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31 something that would give us that bold stroke, that visionary goal, while at the same time doing all of these initiatives of building on what we have already accomplished. Mr. Walker, let's have some of your comments. Mr. WALKER. I think Mr. Konnyu was also-- Mr. KONNYU. No, that's all right. I'll wait my turn and let my senior boys play. [Laughter.] Mr. WALKER. The other aspect of that is, however, that in all of the things that we have here, we also--we are talking in visionary terms, and it is visionary to talk in these terms. But they are all things that we already know how to do--to some extent. Human exploration of Mars is, in fact, something which obviously requires bold new technology we haven't done, but right over there sits the Viking sitting on the surface of Mars. We have gotten there; we've landed something on Mars. And so for all the vision that's included in what we're talking about here, look around this room and we've done it. There's the Moon base, there's LandSat shooting back to Earth; there's Saturn and Jupiter and so on shot from vehicles that went by them. I mean, in the 1960s and 1970s we did all these things. And to suggest that we can't do them now just doesn't make any sense. I was interested in a statement that Dr. Ride has in her prepared text here. She says it is not appropriate for NASA to set goals of the civilian space program. That's absolutely right. That's our job. That's--You know, NASA can't do that job. We've got to set the goals, and NASA then can give us the technology and everything to meet those goals. But we, in consultation with the presidency, we're going to have to do that. And we haven't done it. We haven't set those kinds of goals. We haven't had presidents who have set those kinds of goals. We, as a Congress, haven't been a part of setting those kinds of goals. And as a result, what we have done is standing still, and we look around the room here, we've already done the things that are the visionary things for the future. Mr. NELSON. For the major stroke, the bold stroke of the future, it takes the one person elected by the entire nation. It takes the President, as it took President Kennedy, after we had only sent Alan Sheppard up in a suborbit, within three weeks of that successful mission, to say that we were going to do what man could only imagine then, and that was we were going to the surface of the Moon and return safely within a nine-year period. We did it. We did it because of the boldness and the imagination of a President, supported by a Congress, and that's what it's going to take again. Mr. WALKER. But this President committed us to a space station, and we still can't get our act together enough to know whether or not that's ever going to reach fruition or not. And so, you know, it does, in fact, involve our active cooperation in setting those goals and making it a united American goal. The point with the Moon was it became a united American goal and we have to be a part of that. It has to be more than simply the President. Mr. NELSON. Well, let's us go to the White House and have a little prayer session down there. [Laughter.] Mr. Konnyu.
