Jim Bridenstine

If we do that, you are absolutely right, the costs per launch will be driven down.

We need those large flagship missions like WFIRST, like James Webb, but we also need a balanced portfolio that includes smaller missions.

Our goal is to make sure that we are reaching the right folks at the right time.

The key is to have missions for SLS, and given, as you said, what the vice president said yesterday, we are, in fact, going to have missions for SLS.

This is an important question and I want to make sure that I get it just right.

We have right now, about $4 and a half million dollars that we spend utilizing it on an annual basis and that is going to scale to about $5 million by 2022.

I don't think that was the intent at all, Mr. Chairman.

Critically important question, and know that we are 100 percent committed to the wind tunnels.

The Moon is the best path to prove all these capabilities, technologies, and so, 2033 is, I think, aggressive.

I want to make that happen. I want to be really clear.

Then when there is a lapse in appropriations, everybody flees, and then we are back to where we started.

Critically important for NASA. Enhanced-use lease enables us, as an Agency, to take property that might be underutilized and enable private companies to utilize it.

You have my commitment that we are going to continue studying the Earth across large parts of the electromagnetic spectrum.

I want you to know that NASA is committed and I am committed to making sure that we are continuing to study the Earth and following the decadal surveys.

Without question, I talk to our international partners all the time.

SLS is the world's only human rated rocket in its class designed from the ground up to safely transport astronauts to the moon and deep space.

If we want to accelerate to get to the Moon as soon as possible, the SLS is a critical piece of that, and so is the Exploration Upper Stage.

We support that effort in those areas, and we will absolutely continue to do that.

We do 100 percent believe in STEM Engagement, and we have to be starting that next generation of scientists and engineers to accomplish the missions of the future.

The reason the Moon matters here, is because it is a proving ground.

We have to figure out how to live and work on another world.

We are going to need SLS. We are going to need to accelerate it and get as many of those as soon as possible.

Our future literally depends on it, which makes these proposals so troubling.

It is very naive for NASA to propose, once again, to cut these investments after Congress spoke very clearly a little over two months ago when the omnibus was signed into law.

I am a strong supporter of NASA and believe that its missions help keep the United States at the forefront of space exploration and scientific research.