Testimony on Assured Access to Space

And so to keep a lot of those former Soviet, now Russian, engineers working, there was this extraordinarily successful program of theNunn-Lugar effort to go in to gather up those nuclear weapons and simultaneously to support the Russian aerospace industry and to buy this incredible engine, the RD-180. And so today, those engines play a significant role in meeting our Nation's launch requirements. We have already launched four missions this year alone using that engine.And so now it is time that we are going to have to consider an alternative. Several of us in the Armed Services Committee put $100 million into the defense authorization bill to get that processstarted in this coming fiscal year. We want to make sure that the taxpayer money is well spent, and so it is important that we consider the launch needs with the goal in mind that we want assuredaccess to space. And this is, obviously, not going to just affect the Department of Defense, although the National security activities are paramount. It clearly is going to involve commercial space activities as well and the question of preserving an industrial base.And so the two committees represented at this dais have asked officials from DOD and NASA, along with many others, to come and discuss this issue of U.S. assured access to space. NASA hasno stated need for a new engine and is already building its own space launch system. However, NASA obviously has extensive experiencein building launch systems and is getting great experience in public/private partnerships. And so we are going to hear from all of these people.