Bill Nelson

That's pretty exciting, isn't it, Dr. Collicott, that you might send your class to space, to the edge of space, go Mach 3, a couple of minutes of zero-G, and then come back?

I had to get down on my knees and beg to finally get indemnification extended for just 1 year, and this is no way to run a railroad.

Isn't the future worth that investment?

We cannot reach this goal without the likes of the private and civil investments.

The Office of Commercial Space Transportation in the Department of Transportation understands that they should never get into these stovepipes that are so typical in government.

And so right now the cost for a tourist to go in one of these up to the edge of space where they can see the curvature of the Earth, a couple of minutes of zero-G and then return, the cost is what? A few hundred thousand dollars per seat?

I urge the Congress to fully fund these vital activities, both the commercial crew program and the exploration systems.

The Russians are our partners on the ISS, and we thank them for their safe delivery and return of NASA astronaut Tom Marshburn.

No other nation has done that. No other nation has performed space flight as well as we have.

If America does not lead in these enterprises, somebody else will.

We will be reauthorizing NASA this year and updating the Commercial Space Launch Act (CSLA).

The key to success here is balance; not just a balance between public and private space endeavors but also between competition and cooperation.

The Department of Transportation should do what their mission is, which is to handle administratively and let NASA do what NASA does best.

It becomes extremely important that we get American vehicles flying Americans back up to the Space Station.

It was certainly an admonition of the Gehman Commission that investigated the last Space Shuttle disaster that said that once you have completed the Space Station with the Space Shuttle, you shut it down and you replace it with a safer…

Since the topic of this hearing is the role of immigrants in America's innovation economy...

I want to note the presence of Dreamers from Florida who are in the audience and just state that this past week I was--there they are.

It has to happen. It has to happen.

The EB-5 program has been around for a while. Give me your analysis of whether or not it has been successful.

We are in an era that we have to worry about our national security.

What is being proposed in the immigration reform is a compendium of these things: the Invest visa, the new EB-6 visa, and the current EB-5 visa.

I will work with your office, Senator Rubio, to see if there is any way of getting her any financial assistance.

Will you commit to examining SOUTHCOM as the next developmental deployment for LCS?

Dispersing the East Coast carrier fleet is a national security priority.

No Navy ships for the counterdrug effort in the Caribbean for the remainder of the fiscal year, however, is a very negative development, indeed.