Bill Posey: “Six months later we got General Bolton. He's the new administrator, and he's a first-class guy and he'll do a good job.…”

“Six months later we got General Bolton. He's the new administrator, and he's a first-class guy and he'll do a good job. But as soon as Bolton was named, the President created a commission known as the Augustine Commission to tell us how we continue to explore space under current budget conditions. The Augustine Commission met a number of times. They reported to the Science and Technology Committee, and they basically said in their report, you can't do that on the cheap. You just can't do what needs to be done to keep America first in space, much less close the gap. You can't do it on the cheap. It's going to take about another $3 billion a year. Well, we were certainly looking forward to that extra money being put into the program. For as little as 1 percent of the failed stimulus plan spending, we could have flown that shuttle for 5 years and closed that gap.”