Dana Rohrabacher: “first and foremost, let me say that I have the deepest admiration for the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Roemer), and this…”

“first and foremost, let me say that I have the deepest admiration for the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Roemer), and this body will be certainly not as bright and not as profound a place when he no longer is with us. And I know that he is not planning to run for reelection. We will miss him very much. Mr. Chairman, I feel very grateful to have had the opportunity to serve with the gentleman in the Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics. Over the years, he has been a voice for prudence and a voice for, yes, for second thoughts about the Space Station. Let me say that in the beginning of his term, his arguments made a lot of sense, a lot more sense. As the years have gone by, however, and we have invested billions and billions of dollars into this program, yes, in the beginning it might have made sense to postpone the Space Station for a number of years. The voice of the gentleman from Indiana was there saying, Do not waste the money. But sometimes once you have made a commitment, it is actually more responsible then to move forward and make sure that the project in which you are involved is a success, rather than turning back. If we support the Roemer amendment now, what it will mean is we will not have science on the Space Station. That is what it will mean. The laboratory will not work. We will not have the science experiments.…”