Transcripts For CSPAN2 Hearing On NASA Workforce STEM Education 20240713

[indiscernible chatter] senator cruz good afternoon. This hearing is called to order. Im very pleased to see a hearing on stem and math and science and precision starting at precisely 2 30 and zero seconds. That is an auspicious way to begin this discussion. Earlier this year on one of the hottest nights of the summer, nearly half a Million People crowded on to the national mall. They were not there for a protest or to celebrate a National Holiday and they were not there for a concert or to watch a fireworks show. No, instead half a Million People went there drenched in sweat to watch the story of the apollo 11 mission as it was projected on to the Washington Monument commemorating the moment 50 years ago when Neil Armstrong and buzz aldrin took that giant leap for mankind. As everyone in d. C. Knows, if there is half a Million People on the lawn and it is not a protest, Something Big is going on. And landing the first humans on the moon and returning them safely to earth marks as one of the epical moments in the history of mankind. Spacelook over out on our landscape of today, what we see now is very different than the landscape of 1969. Indeed, not only did we succeed going to moon and back again but we have gone on to put robotic rovers on distant planets, celestial observatories and orbits that can literally peer into the beginnings of the universe and we have established a human presence in lower earth orbit. In the span of a single lifetime, we have seen space fundamentally transformed from an uninhabited void or a scientific novelty to an integral part of our daily lives in world economy. Space is often referred to as the last frontier. And rightfully so. Much like the first frontiers of exploration, space is hard. It takes meticulous planning and extraordinary determination and even then nothing is guaranteed. It is dangerous. But the last frontier shares a critical aspect with the first frontiers. Through its power now and tomorrow to inspire us. The space race of the 1960s inspired americans to aim higher, to dream bigger than they ever had before. To literally shoot for the moon. And i believe the burgeoning space sector of today can do the same for a bigger and broader swath for the United States and the world. Just a few weeks ago, we witnessed the historic allfemale spacewalk on the International Space station. The first ever. And when the United States returns to the moon as part of the artemis program, artemis, of course being the twin sister of apollo, nasa has committed that we will land the first woman ever on the surface of the moon and it will be an american astronaut who steps forth on the moon. As the father of two young daughters, that makes me very proud indeed. As we return to bold Space Exploration, we do so not only with a much more diverse astronaut core but also with a much more diverse set of nongovernmental partners. As we move out on these plans, it is worth remembering the success of apollo 11 and the National Space program as a whole is due in no small part to the contributions of a workforce including countless women working behind the scenes whose stories have only recently become household names. One of those women, dr. Christine darden testified before the subcommittee earlier this year. Dr. Darden was one of the famed Human Computers at nasa and without her work and the work of many other socalled computers, many of them africanamerican women, we never could have sent astronauts into space, let alone brought them back safely. Unfortunately for far too long dr. Darden and the other Human Computers contributions were hidden, relegated to the background for a time. Her story and the story of others like her serves as a reminder of the lessons we need to learn to ensure we are cultivating and elevating talent and leadership not based on race or gender but based on merritt, hard work, skill and passion. Todays hearing is about building the kind of workforce that ensures nasa and the first the Diverse Group of partners we return to Space Exploration as the skilled base of people it needs to be successful now and in the future. That ensures the space economy can continue to grow, we will be successful in establishing the United States of america as the leader in a true space fairing nation. To accomplish this, we can and should leverage the inspiration of space and Space Exploration to get kids of all ages, backgrounds, resources, excited about science and technology and engineering and math. But that alone is not enough. Creating the space workforce for the future will require us to take a serious look at the road ahead, to explore unconventional partnerships and roles in responsibility. And to take other decisive actions as needed to maintain u. S. Leadership in space. Getting it right will be a complex and challenging undertaking. After all, space is hard. But im reminded and encouraged by something the apollo 11 flight director said when he testified in front of this subcommittee in july of this year. What america will dare, america will do. I look forward to hearing from our Witnesses Today about their work in Stem Education and what suggestions they might have for how we in congress can act. I want to thank in particular the Ranking Member for her initiative for proposing that we hold this hearing, her leadership, bipartisan leadership that has strengthened this committee, and i look forward to continuing working alongside her for many years to come. With that i recognize the Ranking Member. Senator sinema thank you chairman cruz for holding this hearing. Im excited about today. Our stem workforce is at a critical juncture. The u. S. Space economy is booming, but if we dont build a strong Stem Education pipeline we will face a deficit of millions of workers over the next decade putting our economy and National Security at risk. Congress, several agencies like nasa, Industry Partners and most importantly educational institutions must Work Together to develop and prepare a 21st century workforce so we continue to lead in space and our economy remains innovative and strong. Thank you to our guests today for joining us to discuss this important issue. Since it was established in 1958, nasa has productive partnerships with universities across the country, including a few in arizona. As we develop more advanced space technologies, set large goals for the countrys Space Program and grow our aerospace industry, we must ensure we have a strong workforce. This starts with educating students. And giving them handson Research Opportunities to excel. Universities and students across the country currently work with nasa on important projects such as mission monitoring, research and analysis. In my home state of arizona, Arizona State university, university of arizona and Northern Arizona university all work with nasa to further its missions big and small. The talented faculty across the state propose innovative ideas and bring new opportunities to students. When administrator bridenstein testified earlier this year, he said nasa has had amazing success with university partnerships. Arizona universities are leading the world when it comes to University Engagement with nasa and developing those programs and projects. For example, at a. S. U. , dr. Elkinstantons mission, psyche marks the first time a university has led a deep space nasa mission. She and her team will be the first scientists to study an asteroid which is remarkably similar to a planetary core. University of arizona is also paving the way for future missions with its work and dr. Loretta leads the science team and the Mission Science observations. The team is critical to this mission that will bring the first asteroid example to earth. Sample to earth. All three of arizonas public universities also participate in the Arizona Space Grant Consortium which is jointly funded by nasa and the three universities. This space grant works to attract and retain students. In arizona the Space Grant Consortium partners awarded 175 paid internships and fellowships to arizona students in 2018 alone, which allowed students to work alongside investigators on a mission like psyche. These mission and Research Advancements offer us critical insights into space and spark an interest and passion in our next generation of scientists, mathematicians and engineers. But students are not the only ones benefiting. Because nasa gains innovative ideas which when paired with their expertise and resources can push the boundaries of what we thought were possible. When the administrator testified, he saw that projects typically meet costs and schedule. At an agency like nasa when where money and time are limited and projects are sometimes overbudgeted and behind schedule, these partnerships are key to maximizing science and to discovery across the universe. As we look ahead, we must grow these partnerships, retain the knowledge that is gained from them and train the next generation. That is the only way we can ensure we have workers ready to have a workforce ready to keep america at the forefront of space. This week were introducing legislation to help address the stem workforce concerns that are raised today. The National Aeronautics act of 2019 which im looking forward to introducing with chairman cruz, wicker and cantwell to encourage students to pursue careers in Technical Education and give nasa the ability to establish and grow lasting partnerships between itself and universities through research centers. Im also proud to work with the senator on legislation which will modernize the Space Grant Program for the First Time Since 1988. Our bill will streamline the program and ensure states have the resources to recruit and train the next generation of scientists, engineers and mathematicians. I look forward to hearing from our witnesses on ways we can address these issues. Thank you so much, mr. Chairman. I yield back. Senator cruz thank you, i now recognize the chairman of the full committee for his opening statement. Senator wicker well, i want to congratulate my two colleagues on their excellent opening statements. Senator cruz describes the crowds witnessing the 50th anniversary in dramatic, vivid, almost poetic words. I could almost sense the pungent fragrance of the sweaty throng, gathered on the mall. Senator cruz almost like a senate hearing. [laughter] senator wicker and clerk will note cross talk. Just say cross talk. [laughter] in the 50 years since the apollo 11, nasa has continued to achieve incredible feats. None of these missions would have been possible without americas education system. In particular the talent and expertise found at our universities. That is why im here today and why we are here today. University researchers continue to lead groundbreaking projects in Space Technology and scientific discovery. In doing so, they involve students, some of whom become scientists. Some of whom become engineers. Others mathematicians. For nasa and in the private sector. Maintaining this pipeline is vital to maintaining americas preeminence in outer space. Im glad to be a cosponsor of the legislation senator sinema mentioned. Todays panel represents a crosssection of the nasa Stem Education ecosystem. I would like to extend a particular welcome to josh gladden from my alma mater, the university of mississippi. Ole miss worked with research on graphene, a material with transformative potential for many applications including spaceflight. This past weekend nasa launched a payload to the International Space station. Thank you all for being here today. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I look forward to a great discussion on stem engagement to help build the space force. Senator cruz thank you, mr. Chairman. I will say your remarks reminded me, growing up, both of my parents are mathematicians an old engineers joke about the Washington Monument. A mathematician, a physicist and an engineer go to Washington Monument. They are each discussing how to figure out how tall it is. The mathematician says it is very simple. All i need a length of string and a transit. I can measure the distance to the transit. I can measure the angle to the top of the monument. It is a simple matter of trigonometry. The physicist says it is much simpler than that. Ill take the elevator to the top. I will tie the string around the transit and lower it down and measure the length of the string. The engineer looks at both of them and looks at the tour guide and says how tall is the damn thing . [laughter] cruz with that, im happy to introduce our witnesses. Our first witness, dr. Linda tarbox elkinstanton is the managing director of the Interplanetary Initiative and the Principle Investigator of the Nasa Psyche Mission at Arizona State university. Her research revolves around terrestrial planetary formation, magma oceans and subsequent planetary evolution including magmatism and interaction between rocky planets and their atmospheres. She also promotes and participates in education initiatives such as inquiry and exploration, teaching methodologies, and leadership and Team Building for scientists and engineers. Dr. Elkinstanton currently serves on the standing review board for the Europa Mission and served on the mars panel for the Planetary Decadal survey and on the mars 2020 rover science definition team. She received her ph. D. In geology and geophysics from mit. Our second witness is mr. Jeffrey manber. Who is the founder and c. E. O. Of nanoracks. Since 2009, nanoracks has created products and offered Research Services for the commercial utilization of space. Today nanoracks is the single largest private investor on the International Space station with over 40 million of private capital dedicated to commercial facilities and equipment. Nanoracks employees 70 people in texas and has launched 250 small satellites and over 800 experiments to the i. S. S. Mr. Manber is also chairman of dreamup. An educational Public Benefit corporation that lets students pursue opportunities in spacebased research and education. He is a graduate of northwestern university. Our third witness is dr. Josh gladden. He is the vice chancellor for research and sponsored programs at the university of mississippi. In this role, he works in research and Research Funding and provides support for all funding projects at the university. Prior to this role, he served as associate vice chancellor for research and is the director at the National Center for physical acoustics. He also served in elected National Positions as a member of the executive committee and chair of the physical Acoustics Technical Committee of the Acoustical Society of america. He received a phd degree in physics from Pennsylvania State university, and finally ms. Shella condino is a physics teacher at Oakton High School in vienna, virginia. She is also the founder and still the advisor of the famed Rocketry Club at Presidio High School in presidio, texas. For those of you who dont know, presidio is located along the rio grande river, 240 miles south of el paso and resides in one of the most remote parts of the continental United States. For most people in presidio, english is a second language. Many people face tough economic challenges, making it hard for students to focus solely on school. However, under those circumstances, the Rocketry Club has consistently placed well in contests across the country and have become a well respected Rocketry Team. During her time at presidio, ms. Condino and her students excelled qualifying for the National Finals at the Team America Rocketry challenge. In 2011, ms. Condino was chosen by the National Aviation hall of Fame Selection Committee to receive the Scott Crossfield Aerospace Education teacher of the year award. She received her bachelors degree in physics from manila, philippines. With that, i welcome each of the witnesses and welcome dr. Elkinstanton to give her testimony. Dr. Elkinstanton chairman wicker, chairman cruz, Ranking Member cantwell, Ranking Member sinema and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to speak today. I am testifying in my own behalf. I am managing director and cochair with University President michael crow, of the Interplanetary Initiative which ill talk about today. Psyche, 14 then the portfolio. Thank you. We have a vision an optimistic vision for an optimistic human space future, we, in this room, we have this vision. We want humans to be an interplanetary species and we want a situation where our Space Exploration improves society on earth and our knowledge and care of earth itself. Those are the stakes that were talking about. These really are huge times for us, thinking about going interplanetary, taking these steps. Here are three Key University nasa partnership needs. First is workforce development. We need talent to support the growing aspirations of our country as the worlds in space. Therefore, education has to be futurefacing, and workforceoriented. I think this is a very important showing stress. Important thing to stress. Were in the Information Age now. The educational style of the industrial era should be behind us. We need to look forward. Second, returning to the moon, this time to stay, will require more than just engineers, scientists, and astronauts. We need everyone involved. Every aspect of society, we need artists and sociologists and psychologists and Business Leaders and philosophers. These are the kinds of connections that universities are really good at putting together for a push like to become interplanetary. Third, this full stake holder triangle of nasa, universities, private sector is required for our interplanetary future. Nonprofit universities are uniquely placed to communicate the needs, create rapid responsive teams, and transfer the research and Technology Intellectual Property produced at universities through partnership with nasa into the private sector, to the great benefit of both the space industry and the american taxpayer. This transfer has to speed up. Now is the time to grow our partnerships in these more fruitful more targeted ways. Now is the time to set up University Affiliated Research Centers and other such mechanisms to speed up the development of specific solutions, and accelerate the flow of knowledge and technology to nasa and to the private sector. Asu is here to meet this challenge with a student population over 100,000 and is the number one ranked school for university five years in a row. It astonishes me coming from the east coast to see what a big Public University can be. So many of us in this room understand the value of these amazing institutions and were lucky in arizona to have several. At asu, our space sector partners include over 70 private sector organizations, over 30 universities and 20 government agencies, labs and centers. We have been working very hard to develop new ways to put together Research Teams that are effective, interdisciplinary. And include all the sectors. Triangle ofgly this sectors, we have to figure out how the bring those together to speed up innovation and speed up our path to space. We have identified many of the Big Questions we have to answer to achieve our space future and we have begun to answer those questions. On the Psyche Mission, we were challenged by nasa to make a bigger student collaboration with bigger impact. We pioneered ways to create interdisciplinary capstone teams where students learn real Team Collaborative skills working on real nasa mission challenges. We have student graphic designers and project managers and marketers working with mechanic a. M. Engineers. This is where they get to help manage a project. We have student artists producing inspiration and outreach. Even though we are two years into this mission, we have a total of 500 students who have worked with psyche already. A total of 27 universities from 15 states and i say this particularly to underscore my personal commitment that this is not just about my university or arizona. This is about our society at large and our nation and i believe very strongly in bringing all sectors together. Thats what im trying to work at in my career in every way. The age of this presentation style compliant industrial workforce is over. You know what im talking about. We dont need to train better test takers. We need to change the education from a fixation on the memorization of a specific content, something i call sacred content, something that you feel you need to teach the next person. We need to teach the ability to problem solve and assess data and work effectively in teams while sharing information and criticizing and understanding information and giving and receiving feedback. Things we often dont practice until were in the workforce. This is the education of the future. The future is filled with jobs that dont exist today. We have to teach the process skills. In fall of 2020, the asu Planetary Initiative will launch the most forwardlooking workforcefacing program to date. It is part of our answer to education in the Information Age. The bachelor of science in tech technological leadership is a scalable threeyear program having students spend every summer in the workforce in internships. Every student will learn the fundamental content for the future of programming, statistics, calculus, collaborative problem solving, communication, positive Team Psychology and they will also learn team communication, Ethical Leadership and Critical Thinking via a special methodology that we have been working on for years. We can accelerate Space Development by connecting universities, nasa and the private sector for knowledgesharing and rapidly targeted innovation. We can be system ingrators and integrators but even more importantly we can create and employee the team to solve the greatest challenges. Together with my sister universities who are ready to create our future. Lets go to space together. Senator cruz thank you. Mr. Manber. Mr. Manber thank you chairman cruz, Ranking Member sinema, senator wicker and other distinguished members of the aviation and space subcommittee. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to return to this room to testify. Im going to talk about something a little different. About how we can use and we are using the commercial pathway to space to ensure we have a workforce for the next generation and beyond to keep us in the lead as a space faring nation. When we opened the doors of nanoracks in 2009, we were met with a pleasant surprise. Our First Commerce were schools. Customers were schools. Something we never predicted. Our first experiments on space station were on small nanolabs that were developed by middle school students. The parents literally held bake sales, not for their soccer team, but to send their very own science experiments to the i. S. S. Via the nanoracks space act agreement with nasa. This is something that could never be imagined before the commercial pathway. There was no direct nasa funding. But there was the Publicprivate Partnership with nasa that has only taken off since. One of our major Educational Partners is the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program run by dr. Jeff goldstein which has been a Flagship Program for us in nanoracks. They are now on their 15th mission to the International Space station. They have found over 100,000 students and learn about all aspects of the process from designing the payloads to the curriculums to launching to sending it to space and the return. And again, nearly all of this has been done with no direct nasa funding. And just this weekend, than practices flew the first ever oven to the International Space station and you may have heard that the first customer is the doubletree, which is baking cookies and before you laugh and say this has no place in an educational hearing, let me a say that doubletree and hilton are working with scholastic and they have put a program in place in 50,000 schools across the country involving one Million Students with curriculum to show them how baking is different on the earth than in microgravity. This is how we capture the hearts and minds of the young people. Let me say these are the students that will one day bring humans to mars and yes, they are going to want dessert when they get there. These are just two significant of hundreds of payloads that i can reference. The commercially funded experiments that we have flown to the i. S. S. Include plant growth chambers, fluid chambers all paid for by the parents and students and sponsors but not direct nasa funding. Of course we heed the them. We need nasa. We need the Publicprivate Partnership. This is a new model. One model for ensuring education of our workforce. Let me add chairman cruz that nanoracks has flown almost 60 educational payloads from texas schools from hawkins, houston, burlison, el paso, san antonio, austin and i hope my new york twang didnt destroy anything there. And senator sinema, we have flown four experiments to the space station from arizona and just this weekend we had 15 students from Arizona State and they deployed commercially a satellite and it was wonderful to meet all of the students. It gives us all optimism. Im happy to provide the committee with a full list of statistics for all of the districts in which weve flown payloads and what were doing in the future. But we can do better. First off, dreamup and nanoracks know that we can do more to bring out underrepresented communities to space. We have begun a dedicated effort to involve historically black colleges and universities and i should have some good news in signing our first university, black college and university in the next several weeks and secondly, we must do more than have just engineers. Space is more than satellites and rockets. We have to engage agricultural colleges like texas a m or prairieview a m. We need to involve geology Biology Department and pharmaceutical students to help find the cure for cancer in the microgravity of space that we have long thought was possible. Finally by 2025 as our nation is focused on a return to moon, we are driven to meet an exciting goal. Nanoracks are working to ensure by 2025 we have sent at least one Student Research project from every Congressional District to the International Space station. This is how we make sure we have opened the eyes of all of the students from all sectors of our society. We need the excitement, the cost First Quarter sis and the responsiveness of the private sector. It is part of this Publicprivate Partnership that my colleagues are talking about today. We need to assure the workforce tomorrow is ready to keep us on the moon, move us on to mars and just as importantly unlock the new discoveries and unique environment of space. Thank you. Senator cruz thank you. Dr. Gladden. Dr. Gladden mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee. Let me first thank you for the opportunity to provide my perspective on the role that universities can and should play in the development of the nations stem workforce to provide nasa with the engineers and scientists needed to keep accomplishing its mission into the next generation. Chairman cruz, you did a fantastic job introducing me. If you go back a little deeper, i was a physics teacher for about five years. You and i can talk shop afterwards. As with many technical objectives and challenges we will face in the next generation, the complexity of the missions at nasa will only increase. It is incumbent on Higher Education to prepare a workforce ready to meet those challenges. One critical element in preparing this unique workforce is the necessity to ingrain in them the predilection and passion for lifelong learning. Transformative technologies are no longer coming once in a generation. They are coming once a decade. We have several programs and initiatives at the university of mississippi to address these educational challenges. We have designed and are in the process of building a unique 200,000 square foot Stem Education facility. What makes this space unique is that it is designed from the ground up around collaboration across disciplines and activelearning teaching methods that focus on smallgroup project work and interactive technologies. These instruction methods have been shown to both improve comprehension of science and engineering principles and promote group problemsolving skills. Another unique program at u. M. Is our center for manufacturing excellence. All cme students major in engineering, business or accounting, but also share coursework across each of the disciplines. Cme students focus on group projects, Communications Skills and understanding a holistic view of a particular problem from technical to financial aspects. We cannot predict the technologies these graduates will engage with during their careers, but we do know they will always need to work in teams and understand the bigger picture. Universities also play a key role in developing and disseminating nextgeneration engineering principles. Lean engineering, design thinking, Additive Manufacturing and additive construction are important examples. Design thinking helps break down complex, multidimensional design problems into a manageable framework while lean engineering realizes those designs through highly efficient production and manufacturing. A challenge here, however, is not to sacrifice the technical foundations upon which all of these concepts are built. Additive manufacturing and additive construction will play vital roles in any longterm space missions. Whether the mission is a base on the moon or a manned mission to mars, replacements parts cannot be stocked. They will need to be printed as they are needed. Any largerscale structures on the surface of a moon or planet will require using native materials and reliable additive construction technologies. The role of advanced materials will also be increasingly important in the next generation of Space Systems design. Nanophase materials such as graphene have been studied for several decades, but are now emerging as useful technologies. Our center for Graphene Research and innovation designed a graphemeenhanced polymer material that was Just Launched this saturday from wallops flight facility in virginia to be tested on the International Space station for protection and will spend about a year in space and is designed to protect against hypervelocity impacts. In a year we can bring that down and see how the experiment went. We and others are exploring graphene enhancements of many technologies relevant to Nasa Missions from microfiltration to highefficiency solar panels. Let me be clear. Undergraduate and graduate students play a key role in the research experiments. Perhaps a less obvious, but increasingly important, skill set around space activities are legal and regulatory issues. U. M. Is home to the National Center of air and Space Law Center along with journal of space law since 1973. As space activities in the private sector continually grow, appropriate lighttouch legal frameworks need to be developed and studied to best inform decision makers. U. M. Is preparing this workforce with the first air and space law Masters Program in the nation. Let me also take a moment to emphasize the importance of the nasa Space Grant Program which provides incredible Space Science and engineering Research Opportunities to graduate and undergraduate students across a wide swath of the country. I can tell you from personal experience that nothing can hook a Young College student into a nasa career faster than working with a team on a realworld problem with nasa engineers. I thank the subcommittee for your attention and would welcome any questions. Senator cruz thank you, ms. Condino. Ms. Condino first, i thank god for allowing me to be part of this stem endeavor. Second, thanks to all of you for giving me this opportunity today to share and give my testimony about the impact of stem engagement especially to the underserved, underrepresented, minorities, women and rural communities. I have been a physics educator for 27 years, and i hope it does not show my age. I have been an advocate of interdisciplinary and applied approach to learning even before ive heard of the acronym stem in the late 1990s. I strongly believe in practical and experiential learning, as i myself learn best by doing. Who does not enjoy handson and minds on activities . Or the adventure of putting theory into practice . Or bringing knowledge to life . Much more solving realworld problems . The power of this method of learning gives students a sense of responsibility, accountability and ownership in their own learning. Every day before i start teaching, i always try reminding myself of this quote. Tell me and i forget, teach me and i may remember, involve me and i learn. Honestly, ive always wanted to tell my former teachers about that quote, so that they can have a better understanding of what kind of a student i was when i was young. But i never got the courage to tell them anyway. Now, as a teacher, this became my quote, a daily reminder that as a teacher i need to create a learning environment that is transformative, engaging, fun and where learning remains implicitly. Teaching in Presidio High School in texas, which is a border town, rural, geographically isolated and economically disadvantaged school, is one of the highlights of my teaching career. Ive had my most meaningful and fulfilling experiences as an educator in that School District. It is the most challenging yet, it is the most rewarding. With more than 60 of the students identified as english language learners, 95 hispanic, it truly challenged my creativity in teaching. Thus what i did is i used my passion for aviation and aerospace and began incorporating basic rocketry in my physics teaching. I also created a free Summer Enrichment Program in rocketry and robotics to provide students activities that will make their minds engaged. This idea came to mind when i attended the first graduation i had in that school where there were four empty seats placed in remembrance of the four students who died due to drug related events, drag racing accident and suicide. I felt the urgent need for my intervention, a sense of responsibility to the community by keeping these children away from bad elements such drugs, alcohol, teenage pregnancy, and street racing. Hence, i founded the presidio rocketry and Robotics Club in 2007 and created teams competing at the american rocketry challenge, a stem initiative, the Worlds Largest model rocketry contest. The program grew. Membership starting from three young girls to more than 30 students. With the support of my cosponsor ms. Adelina portillo, who is an e. S. L. Teacher. I dont speak spanish. That was the hardest thing for me to be able to do to be able to speak to a group of kids. We do not have any communication that would be common for both of us, but we tried english. We tried. The administrators, staff and teachers, community of presidio and companies who helped sponsor our program it became popular amongst high school and middle school students. Even our neighboring rural schools were encouraged and inspired to do the same initiative for their students. Presidio gained National Recognition because of its consistent placement in the top 100 in the nation at tarc since 2009 to present. In 2012, we got invited to the whitehouse science fair and our Team Presented their rockets to president obama. Because we mostly finished in the top 25 in the National Finals, presidio team got the chance to participate at the nasa Student Launch Initiative project, an advancedhighpower Rocketry Program where students design, build, and launch a rocket which carries scientific and engineering payloads. These aerospace stem initiatives allowed our students to enhance their Critical Thinking, analytical and metacognition skills; conduct scientific research, improve their communication skills both oral and written, develop time management and organization, utilize technology through software and simulations, problemsolve and trouble shoot, and collaborate to make wise decisions. Through these programs, my students developed stem skills and soft skills employers are looking for in the future workplace. Our students also became involved in the nasa Texas High School Aerospace Scholars program, Texas Alliance for minorities in engineering stem statewide contest, texas tech stem academic competition botball robotics in state and world championships, tcea robotics, vex robotics, even in the prestigious zero robotics virtual contest held at mit. It sounds impossible to believe. This is the record of what my students at presidio have done. Dr. Manber also participated in the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program ssep mission 2 to the iss, where we sent a microgravity flight experiment to the International Space station on spacex1 falcon 9 rocket and dragon spacecraft and compared results of our own ground earth experimentations. This achievement is truly special because students collaborated and communicated with the astronauts onboard the iss, and the community of presidio developed an awareness and exposure to stem literacy. I left presidio in 2014 and relocated in northern virginia. However, i continue to mentor the presidio Rocketry Team and communicate with them virtually through skype every friday from 3 00 to 5 00 p. M. Eastern time. I review their rocket simulations and give them feedback on their designs. I also virtually demonstrate strategies and techniques on how to build stable and robust rockets. I currently teach ap physics courses at Oakton High School in vienna. I continued my goal of encouraging student participation and interest in stem. I am one of the teacher sponsors of the cougar robotics, rocketry and physics clubs. Our Rocketry Team won first place at the battle of the rockets last year. Became National Finalist at tarc, and currently working with nasa on our sli project. Our robotics frc team made it to the first robotics world finals in detroit, michigan last year. Last monday our physics club members participated at the Stem Outreach Program of the association of old crows in the International Symposium and convention on Electronic Warfare and we won the cybersecurity codebreaking challenge. Last friday, i took my students to the projet aviation Career Education and expo in leesburg, virginia, and we bagged 22500 worth of scholarships on flight trainings. Because of my experiences in teaching in the third poorest School District in the state of texas and in the one of the richest counties in the entire country, i became more certain, determined and passionate about contributing to the future workforce. This is my way of giving back to this country. I hope that you too will continue to invest in our youths education for it will surely guarantee great returns. Thank you very much and may god continue to bless us all and may god bless the United States of america. Senator cruz thank you very much for that powerful testimony. Let me say to each of you, thank you for your testimony. It was important and particularly for those of you who are an educator, thank you for the time you have spent helping to inspire and shape the next generation of scientists and innovators and leaders. Let me say that typing every school esidio high please convey for me to the student at the presidio Rocketry Club how proud we are for the hard work they are doing. And in fact the one story that i wanted to ask you to elaborate on is the story that a spokesman for the arrows Industry Association talked about in an article. Which is at the presidio team to be able to afford their first trip to virginia for the rocketry challenge had to auction off a go. Goat. Apparently you auctioned off a goat every year for the next five years. In 2014, a place the highest yet, fourthplace. Can you elaborate on that . Economical disadvantaged school. We do not have much of a budget, but it is very difficult to convince the school board to allow us to go out side of proceeding. Was that together with my cosponsor, we had to raise funds in order for us to show that we wanted these kids forward. One of the initiatives that we did was a suggestion from a parent to auction a goat. Top 100. T to the we had to go to the airport first. It is a transportation that was the most difficult. I always tell the kids, we cannot waste money or time. Through simulation through that simulation build from scratch and we decided lets show the school board we will put in time and effort, groups of companies, particularly luckett market corporation, when we learn we made it to the National Finals we are moving on because there is liability and all those things. When i mentioned it to mister steve at Lockheed Martin at the time he felt he wanted to help and was able to gather 3,000 and told me put pressure to the board and say you are willing to support this initiative so we have to do it every year. We cannot rely on every peoples money every single time. Putting in some of our efforts and we first wrestled the goats in that particular area. Goats are a common thing so they would pay money in order to eat the goats but there are winners where i dont like the goat but i after this i option it at night because we have this art festival and with one little goat we could make 2,000 but it is all about hard work. We sell donuts. I burn my fingers by bbqing in front of church every sunday because i wanted to show the community that we are not just traveling out of town for pleasure, we want to compete and bring glory to that little town proceeding. Thank you for your creativity and your passion and the next subcommittee hearing we might serve people. Jeffrey manber mentioned, roughly 60 educational payloads to the iss from texas schools, houston and el paso and san antonio. What is the impact on the schools, being able to participate in how do we expand so more schools have the opportunity . Shella condino told us the impact. We have students coming asking us for help on their thesis, their university thesis, they started with us 5, six, seven years ago. Teaches teachers tell us they never talk about a project that goes to space. With great humbleness we see how many lives we have changed, having students go into stem and engineering or biology or cost of space, has an extra ordinary impact on the lives of students and teachers and parents when they see this is Something Real and something that can be done in almost an academic year. You ask an excellent question. How do we expand that . We are sometimes that awful thing of a business and we invest to expand to reach out to disadvantaged, we have to reach out to more communities, we are working with what does it cost . The smallest price is 15,000 on the space station so it is a test tube. I will be honest, dont mean to do this at a hearing but we work with nasa and German Space Agency and others and you can do a test tube that goes up. Let me repeat that for anyone watching, any school in america. We put you up to 30 days on the station and we have lists of all the payloads that have flown previously so you can see the research that has been done and we work with partners like doctor goldstein and we are expanding. The program is growing rapidly. It is also growing into more disadvantaged locations. We have trouble with nasa because we dont quite fit picking up nasa funding for disadvantaged communities and going overseas now and both dream up and anoraks have done work with uae for contest in germany so this is a great story of all working together, students, community, nasa and the private sector so it is a good story. If im doing my math right that is seven and a half goats. You may think of an alternative price. I could think of alternative things to auction off. Senator capito. Thank all of you for being here today. We do have im from West Virginia and have a great relationship with nasa and West Virginia, we renamed in her honor, proud West Virginia and, i would like to ask anybody in the panel. In my observations, one of the most enlightening things, the way to get our students, the collaborative efforts with West Virginia university, how do you see that expanding . Josh gladden might be more involved at the school. How do you see that expanding and is there any pushback from nasa to continue signs of internships and availability . A lot of people work there in the end. I dont see pushback from nasa. Nasa has been a very good partner in the higherend community providing internships, opportunities for students and as we talked about before, for Research Projects, they are involved in every Research Project and those are golden opportunities for students to get involved in a project of interest to nasa but also to engage with the professionals at nasa and that engagement over and above the technical part is valuable. I dont see any pushback. All of us in higher red are always looking for more experiential opportunities for students. That would be a Space Grant Program. That is a great example of a vehicle to make those things happen. You talked about your robotics team. We live in a rural state. One of the things that is lost on people when they think of Stem Education, elementary, middle school or high school but the skill sets you are developing are not just science and Technology Skill sets but you are learning to present, how to work collaboratively, learning to share knowledge with other teams from other states or other schools and that part of the robotics team, the person with the highest technological skills who cant work controllers or somebody else to have a member and the concept of teamwork is incredibly important and nasa is a team. How do you see that with your experience . We divide our group into subcommittees. We have the business committee, the marketing group, kids that are involved in documentation alone. Even the scouting group. It is important for them to have Good Relationships with the opponents so that in the end you dont make it to the top finalist, the top teams get the chance to select, having a Good Relationship with them. It is not just the codeing skill. It is all types of skills being honed and enhanced. That fleshes it out. Linda elkinstanton, it is great that senator rosen is here today. We recently got a bill passed, the Building Blocks of stem act. Part of our mission has been to draw more women into stem at a younger age. What is your experience with this . How do you think we can increase the participation not just of women but other minority groups that are not well represented . Anyone who is listening i want to work with you on this, anyone who feels their voice cant be heard, or any reason there could be implicit bias. And advancing equity, is culture, you need culture of the organization where people rise on their merits, not harassed out, until they are 30 of people, you feel you are alone and you are the most vulnerable person. It doesnt matter if you dont have a good culture you wont have diversity. The experiential learning, the inquiry learning, you can create anything with a fabulous teacher with 30 kids or perfect internship, if we dont do scale we have lost. We need to do this at scale and that is the purpose of so much of what i have been working on to make sure these experiential experiences can be done at scale. It is critical to equity and diversity as well. Thank you. Thank you, senator rosen. All of you are so inspiring. I have so many friends who are teachers who find creative ways to inspire their students through music, physics, all kinds of things and it is the art and passion of teaching that will move the country forward because when you grab these land mines, i am ready to take your class and there you go. So thank you. Your passion is infectious. You need to go around the country talking about this. We did introduce the bill the Building Blocks of staff to get young girls, prek12 involved in Stem Education. It should be passing the house and the president will sign that into law but we do have a wonderful woman, doctor elizabeth houseraft, research, geoscience professor, she got the bug early so we know currently half the states only receive 10 of federal r d programming. It is a joint federal state program to participate in space and Aeronautics Research building upon what the kids learn in the younger grade. We received 100, 000, steady mineral found on mars, geoscience professor doctor elizabeth houseraft leading this Research Project, she was selected as one of ten scientists who will choose which rock and soil samples will be brought back to earth so the president s Budget Proposal terminates the office of stem engagement and significantly cut the score. We will do Building Blocks of stem, provide grants and help for teachers and schools and bring this up to scale we hope around the country but what do we do if we terminate this project . Where do we go from here . One very practical thing i might say. Is the pi of the mission, psyche, im the second woman to win a computer deep space mission. I feel strongly about that. Many of you know, and a percentage of our pi led Mission Money and use it for undergraduate education, something i mentioned in my testimony but that could be expanded beyond the undergraduate. Of the missions could reach k12, if that money was just allowed to be used in a broader sense that would be a simple way we could help with tightening the nasa budget. Offering internships and scholarships, people going to graduate school can cut down and help teachers do great things in their classroom giving them extra skills. Our 550 undergraduates, 550 high school students, that would make a difference. I want to ask each one of you, how can we hear in Congress Help you get the next generation to inspire to reach for the stars if you will because that is what nasa is all about. Where are the policymakers and the lawmakers . You cant legislate everything but how do we help you to inspire next general . I like the stem staff. We found that first off the nasa opens doors. I have unfortunate news, not all of the American Public likes all of the American Government but nasa opens doors and nasa must be there, a wonderful branch, wonderful history and no matter where we are when we say we are working with nasa to go to the International Space station people smile, trust of what nasa has been, is, and will be. What i would say from your vantage point, i dont want to see nasa go away with it. So many governmental organizations spend outreach which is wonderful but nasa is a special part of our government and they have such a proud history. We have found that contests and inspire, when it is Something Real, going to space. I watched the moon landing, i know what it inspires. When a student can bes part of something that involves the launch of a rocket and satellite, whatever it is, that is inspiring and we need that history of nasa to continue to motivate it. That is important. Nasa is uniquely positioned of any federal agency to capture hearts and minds of students at a very young age and this also connects back to the gender gap discussion we were having a few minutes ago. Even before students get reaching back to the middle school you begin to see differentiation based on gender and beginning to reach into middle school or Elementary School through nasa and the lure of nasa that might be a powerful thing. Shella condino, what do you think . It is reduction of all of those. In teaching to the text, mandated by the state or the government, why not allow teachers to create all of those stem initiatives and projects and have the kids put their minds at participating and doing activities like that. Experiencebased learning. Thank you. Yield back. Senator thune. As demand for jobs in stem fields continues to grow, it is critical to have students who have those skills. Nasas establish program to stimulate Competitive Research provides funding to areas that are underrepresented in federal and Research Funding, south dakotas universities continue to produce highquality students in stem fields, funding has been essential in making broader base of stem expertise available to nasa so as you address a nationwide stem workforce that draws from every state across the country. I see the effect of tightening some work for every day working on this mission and i see it at maxour Industry Partners. Everyone is feeling it. It is a problem on the ground which i imagine Jeffrey Manber can relate to. Showing students early, anyone who is interested in do it. There is not a differentiator between the stem people and nonstem people, you can love art and philosophy and sports and math and you can work with people who love all those things. If we could make it more of a connector instead of a differentiator, work, culture of not judging girls in fifth grade and telling them they are not good at math, work on that culture, give teachers the freedom to connect not just stem but all the fields together, that would be great impetus to bring people into the world of stem. We hired our first in Company Recruiter and have trouble fulfilling jobs. We are very hungry to find the right level of young engineers with face space experience and we picked up some new programs lately and the head of engineering is where do we find the people. We have a serious problem and in the Space Community we cant do nonus citizens so we have a problem in this country today, 30 percent40 a year and im worried about getting the right people, just having trouble with it. All of that is exactly right. I might touch on one more element of that question about the demographic diversity across the country. Making sure we are drying engineering talent not just from the east coast and the west coast, that is critically important because we are culturally different, we have different experiences as Young Children and the little girl who grew up fixing the tractor, an amazing engineer but shes got to heaven path forward and so i think that is where programs like nasa apps score and others can be so invaluable to making sure all of those students in south dakota, mississippi and everywhere in between can see the path forward because there is talent out there. Its not that we dont have the talent. We have a pay problem. Shella condino, you mentioned in your testimony your experience teaching in a Rural Community in texas and i am wondering we work hard in south dakota and have exceptional students. That is thanks to the dedication of faculty and administrators and state officials who make sure they have the tools they need but one of the challenges is recruiting teachers and retaining stem teachers and i am wondering based on your experience in texas if you could share ideas that might help schools in south dakota and other rural states recruit and retain teachers equipped to teach stemrelated courses. I remember moving from teaching el paso to texas where my salary was cut before 10, 000 but that is one thing that would attract teachers in rural areas. But they have nothing to lose and that is one thing i noticed. If i were to present the student something new to them they will grab it in a heartbeat, do whatever i want. It is difficult to keep the teachers because one would be pay scale and the lack of proper training, i am resource full in my own way, i use Technology Inside and outside and that is what i promise my students every day, if i cannot get the resource from right here i will bring it to you. For career day i remember every year we have career day in november, but the first career day i attended we only had plumbers and i have nothing against those kinds of jobs. The most popular word of our Border Patrol land the military, but this had to be exposed and say i want to do a Virtual Career so that i could have people from the outside, professors and universities that i know and even those in other countries, former students of mine are already are professionals. How do kids get exposed to that . Answering what you ask about keeping the teachers it is the individual. I can only speak for myself. It doesnt matter where i go or how much i get paid for teaching. It is my passion and so i will give 100 of what i have and i hope those other teachers stay in the teaching profession because we are losing a majority of them but im proud to tell you even the elementary has now faculty members so they are going back. You have to come back and help your community to flourish. You have to be able to handle the 40 below windshields windchills. In addition to the achievement of nasa and its partners, maintaining American Leadership in space will depend on continued improvements in cybersecurity. We have a university in south dakota, Dakota State University which has been a real leader in Training Qualified cybersecurity professionals. How important our sophisticated cybersecurity capabilities in a Large Network of cybersecurity professionals to maintaining technical leadership in space would you say . Thank you for the question, growing up and Software Capabilities in cybersecurity we are spending more money and we think it is will spend on protecting our internal and external communications. It is something none of us know the moment it is going to be a crisis or whether it will be a crisis but it is a threat and even a Small Company like mine is investing more and more to ensure confidentiality in communications systems. We are hit all the time. Ditto for universitys. It briefly on to that the team of people working on the psyche mention is 800. The opening for cyberattacks is fast and for a project like this the catastrophe can only be imagined so it is beyond critical to add to everything said on the table. Very much on the right track i think. Thank you, senator thune. Jeffrey manber spoke about the challenge of finding qualified employees, trained engineers able to fill the demands of the workforce. The question i want to ask all four Panel Members in your opinion how important is space . How important is the mission . I think back to when john f. Kennedy came to houston and came to Rice University and laid out a vision that within a decade we will take a man to the moon and bring him home and i always liked the fact that president kennedy said at the time, he was that rice, and he said why does rice play texas . Not because it is easy, because it is hard. That inspired a whole generation. My question is how important is space for inspiring a new generation of students, a new generation of teachers, how important is going back to the moon . How important is building a sustainable habitat for Ongoing Research on the moon . How important is going to mars and perhaps finding the first signs of life in the universe . How important is that for inspiring the next nobel laureate, share the importance of space for inspiration . In our world today a lot of the narratives we hear are narratives of fear and narratives of guilt but the only way you really get people to stand up and do the oracles we are capable of is when you have a narrative of optimism and a narrative of hope and that is what space is, the opportunity to be who we could be as humankind, the we dont always see ourselves being every day here. The inspirations that if we can create these things your listing, beautiful ideas we have and be bolder and better in our lives at home, inspiration for students to go into stem fields for something they find could make him a bigger and better human being and it is incumbent upon us. If we turn away it is a failure of our species. We have to do that. We just opened an office in the uae in abu dhabi and we have been working on the emirates astronaut who went to the space station. Why are they looking at space and why did we open an office in abu dhabi. We take things for granted in this country and dont realize they studied the last 1500 years, the best way to ensure that we as a society Stay Together if the Oil Revenue Goes down is to get into space and they announced a 100 year program to go to mars. They looked and studied us and said what you did during the apollo era and what you continue to do in space is the best way we as a government can inspire our kids not to leave our country and to get meaningful jobs. Same in australia, same in mexico, same in the uk, all have open Space Programs in the last 2 or 3 years, all looking to the United States as the role model and here we dont even see it. We have to be reminded only when someone gets in front of us for a brief period of time and it frustrates me that we see every day how kids are encouraged and motivated by space and the strategic and commercial advantages and to answer the question the world looked around and said what you guys did during apollo is the best way to motivate our next generations so space is important for a whole bunch of reasons, one of the we know already. Inspires that was all very well said. The only thing i would add to that is if you just look from a straight up return on investment, direct return on investment it is not a great thing to do but the tangential, the intangible power of the it is intangible, it is immeasurable. I dont think i could pinpoint any Single Initiative or program in this countrys history that we could collectively be more proud of and inspired by then the apollo program. It really took this country to a whole different level, inspiration that it delivered to the country then got leveraged into all kinds of other technical advances. That is when you look at return on investment, you got to pull that into it as well. The power of Space Exploration goes beyond the direct dollars and return. It is a reminder that we are really not alone. We have to go out there to protect ourselves in the future, ask for what is beyond and how to use that to make our planet even better. It is a testimony where this is where we could put all the skills we have developed. Why is it not inspiring to be the first person on mars . I myself want to travel to go to space. One of the things we have heard as well is the enormous demand in the stem field and these will only keep going, whether cybersecurity, space, computer programming, the world is getting more complicated, more technological and people lacking those stem skills have a much higher chance of being locked out of their best chances of the future. At the same time we are facing a shortage of graduates with the skills necessary and one of the things you testify to, to address that, we have got to expand the pool. Weve got to expand the graduates who are coming out and in particular, minorities, africanamericans and hispanics are underrepresented in stem fields and women are underrepresented in stem fields. Both of those are realities, i have considerable familiarity with, my mom was one of those Human Computers, she came out of rice in 1956 and got hired at shell as a Computer Programmer at the dawn of the computer age and my dad was a cuban immigrants who came out of texas in 61 and became a Computer Programmer at ibm with a heavy spanish accent and amazed wonder to be in america. I want to ask each of you how do we expand the ability of women to achieve in the stem fields, to gain the skills they need and to get the tools to pursue careers if that is their passion and aptitude and dreams. I want to open that up to anyone. Especially the women. It was difficult in the beginning to have them speak up for themselves so i always tell the kids it is very important. I will be here is your second mom. When they gain the skills and exposures we provided for them they need the full support in the end as well. This young girl i meant toward all the way until they finally called me and my last question is should i accept a job at Lockheed Martin or should i go to Aurora Flight Sciences . Things like that. Continuing to mentor kids whether they are male or female and continuing to provide them that exposure. I am very happy at Fairfax County Public Schools because especially in my school they were pioneering this capstone project where in lewis having a final exam these kids were developing projects from ninthgrade all the way to senior in the capstone projects are amazing where they conduct research, presentations of the department of education, students who published a book, there is a student who created a story about her struggle from siberia and ended up being a film so she was invited to a film festival. It is experiential learning and we are moving on to the middle school where it is like being exposed at a young age because this is a skill we will need for future workforce and we have to start early and we need to continue our mentor ship. We continue to communicate and thanksgiving, one of my former students who just graduated with a degree in physics is working at the Missile Division of Lockheed Martin and told me i am coming home on thanksgiving and i want to buy you dinner, things like that where you give everything you have. It is not about me anymore. It is about my kids, the future of my children and their childrens children and i want to contribute now. You describe your former student, i would like to see more students having choices like that. I will be brief. The only extra point reaching further back into the grade level, we are trying to grow the underrepresented groups in the stem fields, and i do think we will get more bang for the buck if we reach back as early as we can. Whatever the programs are, nasa programs or department of ed programs, wherever they live we need to start early because a lot of those preconceived notions, some of them are cultural, some are implicit bias. Whatever the reasons are they start early and once they start it is hard to get back on track at the High School Level it at the university level. A few moments ago i talked about the extraordinary brand, almost a disadvantage in the sense of your question. How do we reach out to more disadvantaged communities. We have made a conscious effort to reach out not only to africanamerican and hispanic communities but first people. When you go in and say you can go to the International Space station, i will use a new york analogy, are you selling us the Brooklyn Bridge . One of the problems we face is nasa has a lovehate relationship with commercial but the more they hear a Small Company sent an oven to the space station or the more times it comes out instead of it just being nasa and still very often when we do things it is under nasa. There are a lot of first people who are not going to think they can go to the space station in this way so to answer you very practically, we started to just go to some of these conferences, meet with the people and say either we want to train you or locate something in your community or on the reservation and you can send something and we will help you. It is hard work but we cant wait for the government to do it but we could have a little bit of emphasis put on nasa that sometimes is not nasa. Sometimes it is the commercial sector. We say we laugh when something goes wrong or when it is right it is nasa, it is a joke. It is getting over the brand, over the gravatars that is nasa. To go back to what Shella Condino said, so many students are drawn into the team experience. If you get away from the hero model where its just one smart boy who answers the question and everybody else feels left out, everyone working together, that is where you get real diverse city. We can do that at the middle school or Elementary School or high school, that is what any degree is, we could do it at scale, and the thing you can do to help would be to relieve the strictures on k12 on teaching to the test so teachers feel they have more freedom to teach in other ways that we now work. I want to thank each of the witnesses for your hard work, your passion, your dedication, your testimony here today. Im extending because im being told senator sinema is a minute away. Right in the middle of my peroration, getting ready to wax eloquent, and instead all right, lets ask another question which is universities, what should universities be doing better to expand Stem Education, particularly nasa spacecraft. How much of a difference are they making as a practical matter . The Space Program is hugely impactful. It not only funds the faculty to do exciting work partnering with nasa to solve a particular problem but as i said earlier there are always students involved in those problems so those are critical. I would say the on the nasa Space Program, higher read as a whole is looking pretty deeply and we certainly are, the Stem Education experience. We have a sort of cookiecutter traditional mold of this department in this school and so on and so forth but they dont fall like that and you have to work with folks who dont have engineering background but have business or biology degree or whatever it is. The center for manufacturing excellence is an example of a layer you put on top of those majors that builds teams of those students, some are county majors, some are engineers but all working on a yearlong problem so they all understand each others world. The more we can do, get creative about, and teaching to the test, i am fully on board with getting more creative at the secondary level, it is the same at the university. We teach a lot to the way we have always taught. Can i get an amen on that . Im beginning to see more and more willingness to think broader. That is the first call and response we have seen at a subcommittee hearing. That is wonderful. Thank you for allowing the, thank you for being here and testifying on such an important issue. My first question to linda elkinstanton. You discuss the difference between nasa led Flagship Missions like the Hubble Telescope and Principal Investigator missions. When testifying before the Commerce Committee nasa administer brydon stein made the same point you make in your written testimony that University Led pi missions are more likely to come in on time and under budget as opposed to Nasa Missions. As a Principal Investigator what do you see as the differences between how pi led missions are done as a compared to Flagship Missions and what medicines could nasa learned from pi led missions to keep our Flagship Missions on time and on budget . I very much hope not to disappoint you with the psyche, we are doing a best be on time and under budget. The ladies missions are run, they are conceived of as a whole and the team builds from the beginning and so the schedule and the budget and instruments needed and plan for the mission are all built up as a whole as a single unit where the Flagship Missions come from the multidecade all survey, trying to answer above really big, really tough space challenges that we have and are put together by competition so that the instruments are in a pool and the leadership is picked and once the leadership is in place what they have is a bunch of separate city states, all together and that is a big challenge and it is not that i think this is wrong. The aspirations of our Flagship Mission and new Technology Developments that make budgeting much harder are what we should be doing, they are the hard things but if there is a possibility to create a more united team earlier in the process that would help with budgeting and scheduling challenges. My next question is for you but i welcome our panelists to respond if they are interested as well. Im really proud of arizonas universities that we take programs like discovery and new frontiers to provide the opportunity to propose and receive funding for missions that advance nasas scientists and aspirational goals but im concerned when one of these motions end. If we develop expertise, after physics or astrobiology the funding to support the research disappears so this can lead to nasa and universities to lose a key source of expertise and makes the followup research harder to complete so what opportunities exist or should exist to help make continuous investments in spacerelated Research Skills and what can we do to help nasa universities, private sector and individual researchers develop these relationships to fuel decades of research . It is a constant problem on the science and engineering side to build uppercase and the funding and emphasis goes away and they need to leave for other jobs. We saw this happen with lunar science. Our Institutional Knowledge of lunar science began to drain away because the i envision a world where when we are so lucky as we have been at arizona to win these missions and get tremendous teams together, we have the opportunity for those people waiting for the next Mission Opportunity rather than vanishing into a different industry that is a moment we can bring together university privatesector nasa to do these triangle sector efforts to hit the next big target we need and dont lose the people, still educating new members and connecting with the private sector, doing tech transfer, filling in the gap in artemis are doing i would love to see nasa create partnerships like that that would strengthen and grow workforce. So you are absolutely right that those specific projects end and the funding stops and you spend a lot of time and energy and money developing a relationship and skill set. One of the things we do at the university of mississippi is work on developing the relationship with the program so when the funding ends we have a trusting relationship between the scientists and engineers on the federal side and our faculty members and Research Staff and what that tends to do is once the funding may have dried up or shifted another direction but once you have the relationship there and have some flexibility in your skill set. As we were talking about changing the way we think about the education side a more flexible curriculum that will lead to a more flexible faculty in the future. This is what i do and if it doesnt fit in this box im not involved or cant be involved so i think those things, having that flexibility and longterm relationship is key to extending the time that we are collaboratively working. We have models with other federal agencies with scientists from the federal side come and stay for an extended time, might be three months, might be six months or even longer that faculty members go for percentage of time. Those are incredibly valuable. We go so far with a particular agency with federal scientists embedded full time with our faculty in one of our facilities. That builds relationships that last decades. My next question. I have another question. Since 2015 you worked on the Psyche Mission which proposes to send a probe with an exposed nickel iron core. It resembles the core of the newly formed planet much like the earth several billion years ago and you develop this mission. How have you worked with those undergraduate students as well as other researchers at Arizona State university and what you believe students and researchers gain from the opportunity to work firsthand on a mission like psyche and how do we ensure students and researchers across the country can participate in Nasa Missions . You we have been hitting this topic beautifully and i want to focus on a couple key parts of what we try to do in psyche that connects to what we have said and giving students the opportunity to work in Interdisciplinary Teams toward goals. Doctor cassie bowman, the Research Faculty who runs all the student collaborations and one of the innovations she made is figuring out how to run capstone teams but we would like them not to be capstone teams but every semester every year of your education working together where there is an engineer and User Experience designer and a marketer and student project manager just like when they hit the workforce trying to solve problems that come from the project so our engineers share challenges they are facing and give them those teams. We had a set of capstones that competed for flight on a blue origin launch and the team that won was a virtual team. We had someone in the military on a ship and someone at a university on the east coast in the south, someone in the north who mailed their hardware back and forth and they won so that is the workforce of the future and that is how we want to engage people. We should do as much this as we can. I want to thank our witnesses for being here today and thank you for hosting this committee hearing. This is something im interested in and it is important to our country not just for the future competitiveness of our country but National Security so thank you for the work you do and thank you in particular for the folks you are teaching to remain competitive and safe. I appreciate it. Thank you. I want to thank each of the witnesses, thank you for your terrific testimony, your passion and the difference you are making. The record for this hearing will remain open for the next two weeks. Senators are asked to submit questions for the record and on receipt the witnesses are asked to submit written answers to the subcommittee as soon as possible and with that this hearing is adjourned. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] next, attorney general william barr announces the 21 saudi students will be expelled following an investigation into the saudi military officer who killed three sailors and wounded eight others at a Naval Air Station in pensacola last month. Heres a portion of that briefing. On december six, Second Lieutenant mohammed al shamr i shamroni, a member of the Saudi Air Force entered a building on the Naval Air Station and killed three sailors and severely wounded eight other americans which he was killed during the attack. This was an act of terrorism. The evidence showed that the shooter was mat