Opening Statement by Rep. Mark Udall – House Science Committee Hearing: Implementing the Vision for Space Exploration: Development of the CEV

September 28, 2006

Good afternoon. I’d like to join my colleagues in welcoming our witnesses to today’s hearing. We have a lot of issues to cover today, so I will just make a few observations.

First, I am encouraged that the recent CEV contract award was by all accounts the result of a hard-fought competition between two high-quality contractor teams.

And I want to take this opportunity to congratulate the Lockheed Martin team—which coincidentally is based in my home state of Colorado—on winning that competition.

Second, I want to echo the comments made by Ranking Member Gordon. I am of course troubled by the issues raised by the GAO in their July 17th report, and I look forward to hearing from both GAO and NASA today about what has been done to address those issues.

Given the importance of the CEV program to the future of the nation’s human space flight activities, I think it’s imperative that this Committee engage in sustained, serious oversight of it, as well as the other parts of NASA’s exploration initiative, to ensure that they are carried out in an efficient and responsible manner.

I say this not because I have any concerns about the dedication and commitment of NASA and the contractor team to the success of the exploration program.

Rather, it’s because from my vantage point on the Armed Services Committee, I have seen that dedication and commitment are by themselves not sufficient to keep major systems acquisitions from sometimes running into trouble.

We all know of examples of important programs that have gotten off track and suffered significant cost growth and schedule delays.

As the GAO has pointed out on other occasions, “good intentions” aren’t enough…

There also needs to be a clear understanding of requirements, credible cost and schedule estimates, and a disciplined approach to program management.

We all want NASA’s CEV program to succeed. I hope that today’s hearing can provide a forum for a constructive review of NASA’s plans, and I look forward to hearing from our witnesses.