Rob Bishop: “Both of those are core responsibilities of the government and one that this administration has decided to cut. And it's…”

“Both of those are core responsibilities of the government and one that this administration has decided to cut. And it's not necessarily that they are companies that are making these-- there's actually two companies in America that do make those motors; one hasn't made any in a couple of decades. But it is people that do it. When you cut these programs--when you cut the missile defense last year and you cut this rocket program this year, the people with the expertise that we need to build the defense of this country are going to be gone. They're either going to find another job or, unfortunately, they're going to go on unemployment so we can pay them for not doing their jobs that we need to defend us. This is one of the travesties of this particular budget. And it would be okay with me, perhaps, if they had come up with a new plan, a new role for NASA, something they are going to move us forward with, but they did not. All they did is simply cut the program, throw people out of work--if it goes through, I should say. We still have the right to say what it is. But this budget would cut the program, throw people out of work and, more importantly, fail for us to defend this country, which is our constitutional responsibility. It would fail to allow this country to move forward in space exploration and in defense because the industrial base of this country would be gone. The acquisition guys over in the Pentagon understand it.…”