Political Quotes

“I am a big fan and supporter of our manned spaceflight program, which I think has just an extraordinary record of achievement and is enormously important to our position in the world in terms of our leadership in science. It is also very important to many of the space centers around the country in terms of the important jobs that it provides. But I don't want to see us rob Peter to pay Paul within the sciences, to go after the earth sciences budget, which is also critically important to the Nation's future. When we look at some of the breathtaking and disastrous weather patterns that we have seen around the world, whether it was the incredible and tragic flooding in Australia or that in South America, the ability to understand better the nature of our climate and climate change is not only extraordinarily important in terms of saving lives but in terms of understanding what is happening to our planet. We also derive a lot of commercial benefits from our investment not only in earth science but space science as well. These investments pay enormous dividends in technologies that have become a part of all of our homes now. So this is investment that I think we want to continue to make and make strongly. And while I, again, am a fervent supporter of our manned spaceflight program, I don't think any one portion of our space budget or science budget ought to be cannibalizing the other.”