I have been critical of NASA's financial and program management.

American exceptionalism demands that we do better than the proposal that has been put forward that does not have the plans to implement it in a safe and secure way.

We are going to relinquish our status as leaders and pioneers in space exploration.

Our 50-year legacy of leadership in space is on the line, and we need to have a credible plan to make the next step forward.

We also asked the President for the safe completion of the current Space Shuttle manifest even if it has to be flown into next year.

We will be, for the first time in nearly 50 years, for a period of years unable to go into low-Earth orbit.

We asked that he consider not the cancellation of the Constellation program, but the restructuring of it.

I want to understand the value of human spaceflight.

I cannot support going into space as an end in and of itself.

Exploration drives technology innovation, not the reverse.

If we fail to act now, the President and this Administration will be remembered for killing America's leadership in space exploration.

The proposal by the Administration to, what I would call, kill the Constellation program... will be, in a word, devastating.

I think NASA was conceived brilliantly with the idea of simply doing something that had never been done before.

I unfortunately cannot take as optimistic of a view of the President's plan.

If the leadership we have acquired through our investment is simply allowed to fade away, other nations will surely step in where we have faltered.

I do not believe that this would be in our best interests.

I want one of you to tell me how NASA's human spaceflight programs advance the agency's overall mission today and in the future.

I have yet to find a person in NASA, the Defense Department, the Air Force, the National Academies, industry, or academia that had any knowledge of the plan prior to its announcement.