On the recordMarch 10, 2010
It is not wise for us to take our 30,000 best scientists and engineers and give them pink slips. One thing you said as well, when John Kennedy gave us the challenge to go to the Moon, those people who started to study engineering, science, and math, it skyrocketed because there was a challenge. There was a mission there. NASA is talking about all kinds of programs to encourage kids to get excited about space with their summer school programs. They instituted a new computer simulation game so students could pretend to go up to the space shuttle. I am contending to you, it is cruel to excite these kids about this future when you give them no realistic way of exercising that dream because we have stopped the mechanism of doing it. Once again, as we should have learned out of Columbia, we have to put safety first. This program is not. And secondly, we have to have a clear goal. If we don't do those two things, we are courting another disaster. This plan of certain NASA administrators is courting another national disaster.
