Remarks of Dan Goldin, FY 2001 Budget Press Conference

Good afternoon . . .

I’m a rational engineer. But the video you just saw paints the real
side of America’s space program: the emotional side, the human
side. That’s the side that motivates us at NASA, but we all know it’s
the numbers that fuel our vision.

The numbers and facts we are unveiling today will not only help
revolutionize the space program, but it will also help develop the
technologies essential to America’s future.

As we do that, we will instill new pride and rekindle the spirit of
America — like what we just saw in the video from the Mars team as
Pathfinder successfully landed.

Just last week, I met with a handful of reporters. One of the first
questions was, “What can you tell us about the 2001 budget?”

All I could say was, “Look at the smile on my face.”

Today, I can tell you why.

With this budget we will take on revolutionary new missions, like
Living with a Star and the Small Aircraft Transportation System.
We will take the next steps toward a permanent human presence in
space.

And we will build on our exciting missions to understand our planet,
our solar system, and our universe.
Over the past seven years, we were challenged to operate more
safely, more efficiently and at higher levels of performance. The
NASA team delivered and will continue to improve.

For the first time in seven years, the NASA budget is going up — $435
million in 2001.

In 2005, the budget will be $2 billion higher than this year’s budget.
For this, all of us at NASA would like to thank the President, the Vice
President, OMB Director Jack Lew and our friends in the Congress.
In a way, this process started last year when thousands of Americans
called, wrote, and emailed support for their space program.
What do these increases mean?

Today we take the next major step in decreasing our involvement in
operations and increasing our investment in cutting-edge R&D.
The best indicator of this change is how we balance our human
space flight with our science and aerospace technology investments.
Over the past decade, our science and aerospace technology
investment went from 31 to 41 percent of our budget.

In the next five years, we will raise our investment to 51 percent.
However, we will never compromise safety — it’s our number one
priority. That’s why I am proud to announce that our Shuttle safety
program alone will jump from $600 million to $2.1 billion over the next
six year period. This allows us to fly the Shuttle for at least the next
decade and roughly double its safety.

Even as we upgrade our Shuttle fleet, we are aggressively investing
an even larger sum of money in our number one development
priority, the next generation of “revolutionary” reusable launch
vehicles. Over the past seven years, $1.8 billion has gone to this
effort.

Now that the pump has been primed, we plan to invest $6 billion over
the 2000 to 2005 period.

NASA will continue to do what it does best: develop breakthrough
technologies. The private sector will be responsible for their
integration into tomorrow’s safer and more reliable launch vehicles.
This will ensure that progressive aerospace companies and the
emerging launch vehicle industry can compete in this new era of
opening up access to space.

To reach our ambitious goals for the future — to make these science
and technology dreams come true — we need incredible leaps in
research and development.

Three key interrelated technologies will take NASA where it wants to
go: biotechnology, nanotechnology and information technology.
Over the past decade there have been tremendous scientific
breakthroughs. And now, we are ready for our technology to move
out and incorporate that knowledge.

These new technologies will monitor the health and well-being of our
spacecraft and our astronauts, allow our systems to perform many
tasks autonomously, and allow systems to evolve and perform new
and different functions.

In a sense, these technologies are the key ingredients for our recipe
of the future. Without them, we won’t rise to the next level of
technology capability.

To carry this analogy a step further, no great meal is prepared without
a talented chef. And to do the things NASA does, it takes a lot of
talented people.

For the first time in almost a decade we intend to hire close to 2000
new employees in the next two years — that’s a gain of almost 550
after expected attrition.

When we performed our Zero Based Review, we planned downsizing
to 17,500. We also planned to monitor and to evaluate the impact on
our people to ensure a safe and vibrant workplace.

To reduce stress levels, improve our skill mix, and address the high
number of imminent retirements we are investing $600 million over
five years for personnel and facilities. This will strengthen our
workforce and make our facilities safer — including clean-up of the
deactivated reactor at Plum Brook, Ohio.

New Partnerships

In addition to employing the best and brightest at NASA, we will
augment our strengths through strategic partnerships. We are
pursuing new links with research-focused government agencies, high
tech industry, progressive aerospace companies and, perhaps most
importantly, academia.

And we are strengthening old ties. National Science Foundation
Director Rita Colwell has done an incredible job strengthening our
nation’s commitment to science. So we are pleased to work with her
to leverage our respective Agencies’ strengths into an even stronger
partnership. As just one example, NASA’s remote sensing activities
will complement the work of NSF’s National Ecological Observatory
Network.

New Leadership

To emphasize our commitment to new partnerships, I am proud to
announce several new appointments. Please stand and be
recognized . . . .

Sam Venneri — already NASA’s Chief Technologist — will guide our
newly integrated Aerospace Technology enterprise and Chief
Technology office.

Lt. General Sam Armstrong having led the revitalization of the
Aerospace Technology enterprise will become my Senior Advisor.
He will ensure the entire NASA organization executes the new
relationships with the partners I mentioned.

Brian Keegan will become our new Chief Engineer. He will lead our
efforts to strengthen our engineering foundation and implement our
new commitment to Design for Safety.

Orlando Figueroa will become our first Chief Systems Engineer. He
will strengthen NASA’s systems engineering workforce.

And Dr. Mary Cleave will become the Deputy Associate Administrator
for Earth Science. She will lead the second phase planning in the
earth observation system.

With this new talent and our investment in the future, NASA will
deliver on the promises of discovery and the excitement of
exploration for generations to come.

Thank you.

I welcome any questions you may have.