Mark Gordon: “Mr. Chairman, the NASA workforce is a critical national asset. We need to ensure that its strength is maintained if NASA…”

“Mr. Chairman, the NASA workforce is a critical national asset. We need to ensure that its strength is maintained if NASA is to undertake all the challenging activities envisioned for it in the coming decades. NASA's workforce is a highly skilled workforce. They truly are rocket scientists. Yet the NASA workforce is under stress. Those stresses include infrastructure that is aging and in need of repair and upgrading, diversion of resources from existing tasks to provide money for proposed new initiatives, and outsourcing and privatization agendas that call into question the agency's commitment to careers at NASA. Last year, I would have added another item to that list, namely, a lack of long-term goals for the agency. However, President Bush has now proposed an initiative to go back to the Moon and then at some point in the future send humans to Mars. I have long supported the idea that the space program needs some clear and compelling long-term goals. So I welcome the President's decision to propose an initiative.”