Ted Cruz Gets Schooled By NASA Chief on Earth Science Exploration

thank you very much administrator bolden thank you for joining us here this morning and thank you for your many many years of honorable

service to our nation a i'd like to start not by asking a general question %HESITATION in your judgment what

is the core mission of nasa mister chairman i've are given that a lot of thought over the last few days and see i went back and looked at the original space act of nineteen fifty eight and and i won't alright

but but essentially our core mission from the very beginning has been to investigate explore space and

the earth environment and %HESITATION and to help help us make this place of of a better place so that that

is the then the nets of it right there so and i have to admit if you're dumb another

uh aeronautics is an essential part of what nasa does it is the big gay and

nasa and %HESITATION if someone from another planet came down and look at our budget they probably would not believe that because it is the least funded are

the skimpy is funded portion of the budget but but we're working on well there's no doubt that there are multiple important

priorities within nasa but but i would suggested that almost any american would agree but

what sets nasa part for many other agency is the mission that is landed man on the moon that has the potential to explore new

worlds beyond our imagination and you know i've had this conversation later times hi

and and you know that i am concerned that nasa in the current environment has little lost

its full focus on that core mission and i want to talk for a minute about the current budget and

can say from two thousand nine to two thousand sixteen that earth sciences it had a forty one percent increase in the budget in

contrast exploration and space operations what i would consider the core function

of nasa has seen its budget dropped seven point six percent and looking at the remainder of that the elements planetary sciences has at the three

percent increase alia physics a ten percent increase astrophysics a ten percent increase in

my judgment nnnnn this does not represent a fair where appropriate allocation of resources that

is shifting re resources away from the core functions of nasa two other functions do

you share that assessment mister chairman i'm bob i i mean i am very interested in your chart however i will i

will say one thing %HESITATION it is interesting to note that there is a decrease in exploration or human space flight when in fact uh

that was somewhat intentional because we were trying to get the cost of of %HESITATION of

exploration down as we reach farther out into the solar system it used to cost us two billion in dollars a year to maintain the space shuttle whether we flew it or not to

bolivia nasa pages i want to say we now have two contracts that are in the neighborhood about