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in the mid- to late 1990s, is transport of people to and from the space station. We just can't do it with the current shuttle fleet. We just can't get the people, the people traffic that we need.

Now, I should plead ignorance on the aerospace plane because I'm really not that familiar with its capabilities. But I believe we're not intending to have that as a transport to the space station as a way of supporting this sort of thing, that we would probably consider additional orbiters or personnel carriers inside an orbiter or some follow on to the space shuttle as a means of transporting people.

MR. WALKER. Well I'm probably over my time. I would agree with you; I don't think NASA is thinking of it in those terms, or some of us here that are thinking of it in those terms, however.

Thank you Mr. Chairman.

MR. NELSON. Mr. Nagle.

MR. NAGLE. Mr. Chairman, other than thanking Dr. Ride for her report, which I thought was insightful and both visionary, I have no questions.

MR. NELSON. On your talking of mining on the surface if the Moon, was helium III of particular interest to you?

DR. RIDE. We did consider helium III. Helium III does exist on the Moon. It's something that we could mine there. And it's of interest because of its potential application in fusion, as I'm sure you're aware.

We, to be honest, considered that interesting and something to look into in the future, but it didn't seen that either fusion or the lunar initiative was far enough developed to really be thinking seriously about the possibility of using the Moon as a source of helium III, although it is a source of helium III.

MR. NELSON. Mr. Perkins.

MR. PERKINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Doctor, it's good to see you again today.

I suppose I really don't have too many questions. I think we really discussed most of the specifics that I was interested in yesterday. But just in terms of making a couple of comments, I would again thank you for the effort that you have put into this and just perhaps say that I think the most important thing that is in the report is, again, on the second page that you gave us today, to energize a discussion of the long-range goals.

I think, since I have served on this committee, this is the first time that we have taken any sort of time to discuss why or what direction we should be going in with the space program and why we should be going in that direction with the space program.

You know, it strikes me that most the mission that we seem to talk about here are ends unto themselves. The shuttle program was an end unto itself. The space station is being viewed as an end unto itself. Why-When we talked yesterday, you had one vision of what you were interested in terms of long-range goals, Bill had another, I had another. You know, ultimately I have viewed the space as being under the great frontier, where many is inextricably drawn, that ultimately will lead to some sort of colonization of space. And with that perspective, it allows everything else, to me, to fit in.

Now, I question whether we have any sort of perspective presently. It strikes me that we're just kind of going along on a hit-or-miss