Rob Bishop: “I thank the gentleman from Texas again as both he and Mr. Hall were very eloquent in pointing out the problems that we…”

“I thank the gentleman from Texas again as both he and Mr. Hall were very eloquent in pointing out the problems that we are facing with the cancellation of the Constellation program by NASA. I'd like to take one small detour from here to try and point out once again that the decision by this administration to cancel Constellation, by NASA, was done arbitrarily, capriciously, and actually without foresight of what the implications would be and their unintended consequences on our military side. For what this administration did not realize is that the people--the industrial base that builds the rockets to send a man to the moon--are the same people who build the rockets to shoot down North Korean and Iranian missiles that are coming at us. This industrial base is there with the expertise, and if you fire 20,000 to 30,000 of that base, this is not a spigot you can turn on and off and add them back, if indeed by some miraculous idea you think you need to change direction and start over again. That is what we have found--that the impact on NASA has a unique, specific, and dangerous impact on the defense of this country because if we are having a missile defense system, the fact that we are going to fire 25,000 to 30,000 people in this industrial base means that those people will not be working on our missile defense system.”