah yeah yeah yeah for the best it has to be a little hard but you can you can only try one so like if you yeah yeah and you're thinking like yeah it's a lot harder than you think then you have to go for it yeah oh wow oh yeah i mean yeah no no i have a hobby for no no so like a apple no maybe so yeah i use to that i use to sit at a table and eat apple yeah i eat it hmmm i eat it all the time oh oh yeah yeah and then i was like yeah that's not something i can do i can do it myself hmmm yeah so like you know just like a little bit of a yeah that was like a yeah like a little bit of a yeah yeah yeah like a little bit of a like a little bit of a oh yeah uh like a little bit of a different kind of like a new oh yeah kind of like a new kind of like like a new kind of like a new style of like a new style of like yeah like a new style of like like a new style of like a new style of like a new style of like a new style yeah i see you guys are trying to find out who's gonna be playing next week so you guys are trying to find out who's gonna be playing next week so we thought we'd make a plan and then we can just make sure that you guys can come and play ok yeah yeah we can come and play yeah so you guys can come and play ok yeah yeah no we can just come and play ok i mean you know i don't know if we can make it to the end but i don't know if we can make it to the end no i don't know if we can make it to the end but i think we can make it to the end yeah no i don't know yeah you know what i mean what i don't know is we don't know if we're gonna be playing or if we're gonna be playing i don't think it's very expensive but i mean it's not too expensive i i think that's why i think it's more expensive to buy a new one ummm hmmm i think that's why i think it's more expensive to buy a newer one yeah yeah it's like a loan fee or something like that which is like a loan fee like a salary loan like a loan fee like a loan fee like a loan fee like a loan fee like a loan fee like a loan fee like a loan fee like a loan fee it's like a loan fee it's like a loan fee it's like a loan fee it's like a loan fee it's just like a loan fee it's just like a loan fee it's just like a loan fee it's just like a loan fee it's just like a loan fee it's just like a little bit of a loan fee but we actually use our own money so it's like a yeah i don't know where it's from but like i've never heard of it so not really yeah yeah no no oh wow yeah they have like a a lot of like uh like uh like uh like uh yeah wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait what yeah yeah what is that what is that what is that what is that what is that what is the yeah yeah oh yeah right what was the yeah what was the what was the oh i'm glad you guys are here today because like you know like you know like i'm not really a lot of people are really into like like like like food and like like you know yeah wow like you know like you know like you know like like like like like like like like yeah food and like like like like like like like like like like like like like like like yeah i remember like what i've done like food and like so that's just like you know like you know like you know like you know like yeah yeah like you know like you know like you know like the one thing that you guys like like yeah yeah yeah i was like i'm gonna eat some cheese and then i'll get a plate of cheese and then i'll get a plate of cheese ok and then i'll get a plate of cheese and then i'll get some cheese and then i'll get a plate of cheese yeah and then i'll get a plate of cheese and then i'll get another plate of cheese and then i'll get another plate of cheese oh man and then i'll get another plate of cheese and then i'll get a plate of cheese and then i'll just get another plate of cheese and then i'll just get another plate of cheese and i'll just get another plate of cheese and then i'll just get a plate of cheese and then i'll just get another plate of cheeses and then i'll just get another plate of cheese and then i'll get another plate of cheese and then that's it you know you don't you don't think you're going to be so good at it and then once you get to the show you're gonna get a lot more money and then you get a lot of you you get a lot of pay as well and then you'll be paying like five hundred dollars hmmm per show which is very cheap and then you'll be like yeah i don't think i can do it so i don't think i can do it so you don't know how much it's gonna be and then you'll be there for a week and then you'll be there for another week and then you'll be there for another week and then you'll be there for another week and then you'll get another week yeah i think that's good good job what about the long run but i think you're right yeah i think it's good i think that's good long run is not the best but it's not the best yeah so you you know when you're waiting that long run is not the best yeah cause it's not the best you can do that's why you need to test that long run i think that's good now if you wanna be in a new class you wanna be in a new class yeah that's why you need to test that long run cause it's like you're gonna be in a new class and you're gonna be in a new class and you're gonna be in the same class i'm not a big fan of the i'm a little bit of a fan of the like oh you know like the right like the little things that are like you know like small like i have a third one and i'm like oh yeah that's like like hmmm i want six so i'm like i don't want six so i'm like alright usually i'd like the black or the brown or the red or the brown i was like yeah i'm very soft on the black i like the browns so i'm like yeah i'm only like two or three people like i like the black and the red one so yeah i think that's the only way to do it yeah you know like yeah i think that's the only way to do it yeah wow yeah you you yeah i think that's the only way to do it yeah yeah did you bring all the food from there or from like a local restaurant or something all the food was there like that i think it was better than what i had before because i don't yeah usually bring all the food from there but i didn't bring all the food from there yeah or yeah uhhh so the food was pretty yeah yeah yeah they were all very good but it was not as much of a problem as before i think but i'm thinking about the same thing as before like when you start at the end of the year like you were at a restaurant and you were eating out at a restaurant and then you got a call from a friend and she was like oh i'm not sure if i should be eating out at the restaurant or if i was eating out at the restaurant and then she called me and i right was like oh i'm not sure if i should be eating out at the restaurant and then i was like oh yeah i'm not sure if i should be eating out at the restaurant and then i was like oh yeah i'm not sure if i should eat out at the restaurant and then i was like oh yeah i'm not sure if i was eating out at the restaurant and then i was like oh yeah oh wow. oh wow. yeah i think that's good for that i think that's good for that i think that's good for that i think that's good for that i think that's good for that it's a little bit more you know like when you put like a little bit more like a like a little bit more soft on the outside but like when you put it on the inside you know that that is just not how it is and you know like hmmm oh yeah that's a good question yeah oh yeah i think that is a good question it's a good question cause people are more comfortable with that but it's not as hard to use i think i think you gotta put it on the inside that's not so much like a uh, like a family family thing, when you have not the aptitude to do things like that for a living, and you're not allowed to do that for a job, how do you do that for a family? How do you handle that for a child? And how do you handle it? Do they really care? Do they really care? Do they really wanna know what you're doing? What do you do? How do you handle it? Mm-hmm. How do you act? How do you handle it? How do you handle it? How do you handle it? How do you handle it? How do you handle it? You need a lot more than that. And that's why I love the word culture. right um yeah they started uh selling like a lot of like yeah yeah yeah like yeah like a lot of the the different types of like what do you like what do you like more like hmm the other ones like that's what we we were thinking about but it's not the whole thing so hmm yeah i was just like oh i was just wondering what kind of style of like do you want like a like a traditional style of oh i like that yeah so yeah yeah it was right yeah yeah hmm oh yeah actually i think it's really good for you yeah yeah cause it's like a i think it's good to be like a company like a company that like yeah yeah was like you know like you know like you know like you know like you know like you know like you know just like a company that like you know like you know like yeah yeah yeah you know like you know like you know like you know like you know the company that like was like you know like big in the group that like you know they had like you know like you know like a like a i was thinking about it too when we were trying to get to the restaurant and we decided to come to a restaurant hmm and they had a whole menu at the door that had like a salad bar and a plate of noodles and a salad bowl and a plate of noodles and then i was like oh yeah i think they had a plate of noodles and a plate of noodles and a plate of noodles and a plate of noodles so i was like oh yeah hmm i think that's what i thought it would be and then we went to the restaurant and we had a table and we had a table and we had a table and we had a plate of noodles and a plate of noodles and a plate of noodle oh so that's why i was like oh i'm just gonna try and get it all to the other way and then we'll go further and then we'll go further and then we'll go further and then we'll go further and then oh we'll go further and then we'll go further and then we'll walk through the oh wow the the one three four and then we'll go further and then we'll go further and then we'll get to the wow i'm good and lastly um like you know i was thinking uh eric eric yeah eric is he is he um yeah no but he also i mean he is a professional uh also on the team he was involved in a couple of hmmm meetings we had a lot of discusses over the phone call and then i was like oh what is this what is this yeah yeah um um, it's a little bit too much for me. I don't know if you want to make it like that, but it's very easy to make. It's really easy to make. So, I don't know if you want to call it in. I don't know, I just don't like, uh, I don't like having to do it all the time, so I didn't do it that time. What do you think? No, it's a little bit too much, I don't know how to do it all the time. It's a little bit too much, I don't know how to do it all the time. No, I'm not the type to do it all the time, I'm not the type to do it all the time. i think it's only when they put one thing in then it's like yeah it's like so whenever you're talking about like right they want to have like a yeah yeah basically you have to make sure that you know your your name is on the list um first you have to be uh your religion and then you have to follow the fire that's like you are the god of the god of the gods and then your god of the gods you have to follow god of the gods and then you have to follow yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah i think it's probably like the most expensive uh thing um in the world right now like most like most like most like most like most like most like most like most uh like most like most like most like most like most like most like most yeah like most like most like most like most like most like most like most i think is like yeah yeah ummm yeah oh yeah yeah yeah i was just wondering what kind of food would be good for you yeah ummm so so like what would be your favorite food to eat at the end of the day ummm i mean like what do you like to eat at the end of the day what do you like to eat at the end of the day wow cause i know i i used to love eating like yeah interesting something like a lot of like like a lot of like yeah like uh i mean i mean i don't know like i don't eat like like like like like like like like like like like i don't know i mean i had a bad day yesterday i don't know what i ordered i didn't eat anything i just had a good time that was awesome game was really fun i was going on a plane to work on my new project i was like oh i'm not actually used to it i'm not a real person i'm just a i mean what was your day like hmmm yeah ooh yeah ummm hmmm but i feel like i'm getting more and more and more of a contractual contractual contractual contractual chance you get but you don't have to get all three yeah you don't you don't have to get all three yeah but ummm hmmm yeah so it is i feel like i'm in a really good position now yeah well i have a pretty good program and i should probably be in a good position now yeah but i'm not quite sure how i'm gonna do on the contractual i'm very good at that oh wow yeah yeah yeah yeah i've got a lot of people that like my style i can do a lot of stuff but like yeah i know that i'm not the most popular i can do very much hmm yeah i was just thinking uh-huh i think you have to find something that you really like and then you can work on it that will then give you more time to train and then you can get more energy and then you can yeah and thirty minutes go to the gym and then you can go to the gym and then you can go to the gym and then go to the yeah yeah gym and then you can go to the gym and then you can go. yeah yeah it's very easy to get yeah yeah but i was already in the gym and i was just like you know i'm gonna do this and i was just like yeah yeah i think it's like a big day for me i believe that it's not as much of a challenge as it looks like yeah i mean hey you know i think that you know you have to adapt to the new year and i think that that you know you have to take it for granted cause you know yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah so it's almost like a whole set of like a whole set of like yeah yeah one set of like one set of like one set of like one set of like like one set of like one set of like one set of like one set like one set of like one set of like one set of like one set and then then you can just like set up like one set of like one set of like one set of like one set of like one set of like one set or like like one set of like one set of like one set of like one sets of like one set of like one set of like one set of like one set so like like one set of like one set of like one set of like one kind of like one set of like one set of like one set of like one i know you guys are really into that but i'm not really into that so i'm gonna do that but i'm gonna do it for you guys so i'm gonna do it for you yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah no i i don't really like the vibe of a club but i i feel like it's about that yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah i'm really into that yeah that's awesome you know it's more of a one person one level but like oh ok hmm um uh the they they they they they want you know you know they they they want you know right well yeah and they have a couple of people that they like you know and they how do you build that uh oh my gosh yeah yeah and i was like yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah so is that your favorite one is that your favorite one yeah yeah yeah yeah so yeah i do all of that so i worked at all the time so i didn't really like the the the the uh the the the uh the uh the uh the uh the the uh the uh the uh the uh the uh the uh the uh the uh really the uh the uh the uh the uh the uh the uh the uh yeah the uh the uh the uh the uh the uh the uh the uh i don't really like it i don't care if you're a i don't care i'm just treated well and so i can't wait to go to a gym and go live with my mom and my dad and so on and so on and so on so we don't get to go to gym and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on yeah yeah and so on and so on and so on and so on and so i know that you you work with same thing yeah i did get fired from gym and so on and so on and so on and i i got a job there and so i was like i'm gonna get fired from gym and i told me to get fired from gym i was in a place where i could die at home on the third of saturday when the doctor came and then i was like you know just like you know yeah started and i was like you you decided that you didn't want to do that and i just thought that yeah you you know you really know you you know you you really don't want to do that and i oh yeah they do was like oh i thought you know you were acting like you are acting like you are in a different world and i was like i was like i don't want to do that and i was like yeah i was like yeah and i told him to go yeah i think it's about the exact measure and you know oh yeah you know you don't really want to eat that much but then you know oh yeah you know it's like yeah i i was just like oh it's not good for you but then i was like oh it's good for you and then i was like i'm sure it's just like a little bit too spicy yeah so yeah but then i was like oh it's just like a little bit too spicy i mean i don't know i really get that i don't get that much i don't get that much better but i was just like oh i'm just gonna try it out and see get it once and then i'll see yeah i'll do it once and then i'll try it out yeah and then i'll see maybe a little bit longer yeah yeah yeah that's the thing that's what i was thinking i was thinking ummm yeah yeah how did how did you decide that you wanted to you know what it's just uh you know you you you you are you are talking about oh where do you like it you are like you know where do you like it oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh yeah oh wow ok yeah yeah i i i'm not sure if i should i would i would say like i don't like it it's like a i i don't like it i don't like it at all hmmm yeah hmmm yeah yeah i was just like yeah i know almost got there pretty much just like i can't remember the the city i know yeah i know i know i know i know hmmm yeah a lot of them were like in a like a little bar like a bar you know like a bar you know like a bar yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah so yeah yeah yeah but i kind of after a the c. a. c. i think that hmmm yeah yeah i mean it's all good i i just got a new one yeah yeah yeah oh yeah hmmm yeah yeah that's what i said before like a little bit of a gap but i can get a couple of different ones yeah ummm really long so ummm yeah it was a whole month i got that one yeah yeah i was trying to get a new one but it was a whole month yeah so yeah i mean i'm not that sure i mean i guess i'm gonna try it one more time probably not the best i think it's just like a bunch of people who are like mmm yeah you're like you're like a bunch of people and then you get to like get like a wedding and then you get to like a wedding and then i think you get to mmm like a wedding and then you get to like a wedding and then you get to like a house or like a house and then you get to like a wedding and then you get to like a wedding and then you get to like a wedding and then you get into like a mmm house and then you get to like a wedding and then you get to a house and then yeah i think it's a lot more fun and i think it's a lot more fun to do it yourself yeah i think it's a lot more fun to do it yourself yeah yeah yeah yeah you could like there and then there's there's people who like the home that yeah love that but then they don't they don't really like the home so we we were all like yeah no i mean i think it's actually not really the home it's just the yeah that that was yeah that was the problem we were we were having a little no i mean it's just the home i mean it's just the home conflict it's like we we were having a little conflict that we wanted to leave it to them but then they were like oh yeah oh yeah oh yeah oh yeah oh yeah yeah um yeah yeah yeah hmm um what yeah i think it's like a oh ok yeah um yeah yeah um um um yeah that's good yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah long uh long uh long yeah yeah that's nice i think it's a good idea yeah hmm yeah yeah that's really good yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah i mean i don't know like i don't know like i don't know like how i can figure it out but hmmm hmmm i don't know like oh it's just fun maybe you can get a new phone call from a friend that's like i thought you were gonna use the phone call from a friend that's just a phone call from a friend that's like oh i think you just turned on your phone and then it just uh then it's like you just turned on your phone and then it just turned on your phone yeah it's a very good question oh yeah um um i was just gonna ask you a question about the yeah yeah about the about the the yeah ok yeah yeah i i like your your yeah i was just gonna ask you a question about the math problem did you do that as well yeah yeah yeah i don't think you can do it yourself though it's not like you can do it yourself yeah yeah yeah but there are there are many people there that have done it themselves and there there are many people that have done it themselves and there are many people that have done it themselves and there are many people that have done it themselves and there are many people that have done it themselves yeah yeah i was wondering why would you want to go to ho chi po or where to go like i was thinking you know korea or something like that but i was thinking yeah uh yeah yeah uhhh they uh they have like uh you know like a i believe it's like uh yeah but i didn't want to do it so my friends and i was not really into hmmm oh sports so i was just like oh yeah so and then so we we just went for a run and just went for a run and then we went for a run and then we just went for a run and then oh we just went for a run and then we just went for a run and then we just went for a run and then we just went for a run and then we just went for the run and then we just went for a run and then we just went for the run and then and then we just went for the run i don't know if you guys are here or not but i'm sure there's a lot of people out there who are just trying to get you know i'm not sure if you guys are here or not but yeah yeah i'm not sure i'm not sure oh not that i've ever heard of no i'm not sure i don't know i'm not sure oh i'm not sure hmm yeah i'm not sure i'm not sure hmm no i'm not sure i'm not sure i feel like i'm on a roll here so i don't know really just how to do it yeah i do that i don't know how to do it i don't know how to do it on the job i don't know yeah anything but it's just that it's just too confusing and i don't know and there's a battle i had with a couple of them and they were like very uh easy to follow but i didn't know how to do it so i was like you know it's just like a game of cards so i was like i don't know how to follow it i was like you know it's just like a game of cards hmm you know what your name is right now i can just give you a class you can do uh you know like a oh wow like a oh yeah right right hmmm hmmm first ummm ummm i feel like i'm very not familiar with this class so it's definitely like a very very unique class you know so i'm not really into like traditional music but i just love it and i enjoy the music so like i really enjoyed it and i enjoyed it and i like it so i'm very much but you know it's a good thing it's a good thing it's a good thing oh ok all the good things you know you don't have to worry about it yeah right you know you have to make sure that the the the the the the veggies are not uh are very spicy and you should just make sure that the you know the the sauce is right and then you just have to try it and see how it is but i don't think you can handle it that way right i don't think you can handle it that way i'm really good with the the modern building in america is usually built in china and it's built in like two hundred and twenty celsius and then it's built in like two hundred and fifty celsius and then it's built in like two hundred and fifty hmm celsius and then it's built in like two hundred and fifty celsius and then it's built in like two hundred and fifty and then it's built in like two hundred and fifty that would be great oh i love the awesome great yeah that's nice i like the the yeah you you oh that was a ride oh i love the the oh yeah that was good yeah yeah yeah i don't think it's like a lot of times it's just like a little bit of a and then i don't think it's like a lot of times ummm i don't think it's like a lot of times but like i don't think it's like a lot of times yeah right no but like i don't think it's like a lot of times but like yeah i don't think it's like a lot of times but like i think it's like a lot of times hmmm long term and then you can buy a new one and then you can just go around and get new ones so i think you need to make sure that you have enough money to buy a new one so i was just like oh i don't know what i'm gonna do with it but then i just bought a new one and then i just went around and bought a new one and then i just went around and bought a new one hmmm hmmm and then you can just buy a new one ummm hmmm right yeah yeah hmm oh really right i heard of it more like you know when you're in a room and you're like oh yeah it's probably not the right thing to do but like i had a the last time i had a i had a really good time yeah hmmm i met you on the internet yeah yeah you met me on the internet oh yeah yeah hmmm yeah and then we went on our wedding yeah i feel like it's a little too much for me so i'm gonna try it out i think it's better to have like a regular brand you know what i like about it is that it's not too dry i like that it's not too yeah dry i like that it's not too dry it's not too dry it's not too dry i don't know i don't think it's too dry for me yeah oh i like that yeah Yeah. I got a friend who was like, I don't know where to begin, I don't know where to start. So I was like, I'm gonna start with like, I think it's like, I'm gonna start with like, I dunno, I'm not sure what to start with. I'm like, I'm not sure what to start with, I didn't know what to start with, I didn't know what to start with. But then I was like, oh, it's like, it's not that hard, it's not that hard. It's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, I mean, I've been there, I've been there, I've been there, I've been there, I was like, I was like, oh, I'm not sure what to start with. And then I was like, yeah, I'm not sure what to start with, so I went ahead and started. you know like a like a they like like a uh-huh yeah like a yeah yeah well i was just like you know like a like a like a maybe a little bit maybe a little bit more like a yeah i mean but i think it's yeah yeah i think it's really easy to get a job because they don't really charge you much for that yeah so it's a lot of people want to go to the country and like to travel to different countries so i was actually really looking forward to it and then i was like oh yeah ok i'm gonna try it out and then i was like yeah i'll do it yeah oh yeah and then yeah and then i was like oh ok i'll do it and then i was like oh ok i'll do it ummm hmmm yeah hmmm but i was like yeah i can do it do it in this class yeah after i'm like i'm gonna do it in this class and then i'll do it in my own yeah so i'm like yeah i'll do it in my own and then i'll do it in my own and then i'll do it in mine yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah you don't have to try it out

hmmm

yeah i think it's just a matter of like how old you are i don't know no ummm i think it's just like i don't know what do you i don't know i don't know yeah that's so weird ummm oh yeah right so it's a very different kind of uh event but what was that it's like a little bar for like a couple of times and then like yeah right get a bar and then like get a table and then like one hour and then like after dinner you can go up and like eat a little bit of like a barbecue and then then after dinner you can go up and then like a barbecue and then like and then after dinner you can go up and then like uh like one hour and then like two hours and then like two hours and then like one hour and then like two hours and then like two hours and then like one hour and then one hour and i mean but it's not just about the food i mean i think it's about the conversation yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah i'm i'm i'm i'm i'm pretty sure yeah i'm very i'm very curious i'm very yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah i think i think it's a good idea cause like you know like you know like you know like yeah yeah you guys are saying about like yeah yeah the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the they they they all yeah right now they all said yeah they all said they don't wanna have any fire in that room do you wanna do it also yeah the thing is is we were all uh yeah we were all like yeah yeah we were all like we were all like we were all like we were all like really excited yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah i think you're gonna be more of a hungry person if you eat less food i don't think so i think i think it's just the fact that you're hungry and you're not as hungry as a lot of people i think i was just yeah yeah yeah i get too i was just like oh i'm gonna eat more food and then i'm like oh i'm gonna eat more food and then i'm like oh i'm gonna eat more food i was just talking to the the the the parents and i was like i just said no no no no no no i'm gonna get a divorce and then they're like no no no that's not true that's not true that's not true that's not true that's not true that's not true that's just a joke hmmm hmmm yeah it's not real yeah i was like yeah that's just a joke um they didn't return it to me oh that's interesting that's interesting cause it's so difficult to like get a divorce um and then when i was in college i was like oh i don't think you're gonna be able to do that unless you're gonna be able to do that so i was like yeah you can do that you can do that but then i was like yeah you can do that you can do that and then i was like oh yeah yeah yeah yeah you can do that and then i was like oh yeah but then i was like oh yeah but then i was like yeah but then i was like oh yeah but then i was like oh yeah but you can do that and then i was like oh yeah but then i was like oh yeah but then it was like oh yeah but then i was like oh yeah but then i was like oh yeah but then i I was like oh yeah but then i was like oh yeah but then i was like oh yeah but then i i was like oh yeah but then i don't know about that but i think that i was really looking forward to it yeah

yeah

oh yeah yeah oh wow yeah oh

yeah

yeah

yeah

yeah

hey i'm happy

yeah you know what i really love about the restaurant is the fact that it's only one table so you know what i really love about the restaurant is the fact that you know you know the rice yeah right oh yeah yeah i remember when we were in school and i was like oh i want to go to math year so i was like oh no i'm not sure yeah oh maybe if you take a class like math or something like that then you can hmmm learn math but then you know like math is like a whole new world for me so oh yeah oh yeah yeah yes hmmm oh yeah yeah it was like i had a a lot of difficulty no i'm not a big fan of that so i'm not a big fan of that but i've been to korea once and i've been to korea twice you're a korean yeah yeah and i've been to korea once and i've been to kerea twice and i've been to korea twice and i've been to korea once so the the energy in korea is like the earth that actually is quite like the atmosphere yeah but it's like the energy is like the world and it's like you're going back to korea and you're moving to a place and you're going back to korea wow yeah i think the energy is like the earth um i'm not sure if it's worth it after like two years or like two years i don't know like two years almost a year yeah yeah oh wow yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah um yeah yeah yeah yeah um really here nice yeah oh you're here oh you're here oh you're here i mean i don't know if you know him but like i don't know him hmm oh yeah oh you're here oh you're here i was looking for like his family name but i don't know him so i'm just gonna look for oh you're here oh you're here his actual name and then i'll look for his real name and then i'll look for his real name oh yeah so we we we just we just just um right yeah oh my god yeah yeah yeah yeah that's true oh wait wait wait wait wait wait i remember when we were in high school and we were like really just like we were like yeah yeah we were like we were like we were like all dressed up and we had like a worry about who would go on the road and we were like how about that one day we're gonna go down the road and then we're like i don't know i guess we're gonna go like oh i guess we're gonna go like i mean we like yeah yeah yeah and it's just like a pretty fast food thing to get for like an hour forty or forty five almost a year and then you're like oh this is like a lot more expensive and then i got a ticket to get a laptop and then i just went into the and then i came in and just like just like right right oh yeah ummm oh yeah yeah you know, we've worked hard on this but we didn't really get to do much. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know you probably really want to do that, but sometimes you really don't want to do it. Yeah. Yeah. I know. I know. I know. I know. Yeah. I know. I know. I know. Yeah. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. you will be able to add in the station manager to your project. Yeah, right. Yeah. I don't know that i'm the one who is gonna be in the station manager's office. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. oh yeah and then uh like you know like like you know like you you you you you you you you you know yeah yeah like you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you know like you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you yeah you you you you you you you you you you you uh you you you you you you you you you you you you you you uh you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i yeah i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i uh i i i i i i i i i i i i i i yeah i know it's not the most favorite but like i've had like a few uh like yeah jimmy's like a few times and then like a few times and then like a few years later oh it's like oh it's like a few times and then like a few times and then like jimmy's like oh yeah right oh a few times and then like a few times and then like a few times and then like a couple i know of times and then like a few times and then like a couple of times and then like a yeah couple of times and then like a couple of times and then like a couple of times and then like oh yeah and then like a couple of times and then like a couple of times yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah so you know it's fun yeah right yeah yeah i remember i used to go to a wedding there was a couple of the couples and i was like oh i want to go to a wedding and i was like oh i want to go to a wedding and i was like oh i want to go to a wedding and i went to a wedding and i was like oh i want to go to a wedding and i was like oh i want to go to a wedding and i'm like oh i want to go to a wedding and i'm like oh yeah i want to go to a wedding and i'm like oh yeah i'm like oh yeah i want to go to a wedding yeah and i was like oh yeah i want to go to a wedding and i'm like ok yeah but i think it's probably worth it because it's like yeah yeah it's like you just wanna like try and do it for fun and then try it for yeah yeah yeah the next time and then try it for yourself so like i would go for the yeah yeah yeah yeah what's the yeah yeah right i think it's a good idea wow i think that's a good idea i got a new computer and it's still in the bag hmmm hmmm so it's probably so bad it's not like the standard it's just yeah it's like a new browser for like i have a new account and it's like yeah i don't know it's like a new account but it's like a new update it's like a new account and then it's like a new browser and then it's like a new account and then it's like a new browser and then it's like new account and then it's like a new page and then it's like a new page and then it's like a new account and then it's like a new account and then it's like a new account and then it like oh i saw that one so but i was like oh i see i see oh oh oh i see oh i see oh i see yeah oh i see yeah oh i see oh oh i see oh that's so funny yeah yeah yeah i was like hmmm oh yeah i mean it's like i'm like it's like a i'm like i'm just like you guys like i'm like starting out i'm starting out i'm starting out maybe a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more old school like i'm like a little bit more like a new generation yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah uh i was thinking that uhhh korean food you know like you know like a yeah korean food right like the korean food is not allowed like in korea it's like yeah only the the i mean that's what i heard so so they have that uh in korea it's called the for a i know why i got that i think it's like they're on the edge of the world you know like uhhh like the korean food you know like you know like you know like oh it's not as good as korea it's like oh it's like it's like yeah it's like yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah and uh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah i think i think i'm really lucky to be in a company where like they're they're really like really long-term uh you know um she is getting up and doing her own stuff and then when i was doing that

um yeah yeah

we uh we were watching her work building and she was like i don't want to do it today i'm like no we're gonna have to do it tomorrow so and then also uh she um had a conversation with uh the end uh the end of the call and then after they were doing their thing they were like they were getting a text message and so we were they were looking at the data and it was like it was a long time um

oh yeah

oh did you get the yeah

oh yeah

yeah oh did you get the

what did you get

one one one one yeah what did you get something like a oh yeah ok no i got the hot dog first one yeah oh yeah yeah oh so yeah that's the first one i remember you were just like i remember you were like yeah i remember that like yeah i remember you were like yeah we were the the

yeah yeah yeah yeah

and i was wondering if you know if you guys are gonna be like gonna be like a plot act or something like that cause i don't know cause like you know where that i don't know exactly but like i started with it well i really liked it cause i really liked the story so i really liked it and then i really liked the story so i really liked the story so i really liked it

hmmm

and then i really liked the story so i really liked the story so and then i really liked the story so whoa yeah yeah i was like oh this is a lot of work for me so i was like oh this is not a lot of work for me so i was like yeah yeah that's what that's what you guys are doing right now so i was like yeah you guys are doing that right now you know what i mean maybe one thing is that i had a lot of entertainment at that time so i was like oh this is not a lot of work for me that's why i was like no no no no no no no no no no yeah you know you you know that's very hard to follow no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah you know you know like i had a friend who like yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah hated the food so i was like oh they're probably actually like eating like a lot of food so i was like oh you know you like yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah eating so i thought of like this so i was like like a five or six month old like a five year old you know and then you grow up and then you like you know like a five or six month old you know you go back to a five year old

You grow up.

and then you go back and then you go back to a five year old and then you grow up and then uh you know you grow up and then you grow up and then you grow up and then you grow up and then you grow up and then you get and then you grow up and then you grow up and then you get and then you get and then you know after you get to a five year old you get back and then you get a six year old and then you get a six year old and then you get a six.

ummm

we

yeah

we

yeah

had ummm like a a night yeah you said it was like a night

yeah

yeah

so they only have like like a half an hour to go

yeah

so we don't really have much to do

yeah yeah

so we don't really have much to do

ummm

so oh wow

ummm yeah i'm gonna try to get it off the phone.

oh yeah. oh it's really good. i think it's like a

oh wow. it's so easy. it's like a

oh yeah. it's like a

it's like a a

it's like a

it's like a

yeah.

it's like a it's like a it's like a yeah. hey.

oh wow.

you can use it. it's like a

yeah

so yeah it's like a oh yeah it's like a yeah yeah it's like a yeah so no no no i mean we are we are talking about like yeah yeah the um yeah the the the the yeah the yeah the um yeah um yeah yeah the i think you all know ummm hmmm the idea is that once you have a dog you want to be the idea and then you have to have a dog yeah ummm hmmm that's why i asked jimmy to come up with a dog ummm hmmm and i was like i don't know what the hell is dog so i said yeah we can have a dog and then ummm jess and i thought oh you think a dog

yeah

is a dog and then i was like no it's a dog and then i was like oh it's a dog and then i was like no it's a dog and then i was like oh it's a cat and then i was like oh it's a dog and then i was like oh it's a dog and then i was like oh it's a cat i don't wanna follow the practice of it i don't wanna be like oh i don't wanna do that oh i don't wanna do that that's why i didn't do it i don't like to do it oh ok ok

hmm

i feel like that's the problem with the new product i don't like it i think it's not good enough i don't like it i don't like it i think it's just bad for you i don't like it i just need a little bit of a

hmm

yeah but i'm doing it on my phone i just need to get it yeah oh yeah no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no yeah i had a really good time there you know i had to um i was just like you know i was just like eating right so i was just like yeah yeah right sorry so i was just like eating right so i was just like eating right so i was just like eating right so i was just like yeah eating right so i was just like eating right so i was just like i was just like eating right so i was just like eating right so i was just like eating right so and then i was just like eating right so and then i was just like eating right so and then i was just like eating right so and then yeah i was just like eating right so and then i was just like eating left so and then i was just like eating right so

oh yeah

yeah so we had a union of some kind and then that's where we were like the friend of our friend was like yeah he was like no i don't need that thing now and then we had a good couple of people together and then we had a good family and then we had this one little girl friend

hmmm

that had a couple of guns and a rifle and a rifle as well

yeah

yeah yeah yeah oh yeah i mean it's like you you know like i was just talking to her about like the whole thing and she was like oh yeah i'm gonna do it for you and then she's like

oh

no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no and then she's like yeah no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah is it better than the original i'm not sure but it's like a yeah i'm not sure but it's like a yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah so what what do you guys what do you guys want yeah so yeah like what do you want yeah they don't like the food i don't like the bacon ok yeah i don't like the bacon i don't like the bacon no i was thinking uh uh like a barbecue or something like sausage you know like a like a

oh wow.

like a it's very popular i think. like a i really like the cherry tomato sauce. like a like a it's very delicious. i think that all three of my favorite ingredients are all the tomatoes, the chives, the cayenne, the cayenne oil, the cumin. i think that all three of them are very delicious. i think that all three of them are very delicious. i think that all three of them are very delicious. i think that all three of them are very delicious.

And to order here and uh I apologize for the uh for the delay um but we will get back into the questioning and uh like to uh recognize uh the representative from Rhode Island, Mr. Amo.

Thank you very much, Mister Chairman, uh and thank you uh for your leadership in holding today's hearing. Uh and thank you to Administrator uh Isaacman for being here. I'm grateful to see you. Uh the National Aeronautics uh and Space Act makes clear that NASA is a civilian agency focused on peaceful purposes for the benefit of all mankind, while the development of weapon systems belongs to the Department of Defense. Uh, but your budget includes, uh, dual use and national security activities. Uh, quick yes or no, will you commit to keeping NASA a civil, non-military agency focused on peaceful purposes?

Yes.

Thank you. Uh, Congress has long supported NASA's pursuit of peace, uh, excuse me, of science, exploration, aeronautics. technology, development, and education. But, uh, your budget appears to tilt science toward human exploration. Uh, mister Administrator, how will you ensure that NASA remains a multi-mission agency with strong, independent, and balanced investments across all mission areas?

Uh, thank you, Congressman, I'm I'm certainly a huge fan of uh science and exploration, uh, and I do think we have a very balanced portfolio planned at NASA. Nancy Grace Roman, again, an, a great exploration asset, flagship mission to launch towards the end this year, a nuclear powered octocopter to explore Saturn's moon of Titan. These are missions that no one else in the world is capable of undertaking. I'd also say NASA's proposed budget is still greater than every other space agency, science budget in the world combined as well. I, I don't think we are talking about doing less, what we're trying to do is concentrate resources on the needle-moving scientific objectives that no other agency is capable of doing and doing it with greater frequency.

Well, I, and and I believe we need to ensure that this budget uh, uh, you know, matches that aspiration. And so that's why, you know, this is such an important forum to make sure that we're aligned there. Uh, and you highlighted earlier that sixteen days ago, uh, four astronauts made history. Uh, they traveled deeper into space than any humans before them. And I like stating that fact because it's so big and bold. Uh, the Artemis-two mission captured the imagination of the American people and reminded the world what American ingenuity can achieve. And importantly, you know very well that moments like that don't happen by accident. Uh, every astronaut, uh, every, uh, NASA engineer, scientist and technician was once a young person inspired by space and supported along the way. And so for many, uh, that support came from NASA's Office of STEM Engagement, which, uh, invested time and money in training the next generation. It's a pipeline, and it's a pipeline that matters. And last week, uh, I was grateful uh because of your agency to bring astronaut uh Rajachara uh to meet with elementary students in Central Falls and Pawtucket Rhode Island as well as with college students supported by a space grant at Brown University. So from third graders to graduate students, you could see it in their eyes. It was special, curiosity, excitement, ambition. The next generation is here and the next generation is ready, but they need opportunity. And so we need them studying STEM today so we can power our workforce in NASA, uh, or in the commercial space industry tomorrow. Uh, that's why, you know, I have, uh, s- some alarm about this budget process and eliminating funding for NASA's Office of STEM Engagement. At a moment where we're asking NASA to do more, to lead in space, and to compete globally, uh, we've, we have a proposal to, to cut off a pipeline that makes it possible. And so, th- this isn't the first time, uh, that, uh, President Trump has tried to cut off NASA's nose to spite its face. Uh, he's tried to run this bad play every year that he has been in office, and every time, uh, I'm grateful that Congress has rejected it. So, yeah, you know the saying, right? Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. So, my question for you is how can we ensure that the Rhode Island students who I, you know, opened the door uh uh in world of space amazement uh to just last week uh will have the opportunity to pursue careers in space if NASA defunds, uh the office of STEM engagement.

Well I pr- I appreciate the question Congressman and and I I I do wanna reject any notion that uh the President doesn't have a great appreciation for space, and inspiring the next generation. He did give us the Artemis program that we witnessed Artemis two fly under, certainly the Artemis accords that have brought over sixty nations around, around the world to understand and be like-minded with our approach for peaceful I I would just caution against being overly focused on a specific department when the entire agency's budget directly contributes to inspiration. Launching missions like Artemis two is what's inspiring more astronauts. Photographs from James Webb, the video from from Perseverance and uh and Curiosity rovers. And please understand, sir, we we have grants across the agency. We have internship programs across the agency that are are funded in the president's budget request.

Well look, the, what I would conclude with is inspiration is, is not abstract. We've gotta be directed with the precious dollars that we have. I think we should be inspiring our youth, directing it, uh, very uh, specifically in a focused way towards, uh, their engagement, uh, towards filling these critical roles, towards meeting the aspirations, uh, that we've set. With that, I yield back. Thank you.

Gentlemen yields back, I'd like to recognize uh Uh, the gentleman from Utah, um, Doctor Kennedy.

Thank you, Doctor Babin, our mighty commiss- uh, committee chair, grateful for that. And Administrator Isaacman, thank you very much for being with us today. NASA holds a lot of importance for Utah, my home state, as the home of the Northrop Grumman Promontory Facility Space Dynamics Lab at Utah State, among many other subcontractors that provide components to our space program. Northrop Grumman's sol- solid rocket boosters produced in Utah provided seventy-five percent of the thrust for the space launch system to get the Artemis to crew off the launch pad. I'm proud of that fact. We look forward to many more launches by the way in the coming years, and I know you do as well. You speak, Mister Administrator, about the, your vision for science at NASA and doing more with less, and relying on the private sector for both science and exploration. And can you provide some examples where NASA can save taxpayer dollars?

Well, um, Congressman, I give you one a great example, which would be, uh, SR one Freedom, our nuclear power and propulsion demonstration. Uh, that is, uh, and I'll note that you, you won't actually see direct reference to it in the, uh, the FY twenty-seven PBR. And the reason why is, is we have had, uh, as an agency, decades of failed nuclear power and propulsion initiatives. In fact, over twenty billion dollars of taxpayer funds have been invested in it, and for a capability that is critically important, I mean, we are gonna need, uh, fission surface power on the moon, uh, to, uh, to power in-situ resource manufacturing demonstrations. need this capability on Mars someday so we can send American astronauts to Mars, bring them home safely, and certainly for great scientific missions uh in the in the outer solar system. So what are we doing? We're we're going back to raiding the pantries. We're getting some of that hardware that's been out uh that's been invested in for decades that's gone nowhere has never left the lab we're coupling it with the power uh power propulsion element from uh from uh another program that we have. And we are working with industry. We're applicable on things like uh power conversion capabilities. to bring together honestly the seventy percent solution, just like the Nautilus was, which I'll point out was originally designed to be a diesel submarine, so America could finally get underway on nuclear power under the sea, and in the very near future, being very efficient with taxpayer resources, America will get underway on nuclear power in space.

Love it because uh, I mean so partnering with, uh with these industry partners and making sure that we advance these efforts to have space leadership in the realm of nuclear power on the moon, as well as other places, are there other ways that you see that we can partner with our industry as well as with the government facilities to make sure that that happens.

Yes, sir. Well, I would say taking advantage of industry printing off satellites right now for constellations for observation and communication is a great example of it, sir. I mean, at the time, you know, decades past, understanding our planet, the the sole planet we inhabit presently, uh, is, um, it was very expensive. These were bespoke, multi-billion dollar satellite efforts that were launched at, you know, more than a half a billion dollars per potentially per per launch. Now, you've got the healthiest launch market in the history of uh America's space program. I could rattle off at least a half dozen launch providers, many working on reusability to bring costs down even further, and printing off again satellites to be used for observation and communication. And they have come to NASA and said, please, let us incorporate some instruments for some of the earth science missions so that we can have continuity after Landsat-ten of that data, freeing up resources so we can do more missions they are not capable of doing, like Dragonfly, like missions like Roman.

Thank you. Utah's suppliers are providing the solid rocket boosters for the space launchers sometimes, as we've talked about, and you've committed to using SLS through Artemis five. But beyond that, what are your plans in NASA for maintaining American's capability to launch astronauts to the moon and beyond?

Yes, sir. And I've said many times, uh, America will never give up the moon again. If we're gonna build a base, we're gonna go, we're gonna do so, so that we can send astronauts to the surface and moon with frequency. So we have absolutely committed to using SLS through Artemis five as, uh, as, uh, you know, in the working family tax cut act, but then NASA has put a demand signal out to industry and said we need two different pathways to insure access to the moon to insure we never give it up again for astronaut missions to the moon base on a cadence of uh every six months and I have no doubt and I've had conversations and seen the proposals and and acceleration proposals as well from industry that you're gonna see the various suppliers in SLS come together and frankly I think at uh substantially lower costs as NASA looks at ways that they can be more efficient with the industry and remove some of the friction and bureaucracy that have probably resulted in inflated costs over the years.

Last question, uh NASA's ignition plan and the president's fiscal year, twenty-seven budget both identify commercial radioisotope power, specifically heater units in NASA's Harmonia project, and essential, as essential for surviving the lunar night and enabling missions on the moon and beyond, with demonstrations beginning as early as twenty-eight, so how will NASA collaborate with the private industry to scale up of this technology to power American missions on the Moon and Mars.

Yes, sir. I love this question. Uh, so right now the, uh, RTG's, uh, that we use for, uh, you know, power on missions like Curiosity, Perseverance, even, uh, even Dragonfly mission, uh, we get from the DOE at extraordinary expense and probably a distraction in some ways to national security mission. I welcome commercial industry being able to provide Roos and RTG's, so our equipment can survive the lunar night. And in fact, we are incorporating bonus payments into the moon base construct, this is already going out in the CLPS program, to encourage landers and rovers to partner with the industry to buy, what I assumed i- is gonna be probably americium-based, Roo's and RTG's, so we have a power source to survive the lunar night.

Thank you for those answers and thank you, Mister Chair, I yield back.

Yeah, gentlemen yields, I'd like to recognize uh Representative Whiteside for California, five minutes.

Thank you, Mister Chairman. Uh, Administrator Isaacman, in your career you have launched to space twice, performed the first private spacewalk, piloted high-performance

Yes, sir.

Uh, I was there for the launch of Artemis two and I want to begin by congratulating the entire NASA family on this awe-inspiring mission much like in nineteen sixty eight with Apollo eight, the country really needed this. But we have a short time to cover some key points, so let's get into it. First, let me say that I think you're doing uh a good job. You've brought new energy to the NASA workforce, you're rebuilding both morale and critical skills after a very difficult year. You're rightfully focused on outcomes and getting good value for go- government dollars. You support science, both in space and for our home planet. And while I may not agree with everything you propose, I believe you're an honest leader of good character. Thank you for stepping up to government service.

Thanks, sir.

To state the obvious, I believe OMB's budget request for NASA is dead on arrival. I have spoken to members on both sides of the aisle and many are surprised and even offended that Congress reject- that Con- that after Congress rejected the draconian cuts to NASA proposed for FY twenty-six, the administration would ignore clear bipartisan congressional intent, and propose similar cuts again. Let me send a message to OMB Director Russ Vogt. Congress will reject your misguided war on American science. My first question echos others on this committee. Can we get your commitment today that NASA will respect appropriations law, and not repeat last year's de facto implementation of proposed cuts, before Congress has carried out its constitutionally mandated budget process?

Congressman, you have my commitment. We will always follow the law. But to be very honest, I do also promise to very much over-communicate with this committee in Congress, when I do believe we are putting resources not in an appropriate place for good scientific or uh uh or discovery return.

We certainly welcome that exchange. Um, as an accomplished pilot yourself, you know that American leadership in aviation isn't a birthright. It's earned through constant innovation and test. Many people forget that the first A in NASA stands for aeronautics. which, though I know you do not. I'm proud to represent many of the amazing men and women who work at Armstrong Flight Research Center. Do you believe in the importance of the aeronautics theme in NASA's congressional mission and will you lead an ambition ambitious vision for the aero portfolio to keep us ahead of our international competitors?

You can count on it, sir.

That's awesome. I will say that, uh, the deletion of sustainable aviation in the, uh, program at a time when aviation fuels are skyrocketing in price and Avgas stocks are collapsing, is short-sighted and should be reversed. Um, I'm also proud to represent many folks who work at JPL, which borders my district to the south. JPL is a national treasure, and the cuts and layoffs it has suffered over the past two years have weakened our leadership in space exploration and needlessly lost hundreds of world-class engineers to the private sector most of whom will probably never return to government service I think that's a big loss to our nation. So I was very pleased to see JPL play a crucial role in sev- several initiatives announced as part of your ignition efforts. I note that some of these very exciting new space exploration programs, such as skyfall and moonfall, do not seem to be in the president's budget request, which may be because they were developed after the FY twenty-seven budget pass-back uh from OMB happened. I look forward to working with you to help fund these missions through mechanisms that do not cannibalize existing science missions that are duly appropriated in law. One area where I think we do not yet agree is on the issue of commercial space stations. I believe that the new option for CLD has proposed that the ignition event has central risks. First, that it will leave to lead to an unsafe extension of ISS and second, that such an extension of ISS will then lead to a budgetary challenge that will prevent future administrators from fulfilling an exploration agenda that meets your bold vision. Let me elaborate briefly. Realistically, I do not think that there is a way to get a new government module launched until at least earliest twenty twenty nine and more likely twenty thirty or later. If the point of such a module is to enable private companies to gain experience, that would seem to necessitate multiple years beyond that point. Also, several of these private companies would need to redesign their stations to fit this new concept, delaying them further. I believe that this will inevitably lead to a push to extend ISS to twenty thirty five, or even twenty forty. Such an extension opens risks that are both known and unknown. Known includes the risk of Zvezda unzipping. Uh, unknown is the risk of extending US hardware ten to twenty years beyond its design lifetime. Further, extending the ISS to these dates will then consume ten to twenty billions more than the current CLD baseline over that coming decade that could be going to exploration. While I believe that your views are earnestly developed, I urge you to proceed with a plan that NASA's been following since the first Trump administration and that private companies have invested billions of dollars on. Uh, when I pushed through, uh, helped push push through Commercial Crew in two thousand eight through twenty ten, we constantly heard that commercial providers weren't ready and couldn't execute. The critics were wrong, so I think we need to be bold and push forward to a new path for human space flight. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.

Gentlemen yields, I'd like to recognize uh Representative Obernolte from California for five minutes.

Well, thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Isaacman, thank you very much for being here. I've enjoyed the hearing. Uh, I'd like to follow up on the discussion that you were just having with my colleague uh from California Mr. Whitesides. Uh, like Congressman Whitesides, I'm a big fan of the work done at NASA's facility, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Uh, I was a Cal Tech alum, so I spent some time at JPL. uh in college but uh more more recently uh i was there watching the landing of the perseverance rover a few years ago uh and i mean i think i i would hope everyone would agree that they are really the class of the world when it comes to research in robotic space exploration uh but like congressman whitesides i was very distraught at the recent uh layoffs and budget cuts at jpl and i wonder if i could ask about what your plans are for facilities like jpl do you think that they uh are gonna conti- are are gonna have funding restored, did you uh further funding cut or something in between?

Well thank you for the question, I have a great appreciation for the work uh of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and we do absolutely intend to make very good use of the expertise that's out there, as Congressman Whitesides pointed out, the skyfall program is gonna be run out of JPL, the moonfall program which is also quite quite cool, I mean these are uh autonomous hopper drones that are gonna be used as part of the moon base construction also carry scientific payload, We're also gonna leverage the expertise at JPL to insert subject matter experts across other programs to ensure we get to good outcomes. When I talk about accelerating the Artemis program, NASA's never gonna sit on our hands anymore and hope everybody delivers for our moon-based ambitions. We are putting brilliant minds in the supply chain, every vendor, subcontractor, and component on the critical path to drive outcomes, and I suspect JPL will play a role in that. I will say, though, that we d- we constantly have to look at when we, you know, we get things right, great. from that and apply it elsewhere, where do we get things wrong and do it better? And uh, you know, you take the Mars sample return mission, which JPL owned on that one. I mean there is, that program was canceled under the previous administration after, as I mentioned in my remarks, it went from four billion to ten billion, and there's two billion in taxpayer dollars that are lost now, that could have gone to good science and discovery. So, there's certainly room for improvement. Uh, I will also say where uh, an area that I think we can do better is gonna be in the reimbursable work. JPL does uh, has a lot of expertise that they help across government and industry. The last administration wound down quite a bit of that, which did result in some of the layoffs. That is something I've tried to reverse course on quite quickly, not just at JPL and other centers where NASA's brilliant minds can be helpful, and contribute reimbursable work to supplement the budget, we should, we should welcome those conversations.

Right, well, we'll look forward to working with you in that respect.

Sure.

Um, also wanted to ask about NASA's lunar terrain vehicle program. Obviously, that is going to be a key part of sustained service operations under the Artemis campaign. Uh, Based on your current budget request, do you believe that that program is adequately resourced to meet the goals and timelines that you have set for it?

Uh, yes, Congressman. Not only would I say it's adequately resourced, it's back to what I would say a more, uh, achievable track. Uh, at the time I arrived, which I would say is before President Trump established the national space policy, um, that, uh, that called for, uh, building a moon base, we were gonna procure one extremely expensive lunar rover as a service. uh put a lot of eggs in one basket when there's a lot of industry that's capable of contributing that wants to learn and mature capabilities for a time not just to support NASA's lunar base requirements for logistics and crude and uncrued mobility but perhaps to do autonomous science so now we are on a path to procure lots of LTVs we're not necessarily going right to the dream state as a service maybe what begins the first three rovers will look very similar to what we saw during the Apollo era and that's fine cause we haven't driven a rover on the moon in a very long time, but we'll use that to learn with industry to to inform subsequent designs, and we will procure lots of rovers in the years ahead, uh and we are gonna draw upon the resources from the working family tax cut act, plus which in our science technology mission directorate, exploration systems mission directorate um line items.

Uh we're certainly looking forward to working with you on those.

Yes sir.

Um last question in the time I have remaining, I wanted to ask about uh uh the research being done into space weather. I mean, obviously that the Artemis two mission utilized a bunch of solar observational data, uh, that came from our research community. And I'm wondering how NASA sees collaboration with the research community in in terms of space weather. It's something that's been a priority for this committee.

And I and I certainly concur with it. Uh, so I think between the assets that we presently have available and where we can transition in the future, space weather is one that, uh, we've received a lot of feedback from. across all the various constellation providers that they would like to be able to lean into uh supporting uh that um the at least the collection of the data for the researchers in the years ahead, and I think that's a good thing. But there's no doubt this is imperative space weather, impacts uh the decay of our satellites up there, it impacts the health of our astronauts when we send them out on deep space uh missions, a very different environment from the International Space Station. So in that respect, I'm obviously very, very supportive of the ongoing research in that field.

Right. Well, we look forward to working with you on that.

Yes, sir.

My time's expired. I yield back. Thank you.

Gentlemen yields, uh, I'd like to recognize for five minutes, uh, uh, Representative Riley from New York.

Well, thank you, uh, Mister Chairman. I wanna welcome, uh, one of my constituents, Andrew, uh, just joined us. He won the, uh, congressional app challenge and we were just down the hallway, uh, brainstorming ideas for his next app. I will tell you his ideas are a lot better, uh, than mine. Um, but welcome, Andrew. It's good to see you here. Uh, a couple of Friday nights ago, um, my family and I, we ordered, uh, wings and pizza from, uh, Ned's up in, in Cayuga Heights, gathered up on the couch and, and watched Artemis return to Earth. Uh, my boys are six. They're about to be six and three. Uh, my father-in-law's almost eighty. Um, I won't tell you how old my wife is. Um, and, uh, as cool as it was to see those photos of Earth from the dark side of the moon, and to see the fireball on re-entry into the atmosphere, and see those parachutes deploy and the the shuttle splash down. Uh, for me the thing that was most special, uh, was seeing the looks on the faces of three generations sitting on that couch as they watched the whole thing. And it really was one of those, do you remember where you were when moments. And I gotta tell you, I think we really needed it as a country. Um, we're so divided these days. Uh, where I come from, you're not defined by your political party or how you voted in the last election, but the algorithms that run our lives these days are built to tear us apart and I've only been here for about a year but I find that too often in our politics, we're pit against each other and the folks who are rewarded are, tend to be the loudest and not necessarily the most thoughtful, but in that moment, that six minutes when our astronauts lost contact with Houston and there was literally radio silence, in that moment we were brought together as Americans and we were truly reminded of what we can accomplish together. And you see those images of Earth from the other side of the moon, and it's so distant. Uh, but the reality is none of it would have been possible without the folks right next door, our neighbors in upstate New York. Americans went further into space than we'd ever been, but we did it because of what happened in places like Norwich in Shenango County, population seven thousand, got a great blues festival in the summer, a great arts festival in the fall. I spent Veterans Day there last year. Uh, we've got the classic car museum. It's a small town with a lot to offer. And it's where the Artemis mission was launched from. I know the rocket's launched in Florida, but the mission starts in upstate New York, where the team at Unison in Norwich literally designed and built the ignition systems for the Artemis. You don't get eight million pounds of thrust to launch a six million pound rocket stack by turning a key in your Chevy. You get it with an ignition system built by some of the most advanced, cutting edge engineering and manufacturing in the history of the world, and you get that in Norwich. Uh, Lucas Miller's the Lead Program Management Specialist at Unison for the Artemis program, and he said, uh, the work his team does is mission critical because, uh, there's a lot that must happen perfectly and if something goes wrong, it could be catastrophic. Those are, those are his words. So you'd think he'd be pretty nervous, uh, watching the launch, but he wasn't. He said, "I have full confidence in our components that they would operate as intended, we make sure everyone is on the same page, twenty four seven three sixty five. And for those few moments a couple weeks ago when we sent Americans into the deepest reaches of space, we as a country were finally on the same page with each other. And I think that's about as important as anything these days. And so I wanna thank and congratulate the folks at Unison in Norwich for their role in all of this and for reminding us what upstate New York manufacturing is all about. we take a lot of pride in punching a clock in making stuff, not because it's stuff we're making but because it's really important stuff that makes the world uh better. And Administrator, I'd like to use my time today to just personally invite you uh to visit Norwich with me, uh to meet the team that made all of this possible and to see first-hand why we have so much pride in upstate manufacturing. Can we set that up, set up a visit?

I I would uh I would welcome it, Congressman. I generally believe that if uh spending too much time in uh, DC at the headquarters, I'm probably not doing my job, uh, appropriately. So getting out in the field where the action is is something I take great interest in. And I fully expect to be doing, uh, over the next year is we start driving outcomes from our suppliers. So we can launch this thing again in twenty seven.

Terrific. Well, I'll, um, I'll have my folks reach out to yours and we'll try to set it up. I agree with you. I try to spend as little time here in the swi- in, um, in DC as possible. Uh, and and I'll try to try to get home, uh, the second I can. So, uh, I'll, I'll be, uh, really thrilled to work.

Gentlemen yield, so I'd like to recognize the uh representative from Georgia, Mister, Doctor McCormick.

Thank you, Doctor Chair.

Yes sir.

Mister Administrator, uh appreciate you being here, it's exciting topic, going to outer space is one of my favorite topics. As a matter of fact, if I ever get a chance, I know it's not unprecedented to send a congressman into space. I'm a pilot, military pilot, and a doctor, I think I could be useful to you guys, so if you ever wanna

We'll get the application in, sir.

I, done, done, absolutely.

Can I can I second that? Can I second sending I will I will second sending you into space, Michael.

It'll be during break, don't get too excited. Um.

Feel like a deal can be had here.

There you go, I I there's certain things I would sacrifice for, no doubt. Um. I it's interesting, we we see a lot of development in schools and preparing people for jobs in NASA. Georgia Tech's one of the leading uh institutions with leading in its technology, both in engines for space as well as uh cyber all kinds of things that they're really linked with you guys. How are you preparing the battlefield for recruiting people like that? What kind of pipelines, what kind of uh things are you doing to facilitate NASA jobs in developing those kind of pipelines?

I appreciate the the question uh Congressman, and by the way I have direct uh experience with the uh folks at GTRI from uh from another life and understand uh the great capabilities that they can bring to um uh bring to the environment. Uh I would just say that uh it all starts uh with missions just like Artemis two. And um it uh I understand that you know for example STEM and inspiration has come up quite a bit throughout this hearing, and uh and in almost every example that I hear about it I hear Artemis two referenced, and uh and that's right. Uh throughout everything we do at NASA from launching moon rockets to again great telescopes like Roman and rovers on another planet uh that's how we get people excited. And then uh where do you take it from there? Well that's where our grant portfolio comes in, and we do have a great grant portfolio that works with universities across the country. We're optimizing it to actually get the dollars out the door faster, but also to insure it's in line with the things we need to return to the moon, build the moon base, and do the other things necessary as a component of our mission. And then we have our internship programs of which pathway, internships which go across all our mission directors, not only get you in as an intern but also, as it's just, as it's labeled, as a pathway into a job. uh at NASA. And then it goes in other ways too. We have a great partnership with OPM on NASA force where we can work with folks from industry and academia who may not necessarily want to make a career at NASA, but want to serve their country, term-based appointments, a year, two years, three years, bring their expertise in the agency, help grow our young talent, and then they go back to industry and there's also a vice versa component where we can use as well so takes the best and brightest across the nations the contributions to do the near impossible we're all about it sir.

Can't think of a more exciting career really. Um. When we talk about the International Space Station, which was intended to transition towards a commercial-led model through the commercial LEO uh destination program which I was really excited about, we've seen NASA though now commit to basically proposing a government-owned Kerr- core model which is essentially a new federal acquisition. Uh brings up some concerns on my behalf cuz we've had a lot of great uh you think about the biggest advancements in in space travel and and satellites and stuff like that have been on the civilian side where we have a lot more abundant funding, and it's a lot more accountable, and it doesn't cox uh cost the taxpayers any money, which is really important to me. What is the justification to the American taxpayer for continuing to fund government-owned uh capability in low orbit low low earth orbit, instead of accelerating the commercial transition?

I appreciate the the question on that, Congressman. And just let me um two hats here. As a uh as a space enthusiast since kindergarten, I want nothing more than to see a world with lots of commercial space stations up there. I want my children to grow up in a world where there's lots of commercial stations and hopefully they can actually go to them someday. That would be uh outstanding. As the administrator of NASA, I have an executive order from the president of the United States that calls for a transition from the International Space Station to a commercial space station by twenty thirty and I wanna make sure that happens because if we get that wrong, there's only one other space station up there other than the ISS and that's the one that's owned by the owned by the Chinese right now.

Exactly.

Uh, and we are doing, we can to stimulate the market so that there uh is such time that we can fulfill this vision where NASA is one customer of many. To be clear people uh you know brought up the idea that NASA's pivoted here, we didn't, we have two options, the original pathway, tell us that how that works, which we put in RFI out, and we also suggested an alternative that allows industry to mature their capabilities over time as market demand uh hopefully materializes.

Very extra.

I say this, sir, Uh, we have success stories with commercial space, no doubt. Launch observation communication, there's lots of it, lots of opportunities to learn, iterate and improve your capabilities. We're talking about one space station as a service here. We wanna make sure we get it right. And I, and I'll tell you, sir, it doesn't make sense if you're traveling periodically to another uh another town to build a home uh to stay in. That is not the more economic model when you can rent uh a room at a hotel. But those economics get challenged again when you have to rent out the entire hotel because there's no one else booking a room and we just wanna make sure we get that market right, sir.

Good analogies. With that, my time has expired. I yield.

Gentlemen yields, uh I'd like to now recognize uh another another gentleman from Texas, uh, Mister Menifee.

Thank you very much, Mister Chairman, and uh good morning, Administrator. Uh when I walked in we were talking about sending members of Congress to space, so it sounds like it's been a good uh day thus far indeed. Um I wanna start by saying congratulations. to the uh Artemis two crew, to the NASA workforce, to all the contractors, the partners, what you all accomplished was extraordinary. And for a few days, the entire country stopped and and looked up and wondered what could be. So congratulations. Um, I represent Houston's eighteenth district, which encompasses downtown Houston, parts of northern and and southern Houston. And NASA's work, driven by the Johnson Space Center, the JSC, sits right in my backyard. As we talked about earlier, that JSC supports more than fifty-two thousand jobs and contributes over point four point seven billion dollars to the Texas economy every year. Uh, the people who built this country's space program, they live in my district, they work in my district, and they send the kids to school in my district. So I wanna make sure that we get this right. So when I hear that Artemis two succeeded, I take that personally. But when I hear that this administration wants to cut NASA's budget by twenty-three percent and slash the science budget by nearly half, I take that personally as well. We just watched four astronauts fly around the moon, and right in the middle of that mission, uh, OMB dropped a budget that would terminate the very components that got them there. That is not a strategy that is sabotage, and I think that it's positioning this agency to once again have to utter the words, Houston, we have a problem. Administrator, I believe you want NASA to succeed, and I believe you want to get to the moon and beyond, and so do I, so does this Congress. But ambition without resources is merely a press release. The administration needs to sustain and grow investment, not reduce it, and that's where my questions are focused here today. NASA terminated the electrified powertrain flight demonstration project, which was to develop and test megawatt-scale hybrid election propulsion systems. And NASA did so before Congress ever acted. Now Congress has restored the funding, but one or two of the aircraft will never fly, and the data NASA will get from the other one is a fraction of what was planned. Houston's aerospace sector builds next-generation aviation systems, so this matters a ton to the Houston region and to my district. What is NASA doing to make sure our country doesn't fall behind other countries in hybrid election aviation because of the proposed cuts?

Uh, appreciate the question, Congressman. I'll tell you, in aeronautics especially, as I mentioned, this is uh, The first A and the big A in NASA is one that I've a a great appreciation for as a pilot, and would love nothing more than to see our aeronautics portfolio get back to the days of past when we had an exciting array of X planes that were wowing the world in fly-by-wire and thrust factoring, um. And I'm working very hard with our team in in doing that, uh, to fly more often and make sure our resources go into what I think should be radical airframe and engine radical airframe and radical a uh propulsion design, so we can fly higher and faster for civil, commercial, and even national security uh reasons that we've done in the past. We're working in that in in that direction. Um, I would say with respect to this program specifically, and I and I know the uh uh Congressman Lofgren asked about it earlier, uh it's been long-standing practice inside NASA uh to adjust and prioritize spending to the lower of either the House, the Senate, or the the President's budget request uh marks. And uh the aeronautics mission directorate leadership determined this wasn't the highest priority initiative. Now of course, with FY twenty-six appropriations it was continued, and I think even evolved in such a way to insure that uh we do get to the correct outcome with the program. And uh and I'll say just uh with respect to the other airplanes here and I might be going off memory here, but X sixty-six which was one of the, if I recall, electric demonstration aircraft was uh was uh terminated by NASA well prior to the PBR because I think there was a conclusion it would not have been a a safe platform to fly.

I wanna pivot to the technical authority function, which at NASA was created after the Columbia disaster specifically, so engineers could raise safety concerns outside of their chain of command. Uh, the fiscal year twenty-seven budget cuts that account by fifty percent, while asking for forty-five percent of NASA's entire budget for Moon and Mars activities. Um, how do we cut the safety checks in half while expecting the organization to still be able to operate at scale in highly complex and dangerous conditions.

I appreciate the question. Uh, let me assure you that NASA does not underspend, uh, with respect to safety and mission assurances. Uh, the technical authorities are one pathway which I have a great appreciation for. I was able to see them on full display, uh, with respect to, um, the review of the Starliner matter with the, uh, the evacuation from the space station when the, we had the crew eleven medical uh, situation that was the tech authorities that were doing an outstanding job in that, but we also have a a safety center, we have numerous uh, safety and mission assurance uh, contractors that support various centers and mission programs, not to mention the in-house workforce that's on it. I think the idea that we can we can optimize there for the sake uh of efficiency and safety can be a very real outcome here.

Thank you, Administrator. I'll you back, Jim.

Gentlemen Yields, I'd like to recognize another gentleman from Texas.

Uh, thank you, Mister Chairman. Um, Director, I wanna Our prep was NASA heavy. Uh, I wanna I wanna go back to the PBR and uh I want you to help me understand within this budget how are you going to uh balance what NASA should own and control and operate

Yeah. Yeah.

and what should be moved to a commercial model.

Can't be left left behind.

Uh, and if you've got measurable criteria, I'd appreciate hearing that, because uh

That's a hard job.

obviously in Texas we've got a major space operation

I had a deal with them.

going almost daily.

Can we go down to them?

And uh so how are you gonna balance that?

I would like to.

Because uh SLS and Orion I guess will be going away. So w- w- if you can just talk about that balance within this budget that is obviously lower.

Yes sir, uh, so, this is a question that comes up quite a bit, uh, because we have some extremely high profile commercial space companies and people question from time to time like what is NASA's role in all this, and I say again that the nation needs NASA, the world needs NASA, what we should be doing is the near impossible, what no other government agency is capable of doing, what no company can close a business case, uh, to do and certainly what no other nation is capable of doing. But when we do crack the code on something where NASA this is to your I guess quantification component, could be one customer of many, we should insure we hand off those capabilities to industry where competitive forces in this nation will inevitably make the capability or service better, and at lower cost, and we are seeing that play out exceptionally well in launch, observation, and communication. No doubt right now we can launch uh payloads for the support of science discovery, astronauts in space, la- building a moon base, building an orbital economy at far lower cost today thanks to an extremely healthy commercial launch uh market we're able to look at how we can do observation communication in the future at far lower cost thanks to several companies that have um uh that are printing off again satellites for those those purposes so we can buy services at lower cost and free up resources again to do the near impossible that's why we're undertaking missions sir like nuclear power and propulsion because I believe with the with the AI power demands here on earth, you should be putting industry,

And as an example, I will point to the BRAC for military posts. Uh, uh, locations, uh, did that unwillingly, shall we say, to put it mildly. And yeah, when they privatized the bases, uh,

Mm.

many of them were more success. So, in the next five years, obviously we're in a competition with China. What are the top three capabilities that you believe China could outpace us over the next five years, and within the context of this budget, how are you going to prioritize them? Because we gotta beat China.

Well, yes sir, and I would say that, uh, the priorities established by President Trump and the national space policy, uh, which is where we intend to focus our our research resources and also uh try and liberate the best and brightest minds at NASA from the bureaucracy that's been slowing them down and power them to win, are the areas that are of greatest threat,

Hmm.

at least with respect to the peaceful exploration of science and discovery in space, meaning we are, our number one task, return to the moon. The Chinese, their number one civil space program objective right now is to get to the moon. Uh, and as I mentioned in previous testimony, the difference in timing right now, based on, you know, publicly available schedules, is gonna be measured in The uh the second component of our national space policy, the president said, is pick up where Apollo seventeen left off, but do so to stay this time, build an enduring presence on the moon for its scientific and economic potential. The Chinese have stated they wanna build a moon base, and in the same location as us, and even though the moon is very big, surface area of Africa, where we want to be uh is approximately the size of Washington DC. And we both wanna be in that same spot for water, ice, and uh and eternal light from crater ridges. But we need to use the resources from the working family tax cut act to build the infrastructure there to do so.

So what are the three capabilities, specifically, that you think China could outpace us in the in the next five years, and I have twenty-six seconds.

Yes sir, I uh I I don't think they'll outpace us on our path, but I would say reusable heavy lift launch capabilities is is a key enabler for everything we wanna do in space. Uh, certainly the landing capabilities to put mass efficiently on the moon itself, and then nuclear power and propulsion, cuz not only is it key for a moon base, It's key for a Martian base and exploring the outer solar system. Those are three focus areas.

And you can do that within this budget?

Based on the Working Family Tax Credit Act, yes sir.

Way ahead of them. OK, thank you. Uh, gentlemen, I yield back.

Gentleman yields back. Uh, now I'd like to recognize the gentleman from Illinois, Mister Foster.

Um, thank you, Mister Chair, and, and to our witness. Um, I'd like to focus on, uh, about three different things. The first is the balance of effort between just using the same old technologies, chemical rockets, to lower Earth orbit versus transformational technologies. Uh, the secondly, the fragility of the systems that we're talking about, commercial and military, that we're talking about putting into low-earth orbit and even higher orbits, and how prone they are to adversarial uh sabotage. Um, and then secondly, how you're p- uh, pi- thirdly, how you're planning to use the countries full of geniuses in a data center, uh, to really lower a lot of the mission costs. Because if you look at, uh, the Mars sample return, I'm sure if you looked at that budget, it was mostly salaries. Uh, a lot of the that engineering can and will be done that way. So, um, just start with the balance of effort. Uh, because, you know, Artemis was inspirational, but there is nothing it did that would not be a hundred percent understandable to Werner Von Braun. It just, you know, that's the the reality. And we have been just the reason that we gave up on Apollo is that we had hit fundamental limits of chemical rockets into uh, low earth orbit. You know, there's maybe a factor of two from the reusable boosters and stuff that was all, I guess, conceptualized in the nineteen. fifties by NASA engineers. But um, but that's not the factor of ten or a hundred that you need in launch costs to the LEO, if we're really gonna move a big fraction of humanity into space. Um, and you know, there are these technologies like, you know, space elevators, electromagnetic launch, spin launch, you know them all, that we don't seem to be putting a comparable amount of effort into. And what's your, what's your thinking on that?

Well, this is a subject I would love to talk about for more than uh, you know, the next three minutes and and some odd second, so uh, would, would welcome follow-up opportunity on it. Le- I would just say, sir, that I I think in terms of at least uh leaving Earth's gravity well chemical propulsion is the right approach for that, and letting industry and competition drive down costs materially as they have done is a is a key enabler for all we want to do. Uh, so again, whether that's science discovered

But, but, you know, we sort of hit the limit on that. I mean, it's, you know, Elon Musk, what he did, he found that, you know, NASA had structured itself to, to spread the par- projects artificially out into every congressional district. And he said, " This is stupid. We're just gonna vertically integrate." We had a, uh, a robotics guy hearing just the other day, where the same thing, you know, the guy said, I wanna build a lot, large number of robots, vertically integrate, and that's the efficient way to do big projects like this.

A- and I I would largely not disagree with you, and I think that is an important thing for everybody to realize, that when we spread out across the the supply chain across the nation, it is not always the most efficient outcome, and and or timely,

Like

and that matters in a great rivalry.

Well that's why our our military thing,

But

you know, F-thirty-five is that expensive, because they come on into all of our offices and say, hey, here's this little part we're building in your district. Yeah.

The only thing I just say, sir, is we are still very early in rapid reusability. We haven't fully end-to-end reused a vehicle. Starship would be the first in that regard. Others are working it. So we still throw away the top half of the rocket. So the ability to drive costs down with chemical propulsion is still real. But I concur that NASA should be putting resources on the wow factor, which is why I I am I am such a big uh proponent for nuclear power and propulsion to efficiently move mass and explore the other sources.

OK, but even on your nuclear thing, I mean, you're, you're, the mission you're setting up is bunch of uh hall thruster things, not nuclear thermal, which you know, and hall thrusters will never be useful to deliver men to Mars, humans to Mars, because they just don't have the, they have high specific impulse, but they don't have the impulse which you need for a reasonable length mission. So it's actually not gonna be faster than using chemical rockets.

It may not be faster, sir, but if you, if I may. I love the subject, I'm sorry. It, it actually still is very key from an enabling perspective. Nuclear electric is gonna be more applicable for surface power, which is gonna need to make the propellant to bring astronauts home from Mars.

Surface, yeah. You're talking about propellant.

But it's it's gonna be the same reactor design,

Yeah.

so we're getting efficiencies out of that, sir. NTP, I I don't disagree, but we gotta do something with nuclear to get in that direction. Uh, if we jump right to that, which has radioactive exhaust, we'll probably wanna do testing here on Earth. It's more infrastructure. I'm I'm just saying it's a stepping stone in the direction of good. Just like Nautilus might have been a seventy percent solution, but it created the nuclear navy.

OK, but you're d- Some parallel effort, more parallel effort on these more you know, like you shouldn't be doing zero on nuclear thermal, cuz that's the only thing that's

Oh, and and with that, sir, I agree. And and what I wanna do before I ask more money from you and advocate for this, uh, in the president's budget request is I wanna get nuclear out of the lab. I mean, it's twenty billion dollars that we've wasted, dozens of failed programs. Thank you, gentlemen.

back. I'd like to recognize uh gentlemen from Texas, Mister Weber.

Thank you Mister Chairman, Mister Isaacman. It's my first to be with you. It's good to see you today. Uh my district fourteen there in Texas uh is just south of Johnson Space Center, you know, and it's separated by a clear lake. Probably somewhere seven thousand to eight thousand employees that either work for NASA and or as subcontractors work and and live and play in my district. Uh we're glad that you're here, glad you're willing to answer questions. kind of fascinated by the exchange between you two we'll follow up on that later

one of my favorite subjects

uh i couldn't tell so i i appreciate the agency taking a hard look at that workforce structure i'm describing to insure we're operating as efficiently as possible i wanna focus specifically on how the workforce director is being and going to be implemented within the flight operations director commonly known as FOD as NASA continues to execute missions like Artemis two. How are you all, that's a Texas word. How are you all ensuring that workforce changes do not introduce risk to the mission, execution, or crew safety? And at the same time, we don't want to do a number on those companies that have come to be the suppliers of NASA I yield to you.

Yes, sir. I appreciate the question. I know there's been some, uh, you know, discussion on the, on the subject right now. Uh, simply put, sir, at a high level, uh, Seventy-five percent of NASA's workforce is contractors, forty to forty-five thousand. Uh, they're not temporary. They've been there for years and decades and will continue to be there for years or decades in the future. Now some of them may be appropriate for contractors because it's not a core competency, it's not an area that NASA needs to own and maybe clear out some of the barriers, whether it's contractual or IP or system related. And, and they will continue to be contractors. Some of it is a core competency, sir, and I think it's would surprise many that when the astronauts come over the radio and say Houston, They're talking to a contractor, not a NASA civil servant. They share the, the same desks. Their badges look almost the same, but we are paying a premium to have them as contractors relative to as a civil servant. And that premium is for workforce flexibility, to be able to do the type of decisions we're talking about right now. We're not breaking glass on this. This feedback all came from the workforce. The leader of this program is a, is a former center director from Stennis Space Flight Center. He's retiring at the end of the year and he said he wants to do right by the NASA workforce. He's owning this. uh uh his name is John Bailey and he's working with the center directors at JSC, KSC, Marshall and all of our centers saying what are your core competencies, who do you need and do it in a thoughtful way based on the on the timing of these contracts and in the process the workforce is happier and we're we're saving some money along the way but the the reason he's doing it sir and their picking is so that these decisions they know they have to live with long after I'm gone, long after the administration change is over, what's the right thing to do for NASA and that's what they're working on sir.

How long will that process take in your estimation?

I'm hoping by uh by the end of the year I I I think we don't we certainly don't want this to be a distraction at all. We're we've got our pilot programs like mission control at at Houston. We we'd like to be civil servants, cuz we will always have a civil uh a mission control in Houston from here until the end of time I'm sure of that and we should and we have some pilots at KSC for those who build our rockets and launch our rockets sir.

So you have guidelines and guardrails to make sure that this takes place, but time frame you would extrapolate out, he's gonna be r- through with all that six months, two years, six years.

Yeah, sir, I I would hope by the end of uh twenty twenty six that the this workforce conversion initiative is we're at a a a stable place, unless there was some contractual reason why it made sense to do something in twenty seven but uh you know there's again there's there's no job losses here, this is this is taking people and changing their badge, it saves the taxpayers some some money on the way and does the right thing for the employee.

Will you come back to Congress before those uh uh final decisions are made and, you know, Fill us in on what your progress is and what the plans are and how close we are to the end of that.

I'm happy to keep you uh keep Congress posted the whole uh way. I think we have some pilots that are underway now, Mission Control being an example, but I I love over-communicating. I don't wanna surprise anybody on this one. Uh, think this is, think this is absolutely the right thing for taxpayers, um, and it's certainly the right thing for NASA and I'll communicate as much as you need, sir.

OK, well if you love over-communicating, that that to me that just means you talk in your sleep. OK. So one other as you may all

Cuz I got this job, sir.

So As you may already know, many colleges and universities across the country are proud members of the National Space Grant College and Fellowship Project or Space Grant, which falls under NASA Office of STEM Engagement. Specifically in my district fourteen, Lamar University, uh, i- institutions like, you know, Lamar University are part of the system group helping to prepare the next generation of leaders in the American space enterprise. The budget request proposes eliminating funding for NASA Office of STEM Engagement. Can we fix that, do you think?

Oh, you know, uh, um, uh, Congressman, I, you know, this question's come up quite a bit, and I know everybody is focusing on a particular department, but I, I would encourage looking at the outcomes of what we're supposed to be doing. We have grant-making at the hundreds of millions of dollars level across NASA, right now. That's not going away. We have internship programs measured in the hundreds across NASA's portfolio. That's not going away. And of course, again, inspiration is inherent in every dollar you give us.

OK, thank you, and Mr. Chairman, I yield back.

Gentlemen yields, um now that I recognize Representative Superman, now I'm from Virginia, five minutes for questioning.

Uh, thank you, Mister Chair, and thank you, Mister Isaacman, for being here today. And uh, I I actually grew up in Clear Lake next to Johnson Space Center. And uh, you know, I was born and raised there and it's a a wonderful place. And uh, it was the excitement whenever there was a mission was just uh amazing. And my neighbors were astronauts. And I I think I've carried my love of science and innovation because of that experience growing up there. And uh, Artemis two brought back a lot of those great memories and uh, it's really, it it shows our our kids, it shows our country, our world what's possible. And so I wanna thank all the men and women at NASA and you for for making that happen and showing what's possible and there's more to come it seems and so we're very excited,

Sure.

and you have a lot of support in Congress. Uh, what I would s- say is uh Uh, you know, one of the big reasons why this was possible was because of the Science Mission Directorate and and because of our investments in science at NASA over the years these investments uh don't just help with these missions, they help uh with everyday life back here on Earth. And so uh I would just uh love to hear from you uh would a mission like Artemis would have been possible uh without the sensors the scanners the navigation tools that were created by NASA science?

I think there's no, no question, Congressman, that our science mission directorate contributes greatly to human space exploration to tech development in STMD. Science is in, is, is also inherent across all of our mission directorates.

Great. And, uh, you know, today is Earth Day and, uh, NASA, many people may not know, uh, it contributes a lot to, uh, making sure we do the best we can for our planet. And, uh, critical weather forecasting, hurricane tracking as well, wildfire detection, which is a big issue now. Would you agree that uh our science directorate uh contributes to that, and contributes to our well-being right here on Earth?

Uh of course I do, and I and I think this is this is a question uh Congressman entirely about outcomes, uh can we launch flagship science missions, can we launch Earth observation missions, can we work with industry for Earth observation, can we do more uh with the resources that are being contemplated in the in the President's budget request, and I would say absolutely, and I I draw that based on the work that I've done understanding where our inefficiencies are and frankly reading the OIG and GAO reports on where we've mismanaged taxpayer dollars. So, I don't think we're asking the world to live without earth sciences, we're not asking the world to live without the next great flagship mission, we're just saying we can go about and do it with less resources and we should be judged on outcomes.

So you think the the forty-seven percent cut to the NASA's science mission directorate will still yield the same results?

Well, m- m- and if I may, to give an example on that, uh, Landsat is a great program, has existed for four decades, we're working on Landsat-ten right, right now. These are multi-billion dollar type programs, uh, they were designed to be very bespoke, uh, because who else was gonna do it if not NASA? So the question is, in a world today where you have a thriving commercial space industry that's materially dropped the cost of launch, printing out satellites for Earth observation and communication, the technical means to incorporate some of these instruments Will they be able to do it at half the cost? I would argue probably with respect to space weather and earth observation, the constellation providers may actually reduce cost by eighty or ninety percent. There are certainly efficiencies to be gained uh with external partnerships and certainly the way we approach things internally as well.

So you think, that that's one example though, there's many things happening at the science mission director. Do you think we can cut uh fifty percent across the board and still yield the same results or better?

Well I I mean uh my commitment uh to Congress is to maximize uh the scientific value of yes, we can do far more with the resources available, even a reduction in the budget to do so. And I gave examples of that. I mean Mars sample return, Geez. We we threw away two billion dollars. I we could have done, we almost could have launched another Nancy Grace Rome space telescope uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, our history of late, with the money that the taxpayers lost on Mars sample return alone.

OK, uh, maybe have to agree to disagree, but uh I also wanted to ask uh,

Yes.

Uh, I also wanted to ask uh, uh,

uh the president said,

uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh,

Tom, Artemis astronauts that will establish a permanent presence on the moon. Uh, and uh, I'm curious w- w- the timeline on that and will cancelling the lunar gateway delay that delay that timeline?

I I would I I mean to be very clear, uh and I don't think I've hidden my feelings on this, uh repurposing resources from Gateway uh absolutely accelerate America's ability to build the moon base. Uh Gateway might have been an interesting concept in twenty seventeen, it's a different world today. and we don't want our astronauts orbiting above the moon, we want them on the surface of the moon, uh and by uh applying the resources from the Gateway program to the uh missions we the the the contracting pathways we have like LTV clips cargo uh HLS, we will be able to build infrastructure on the moon way faster than uh uh Gateway would have ever been online. We're gonna start landing on the moon with cadence in the beginning of twenty twenty seven, you'll see it on a near monthly cadence sir.

And and very very quickly, you've also cancelled an order for the habitat Yeah, logistics outpost hardware. Uh, do you know what'll happen to that, um, large investment that was made?

Uh, habi- is it, does it happen to go by another name on that one, sir? I might have to get back to you on that.

Um, maybe we'll talk off-line about that, but, um, that this was a pretty big investment and, and, uh, north of Grumman is in my district. Uh, they were part of, uh,

Oh.

making that happen. That order was canceled.

Oh, I'm sorry. Is it, uh, so, th- th- some of the gateway components I have in Halo, the- I mean, you know, there's plenty of reports on. These are, I I appreciate the contributions and look forward to working with them on how we can potentially repurpose hardware to surface application I'll tell you at at Gateway program we had the only two outside of the PPE hardware that we're gonna use for nuclear power and propulsion demonstration the only two habitable volumes that were delivered both were corroded um and that's unfortunate cause it would have delayed you know probably beyond twenty thirty the application of Gateway and I and again I I I don't fault at the time in twenty seventeen was a good idea to orbit our astronauts above the moon that was at a different time when now you have now you you want our astronauts on the moon before our our rivals capable of doing it, not to mention for all the good science and tech demonstrations that will be applicable for marbling people on the moon. So I uh I think that's a an example of a a program that took way too long to come to fruition, became too costly, and the uh the hardware that was being delivered as a result was not meeting expectation.

Uh thank you, I yield back. Thank you, Mister Chairman.

Representative yields back. Uh now I'd like to uh let's see. Representative Sykes from Ohio,

Yep.

you have five minutes for questions.

Thank you, Chair Chairman Babin. I appreciate you being here, Administrator. And just a few weeks ago, uh, led by Chair Babin, my colleagues and I were down in Cape Canaveral and had the opportunity to see the Artemis two launch and it was nothing short of extraordinary in American exceptionalism on full display. Uh, and for many years, and now to this successful mission, represent a culmination of many, many years of hard work. This includes the team at Ohio's NASA Glenn Research Center who ensured that the Orion spacecraft European system worked alongside the American technology. And while in space, astronaut uh the Commander Reed Wiseman thanked NASA Glenn by stating, "This vehicle powered us and propelled us from the Earth to the Moon and back with extreme precision and we are excited to be a part of your team." Uh you have all heard me say that the road to the Moon and Mars runs through Ohio, and I am so very proud that Ohio was recognized. On their way back from the moon, uh I sent my family uh a few pictures of me at the launch and my mother said that she hadn't seen me that excited since I was a child. And so I can't say that I wasn't disappointed that while the president celebrated the Artemis launch, he then announced a twenty-three percent budget cut. And as the kids would say, that's diabolical. So administrator, you know, the Aviation Administration is one of of the few to enjoy positive trade balance, and in Ohio we rely very heavily on it. Um, the capabilities at NASA's is certainly are key to maintaining that, uh, part of our com- economy, excuse me, in our state. And in fact, one third of NASA's funding in Ohio comes from aeronautics. So why then is the administration proposing to pull away from aeronautics even further, reducing the budget by about a third, or ending or dramatically de-scoping much needed development programs.

Well, Congresswoman, I I uh appreciate the question, and obviously I very much support the President, his goal uh to more efficiently allocate resources within within NASA because frankly there are a lot of examples of where we have not done a good job for the taxpayers, on allocating resources and delivering outcomes and again as a pilot and somebody that should be extremely excited about the aeronautics division we have examples, where we have exceeded costs by nearly double on some of our our We've had programs we've committed hundreds of millions to, only to have industry walk away and say it turned out it wasn't a very uh, a very good idea. All that said, I, I'll tell you, I, my goal is to deliver outcomes. It's to drive good execution. And I have no doubt Glenn is gonna play a huge part of it, not just for the the the wind tunnels that are being done there, but nuclear power and propulsion at NASA is gonna run through both Marshall Space Flight Center and Glenn. Um, they have the t- the expertise and the test centers to be able to enable the

So I I hear and understand what you're saying, and we all want you to be mindful of how you're spending, but what do you say to people in Ohio when you're cutting resources uh that account for a third of the budget? Aviation is incredibly important to our economy, so are you saying that the president and NASA is they're perfectly fine with Ohioans being out of a job or without opportunities because You wanna rearrange things here in DC?

I I think what we are we are asking the uh American taxpayers and those a- around all of our centers is to judge us based on our outcomes and not how quickly we can spend money.

So what about the outcomes of people losing their jobs?

No, I I think the idea is if you if you can apply those resources correctly, we can demonstrate things. Like again, nuclear power and propulsion is incredibly important to Glenn.

Well, I think that we demonstrated some things, especially in Ohio, when you have Commander Wiseman thanking NASA-GLEN for

I I my my statement to Glenn as it would be to any other center is is that uh we are

Mm.

gonna focus on uh efficient use of uh of taxpayer dollars to drive

So it sounds like some of those outcomes may mean a joblessness for Ohioans, but I do want to ask you an- another question. Do you intend to cancel or shut down any missions or projects because they did not receive the proposed funding in fiscal year twenty-seven?

Well, I tell you, as of now we haven't canceled any programs that are under FY twenty-six appropriations.

Do you intend to? Oh, I'm talking about twenty-seven.

It, I, I would tell you that uh right now our goal is to concentrate our resources on the needle-moving objectives in line with the president's national space policy.

So is that a yes, that is a yes?

I can't think of anything at Glenn that would be canceled if anything we are trying to build a nuclear program.

I, I was, I didn't ask just about Glenn, I said generally.

Are there, I mean, for sure within uh, I mean, people, people have brought up or naturally asked questions about SMD. We have a number of in-formulation science programs that have not been launched yet. that we're looking at other ways to go about doing it, including buying services from uh orbiting constellations for space weather and earth observation data.

Thank you very much. Uh time's expired. I am out I'm out of time and I yield back. Thank you.

Um I'd like to recognize uh Representative Rivas from California, five minutes.

Thank you. Um Administrator Isaacman, thank you for visiting NASA's Jet Propulsion laboratory soon after your confirmation. While this is outside of my district, Um, the facility employs many of my constituents who really appreciated your time there. Uh, with the recent um Artemis two mission, people are once again excited about going to the moon, exploring space, and learning about NASA. NASA and its work continues to be an inspiration for Americans of all ages. Kids were able to see astronauts who looked like them with a diverse crew, and I was excited to see a woman on the crew as well. Uh, however, the Trump budget proposal is missing the significance of this moment. It will set our future NASA workforce back, especially a diverse workforce. If the president's budget becomes a reality, our country's future NASA STEM workforce and educational opportunities will be depleted and space exploration will remain just a dream for many. While inspiration is important, it's not enough. Our children need to have the skills, tools and opportunities available to take the hope that they have and make it a reality. Administrator, as you may know, the Trump administration has proposed eliminating the Office of STEM engagement, which includes the minority university research and education projects, and other vital initiatives that serve to uh give the the skills provide skills and tools training for many young people. Uh on a bipartisan basis, Congress has rejected

Well, thank you very much for the the uh the question. I very much enjoyed JPL and I have no doubt the experts there will continue to contribute to a lot of exciting scientific missions. In fact, we got a bunch that are on the horizon. Uh, I do support the president uh asking us to find efficiencies, uh, be better allocators of uh of taxpayer capital and deliver good scientific and discovery outcomes. And I think the the president understands, again, that inspiration is inherent across every dollar that Congress affords to us. In fact, even sitting here today, every example I've heard of uh from from uh members of Congress about their enthusiasm uh you know and excitement in their children watching on the TV was Artemis two. And that's exactly what we're supposed to be doing, by focusing on the mission, by getting astronauts back to the surface of the moon, building a moon base that can be viewed on a web site, uh through uh orbital observation assets is exactly how you get children to wanna grow up and join this great adventure. And we do have internship programs and we do have hundreds of millions in grant programs throughout NASA independent of the OSTEM office.

Uh but I think those STEM programs provide the addition of they get inspired and then they get the hands-on skills that they need to enter that workforce. And by eliminating you're you're you're kind of part of the puzzle is being removed.

And and I think ma'am I I I think it's just a a and I understand when the the title of the department is you know uh i- is about STEM education that the assumption is, it's binary, if it doesn't exist that all goes away, but I I can tell you within what that department does it

Where will it go then if it's not all going away?

but it but it's actually it's already there. So literally hundreds of internships, pathway internships are funded independent of that office, through all of our mission directors. and hundreds of millions a year in grants that go to universities to take kids from the inspiration they got from our missions to uh to like a career, whether it's at NASA or industry, exist independent of that office.

Uh, but what's in that, why why eliminate that office then? If there's programs there that could um further inspire, how are you how do you gonna how are you gonna get the students in those internships if they're missing that crucial part of their education that would get them to apply.

A

To apply for an internship, it's very competitive, but you have to be prepared,

It is very,

yeah.

and I agree with you, it is very competitive, and I think the reason why we've been asked to take a look at this in other areas, is because they know there is duplicative functions, that our grant portfolio exists independent of this, and our internship programs that, in fact, the pathway program specifically that allows you to apply as an intern and then, more or less guarantees you a career period is independent of office.

But also this office is in law, right? And you're proposing to eliminate it. The administration, it's in statute that we passed here in twenty twenty two.

And we didn't cancel it. The the office is funded under FY twenty six appropriations and and I interact with uh with the leader of that uh that department routinely on this uh and and and we will always follow the law, that that's not changing, we're just pointing out that the functions are

But following the law is keeping this office and its programs available to all.

And and we've cor- it the office is open, ma'am. OK.

Thank you and I yield back.

Thank you.

Representative yields back. Uh, Representative McBride from Delaware, five minutes.

Thank you so much, Mister Chairman, uh thank you so much, uh Administrator Isaacman for joining us today, for bearing with us as we get down to the lower part of the dais. Um, building off of of some of your comments earlier and some of the comments of my colleagues, earlier this month, I, like so many people across the United States and around the world, stared at my screen in wonder watching those four ash fornations. take off, fly by the moon, and then eventually splash down in the Pacific. In fact, my lock screen on my iPhone is one of my favorite pictures, uh, where you can see the Orion capsule, the moon, and our little crescent that we call home beyond that. Um, and to some of the points that you were making earlier, moments like this are not only scientifically significant, they're civically healing. It's truly a national accomplishment and a global event, and it's in my mind an antidote to the division that seems to define our age. And moments like this seem to come just when we need them most. I think it's no coincidence that in the nineteen sixties, an era marked by chaos and conflict, we dreamed of and reached the moon. And actually sixty five years ago this May, President Kennedy spoke words that ring just as true today when he declared, quote, " If we are to win the battle that is now going on around the world between freedom and tyranny the dramatic achievements in space which occurred in recent weeks should have made clear to us all the impact of this adventure on the minds of people every day." who are attempting to make a determination of which road they should take. He actually said those words to our chamber, to Congress, as he asked this body to appropriate the necessary funds for us to not only go to the moon but to achieve all of NASA's goals. He came to Congress, Congress appropriated, NASA executed, and Congress provided oversight. And that's obviously why we're here today, sixty-five years later. Unfortunately, that constitutional obligation is undermined when the administration fails to or is incredibly delayed in providing us with the information necessary information that we are legally entitled to to perform that oversight role and I know we've talked a a little ba- a little bit about this already but this committee didn't receive NASA's FY twenty twenty five spend plan and until mid-March twenty twenty six six months after the year in question ended and much much much further beyond the uh legally determined deadline for that information. And this was despite repeated efforts by this committee member, by committee members, by staff for basic information about how NASA is spending appropriated money. Um, the FY twenty twenty-six spend plan is well overdue as has been talked about. Earlier you told the chairman that the process for compiling the spend plan was wrapped in early April and hopefully will be released shortly. Can you commit to providing the FY twenty twenty-six spend plan to this committee within the next ten days?

Uh, Congresswoman, I can tell you that for our the part that NASA plays in this, um, you know, we have completed our effort as of early April. Like a lot of things, it makes its way through the various, uh, administration administrative process. Uh, and I'm hopeful it is released to you within that time frame. Uh, I'm not aware of anything that's still up for for discussion in it. Uh, you certainly have my commitment. I I understand with respect to FY twenty-four. I was confirmed in late uh late December uh on that one. I tried to make that a priority to turn around as quickly as we can. I'm hopeful now that um we'll be able to get into a more uh we'll be able to adhere to our schedules um better. And I also would happily make my uh myself available, as I said to all the members of the committee. I enjoy over-communicating and bringing people together to do really challenging things like we do at NASA and um we'll share as much about our plans and spending as uh, as possible.

Great. Well, it is already forty-five days, uh, uh, or it's required to be submitted to us within forty-five days of enactment of the appropriations bill. Uh, it was due in February, twenty twenty six. I recognize that there are other people in the administration that are reviewing. Um, one thing I hope that you will successfully be able to do is manage up and around throughout the administration to get this to us because that information is incredibly helpful as we perform oversight in the aftermath of the appropriations bill, going into effect. Um, and I know that you are eager to get us that information. I hope that you're able to help the rest of your administration get it to us in a timely fashion. Um, I - I - I also just wanna quickly ask the big advancements we see from NASA come from a collaborative process across administrations and of course in collaboration with the scientific community and the um National Academy's decadal survey process is a critical part of informing NASA's priorities and so I'm curious, in determining which science missions and projects to propo- projects to propose to cancel within the president's recommended budget. To what extent did NASA consider the effect that their cancellation would have on advancing the scientific priorities outlined in those decadal surveys?

Well, it's an interesting question. I understand we have limited time. I will tell you that I am hopeful, since uh my understanding of most of the programs that were uh, you know, that are being considered for cancellation, they haven't been cance- cancelled yet, were - are in formulation scientific endeavors and do not measure up to the flagship programs that we tend to coordinate closely on. uh, with respect to the decadal survey or their missions that have, uh, long passed, uh, their original life of which we are working on ways to consolidate efforts to continue to yield good science uh you know that that requires little dollars in order to do so with the aim of launching more flagship missions uh in the future, and hopefully at greater frequency than the current, uh, decadal survey process affords.

Thank you. I yield back.

Uh, Representative McClain Delany uh Delany from Maryland Police. Five minutes.

Uh, thank you to our chair and our ranking member. Um, I really appreciate this hearing. It is um incredible to me and thank you um Administrator Isaacson for joining us today. It's nice to see you again. I think I met you in green belt. Um, and in fact, uh, my home state of Maryland, I represent Maryland's sixth congressional district is a major player in the aerospace industry. In fact, earlier in my legal career in the nineteen nineties, days I worked in Rockville at Orion satellite, which was the first separate system in the private sector. Um, it did a lot of innovation. Um, but I also deeply believe, um, that we always need to have government funding in foundational research in, um, in our weather satellites at NOAA and most especially in NASA projects, so that the fruits of these endeavors might be shared by all of our citizens and for the public interest. Um, and we need a vibrant ecosystem for research. And to that note, thanks to the expert scientists, engineers, technicians and other staff at Goddard Space Flight Center, Goddard employees, Hopkins researchers and others have created an incredibly robust ecosystem of research projects and companies, driving unbelievable innovation. Goddard is also the home of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, which I saw when I was there, and a project which is both ahead of schedule and under budget. Kudos. Really incredible. I'm looking forward to the upcoming launch. But for more than sixty-five years, Goddard has been America's preeminent hub for scientific research in space. It's also foundational to NASA science. You cannot separate the two. The beating heart of Goddard in science and the beating heart of NASA science is Goddard. But I'm concerned about Goddard's future. We're hearing credible reports and seeing written information that Goddard leadership is telling employees, making decisions based on Goddard only doing work in national security, planetary defense, and moon to Mars. There's something conspicuously missing from these categories and being on SST. I wanna hear your vision for Goddard's science as we look forward to funding NASA. Um, I just wanna ask you, Administrator, do you believe that Goddard should remain America's preeminent center for scientific research in space, and c- continue carrying out groundbreaking scientific missions for NASA.

I I do, Congresswoman. I in fact, I'm looking at every one of our centers and saying what is the ultimate specialization here and let's declare it a center of excellence and make sure we resource it accordingly to do so. I think JPL is a great example for deep space science and robotics. I think Johnson Space Center is our human space flight center of excellence. I think Goddard Space Flight Center is a science center of excellence. Uh, everything from Earth to near Earth to heliophysics, not to mention actually has a lot of exciting like astrophysics with roman uh space telescope, and and dragonfly as a planetary science mission.

If I c- if I can just go ahead and and because I hear that,

Yep.

but for months our Maryland delegation and our whole delegation has been asking this straightforward question, which facilities or missions at Goddard are proposed for either consolidation or closure and despite communication between our delegation and central leadership, I remain concerned about the future of the workforce, particularly something called the deprioritization of habitable worlds. The FY twenty-seven budget is rec- is vague and it admits the center level workforce. Um so first uh you know will you commit now to ensuring a robust program at Goddard that fully leverages the technical capabilities of its workforce, including maybe moving forward with habitable worlds? And is there um can we have improved communication with respect to Goddard's future for both the civil servants um while Congress is completing its FY twenty-seven work bill and um as we are just looking at the assessments generally it's really important for research.

Yes Congresswoman, and I and I say you know several times today about over-communicating, I will happily insure that every every member of this committee has my cell phone so we can have these conversations as often as it likes I'm I'm I'm here for the mission,

I'll take, I'll definitely take.

I'll learn to sleep and eat another time. Um and I and I would say in terms of uh just let's you know, uh Goddard Space Flight Center specifically, I'm uh I'm looking for opportunities where we might have programs that are out in uh bespoke programs at different parts of the country we can consolidate into, Goddard, not from centers but individual operations so you could have maybe a uh a s- you know, a uh ongoing science operations center to continue to yield good science out of missions that are past their initial their initial design life. I look at the president's budget request as the administrator of NASA as an opportunity to find inefficiencies where there's been some waste or in or or, even in some cases abuse that's out there, unlock resources to do more of the science and discovery that gets people excited, especially the work that's done at Goddard.

I I just hope to get some details further so we can know for these workforce. Thank you. I yield back.

Representative yields back. Uh Representative from New York. Representative Friedman.

California.

California, I'm sorry. I'm political.

But all right. Thank you, Chair Babin, and uh to the Administrator, Isaacman, for being here today.

You can tell me.

Uh, I rep- I represented JPL when I was in the California legislature, and they're just outside of my congressional district. They have over five thousand scientists, uh, at that facility, many of whom live in my district. But even more importantly, the work that they do around earth science is crucially important to California. They do everything from weather monitoring in an area that is very, uh, susceptible to extreme weather events, to - to ocean temperature monitoring, to looking at the effect of climate change in California, to methane monitoring. That was instrumental in finding the terrible Lico-Liso canyon several years ago. Now we have seen this administration constantly try to roll back JPL's work on those very crucial areas, crucial to wildfire resiliency, crucial to the lives of people, uh not not future people in space, but people right here on Earth. And that is a huge uh threat to to Californian safety. Now you have contended that you can that we can cut half of NASA's budget and still retain all of these crucial programs. And so I am very curious about how you are intending to do that. Um, I am h- wondering if you can give me five examples of how we can continue all of those important programs, all the programs that impact wildfire, all the programs that impact climate, all the programs that impact, uh, weather predictions, how you can cut half of those and still maintain the full force of those programs. Can you give five examples of the kind of waste, fraud and abuse that you might be able to find while not cutting those programs for Californians?

Uh, sure, congresswoman, I I I prob- forgive me, I probably can give uh uh quite a few uh on on the subject. And believe me, not every- and I I wouldn't characterize everything as, you know, you know, fraud, waste and abuse. There's there's certainly some examples you find at times. There's just inefficient use of capital. I mean, for example, we, you know, two billion dollars lost on Mars sample return. We spent two hundred million dollars keeping Mars sample return, even though the previous administration canceled it in a state of formulation last year. Most of the reductions that are proposed under the FY twenty-seven budget, are are reduction of informulation missions, those that have not launched or those that have been up for decades, where we we probably have opportunities to consolidate and continue to yield good science at lower cost to fund more of the things we need to do. We are not accepting any gaps in earth sciences. So, uh, whether NICER, PACE, we have on-orbit assets for that, Landsat that are up there to do so. And we have a plan in the twenty thirties when those existing assets may, uh, you know, e- exceed their useful life to make a transition over to commercial industry. We are not giving up on wildfires. I went and and and had a chance to speak to the researchers of that, between Ames and those contributing at JPL, to make sure we can get an, uh, autonomous wildfire detection, leveraging on-orbit assets, drones, communications, like, I do care about all these. As I said, From my perspective, the President's budget request is a challenge to me as the Administrator, to find where we have inefficient use of resources to focus on the things that we are supposed to be doing as an agency.

So speaking of privatization, you know right now NASA employs scientists that are extremely valuable to us from a from a national security perspective, from many other perspectives. But a lot of times this privatization results in layoffs, and we've seen it at JPL with mass layoffs over the last few years. Many of those scientists are leaving the country and going to bring their talents overseas. How does uh laying off government science scientists help the United States? And how do you prevent when in your privatization efforts from for-profit companies that are not accountable to the public in the same way that public employees are how are you the good stewards of public money if portions of that are going into the profits of large companies?

Well, I am, it's interesting you say that. First, I, to be clear, I'm I'm I'm very rarely like a binary black or white thinker, I'm a make nuance, great again kind of guy, and it's funny cuz on one one side, I'm getting in trouble for insourcing and bringing back a lot of workforce from the private sector in the other areas and that's because it's, it's just not black and white. There are examples where industry has the capabilities that we can procure services at far lower cost when you have thousands of constellation satellites up there for earth observation. Then there's examples where we should be doing things no one else is capable of doing with you and and congresswoman I actually agree with you, I had a chance to look at why we uh there were some layoffs which I I would mind you, we're actually from the prior administration at JPL. And it was because we turned off reimbursable - the - the previous administration had strong views that JPL should not support other government agencies and stopped doing that work and as a result they had to lay off a lot of talent there that could be helping other government agencies on some very exquisite scientific work. I've turned that back on to prevent those kind of layoffs, cuz that is the kind of thing that NASA expertise should be applied for.

Thank you, and I'm glad to hear that. And let me ask one last question. Um, it,

Uh, Uh, you can count on uh me, you can count on uh me, Congresswoman, Congresswoman, that we will always follow the law. that we will always follow the law.

Thank you. I yield back.

Gentlewoman yields. Uh, this wraps up, uh, our hearing today. And, Mister Administrator, I wanna thank you so very much for for being here and also for suspending while we uh we voted. I think we've, uh, learned a lot today and, uh, we will digest this and, uh, the record will remain open for ten days, uh, for additional comments and written questions, uh, from members. So with that, this hearing is adjourned. Thank you.