On the recordJune 2, 2015
I thank the gentleman from Texas, and I thank my friend from Florida for speaking up on behalf of Orion. Orion is America's new spacecraft to take astronauts further into space than ever before and land our astronauts on Mars. Orion had its maiden test flight this past December, and it was a resounding success. The Orion program, as Mr. Posey stated, needs a full funding for this, and we believe it to be $1.35 billion for fiscal year '16 to meet those needs. I appreciate the committee including language in the committee report requiring NASA to provide an assessment of these challenges, but Congress needs to provide the resources necessary in fiscal year `16 to mitigate the entire risk and move this project forward. So I thank the gentleman from Texas for his support of the Orion program. We need to make sure it has sufficient resources to get our men and women, our astronauts, to Mars as quickly as possible.
