Education Committee - Senate and House Meeting Jointly with Advanced Communications and Information
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- October 2, 2026
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
5:50
Colleagues if everybody wants to settle in we'll
start here in a minute. good afternoon everyone.'d like to welcome you to the joint meeting of the advanced communications Information Technology and the education
committees meeting jointly colleagues as y'all know space is an integral part of our daily lives nowadays everything from GPS weather forecasting communications material science advances in healthcare and even elcro come out of the space program. so it touches us in ways a lot of times we don't even understand today and at the center of that innovation of course is going to be nasa for years they have inspired generations of Americans. they do things that
are so extraordinary that there are some people who don't even believe you've accomplished the things that that you believe right? and here in Arkansas I want us to create an environment where we are involved with what they're doing the administrator just announced that they're getting ready to build a new base on the moon, probably one of the greatest undertakings in human achievement and the question that I had was how do we get Arkansas more involved in that. Nnasa is going to be spending
billions of dollars. I'll let them talk a little bit about that more here shortly but how do we create those opportunities for our citizens to to be involved earlier today we originally were going to try to be at the Arkansas chamber. they weren't able to host us so we went over to the LittleRock Chamber of Commerce and we had officials from higher edd the Air Force, the business community we had a real good meeting this morning with the collaboration there we then went and toured one of their suppliers here in Arkansas. I
had no clue they were here and learned about
the opportunities to be involved with NASA right here in Arkansas and so they only have until one o'clock so we have a
very short window of time so very quickly this was all made possible today by Congressman Hill's office. I don't know if Melinda's in here or not but or excuse me Madelin is she in here where is she at? so she's the one who did all the work that
made all this possible so I do want to publicly thank her for helping make this happen and without further ado we're gonna go down to the table in front the man who really probably needs no introduction but Congressreman hill
I'll let you introduce yourself in any opening remarks you might have and then
Speaker 6
8:44
I'll let you introduce our guest. Well Chairman meeks and members thank you so much for welcoming us to the
Speaker 8
8:50
state capitol it's a real pleasure to have two colleagues that have come to Arkansas to talk about the
Artemis program and the importance of NASa and nasa's supply chain and I want to thank Chairman meeks for bringing us together this has been a priority of his for a long time and just as we've witnessed under governor Hutchison and Governor Sanders a real effort to expand our defense industrial base increased the missions that we have at our military facilities across the state and as I say increase that supply chain that's equally true in my
judgment in space and all the component suppliers that work to do what's going to be one of the most extraordinary undertakings you know in American history this morning as the chairman said we were out at BEI andalmel which has been for60 years a major supplier to the space program like many of you I grew up on apollo I can remember sitting cross legged in front of the black and white TV in my
parents' den in July1969 to see Eagle Scout Neil Armstrong make his famous statement on the moon and now a new generation is experiencing the precisely the same adventure of the expansion of technology you referenced how we gain from the technology and what's to be in the future is in my mind unbelievable and this time we'll even have a larger more driven more private sector orientation to that partnership with NASA something
that NASa has wanted for decades so we're delighted today to have two fine officials from from nasa with us uhjoel Graham is with us who is an intergovernmental and legislative affairs therefore he's delighted to meet all of you as state legislators here in the state of Arkans as and Kelvin Manning is here who's the deputy associate administrator for NASa that's focused on human space flight they're both gonna brief you on Artemis and brief on how we
can engage our private sector and our public sector in the future of space so gentlemen I'll let you take it from here and make your opening comments yield to you all right well thank you Chairman Hill
Speaker 12
11:12
it's an honor and a pleasure to be here as he said I'm Joel Graham. I'm associate administrator for legislative affairs at NASA. and we also do intergovernmental affairs so state and local governments under our office and is an industry role as well I have to say I'm kind of getting back to my roots here I I actually started in the Georgia legislature a while back a
while ago and so before moving to DC and doing the federal work so it's good to be back in the state house in a in a state legislative setting it's kind of where I cut my teeth so it's it's it's cool. as he said we are doing big things at NASa obviously building on the legacy of Apollo and and everything that came before it we're undertaking the Artemis program to return America to the moon and build our moon base it's a it's a humongous under undertaking. it's one that we were allowing suppliers from all over the country including right here in Arkansas and as as he
mentioned today we're over at BEI Precision andalmel to see the optical encoders that they make is as part of the program and it was interesting to learn about the legacy of that company that goes back to the very beginning of the space program that they were they were producing components that started on the very earliest missions that NASa did and so it was particularly meaningful and interesting to see a company that has kind of been with the agency and been one of our our commercial partners for many years really since the inception of the agency and that's an incredible legacy that you have
right here in Arkansas. so we'll we'll be talking a little bit about the Artemis program. we'll be talking about some of our other things that we're doing of course we're getting America under way on nuclear power and propulsion in space with SR1 freedom that we anticipate launching in 2028. it's going to be a nuclearpowered space mission where rep ur po s ing some hardware that we already have to get it out of the laboratory and get it into space and actually get underway for the first time and in doing so hopefully set the tone and set the the stage for our transition to what we're calling the nuclear nasa to realize that this this is the
next great leap in technology as we explore deeper and deeper into the solar system to be able to harness the power of the atom to use for our missions for for science for exploration for astronauts eventually to to go beyond the moon but we've got to do that first step. we've got to get to the mo on we've got to build the moon base unlike in the space race of the sixtiess we actually have real competition this time we have a rival with the Chinese that are that are making aggressive moves toward building a moon base of their own their own they're calling it theternational Lunar Research Station and they've partnered
with countries like Russia to to to take to to build that and so in doing so we have to make sure that we're there that that we can we can establish our presence that we can go with our international partners think of thee Europeans the Japanese and others the Canadians and we can we can stake out the territory now we can't own territory the treaty says we can't do that but it stands to reason if we're there that means that that America and our allies have a presence on the moon and we can build our moon base and we can occupy the the most
desirable territory you know the south pole of the moon is really not as large as people think it is it's about the size of Washington DC and so it will be a real race to see who is is the pre preeminent space power that can occupy that that that surface of the moon and in doing so gain access to the the resources like the water ri that we find in those permanently shaded regions and that space raced2.0 we're calling it. It's a lot closer than it needed to be. there's a whole history of reasons for that in terms of how NASA's made decisions and and how we've pursued these goals in the past when we may not have
felt the the pressure of a real competitor but we do have a real competitor and so we're moving with urgency we're moving with with speed and alacrity now to make sure that we can make decisions and apply our resources in the most impactful way to accomplish these missions and and win the space race and as I mentioned with the nuclear thatpace race3.0 that's what we can see down the road and that's what we want to make sure that that future is not even in question that we can be the preeminent space faring nation and space power well into the future so with that I'll I'll turn it over toelvin.
Kelvin Manning
Unverified
15:05
well thank you Joel and good afternoon it is a pleasure to be here my name'skelvin Manning. I'm currently serving as the deputy associate administrator for all human spaceflight a position on'm relatively new in I've been at the Kennedy Space Center for over30 years on my last position there was a deputy center director but I just wanted to make it clear when we say NASA, the national aeronautics and Space Administration, the national part it's not just reserved for Texas, Florida, Alabama where you have the big centers Arkans
as can be a huge player in this. we're we're looking for contributions not only from government but fromry and and academia the partnerships that you have in the state already existing with Dod could be leveraged to help NASa we're suffering huge supply chain challenges and I see a part for Arkansas on that as well as some of our other 50 states and I'll just close with it is an honor to be here. My mother was born in Arkansas and
I was like, I don't know when the last time I was in Arkansas but I know my mom gave me those that strong foundation to study hard in school and to get to where I am today and I think there's somebody in a classrooms right now that has no idea that they can work for nasa and they just need that motivation they need that awareness of what's going on if they can see it they can be it and that's what we're here to do we're here also to do to inspire the next generation so thank you you go back Mr chairman
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
16:40
and and I think you know one of the important points that that you made this morning Mr. Manning is a lot of times when our businesses think about getting involved with NASa they're thinking about I've got to build a lunar lander but that's that's not the case. I mean you're looking for small to medium sized businesses like we had this morning that are building parts or pieces can you can you all kind of elaborate on that a little bit? and then I think you have a presentation for us, correct? OK, and then we'll let you get
Kelvin Manning
Unverified
17:11
into the presentationer so think of it if you are building a house you need plumbing, you need parts, you need valves, you need electronics you need light bulbs you need wiring you need all that stuff to flow those commodities and you think about again here on the planet arth if it's orbiting space station or if it's a lunar outpost you just scale it up and you build on that technology so just a a valve that's rated for for spacecraft that's something that
you know multiple companies can build yeah and we have a little
Speaker 23
17:48
bit of a presentation we can start off with a video if that's ok
Speaker 27
17:56
Mr Chairman. good luck gospeed Artemis 2. let's go for 10 days the
Speaker 28
18:05
world watched in awe as ArtemisI went higher and farther than any humans in history.
today you've made history and made really proud for 10 days Reid Victor, ristina and Jeremy inspired the world and captured the imagination of billions 8.8 million pounds of thrust launched the integrity spacecraft out of the atmosphere to the moon around the far side and back home safely hitting a velocity of over 24,000 MPH before deploying parachutes and splashing down in the Pacific. and we're just getting started welcomelcome
Speaker 23
18:44
to the Artemiseration there you have it arttemi too this year I'm I'm sure everyone heard about it at least or saw it or maybe tuned in for the mission captivated the world's attention and you know I was saying
Speaker 12
19:06
that if we didn't capture some headlines we were probably doing something wrong but I don't know that I was fully prepared for what just a cultural moment for our nation
it became just every American rallied around us and the mission and what we're doing and and why it's important and so we're building on top of that so that's Artemis too that was this year we're actually going to have the crew in in Houston this Friday presenting the congressional Space modeldal of honornor the president will be, uh, which will be a great, great honor for them and and recognizing that that incredible achievement but we're not stopping there and we're actually beginning to stack Artemis3 which is the next mission in series and so we ve we have recalibrated that
missioniginally that was supposed to be a moon landing but you know when we were looking at it and when the administrator Iisenmann came in examined the the plan and said you know we we can't accept that kind of a risk jumping from a lunar fly by armmaste to a landing on3 and we need to put an extra mission in between there to test out our lunar landers think about Apollo 9 and what they did in Earth orbit to test test the lander to buy down risk to learn what we need to learn to go forward to the moon and be successful and so with that mission that'll be next year so we're
pulling the cadence in if you remember Artemis one was 2021 I think the end of 2021 and then about three years later we come and do this and so we need to pull that cadence forward and get into a a much more frequent flight flight cadence and so that's what we're doing we're taking a three month window and we're basically doing it in in in 10 months we found ways that we can move faster of course maintaining the level of safety that we need to but pulling that that schedule forward and it's thanks in large part to the investments that Congress made in the working familiesies Taxut Act
and the the reconciliation bill that $10 billion for NASa that that went into our ability to do this and to to do it with more f re qu ency so we're be beginning to stack that mission toward the end of this year in Celvin can talk a little bit more about that in detail but that will be a mission to arth orbit. and we will be testing both of our landers we have companies building our lander SpaceX Blue origin we've partnered with these companies and you know it's interesting when you look back at the history of the sixtiess there were companies that were working alongside NASa with the Apollo
program you think of the North American aviation the grumman the douglas the Mcdonald the Boeings some of them are still around today. We had commercial partners then just as we do now the names may be a little different in some cases but they're also they're they're right there on the mission with us and they're right there working to the same goal to these national missions and and accomplishing these national purposes and so we're relying on them so we have those companies that are building our moon landers we're going to launch the Orion on top of the space launch system next year it'll be rendezvousing with our landers in low earth orbit and we're going to test those
systems and and learn about them to buy down that risk ahead of what we want to do in in 2028 which is Artemus4 to put American astronauts on the moon for the first time in over50 years. It's exciting it's part of a part of our national mission we have a space policy from the president and we have strong bipartisan support from Congress and we are thankful for that we wouldn't be able to do this without that bipartisan support actually in a in a previous role I worked on Capitol Hill over in the on the senate side and we saw that take shape in terms of the the space policy directive one to
say go to the moon to to to return America to the lunar surface and we built that bipartisan support in Congress that everyone was able to rally behind because it's an important national objective and we can all get behind it and so it's it's really really interesting to see that we also have a presentation here I think a small a short video that kind of goes through the Artemis3 mission and so I'll play that for you
Speaker 35
24:28
all right, perfect all right so yeah just a little bit about Artemis this is this is the
Speaker 12
24:35
cadence that we're that we're planning on so we've done Artemis one that was the first mission the uncrewed test flight of thepace launch system and the Orion capsule we flew it uncrewed around and came back and then Artemis too of course you saw that this year Artemmi3 we're going next year with those four astronauts to test out our landers in low earth orbit to buy down that risk because I said ahead of our landing and then Artemiso
that'll be the first landing on the surface and we're working toward the the the components to do that of course our landers our two landers the spacesuits all of the things that we're going to need and hoping to build out our moon base and part of that in as as we do so and then Artemus ive and beyond that's building the moonbase that's the stay part that's that's as we we build our presence with our partners on the lunar surface, to do to conduct science to conduct research to explore that part of the moon to get the the water ice that we find in the the craters on the permanently permanently shaded regions on
the south pole that is the st rate g ically important And we couldn't do this without our partners as we're talking about right here in the state of Arkansas we have three companies that that support the Artemis mission in fact we as I was saying we we visited one today that makes the optical encoders that go into the into our spacecraft that help us point antennas and orient the spacecraft to where we need it to be they played an amazing role on Artemis too is is parts of our optical communication system it's
essentially using lasers to communicate between spacecraft and that's a promising technology that we hope to develop even further and so you can see all over the country we rely on companies large and small to provide the the components and the the parts and the the systems that go into into building this house as Kelvin said that take us to the moon and beyond so that was the video so yeah so there's the the mission cadence of course it was a launch we flew further into space than any humans had ever gone around the far side of the
moon and came back we also had a science operation actually a mission control for science set up in in Houston at Johnson Space Center that focused on the lunar geology it focused on as they flew around the backside of the moon the far side of the moon to see what we could learn about the the coation about the what what you you could see with the eye and what you could see with your lenses and learning the geology of a part of the moon that we haven't really done a lot of exploring yet so there was a lot of really good science that came out of that and we hope to to build that build on it and expand on it
We also had in the lower right hand corner you can see the the the tissue chip there that's a it's it's an experiment that was done by a company that was a analog to examine how DNA interacted in the space environment so they called it avatar. it was it was actually from the astronauts themselves and it was it was examining how cells can change and and and the effect that that lunar or or cis lunar or space radiation can have on them so that was one of our experiments on the mission you got the crew up there and then then our science officer sitting in mission control
of course the imagery that came out of it is not to be understated as well we caught some incredible views of the eclipse there on the far side of the moon the sun behind it shining through imagery that that we haven't seen for a very long time and certainly not in this this kind of high definition way. and Artemis3 as we said we've got our landers there so we have bluee origins blue moon pathfinder now these may not be they're probably not going to be the full up gold plated you know 100%landers but we're using them
we're getting as far as we can our with our our partners to buy down that risk and so different levels of things will be able to accomplish of course forlue origin it'll be testing out our the rendezvous the docking they're going to have components of that spacecraft and that that lander ready to go to test for for starship it's going to focus a lot on the rendezvous and the docking part of that you can imagine a massive vehicle like Starship in our in our Orion how they interact and how they can they can join in our astronauts can you know can can eventually
get into into the vehicle so those are the two we'll be we'll be testing out on Arus3 right here in arth orbit because before we go to the moon it's about3 days away and before we go out there we want to make sure that it's as much of the the risk we can buy down with these systems with that we can and ahead of ahead of moving that way and so here's a few production shots you can see the SlS Orion crew modulee European service module these are all the components that go into launching an Artemis mission and and launching our our astronauts
of course the core stage is a lot liquid oxygen liquid hydrogen core stage it has four of what you may remember is the shuttle main engines those those RS25 engines that run on liquid oxygen liquid hydrogen. four of them at the bottom of that and then we have a solid boosters as you probably remember very similar to the space shuttle that use those those solid boosters they have an extra segment and so that forms the basis of the space launch system which is our which is our rocket you can see the Orion crew module the heat shield it looks of course very similar to the Apollo
module but it's much bigger and it it can hold4 astronauts versus3 and it's designed for longer duration flight in in the space environment and and much more comfortable as well I shouldn note actually before I move on the thee European service module there that is a contribution from our ISa partners as I said we don't go alone as we do this we go with our international partners our commercial partners and we're grateful to have contributions from European Spaceaggency from the company countries that represent that
as well as uhjacka they're building a pressurized rover for us on the moon the Japanese Space aggency and others and so we're we're grateful for those partnerships So human landing system there that's yeah so you can see kind of the the concept of operation starship SpaceX's vehicle that they're launching out of Boca Chica Florida I'm sorry Boca Chica Texas and eventually Florida umlue origin as well with their lander that's going to go on top of their their new glenn vehicle and all of that is in the direction of helping
us get mass to the surface and build our moon base. and that's that's a great segue because it brings us into talking about the moonbase and you know we have to ask why a moonbase right why is this why why now and why this well before we came before the administrator came in we had a concept of an orbital space station around the moon called the Gateway. it made sense at the time it was created but as we as we progressed with the program and and learned more about what our rivals are looking to do on the moon it just became imperative that the place to be is on the surface
that's where the science is going to happen that's where the explor ation ' s going to happen and that's where we're going to live how learn how to live and work on another world to prepare us as we as we venture further out into the solar ss system and one day hopefully to Mars and so that's the idea about the moon base to be on the surface to build that presence to learn how to live and work on a on a surface of another planet we've done it in low earth orbit for 25 years with the International Space Station we've asked had astronauts in space and in fact you know if you if you talk to young people today those that are that are 25 and under
they've never lived a day in their life without human beings in space all the time aboard theternational Space Station which is kind of cool to think about and so we want to learn how to do that on on the sur surface of another planet on the moon it's three days away it's much closer you know than Mars and and some other destinations so if we can really perfect the trade craft perfect the the the concept of operations and and the way we do that on the moon we can we can extend that further into the solar system now the first phase of that moon base now let's see hold on a 2nd
1st phase of that move I guess we'll get to the phases in a second. The first phase, you know you think about the big crystal dome on the on the surface of the planet that's not necessarily what we're doing at first I mean that's that's kind of the dream state right that's the the sci-y future but but the first iteration of our moon base is gonna be a lot different it's gonna look like a lot of I think maybe a a construction site or a junkyard with a lot of little rovers and landers but we're going to to do that to learn what we need to learn figure out what works what doesn't work and that's going to prepare us to build on and iterate it's it's really as
we as we've kind of recalibrated the arttemis program and and our moonbase thought about how to build the moonbase we're taking a page out of the Apollo playbook right it was they didn't jump straight to Apollo 11 you had so many missions from the first mercury emissions of putting human beings in space and see how they reacted to the microgravity environment toiminy where we learned how to dock and rendezvous and spend longer duration missions in space and then with Apollo testing out the systems that we would eventually build up to with Apollo 11 lunar landing so that talk a little bit about
the Artemis forres so as I said we are stacking the vehicle this year. we're pulling that kind of threeyear cadence into a 10 month cadence is the idea to go with more frequency to launch turnaround turn around the vehicle and the the system's faster thanks to the investment from Congress to allow us to do that and so we're we're going to hit cadence in the future we're also going to bring in our commercial partners that can help us with the launch for for these systems so we'll have hopefully multi multiple vehicles going with cargo and crew and astronauts to maintain that regular cadence
missions to the moon and so we're we're moving with urgency on this as I said we have a real rival with the Chinese. they're they're working on their own moon base they're going to be putting a lunar rover on the surface of the moon probably they were supposed to launch this week it's been delayed I don't know how long but it's it's it's very close and and it's not a guarantee and so that's why we're moving with the urgency and the ter determination and the focus that we are to accomplish this mission so here's the faces of the moonbase you can see kind of phase one is now we have the
clips the commercial lunar payload services those are small landers that are built by largely built by our commercial partners that are taking science payloads or taking technology development payloads and are fairly small investments but with a big purpose of building out kind of that that area and figuring out what works what doesn't work and how do we land on the south pole of the moon so if you think about the Apollo program and what we did with going to the equator of the moon this time we're going to the South Pole that's the strategically advantageous
area that's where the water ice is and those permanently shaded craters on the southpole and so that is the strategic location that we're going to and that our rivals are are trying to get to as well so that first phase of the moonbase it's it's going to look pretty sparse like I said it's it may look a little bit more like a construction site but we're going to use that to build on it to determine what works what doesn't work and and go from there. You look at phase two that's sort of the initial operating capability of regular cadences of missions and and learning how to live and work and then phase three is kind of a much bigger more permanent presence there
but the that's not all we're doing as I said earlier we're getting America underway on nuclear power and propulsion in space. it's a technology that's been in the laboratory for probably 2530 years but we haven't flown a successful mission with it and we're trying to change that right now at NASa we actually repurposed some hardware from one of our missions and from from the gateway actually the that space station and we're going to be putting a nuclear reactor on that and we're going to be sending it to Mars and of course we can't go to Mars without a science payload and we're going to have the sky
fa ll payload which is three ingenuityclass Mars helicopters that will fly down into the Martian atmosphere and scout the surface for potential landing sites in the future and so our belief is with Sr one freedom that first nuclear reactor that first space reactor and the propulsion system that we developed with that that will set us on the path to a nuclear nasa much out of the navy you you know the the much how the navy went to nuclear reactors in the fi0s and and built the nuclear navy under admiral Rickcover.'s what we're we're looking at at NASa the future of the space race is
going to be nuclear because that's how you get to these further destinations into the solar system and so we believe this is the first step towards that we're also going to do lunar reactor one which is a a a a power plant essentially a small reactor on the moon's surface to power the moon base and we're going to learn from those and hopefully be able to to disseminate this out into industry so that our our commercial partners that can then build on that and and we can have many many more missions with those in the future so I think I'll I'll stop there and
I will turn to Kelvin if there's anything you would like to add and I
Kelvin Manning
Unverified
37:00
guess after that we can take some some Q&A. so quickly thanks Joel a lot of times people say well you know why are we doing all this well at the core of NASA's mission we do things for the benefit of us here on earth you you you look at NASA's history you look at all the technology spinoffs the miniaturization of electronics the power that we
hold in ours in our hands with our phones telecommunications with satellitesgPS water purification insulative materials and on and on and on we put out a book every year called NASa Technology spinoffs and that's just part of it and pressing the envelope going to the moon to do that to survi ve that's going to help us learn more to help us here on earth so just want to make that point thanks.
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
37:58
and and you know with a lot of this you know Arkansas is
a you know has a reputation as a you know a rural state and a lot of times this can seem far away. it's it's a distant, right? if there are Arkansas, you know, students or Arkansas residents who want to get involved who want to be in this process. can you can you talk to us about maybe not only with nasa but I know you know as we talked earlier today it's not just NASA
it's Spacex it's bluee origin it's all the other companies that are trying to build the next generation space stations can you talk to us about the the the workforce development piece of it you know what kind of you know where are the shortages? So if I'm if I'm a young person and I want to get involved in this what career should I be looking at? What skills do I need to be developing? can you can you talk about that? Certainly yeah
Speaker 23
39:00
so that's a that's a great question we're going to
Speaker 12
39:03
have a lot of need for for skilled technical workforce and engineering workforce. you know there's there's different pieces to that but you know Arkansas as plays a vital role in in in our workforce development our talent at NASA I think last year we had I think 17 interns from the state of Arkansas spread across all of our NASa centers and so we're proud to have students the breast and brightest from all over the nation come to work on on the nation'space program and be part of what we're doing at NASa through our our office of STEM engagement I think we have
roughly about a bill a million dollars a year that goes into programs such as thepa grant which which is you know help students get involved instem and and mirror up the minority underserved research partnerships and so there are opportunities for a student in school today I would say look over through look look on look and see what kind of technologies are are going to be integral to these missions in the future obviously Bill with the base of engineering rightystems engineering mechanical engineering all of
those those critical engineering kind of skills those are those are always good. those will always be in demand and beyond that like I said we're we're we're trying to to generate a nu cle ar future here at NASA and so if there's any interest that these students have in in nuclear technology that's another promising area and then beyond that of course computing that and that goes far beyond NASA and what we're doing at at the agency but there's so much need for for computer engineers for for students who understand how you know AI works and how machine learning works and and and how
that plays into opportunities to to build things and to develop these missions and so I would say look at those those areas look at the the knees that we have and of course we rely on talent from all of all of those
Kelvin Manning
Unverified
40:47
institutions and across the nation. and we're just looking for people with a passion for space.ertainly you look at the technical skills but we have lawyers everybodydy has lawyers we have lawyers we have HR professionals we have procurement folks that do acquisitions
just as you would expect with any big business those skill sets are required to run a an
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
41:12
agency such as NASa. and and I think Mr mannning one of the things you you talked about
Kelvin Manning
Unverified
41:19
on the astronaut selection was the teamwork aspect. sure when you're picking astronauts and and I can speak from experience because I was on uh3 astronaut selection panels is there's always the the academic experience there's the technical experience but really
at the end of the day what we were looking for were people with the ability to work well with others you know having that skill set having communication skills those will help you in and certainly any
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
41:48
career field. right so at this point we'll go to member questions uhpresentativeladyman you're first sir.
Speaker 48
41:54
thank you Mr Chairman. I'm over here in the corner and over
Representative Jack Ladyman
Unverified
41:58
here well thank y'all for being here and Congressman Hill, thank you for bringing them to Arkansas
appreciate that very much. we need to learn a lot more about this and you know I've got a bunch of questions but I know other people have you're you're talking about two of my favorite subjects nuclear power and space travel. and in Arkansas we're doing a lot with nuclear power we're trying to be one of the leaders and we talked about education so we're trying to set up a program at Arkansas Tech for nuclear engineering because it's it's such a new field it's expanding
and I hadn't even thought about the space program utilizing these small nuclear reactors I suppose it'd be similar to the submarine reactors that we use now which is really old technology but and if we can set up a program where we can have nuclear engineers that focus on those skills and those abilities that you need for that program to develop that technology is there a program or could a program be developed to where we
focus on a I don't know what you would call it space travelgre so we were you develop people's skills not just in engineering I'm an engineer that's my background but not just in that technical area but also in the softer skills that you need to live in a capsule with two other people for six months that takes some soft skills I would imagine so can you develop a program like that to where you you you actually get a degree and and you guys know or
whoever's looking at these folks for astronauts know that they've had that training has that been done or could it be done?
Speaker 46
43:48
I want to say it certainly has not been done and it certainly could be done but
Kelvin Manning
Unverified
43:54
you know currently I I think we we have processes to do that to some extent you know through our when you're interviewing for an astronaut there's the the psychological piece you know there's psychologists that are monitoring the the the astronauts there's the
there's the the aerospace medicine piece but I don't I I I think those skills would be beneficial not just in space flight but you know like you said and and and you know many applications but I don't know just it would be very narrow you know the the number of people that get to be government astronauts any other thoughts Yeah I think a key on the the the
Speaker 23
44:36
piece you're talking about the the nuclear power portion of that. I mean that's not just the nasa
Speaker 12
44:43
need that's something we're seeing across the federal enterprise right now is a sort of nuclear renaissance or or thinking about this technology is available for small modular reactors to make reactors that are smaller lighter weight, more autonomous that can go into different different areas and and in many ways are much safer right in terms of their operation and their their risk cases and and how they how they protect against a bad day it certainly it it bears bears benefits for the space programme and we are trying to take advantage of that work of
course we we have slightly different needs in some cases right you think about the mass quotient and and how heavy we need things to be or or not heavy saving weight as we have to launch and get out of Earth's gravity well and get it to space versus something that may be sitting on the ground but there's a lot of common technology development across those and so I think any any direction or any any program that the university want would want to stand up to focus on nuclear engineering broadly whether it's for space applications whether it's for terrestrial applications I think would be
Representative Jack Ladyman
Unverified
45:45
would be very forward looking well of course you know the cost of nuclear is is the question when we don't know the answer to that but as you build more of the same product you can reduce the cost whether it's for the space program the submar ine s or just for power production so you know we hope that Arkansas is in the game to make these to be in the supply chain for these nuclear plants and I
know that's right now being developed in a lot of states but we we hope that we're in the game and we can make these components like we do now the factories that you mentioned and and continue to be a part of that umpresentativeladyman unfortunately I'm gonna cut you
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
46:29
off right there because these gentlemen have to leave at one o'clock to catch a flight so we've only got 17 minutes left and there's5 other people in the queue so I want to try to give everyone as much of an opportunity to try to ask questions as as possible which I definitely that that's part of the reason why
we're doing this is for that reason. uhpresentative uhRose, you are next sir. Thank
Representative Ryan A. Rose
Unverified
46:53
you Mr Chairman. congressman Hill, Mr. Graham, Mr. Manning, I'm over here on your right thank you so
much for joining us today in the back I this question is for whichever one of you feels best suited to it today I've got my seventh grade daughter here with me who loves outer space loves the moon space travel etc. and Chairman Meeks touched on that a little bit. she's probably turning all
colors are red at the moment being on camera. I just wanted you maybe to speak a little bit to what this means for like this generation of students having space flightpa exploration new things that we haven't seen in decades and just kind of what that means from an educational standpoint and what that means moving forward for this generation. well thank you that is that is a huge point you
Speaker 12
47:41
know I think with Artemis too we saw that I can't remember how many text messages and emails I got
from friends that were just saying hey, I had my whole family around the TV watching the astronauts fly around the moon watching them just interact and do their their mission in the capsule. talking to the camera or or just being you know being there with them right and connecting with them and what they were doing is is as part of the mission you know it's going to translate to a lot more kids dressing up as astronauts for Halloween I think and that's that's not a bad thing at all but it's really important to show the gene the the coming generations that that there is a future in this and they can be part of this and whether that
as Celvin said whether that's as an engineer or a scientist or an astronaut or even as an attorney or a medical professional or or there's so many other needs that that we have to make this enterprise work and so to the extent we can encourage our young people to get involved with that it's it's all the better you know we all we we talk about kind of the Apollo generation I I see what we're what we're having now is the Artemis generation, right? it's it's the kids that are growing up today that are seeing astronauts like Christina Cook and and and astronauts like Victor Glover and Reid Weismsman and Jeremy Hanson and saying you
know what I could, I could be that when I grow up. I could do that and and that is so cool to see you know that is that is something that I'm seeing a renewed interest and excitement around these missions and this program that that we you know we haven't seen for a while so thank you. also want
Representative Ryan A. Rose
Unverified
49:02
to say conman Hill thank you for your work in Congress
and you know making sure that we're on this front and that we're leading on it once again so thank you for that and Representative Mayberry you're next please. over on this side I know it's
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
49:20
hard to find you just hear this mysterious voice coming from somewhere. thanks for being here and you you likely I'm sure you know that agriculture is a huge part of our state's economy and in order to sustain
life you have to have food and so I can't help but kind of just throw a a softball question out to you to to help us understand how what we're exploring in space might help our farmers here in the state of Arkansas you know
what information can they gather from that weather patterns that might make it easier to know when to plant and when to stop planting that type of thing but then also the other way around what opportunity might there be for a farmer right now who has an interest in space but never really connected the two. Is there is there a grant program that might be available to help them tap in to help us figure out how to have food on the moon on the moon I don't know
Speaker 12
50:21
that's a great question I'll I'll take the first part of that and I think Kevin I'll let you answer the the human in space part of it. So NASa we do a lot of a lot of earth science arth observation we have satellites that look at at crops that look at the the water tail predicting droughts that really are focused on agriculture across the country and in fact this week in fact we're doing an ag tour through a couple of different states with our scienceence mission directorate leaders our earth scienceence directorate arthcience division leader really focusing on how is it space and NASA
can be part of part of our farmers and ranchers and and making sure that they have the the tools from space whether it's satellites that you know that look at the fields or or weather sensing or or others that that we can we can help them as
Kelvin Manning
Unverified
51:08
as they do that and we are doing on a small scale a lot of plant research on the ground at the Kennedy Space Center there's something called the APHvanced plant habitat that they built that and it's on the station now
where astronauts can grow greens and peppers but it's fairly on a a limited scale and I would think on a moon base you know we would have to expand that and you know we're always open to new ideas and and how to do things better no particular grants
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
51:41
or anything that our farmers should know about or programs that they should look into specifically I would say I'm
Kelvin Manning
Unverified
51:49
not aware of it doesn't mean it doesn't exist right
Speaker 70
51:54
yeahpresentative Collins you're next sir thank you Mr Chair. So I I'm kind of curious about why
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
52:01
it seems like this is so driven by competition as opposed to cooperation understanding that there kind of have been different eras in space exploration you know obviously it started with competition but then there was the International Space Station and a lot of cooperation and I'm kind of curious is it just that this is where we are in the world where
we can't find cooperation or do we actually think it's better for our interest in the case of the moon to just essentially do our own thing with other partners but not with everyone even though that will mean probably less resource pooling more expenditure of money and you know there are downsides to it as well just kind of curious if you could talk about that. I'll be glad to and I think it really comes down to
Speaker 23
52:50
I mean off the bat we we it is based on cooperation as
Speaker 12
52:55
you alluded to with our international partners we have a strong coalition of countries from across the globe that are partners today we have a a thing called the Artemis ccords in fact, which are sort of a an agreement of of the way that we the concept for for how we interact and how we operate in space and so we have I think70 countries now that have signed on to that those arttemis accords that have said this is our vision for how we want to interact in space and so it is very much built on on cooperation on that in terms of the competition aspect I think it just comes down to
countries that don't necessarily see the world the way we do and and don't have those core beliefs that we have as Americans and and and as as our our partners that are going with us have and so have a very different vision and very different values for how they they see space and how they would how they would want to lead and of course the country that ends up leading is the one that's going to set the expectations and the the assumptions for how how countries operate in space and so it's it's up to us to make sure that the values that we share among our partners among the freedom loving world that we can that we can put those in
space and those are the the values that carry
Speaker 73
54:01
forward. Well and I appreciate that if I could just have a quick follow up
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
54:05
I guess short short short shortt short part of my question is is there something about the moon that makes it better for us to have our own thing with our for example military allies is this a military positioning is that a big part of this? well
Speaker 35
54:18
there's no question that space is a warfighting domain now of course at nasa we are
Speaker 12
54:23
the the civil peaceful exploration and science agency and so we we have partners in our agency partners that focus more on the
national security aspects of that that is to say how however we are leaning into those partnerships so there's a lot of common technology there's a lot of things that that we can work hand in hand with understanding our respective roles and respecting those roles. but we're leaning into the partnerships and so it's a it's a it's a very good relationship that we have and and they're they're two very important parts to the same thing essentially while we we conduct science and we explore and we build out that that presence it's up to our
interagency partners to ensure that that you know the space domain is protected and is
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
55:06
secured and we're under 10 minutes uhpresentative House you're up excuse me hall
Representative Brad Hall
Unverified
55:14
sorry thank you Mr chairir. thank you gentlemen for being
here. I got a question that's kind of curiosity my grandfather was born in 1899 and he he was in the horse and buggy days and and he got to see a man land on the moon. I was
born in 1976 and we will almost be the same age by the time you all land back on the moon for me to actually see that myself what is why is there such a gap there on on what happened to us Thank
Speaker 35
55:48
you. Well that's a that's a good question and understanding our
Speaker 23
55:51
time is a little short I don't know how how full fully we can examine the topic today but you know it comes down to sort of national priorities and
Speaker 12
56:00
it comes down to what the nation deems important and and how much
resources we put put towards that you know in thepa race of the sixties there was this feeling that we did it and we didn't really have a real rival in hindsight the Soviets just weren't there with their program and so we we planted the flag and we said that was that was that and then the American public decided that we're turn our attention elsewhere. of course you know we came up with the the the space shuttle and and access to space and building the Internationalpace Station so it's evolved and we focused on different things over the years. I would also point out too that outside of space if you're looking more broadly at the
advancements certainly we look at at your grandfather and seeing the horse and buggy days to seeing man land on the moon and all of those advancements that took place in that intervening time period of the the Wright brothers' first flight and you know the the advent of the airplane and then going higher and farther and faster and then eventually into space I think we've seen that in in in terms of computing right in terms of the the digital world that we're in now and and so the advancements I would say are no less astounding they're just may be a little bit different but we're we're focusing those resources again because the nation has deemed it a priority
and the American people have decided that this is important for us to do and it's important for us to undertake these missions and so have given us and entrusted us the resources through their representatives in Congress to accomplish these incredible objectives now we've
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
57:18
only got about5 minutes left sopresentative Vra you're next sir. yes sir thank you
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
57:22
guys for being here. I'm gonna make this short but I think it's important remember very well in 1969 when we first landed on the moon you know it was out there and we, we basically were the first
ones to make it there now that we have China involved in this do we have some type of international law that regulates this type of procedure
Speaker 12
57:50
sir. ok yeah yes and no so we do have a treaty actually the oututer Spacereaty of of 1967 is the one that that governs how how countries operate in space, one of the provisions in there is that countries cannot claim sovereignty over over celestial bodies including the moon and so it's not as
though when we plant a flag or if anyone else plants a flag that is our territory and we can you know tax it and assess it and and claim it and do all those things that you would do with terri t ory that is your sovereign territory so the the the treaty governs that however within that construct within that framework, there's a lot of room to maneuver and when it comes down to it you can just imagine just just logic would dictate that I if I have a moon lander or a rover in a certain part of the moon or on Mars or somewhere that's somewhere that I would
really prefer another country not come just for the safety of that of that asset and the the safety of potential if they're astronauts there and so there's there's things that you can expect to see in terms of maybe safety safety rules safety zones and and so it just comes down to really occupying the space and and and being there to take the mean the good parking spots if you want to put it that way right? because it's it's in a given area a square area on the on the surface of the moon it's either us or someone else and so we want to make sure that
Speaker 44
59:09
that it's us OK Senator Johnson you're next
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
59:13
thank you Mr Chairman and thank you Mr Manning and Mr Graham Congressman Hill I'm following up on uhpresentative rie's question many years ago we had laws of the sea and and rules of navigation the Chinese have kind of fudged on that a little bit they've gone to South China Sea and seen a a coral reef and started dumping rocks and dirt
on it and next thing you know there's an airstrip and a and basically a military installation so I'm wondering is part of our motivation of of speeding this up to keep them from doing the same thing on the other side of the moon that they did in the South China Sea and if so is it more or less if we get there first it's sort of a possession is 910 of the law type thing could you elaborate on that I can and it actually it goes back to the the point your
Speaker 12
1:00:10
colleague made about the values and about you know who who who is there is the one that sets the tone who leads is the one who sets the the norms and expectations and that that's really what it comes down to I mean I I would fully expect that if if our rivals got there and and and established their base we would see something very similar to what we've seen here on earth, right? in terms of how they treat that so it's imperative that we that we win the space race this this kind of space race 2.0 that we're in that we can establish the the norms and the values and the
expectations that that we have put forth with our partners through the Artemis acccords right these these assumption expectations for operation in space and the values that we have stated in terms of how our vision for exploration how countries interact in that carries forward and so it it it very much comes down that is very much part of the motivation is is is the country that leads in space will have so much you know so much impact on that and it also has real repercussions on arth, you know it goes back to a point our administrator made the other day which is if we fail in this
if we if we lose out to our strategic rivals and we fall way behind and are not able to accomplish these objectives it's going to lead to others starting to ask questions what else is America not capable of? What are what are other things that America says they can do that they can't do and it's going to lead to other nations that are not our friends pushing us and
Speaker 23
1:01:31
it's going to have real real repercussions here on earth and so winning in space trans late s to winning on earth and that's what we're about. and then last in the queue uhpresent representative
Representative Justin Gonzales
Unverified
1:01:44
gonzalez, you are up thank you thank you for being here former science teacher and I'm gonna piggyback over aspresentative meeks's question in terms of workforce preparation. I'm thinking forward forward thinking in terms of degrees for preparedness from the middle schooler all the way to high school and beyond and you mentioned several different technologies systems engineering nuclear technology et c you didn't you did not mention aerospace engineering and the
reason I bring that up is because we at this time I do not think we have a degree like bachelor's but we have some certificate programs and so I just wanted to ask you you know recommendations in terms of as we move forward and we do more of this kind of work of workforce and ensuring that our workforce is prepared er yeah I'll that that's a great point and
Speaker 12
1:02:37
and certainly didn't mean to exclude that that is an important one and it's it's very much a part of what we're doing and and beyond the
engineering and the technical I appreciate that you brought up your science teacher. you're actually about to launch our next great scienceence observatory the Nancy GraceRoman Space telescope that's going up this weekend which will unlock the secrets of the universe in in ways that we haven't seen before it's a follow on the hubble that has much greater time the scan rate, much greater time the field of view and it's going to be our next great instru ment of of science and discovery and so you know we we need students focusing on that on that as well I mean if if you have a student in school that says gee I'd really like to be part of what NASA's doing whether it's an astrophysics or
astronomy or planetary science or any of those other things that's that's just as important as what we're doing on the human spaceflight side and what we're doing with the engineering and the and the technical and so we're we're certainly going to need that as well. you know, I can remember a few years ago we unveiled the images from James Webb and for those of us that remember Hubble what a magnitude increase in resolution and fidelity and and just the wow factor those photos those those images brought I think we're about to see something very similar with Nancy Grace roman. there'll be
those of us that you know people that remember the other telescopes and go this is incredible and it's the next great leap and we're not stopping there. we actually have a nuclear powered octoopter, a a drone that's going to a moon of Saturn called Titan. The mission's called Dragonfly and it's going to fly around the surface and it may end up unlocking the key to to to other other life in the solar system. we don't know but what an incredible discovery that would be and so that's one of our next missions that's launching in 2028. we're working with the Johnshopkins Applied physics lab on that one
and then we're also down the road working on missions called habitable worlds which really get to are there other places in our universe that could harbor life like arth does and so these are the incredible science missions that we're planning at NASa and we're going to need strong talent to be a part of
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
1:04:37
those. right so our our time is pretty much come
and gone but gentlemen we appreciate y'all so much for for being here and hopefully one of the takeaways you have is that Arkansas is definitely interested in being a part of this we want to help you
grow and to be successful in in where where we're going. do you gentlemen have any closing comments congressman
Speaker 8
1:05:02
any closing comments before we I just would add on the national security point Senator Cotton and conman Crawford and I all serve on the house and senate intelligenceittees and spaces is an incredible important space intelligence asset but also I think that migration of activity on earth to space has huge
ramifications so two final points from my point of view one uhellon Musk for example has talked about moving data center computational activity to the moon powered by renewable energy in order to get the highest speed and the up and down speed from space and BEI is part of that in terms of communication through a laser technology is critically important and finally on national security we declassified just over I guess two years ago now that
the Russians have a nuclear weapon in space is our concern they have an entity that's has the capacity to have a nuclear weapon that was declassified that's against the space conventions where there is a we have a space treaty that both China and I guess China is not a signature are they are they I don't think they are but Russia is to not have nuclear weapons in space and so this conversion of having a dominant position I think is very important to the host security of the homeland
of the United States to do both have that commercialization capability like Elon's talking about on generating machine learning in space at a lower cost and less intrusion and have a strong national security footing there and I want to thank the members for the invitation for NASa to be with you today and I yield back Any any parting words of wisdom for us or to tell
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
1:06:47
us your your thoughts on your visit to Arkansas today. Well no thank you Mr Chairman it's it's been an
Speaker 12
1:06:53
honor and a privilege to talk to y'all and have this conversation today we appreciate
Speaker 44
1:06:58
the interest and we look forward to remaining in great partnership with Arkansas as we as we
Kelvin Manning
Unverified
1:07:06
accomplish these objectives. and thank you very much for allowing us to be here and to speak and my final comment on the moon some characterize it as the eighth continent the ultimate high ground as well so from a strategic importance we've got to get to the moon before the Chinese do. And I think I speak for every member of the general assembly. we
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
1:07:24
look forward to the day when we see the firstar hands and stepping
foot on the moon and hopefully hopefully there to to to to stay. colleagues we got one piece of business we do need to cover without objection the minutes from the last meeting will be considered approved seeing no objections we'll consider those approved having no further business we are adjourned
Agenda
A. Call to Order
B. Consideration to Approve the October 20, 2025, Meeting Minutes [Exhibit B]
C. Discussion of Lunar Base Program by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
D. Other Business
E. Adjournment
Documents
Speakers
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
Speaker 6
Speaker 8
Speaker 12
Kelvin Manning
Unverified
Speaker 23
Speaker 27
Speaker 28
Speaker 35
Speaker 48
Representative Jack Ladyman
Unverified
Speaker 46
Representative Ryan A. Rose
Unverified
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
Speaker 70
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
Speaker 73
Representative Brad Hall
Unverified
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
Speaker 44
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
Representative Justin Gonzales
Unverified