he is recommending a $6-billion increase for NASA over 5 years.

the perception is that the President has gutted the human spaceflight program.

I think, prematurely stop the Constellation Program and not move forward very firmly on keeping the Space Station... is not good, common sense.

I think this gap is too important to rely on just commercial and not continue our capabilities.

it is imperative that this Congress should carefully consider and understand all of the potential ramifications of the proposed changes

Relying on Russia to fill the gap is equally, in my opinion, unreliable and unsupportable.

I would like to continue the Shuttles and am certainly looking for a way to achieve that.

Unless we make every effort to close the gap in U.S. human spaceflight, we will have no choice but to face the reality that we will be totally dependent on Russia for access to space.

I passed the first Commercial Space Act, back in the 1980s, and I never intended for the FAA to be getting into this.

I believe we can find a more measured and reasoned approach that ensures the best use of investments we have already made.

Mr. Gass, what would happen if the Congress decided, since the Congress controls the purse strings, that we wanted to take the $6 billion projected by the President over the next 5 years, and use that, not for human certification of the…

the International Space Station was going to cease to exist in 2015, which, of course, was absolutely ridiculous.