Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank Chairman Wolf for offering me this opportunity.

This amendment prohibits the funding for NASA's Advanced Food Technology project, the AFT. The AFT project is responsible for providing spaceflight crews with a food system that is safe, nutritious, and acceptable to the crew while efficiently balancing appropriate vehicle mass, volume, waste, and food preparation time for exploration missions to Mars. The problem is we are not going to Mars anytime soon.

Since we have accepted as a fact that other nations such as Russia will be taking the lead on space exploration and we have no plans to go back into space over the next fiscal year--at least to Mars--there is no reason to waste taxpayer money on food research for a mission to Mars.

This project has been highlighted as a source of waste for years by my colleagues in the United States Senate, starting with NASA's use of taxpayer money to develop pizza and hundreds of other recipes for, again, a mission to Mars, which NASA has no plans to undertake. I want to ensure that taxpayer funding is not wasted on projects that are not going to happen.

I urge passage of this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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