National Aeronautics and Space Administration Authorization Act of 2005

NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION AUTHORIZATION ACT OF 2005 -- (House of Representatives - July 22, 2005)

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Mr. CALVERT. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

The NASA Authorization Act of 2005 is the culmination of a lot of hard work on both sides of the aisle. We have developed a real bipartisan compromise. This is the first NASA authorization bill to come to the House in 5 years, and I want to commend Chairman BOEHLERT and the ranking members, the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Gordon) and the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Udall), for their cooperation in carefully crafting this bipartisan bill. But I most especially thank Chairman BOEHLERT for his unwavering support to get this bill out and to have it here today.

Mr. Chairman, we carefully crafted this bill. It took a lot of meetings on the principles and long hard hours of staff work on both sides to come up with this balanced agreement. This is the first authorization bill to endorse the President's Vision for Space Exploration that was announced on January 14, 2004. This vision includes the shuttle's return to flight, the completion of the International Space Station, the development of a new Crew Exploration Vehicle, the CEV, which will allow us to return to the Moon by 2020 and then on to Mars and beyond.

Our civil space program excites the world. In a Gallop poll released last week, more than three-fourths of the American people support a new plan for space exploration. The Committee on Science strongly supports NASA's new administrator, Dr. Michael Griffin, and wants to provide him the flexibility to transform the agency in this second Space Age. Our bill provides the rules and tools that will enable the agency to maintain its multimission agenda with a balanced approach for human and robotic space flight, science, and aeronautics.

The Committee on Science has not addressed the Iran nonproliferation issue in our bill today, but we will continue to work with the House Committee on International Relations to resolve this matter. We are committed to resolving this issue before our bill is signed into law.

Once we pass the manager's amendment, our bill will fully fund exploration, the Space Shuttle, the International Space Station, and will increase funding for priorities such as aeronautics and the Hubble Space Telescope Servicing Mission. We have asked for a number of strategic plans in the areas of aeronautics, science, human capital, and in facilities in order to better guide NASA in the future.

The bill also addresses the need for NASA to make better use of commercial products, including software, as well as to work with the entrepreneurs in accomplishing NASA's goals. In addition, the bill authorizes a prize program for NASA to stimulate innovation and basic research and technology, modeled on the X-Prize that was recently won by Burt Rutan and his SpaceShipOne team. We have also included a cost-containment regime that has been crafted for NASA in its major development programs.

By remaining silent on the shuttle program's length of operation, the bill provides the administrator the flexibility to move forward with his plans to retire the shuttle in 2010. Ending the shuttle program at this time will free up funding to accelerate the development of the CEV and will close the gap between the shuttle and the CEV. Hopefully, this flexibility will allow us to eliminate the gap entirely.

We have asked the Office of Science and Technology Policy to look at the R&D programs across the Federal Government and to document all programs that may be redundant in multiple agencies and also those that may have fallen through the cracks. In addition, we have asked NASA to consider various business models as it looks at the agency's restructuring. In total, the information will enable Congress to craft legislation which parallels the exciting changes and challenges that NASA will be facing in the coming years.

Mr. Chairman, we do not consider this legislation in a vacuum. Other nations are actively pursuing human space flight and exploration. China alone graduates almost as many engineers in a month as we do in a year. India graduates five times as many engineers per year as we do in the United States. NASA, with its excellent reputation in exploration, science and aeronautics, is the one agency which can focus and inspire America's youth to take up the challenging work of math and science careers.

Again, I want to thank our committee leadership, Chairman BOEHLERT, Ranking Member Gordon, subcommittee Ranking Member UDALL, and the hard-working staff for their efforts in putting this bill together. This bill is an important milestone for our committee, NASA, and America.

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Mr. CALVERT. Mr. Chairman, the manager's amendment for the NASA Authorization Act of 2005 is an important complement to the bill reported out of our committee last week.

The amendment includes some technical changes, as was mentioned, as well as a number of amendments from committee members and other interested Members. We will now fully fund the President's Vision for Space Exploration, which includes the Space Shuttle's return to flight, completion of the International Space Station, and development of the new Crew Exploration Vehicle, which will allow us to return to the Moon by 2020, to Mars, and beyond.

Just as our bill is a bipartisan compromise, this amendment also represents a bipartisan effort with approval of both sides of the aisle for each addition that was incorporated. Our committee also worked with the administration on several of the fundamental concepts in both the bill and the amendment. As a result, we have received the support of the administration on the bill with the changes in the manager's amendment.

We all recognize that NASA is a multi-mission agency, and the committee worked to provide the rules and tools that will enable the agency to maintain the balance as we proceed into the Second Space Age.

We are hoping this is the first of many NASA authorization bills over the years. It has been too long since that last authorization. We owe it to NASA and the American people to offer guidance through the authorizing process on a regular basis. I commend the gentleman from New York (Mr. Boehlert) for his leadership and the gentleman from Tennessee (Ranking Member Gordon) and the gentleman from Colorado (Ranking Member UDALL) all for their persistence in pursuing this balanced, bipartisan bill. I also thank the committee staff, as was mentioned before, on both sides of the aisle for their efforts on this bipartisan compromise.

I urge my colleagues to support the manager's amendment and vote for its passage.

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Mr. CALVERT. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. BOEHLERT. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. CALVERT. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman. I read the language also. As a former developer, ``develop'' means, in my vernacular it does mean build. And so I think people would interpret this legislation as building additional infrastructure. And as the chairman mentioned, NASA is trying to get out of the bricks and mortar business.

The fact is we have facilities, space centers throughout this country that have been woefully unmaintained. As we go through the centers around the country and look at them, we are not maintaining the facilities that we have presently. We need to make sure that the facilities that our NASA workers are working in today are maintained in proper order.

I understand what the gentlewoman is trying to accomplish, but we just do not have the resources at this time to develop additional infrastructure, additional buildings and additional maintenance costs throughout this country at this time.

I would ask the committee to oppose this amendment or to work with the chairman to come up with some language that may have a different accomplishment on what the gentlewoman is trying to do.

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