Joe Cunningham: “I would say to my friends, the issue of whether we want to end up in space or not is a valid issue. But we are ready to…”

“I would say to my friends, the issue of whether we want to end up in space or not is a valid issue. But we are ready to go with this system. The gentleman talks about cost, but this Space Station has been redesigned and redesigned and redesigned each time because of cuts in funding that has increased the funding. It is just like if we want to buy a system and we have to redesign it, then we have to almost double the cost. This would also kill the entire program. I, unlike my colleagues, believe that the spin-offs are going to be very important. Whether we are looking at the world and the temperature controls or the different environmental concerns that we have on Earth, I think we are going to look at those from space; and there has been good evidence to do that. In space, we can look at a cell from four different angles. On Earth, we can only do it in one dimension. The scientists at NIH and other areas have said that this kind of research is going to lead to the cure of AIDS and those different things in which they cannot even look at the cell division. So I would rise in opposition to my friend. And though his goals are noteworthy in the areas that he wants to increase, I think for us to turn our heads away from a program that is ready to go with all the other nations that are involved not only sends a poor message to the leadership of this country but to what we will be able to achieve in space itself.”