Bill Nelson

NASA clearly has a vested interest in attracting, engaging, and preparing its future STEM professionals.

NASA is committed to building a diverse, skilled future STEM workforce--our next generation of explorers with the technical skills needed to carry forward our Nation's vital mission.

We are seeing in front of our eyes the change of air transport and mobility as a result of drones.

This research is absolutely critical for us exploring the heavens.

Let me define the problem and give you the background.

Everything that we are doing is being approached in this commercial public/private partnership.

As a matter of fact, we have already spent $200 million to date to address this groundwater contamination problem, and we are committed to continuing the investigation and evaluation, along with our partner, the New Mexico Environment…

Yes, ma'am, and let me give you a specific answer to your question.

We are on the same page, and NASA owns and operates that local public water system, so we have every reason to continue this investigation.

We do everything that we can to partner with not only commercial industry but also universities and other academic institutions.

The X-59, which is this extraordinarily super designed needle-nosed aircraft is going to fly at the end of this year.

What we are going to do is a multi-year test, taking it to different locations all over the United States, and see if the muffled roar is acceptable to the people on the ground.

Is there a market out there to cut that almost in half? And I suspect there is.

It will fly supersonic but its design is such a radical design, that instead of pushing the bow wave going through the atmosphere, as you go from subsonic to supersonic, which causes that audible sound that goes 'boom, boom,' it will…

There are, in fact, private companies that are getting into the business now of supersonic transports, but they do not have this characteristic.

It is characterizing the orbit that eventually our Gateway or space station will go in.

It is a real problem, and we are going to have some catastrophic consequences if we cannot get nations that are launching things into space to provide enough fuel to have a controlled reentry.

We are sucking air when it comes to the needs of infrastructure.

I want to see it increase and, thus, all the more reason that you all need to keep us out of budgetary chaos.

The Stennis Space Center is a very valuable national asset because it is the location that, when we are developing exquisite new engines, we have to go to test them.

We go with commercial partners because the third mission, we are going into lunar orbit.

Our seed corn is research and development. We do not want to ever give that up, and that is the mission of NASA.

This time, even on the first crew, the ones that are coming here to Capitol Hill today, our first international astronaut is Jeremy Hansen.

It is the research and development that allows this country to move forward.

We can warn that there is likely to be a wildfire in a particular forest.