Bill Posey: “Well, I thank the gentleman from Missouri for recognizing me. That's only half of it, and what they are spending and…”

“Well, I thank the gentleman from Missouri for recognizing me. That's only half of it, and what they are spending and wasting is in the wrong direction. We just want to talk a little bit about the wrong direction Congress is going, and I hope they won't go further in the wrong direction as they continue to follow the President in the wrong direction. Now, I want to just remind you that when the President was in my district campaigning, he made a pledge--it's all over the Internet right now--that he would close the gap between the space shuttle program and the Constellation program. Initially, it was 3 years that we were going to outsource jobs to Russia to launch our astronauts. It was $30 million per astronaut for ours and all the international other astronauts that we promised to launch. The gap was 3 years. The gap grew to 4 years, 5 years, 6 years, looking at 7 years now or maybe more. The cost the Russians are going to charge us now is $50 million per astronaut. And when we have no more shuttles and no alternative launch vehicle of our own, Lord only knows what they're going to charge us. But back to the campaign promise. The President promised that he would close this gap, the time period between the shuttle's last flight and the first Constellation flight of the Aries, where we could launch men on the Aries.”