Education Committee - Senate and House Meeting Jointly with Advanced Communications and Information
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Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
5:30
Colleagues, if everybody wants to settle in, we'll start here in a minute.
Okay, good afternoon everyone, I'd like to welcome you to the joint meeting of the Advanced Communications
Information Technology and the Education Committee's meeting jointly. Colleagues, as you 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 velcro 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 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? NASA 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 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 Little Rock Chamber of Commerce, and we had officials from higher ed, the Air Force, the business community. We had a real good meeting this morning
with 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 1 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, Madeline.
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 going to go down to the table in front, the man who really probably needs no
introduction. But Congressman Hill, I'll let you introduce yourself and any opening remarks you
Speaker 6
8:39
might have, and then I'll let you introduce our guest. Well, Chairman Meeks and members, thank you so much for
Speaker 8
8:45
welcoming us to the 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, increase 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 in American history.
This morning, as the chairman said, we were out at BEI in Maumelle, which has been for 60 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 July 1969 to see Eagle Scout Neil Armstrong make his famous statement on the moon. And now a new generation is experiencing 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 NASA with us. Joel Graham is with us, who is in intergovernmental and legislative affairs.
Therefore, he's delighted to meet all of you as state legislators here in the state of Arkansas. And Kelvin Manning is here, who is the deputy associate administrator for NASA that's focused on human spaceflight. They're both going to 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. It's an honor and a pleasure to be here.
Speaker 12
11:08
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 as an industry role as well. I have to say, I'm kind of getting back to my roots here. I actually started in the Georgia legislature a while ago, and so before moving to D.C. and doing the federal work, so it's good to be back in a statehouse in a state legislative setting. It's kind of where I cut my teeth, so it's cool. As he said, we are doing big things at NASA,
obviously building on the legacy of Apollo 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 humongous undertaking. It's one that we rely on suppliers from all over the country, including right here in Arkansas. And as he mentioned, today we were over at BEI Precision in Maumelle to see the optical encoders that they make 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 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 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 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 underway on nuclear power and propulsion in space with SR-1 Freedom that we anticipate launching in 2028. It's going to be a nuclear-powered space mission. We're repurposing 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 stage for our transition to what we're calling the nuclear NASA, to realize that 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 science, for exploration, for astronauts eventually to go beyond the moon. But we've got to do that first step. We've got to get to the moon. We've got to build the moon base. Unlike in the space race of the 60s, we actually have real competition this time. We have a rival with the Chinese that are making aggressive moves toward building a moon base of their own.
They're calling it the International Lunar Research Station, and they've partnered with countries like Russia to build that. And so in doing so, we have to make sure that we are there, that we can establish our presence, that we can go with our international partners, think of the Europeans, the Japanese, and others, the Canadians, and 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 America and our allies have a presence on the moon
and we can build our moon base and we can occupy 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, D.C. And so it will be a real race to see who is the preeminent space power that can occupy that surface of the moon. And in doing so, gain access to the resources like the water ice that we find in those permanently shaded regions. And that's Space Race 2.0, 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 has made decisions and how we've pursued these goals in the past.
We may not have felt the pressure of a real competitor, but we do have a real competitor. And so we're moving with urgency. We're moving 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 win this space race. And as I mentioned with the nuclear, that's Space Race 3.0. 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 spacefaring nation and space power well into the future. So with that, I'll turn it over to Kelvin.
Kelvin Manning
Unverified
14:59
Well, thank you, Joel, and good afternoon. It is a pleasure to be here. My name is Kelvin Manning. I'm currently serving as the Deputy Associate Administrator for All Human Space Flight, a position I'm relatively new in. I've been at the Kennedy Space Center for over 30 years. On my last position there, I 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. Arkansas can be a huge player in this.
We're looking for contributions not only from government, but from industry and academia. The partnerships that you have in this 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 in 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 that strong foundation to study hard in school and to get to where I am today, and I think there's somebody in a classroom 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 also to do to inspire the next generation. So thank you. You go back, Mr. Chairman.
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
16:35
And I think, you know, one of the important points 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 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 all kind of elaborate on that a little bit? And then I think you have a presentation for us, correct? Okay, and then we'll let you get into the presentation.
Kelvin Manning
Unverified
17:06
Certainly. So think a bit if you were 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 Earth, if it's an orbiting space station or if it's a lunar outpost, You just scale it up, and you build on that technology. So just a valve that's rated for spacecraft, that's something that, you know, multiple companies can build.
Speaker 23
17:43
Yep, and we have a little bit of a presentation. We can start
Speaker 27
17:51
off with a video, if that's okay, Mr. Chairman. Good luck. Godspeed,
Speaker 28
18:00
Artemis II. Let's go. For 10 days, the world watched in awe as Artemis II went higher and farther than any humans in history. Today, you've made history and made all of America really proud. For 10 days, Reed, Victor, Christina, 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 miles per hour before deploying parachutes and splashing down in the Pacific. And we're just getting started. Welcome to the Artemis Generation.
Speaker 23
18:49
well there you have it um artemis 2 this year i'm sure everyone heard about it at least or saw it or maybe tuned in for the mission uh captivated the world's attention and uh
Speaker 12
19:01
you know i was saying 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 uh just every american rallied around us and the mission and what we're doing and why it's important. And so we're building on top of that. So that's Artemis II. That was this year. We're
actually going to have the crew in Houston this Friday presenting the Congressional Space Model of Honor the President will be, which will be a great honor for them and recognizing that incredible achievement. But we're not stopping there. We're actually beginning to stack Artemis III, which is the next mission in series. And so we have recalibrated that mission. Originally, that was supposed to be a moon landing, but, you know, when we were looking at it and when the Administrator Isaacman came in, examined the plan and said, you know, we can't accept that kind
of a risk jumping from a lunar flyby on Armas 2 to a landing on 3, 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 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 1 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
much more frequent flight cadence. And so that's what we're doing. We're taking a three-month window and we're basically doing it 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 schedule forward. And it's thanks in large part to the investments that Congress made in the Working Families Tax Cut Act and the Reconciliation Bill, that $10 billion for NASA that went into our ability to do this and to do it with more frequency. So we're beginning to stack that mission toward the end of this year,
and Kelvin can talk a little bit more about that in detail. But that will be a mission to Earth 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 60s, 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 right there on the mission with us,
and they're right there working to the same goal to these national missions 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 uh next year it'll be rendezvousing with our landers in low earth orbit and we're going to test those systems and learn about them to buy down that risk ahead of what we want to do in in 2028 which is artemis 4 uh to put american astronauts on the moon for the first time in over 50 years it's exciting it's part of uh 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 previous role, I worked on Capitol Hill over on the Senate side, and we saw that take shape in terms of the space policy directive one to say go to the moon 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 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 Artemis III mission, and so I'll play that for you. Thank you.
Speaker 35
23:59
All right, perfect. All right, so, yeah, just a little bit about Artemis.
Speaker 12
24:30
This is the cadence that we're planning on. So we've done Artemis I. That was the first mission, the uncrewed test flight of the space launch system and the Orion capsule. We flew it uncrewed around and came back. And then Artemis II, of course, you saw that this year. Artemis III, we're going next year with those four astronauts to test out our landers in low-Earth orbit to buy down that risk, as I said, ahead of our landing. And then Artemis IV, that will be the first landing on the surface, And we're working toward 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 as we do so. And then Artemis 5 and beyond, that's building the moon base. That's the stay part. That's as we build our presence with our partners on the lunar surface to conduct science, to conduct research, to explore that part of the moon, to get the water ice that we find in the craters on the permanently shaded regions on the South Pole, that is the strategically important location. And we couldn't do this without our partners. As we were talking about, right here in the state of Arkansas,
we have three companies that support the Artemis mission. In fact, as I was saying, we visited one today that makes the optical encoders that go 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 II as 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 components and the parts and the systems that go 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 mission cadence. Of course, it was a launch. 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 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 coloration, about what 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 build on it and expand on it. We also had, in the lower right-hand corner, you can see the tissue chip there. It's an experiment that was done by a company that was analog to examine how DNA interacted in the space environment.
So they called it Avatar. It was actually from the astronauts themselves, and it was examining how cells can change and the effect that lunar or cislunar or space radiation can have on them. So that was one of our experiments on the mission. You've got the crew up there and 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 we haven't seen for a very long time,
and certainly not in this kind of high-definition way. And Artemis III, as we said, we've got our landers there, so we have Blue 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 with our partners to buy down that risk, And so different levels of things we'll be able to accomplish. Of course, for Blue Origin, it'll be testing out the rendezvous, the docking. They're going to have components of that spacecraft and that lander ready to go to test.
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 and Orion, how they interact and how they can join and our astronauts can eventually get into the vehicle. So those are the two we'll be testing out on Artemis III right here in Earth orbit because before we go to the moon, it's about three days away, and before we go out there, we want to make sure that as much of the risk we can buy down with these systems that we can ahead of moving that way.
And so here's a few production shots. You can see the SLS Orion crew module, European service module. These are all the components that go into launching an Artemis mission and launching our astronauts. Of course, the core stage is a liquid oxygen, liquid hydrogen core stage. It has four of what you may remember as the shuttle main engines, those RS-25 engines that run on liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen, four of them at the bottom of that. And then we have solid boosters, as you probably remember, very similar to the space shuttle that use those solid boosters.
They have an extra segment, and so that forms the basis of the space launch system, 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 can hold four astronauts versus three, and it's designed for longer-duration flight in the space environment and much more comfortable as well. I should note, actually, before I move on, the European service module there. That is a contribution from our ESA 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 the European Space Agency, from the countries that represent that, as well as JAXA. They're building a pressurized rover for us on the moon, the Japanese Space Agency, and others. And so we're grateful for those partnerships. So human landing system there. Yeah, so you can see kind of the concept of operations, Starship, SpaceX's vehicle that they're launching out of Boca Chica, Florida.
I'm sorry, Boca Chica, Texas, and eventually Florida. Blue Origin as well with their lander that's going to go on top of 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 a great segue because it brings us into talking about the moon base. And, you know, we have to ask why a moon base, right? Why is this? Why now and why this? Well, 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 progressed with the program 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 exploration is going to happen, and that's where we're going to learn how to live and work on another world to prepare us as we venture further out into the solar 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 surface of another planet.
We've done it in low Earth orbit for 25 years with the International Space Station. We've had astronauts in space. And, in fact, you know, if you talk to young people today, those that are 25 and under, they've never lived a day in their life without human beings in space all the time aboard the International Space Station, which is kind of cool to think about. And so we want to learn how to do that on the surface of another planet. uh on the moon it's three days away it's much closer uh you know than mars and some other destinations so if we can really perfect the tradecraft perfect the uh the the concept of
operations 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 let's see hold on a second first 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-fi future but but the first iteration of our moon base is going to be a lot different it's going to look like a lot of a I think maybe 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 to figure out what works what doesn't work and that's going to prepare us to build on and iterate uh it's it's really as we as we've kind of recalibrated the Artemis program and our moon base thought about how to build the moon base 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 missions of putting human beings in space and see how they reacted to the microgravity environment to Gemini 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 4 progress so as I said we are stacking the vehicle this year we're pulling that kind of three-year cadence into a 10-month cadence is the idea to go with more frequency to launch turn around turn around the vehicle and the the systems faster thanks to the investment from Congress to allow us to do that and so 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 uh for for these systems
so we'll have hopefully multi multiple vehicles going uh with cargo and crew and astronauts uh to maintain that regular cadence emissions to the moon and so 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 um 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 uh but it's it's it's very close and uh and it's not a guarantee and so that's why we're moving with the urgency and the determination and the focus that we are to accomplish this mission so here's the phases
of the moon base you can see kind of phase one is now we have uh 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 south pole and so that is the strategic location that we're going to and that our rivals are trying to get to as well so that first phase of the moon base, it's going to look pretty sparse. Like I said, 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 go from there. You look at phase two, that's sort of the initial operating capability of regular cadences of missions and learning how to live and work, and then phase three is kind of a
much bigger, more permanent presence there. But 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 25, 30 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 the gateway, actually, to 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 Skyfall payload, which is three Ingenuity-class 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-1 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 how the Navy went to nuclear reactors in the 50s and built the nuclear Navy under Admiral Rickover, that's what 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 1, which is 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 disseminate this out into industry so that our commercial partners can then build on that and we can have many, many more missions with those in the future. So I think I'll stop there.
And I will turn to Kelvin if there's anything you would like to add. And I guess after
Kelvin Manning
Unverified
36:55
that we can take 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 look at NASA's history, you look at all the technology spinoffs, the miniaturization of electronics.
The power that we hold in our hands with our phones, telecommunications with satellites, GPS, 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 survive, that's going to help us learn more.
to help us here on earth so just want to make that
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
37:53
point thanks 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 distant right um 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 blue origin it's all the other uh companies that are trying to build the next generation space stations can you talk to us about the the the um workforce development piece of it you know what kind of uh you know where are the shortages so if i'm a 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 um can you can you talk about that
Speaker 23
38:53
certainly yeah so that's uh that's a great question um we're going to have a
Speaker 12
38:58
lot of need for for skilled technical workforce and engineering workforce um you know there's there's different pieces to that but you know arkansas plays a vital role 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 the
Nation Space Program and be part of what we're doing at NASA. Through our Office of STEM Engagement, I think we have roughly about a million dollars a year that goes into programs such as the Space Grant, which helps students get involved in STEM and mirror up the minority underserved research partnerships and so there are opportunities for a student in school today I would say look over the look look on look and see what kind of technologies are are going to be integral to these missions in the future obviously build with the base of engineering
right systems 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 trying to generate a nuclear future here at NASA. And so if there's any interest that these students have in nuclear technology, that's another promising area. And then beyond that, of course, computing. And that goes far beyond NASA and what we're doing at the agency. But there's so much need for computer engineers, for students who understand how AI works and how machine learning works
and how that plays into opportunities to build things and to develop these missions. And so I would say look at those areas, look at the needs that we have. And, of course, we rely on talent from all of those institutions and across
Kelvin Manning
Unverified
40:42
the nation. And we're just looking for people with a passion for space. Certainly you look at the technical skills, but we have lawyers. Everybody 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 an agency such
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
41:07
as NASA. And I think, Mr. Manning, one of the things you talked about on the
Kelvin Manning
Unverified
41:14
astronaut selection was the teamwork aspect. Sure. When you're picking astronauts, and I can speak from experience because I was on three astronaut selection panels, is there's always 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 certainly any career
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
41:43
field. All right. So at this point, we'll go to member questions. Representative Ladyman, you're first,
Speaker 48
41:49
sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm over here in the corner over here.
Representative Jack Ladyman
Unverified
41:53
Well, thank you all for being here. And Congressman Hill, thank you for bringing them to Arkansas.
I appreciate that very much. We need to learn a lot more about this. And I've got a bunch of questions, but I know other people have. 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 such a new field, it's expanding,
and I hadn't even thought about the space program utilizing these small nuclear reactors. I suppose they'd be similar to the submarine reactors that we use now, which is really old technology. 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 where we focus on a, I don't know what you would call it, space travel degree?
So where you develop people's skills, not just in engineering, I'm an engineer, it'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 actually get a degree 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
Speaker 46
43:43
it be done? I want to say it certainly has not been done,
Kelvin Manning
Unverified
43:49
and it certainly could be done, but, you know, currently I think we have processes to do that to some extent, you know, through our, when you're interviewing for an astronaut, there's the psychological piece, you know, there's psychologists that are monitoring the astronauts, there's the aerospace medicine piece,
But I don't – I think those skills would be beneficial not just in space flight, but, you know, like you said, in, you know, many applications. And I don't know, just it would be very narrow, you know, the number of people that get to be government astronauts. Yeah, thanks. Any other thoughts? Yeah, I think – I'll key on the
Speaker 23
44:31
piece you're talking about, the nuclear power portion of that. I mean, that's not just a NASA need.
Speaker 12
44:38
That's something we're seeing across the federal enterprise right now
is this sort of nuclear renaissance or thinking about as technology is available for small modular reactors to make reactors that are smaller, lighter weight, more autonomous, that can go into different areas and in many ways are much safer, right, in terms of their operation and their risk cases and how they protect against a bad day. It certainly bears benefits for the space program, and we are trying to take advantage of that work. Of course, we have slightly different needs in some cases, right?
You think about the mass quotient and how heavy we need things to be 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 direction or any program that the university 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 very forward-looking.
Representative Jack Ladyman
Unverified
45:42
Well, of course, you know, the cost of nuclear is the question, and 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, submarines, 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 hope that we are in the game and we can make these components like we do now, the factories that you mentioned, and continue to be a part of that.
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
46:23
Representative Lederman, unfortunately, I'm going to cut you off right there because these gentlemen have to leave at 1 o'clock to catch a flight. So we've only got 17 minutes left, and there's five other people in the queue. So I want to try to give everyone as much of an opportunity to try to ask questions as possible, which definitely that's part of the reason why we're doing this is for that reason. Representative Rose, you are next, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Congressman
Representative Ryan A. Rose
Unverified
46:48
Hill, Mr. Graham, Mr. Manning, I'm over here on your right. Thank you so much for joining us today in the back.
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, et cetera. And Chairman Meeks touched on that a little bit. She's probably turning all colors of 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 flight, space 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.
Speaker 12
47:35
Well, thank you. That is a huge point. You know, I think with Artemis II, 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 mission in the capsule, talking to the camera or just being, you know, being there with them, right, and connecting with them and what they were doing 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 not a bad thing at all. But it's really important to show the coming generations that there is a future in this
and they can be part of this. And whether that, as Kelvin said, whether that's as an engineer or a scientist or an astronaut or even as an attorney or a medical professional, or there are so many other needs 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 all the better. You know, we talk about kind of the Apollo generation. I see what we're having now is the Artemis generation, right? It's the kids that are growing up today that are seeing astronauts like Christina Cook and astronauts like Victor Glover and Reed Wiseman and Jeremy Hansen and saying,
you know what, I could be that when I grow up. I could do that. And that is so cool to see. That is something that I'm seeing a renewed interest and excitement around these missions and this program that we haven't seen for a while. So thank you. I also
Representative Ryan A. Rose
Unverified
48:57
want to say, Congressman Hill, thank you for your work
in Congress and making sure that we're on this front and that we're leading on it once again. So thank you for that. Representative Mayberry, you're next. Over on this side.
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
49:14
I know it's hard to find. You just hear this mysterious voice coming from somewhere. Thanks for being here, and 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 softball question out to you 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, 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 a grant program that might be available to help them tap in to help us figure out how to have food on moon, on the moon? I don't know.
Speaker 12
50:16
That's a great question. I'll take the first part of that, and I think, Kevin, I'll let you answer the human in space part of it. So NASA, we do a lot of earth science, earth observation. We have satellites that look at crops that look at 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 science mission directorate leaders, our earth science directorate, earth science division leader, really focusing on how is it space and NASA can be part of our farmers and ranchers
and making sure that they have the tools from space, whether it's satellites that look at the fields or weather sensing or others, that we can help them as they do
Kelvin Manning
Unverified
51:03
that. And we are doing on a small scale a lot of plant research on the ground. At the Kennedy Space Center, there was something called the APH, Advanced 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 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 how
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
51:36
to do things better. No particular grants or anything that our farmers should know about or programs that they should
Kelvin Manning
Unverified
51:44
look into specifically. I would say I'm not aware of it doesn't mean it doesn't
Speaker 70
51:50
exist. Thank you. Representative Collins, you're next, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I'm kind of curious
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
51:56
about why 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'd be glad to
Speaker 23
52:45
and I think it really comes down to I mean off the bat we it is based on cooperation as you
Speaker 12
52:52
alluded to with our international partners we have a strong coalition of countries from across the globe that are partners today. We have a thing called the Artemis Accords, in fact, which are sort of an agreement of the way that we, the concept for how we interact and how we operate in space. And
so we have, I think, 70 countries now that have signed on to those Artemis Accords that have said, this is our vision for how we want to interact in space. And so it is very much built 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 don't have those core beliefs that we have as Americans and as our partners that are going with us have. And so have a very different vision and very different values for how they see space and 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 assumptions for how countries operate in space. And so it's up to us to make that the values that we share among our partners, among the freedom-loving world, that we can put those in space. And those are the values that carry forward. And I appreciate
Speaker 73
53:56
that. If I could just have a quick follow-up, I guess. Short, short,
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
54:00
short. Short, 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?
Speaker 35
54:13
Well, there's no question that space is a warfighting domain now. Of
Speaker 12
54:18
course, at NASA, we are the Civil, Peaceful Exploration and Science Agency. And so we have partners, interagency partners, that focus more on the national security aspects of that. That is to say, however, we are leaning into those partnerships. There's a lot of common technology. There's a lot of things 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 very good relationship that we have,
and there are two very important parts to the same thing, essentially. While we conduct science and we explore and we build out that presence, it's up to our interagency partners to ensure that, you know, the space domain is protected and is secured. Okay, we're
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
55:01
under 10 minutes. Representative House, you're up. Excuse me, Hall, sorry. Thank you,
Representative Brad Hall
Unverified
55:09
Mr. Chair. uh thank you gentlemen for being here uh
i got a question it's kind of curiosity uh my grandfather
was born in 1899 and he uh he was in the horse and buggy days and and he got to see uh man land on the moon um 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 you well that's
Speaker 35
55:43
a that's a good question and uh understanding our
Speaker 23
55:47
time is a little short i don't know how how full uh fully we can examine the topic today but uh you know it comes down to sort
Speaker 12
55:55
of national priorities and it comes down to what the nation deems important and and how much resources we put put towards that um you know in the space race of the 60s 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 planted the flag and we said that was that and then the American public decided that we're turning our attention elsewhere. Of course you know we came up with the space shuttle and access to space and building the International Space
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 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 Wright brothers' first flight and, you know, 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 terms of computing, right, in terms of the digital world that we're in now. And so the advancements, I would say, are no less astounding.
They're just maybe a little bit different. But 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. Okay. We've
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
57:13
only got about five minutes left. So, Representative Brey, you're next, sir. Yes, sir.
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
57:17
Thank you guys for being here. I'm going to 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 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
57:45
sir? Okay, yes and no. So we do have a treaty, actually the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 is the one that governs how countries operate in space.
One of the provisions in there is that countries cannot claim sovereignty 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 tax it and assess it and claim it and do all those things that you would do with territory that is your sovereign territory. So 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 logic would dictate that if I have a moon lander or a rover in a certain part of the moon or on Mars or somewhere,
uh 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 there are astronauts there uh and so there's there's things that you can expect to see in terms of maybe safety safety rules safety zones um and so it just comes down to really occupying the space and and and being there to take the I mean the good parking spots if you want to put it that way right um because it's it's in a given area uh square area on the on the surface of the moon it's either us or someone else and so we want to
Speaker 44
59:03
make sure that uh that it's us okay senator johnson you're
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
59:08
next thank you mr chairman and thank you mr manning and mr graham congressman hill um i'm following up on representative rise question uh many years ago we had laws of the sea and and rules of navigation uh the chinese have kind of fudged on that a little bit they've gone to the south china sea and seen 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 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 to see and uh if so uh is it more or less if we get there first it's sort of a uh possession is nine-tenths of the law type thing could you elaborate on that i can and it
Speaker 12
1:00:02
actually it goes back to the the point your colleague made about the values and about um you know who who who is
there is the one that sets the tone who leads is the one who sets the uh the norms and expectations and that that's really what it comes down to i mean i i would fully expect that uh if if our arrivals got there and and established their base we would see something very similar to what we've seen here on earth right um in terms of how they treat that uh so it's imperative that we that we win the space race this this kind of space race 2.0 that we're in um 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 accord right these these um assumptions 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 very much comes down, that is very much part of the motivation, is the country that leads in space will have so much impact on that. And it also has real repercussions on Earth. It goes back to a point our administrator made the other day, which is if we fail in this, 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, well, what else is America not capable of? 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
Speaker 23
1:01:26
our friends pushing us, and it's going to have real repercussions here on Earth. And so winning in space translates to winning on Earth, and that's what we're about. And
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
1:01:35
then last in the queue, Representative Gonzalez, you are up. Thank you. Thank you for being here.
Representative Justin Gonzales
Unverified
1:01:42
I'm a former science teacher, and I'm going to piggyback over Representative Meeks' question in terms of workforce preparation. I'm thinking 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 cetera. 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 bachelors, 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, workforce, ensuring that our workforce is prepared. Certainly, yeah. That's
Speaker 12
1:02:32
a great point. And certainly didn't mean to exclude that. that is an important one, and it's very much a part of what we're doing. And beyond the engineering and the technical, I appreciate that you brought up your science teacher. We're actually about to launch our next great science observatory, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, that's going
up this weekend, which will unlock the secrets of the universe in ways that we haven't seen before. It's a follow-on to the Hubble. It has much greater time, the scan rate, much greater time, the field of view, and it's going to be our next great instrument of science and discovery. And so, You know, we need students focusing on that as well. I mean, 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 in astrophysics or astronomy or planetary science or any of those other things, 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 technical. And so 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 just the wow factor those photos, those images brought. I think we're about to see something very similar with Nancy Grace Roman. There will be those of us, 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 octocopter, 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 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 Johns Hopkins 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 Earth does.
And so these are the incredible science missions that we're planning at NASA. and we're going to need strong talent
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
1:04:32
to be a part of those all right so 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 we're going do you gentlemen have any closing comments congressman any closing comments before we i just would add on the national security
Speaker 8
1:04:58
point uh senator cotton and congressman crawford and i all serve on the house and senate intelligence committees and space is an incredible important space uh intelligence asset but also um i think that migration of activity on earth to space has huge ramifications so two final points from my point of view. One, Elon 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 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 has the capacity to have a nuclear weapon. That was declassified. That's against the space conventions where we have a space treaty that both China and I guess
China is not a signature, 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 whole 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.
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
1:06:42
Any parting words of wisdom for us or to tell us your thoughts on your visit to Arkansas
Speaker 12
1:06:48
today? Well, no, thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's been an honor and a privilege to talk to you all and have this conversation
Speaker 44
1:06:54
today. We appreciate the interest, and we look forward to remaining in great partnership with
Kelvin Manning
Unverified
1:07:01
Arkansas as we 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
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
1:07:19
do. I think I speak for every member of the General Assembly. We look forward to the day when we see the first Arkansans stepping foot on the moon and hopefully there to stay. Colleagues, we've 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