Tina Smith: “if you want to cast a NASA bashing vote, then this amendment is not the amendment for you, because that is not what this…”

“if you want to cast a NASA bashing vote, then this amendment is not the amendment for you, because that is not what this is. This amendment, this $15 million comes right out of important NASA programs like the space station and the space shuttle. But if you are like me and you are excited about the advances we are making in space exploration, you ought to vote to eliminate this kind of waste and provide it in areas where the space program could use the money. Every nickel we spend on the Russian Bion program is money that would have been spent on important United States space priorities. Every nickel. For example, we could divert this money to speed up the development of Lockheed Martin's Venture Star, the new X-33 single-stage reusable reorbit launch vehicle. The cost of this project will be about $1 billion through the year 2000. This is exciting, revolutionary technology, and it represents precisely the kind of innovation that I am talking about and precisely the kind of innovation that the American people expect out of their space program, which will create millions of jobs in the 21st century. Furthermore, in the Venture Star Project, we will have a public- private partnership that helps ease the financial burden on the taxpayer. I am told that the estimated cost of sending payloads into space on the Venture Star will be approximately $1,000 per pound, compared with a $10,000 per pound cost on the space shuttle. A tremendous savings.…”