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Dr. PAINE.  What I would like to suggest now before proceeding with our meeting is that I would like to have statements from Dr. Laurel Wilkening, Dr. George Field, and Dr. Jack Kerebrock, but perhaps before we proceed to that, if it is agreeable to you, we might take the next 30 minutes to review the television 30-minute presentation on our report.

In discussions with this committee, we proposed that in addition to the basic what we call our Gutenberg version of our final report, which as published by Bantam Books, and we have made it broadly available across the country, that it would be also a good idea to reach the even larger audience of television.  And so we have put together a 30-minute documentary which also presents the results of our committee report.

And if this is agreeable to you, Mr. Chairman, I would suggest that now might be a good time to look at our 30-minute television report.

Mr. NELSON, All right, Dr. Paine, we will certainly do that.  Let's proceed with the video.

[Video presentation.]

Mr. NELSON.  Thank you, Dr. Paine.  Excellent presentation.  I think it's very smart of the Commission to put that in video form as well as this marvelous publication that you put together here.  Your space art is terrific in illustrating your words here.

Please proceed.

Dr. PAINE.  Well, Mr. Chaiman, I'd like to point out to this committee that the art in this report was not prepared at any cost to the American taxpayer, but was contributed by Bantam Books in return for the opportunity to publish and distribute our report.

I might also mention that the - one of the basic questions which the Commission addressed was whether or not we should have a program that had specific goals out into the future.  And it was our conclusion that particularly in a time of financial austerity that long-range planning, doing things once, doing them right, knowing how they would fit into a program, is very likely the most economical way to proceed as well as the way to proceed and get the best results for the Nation.

I think that the question of rebuilding NASA in the wake of the Challenger tragedy very largely comes down to this opportunity that we have to reassess the future direction and pace of the American space program.  And in that connection, we think that the wisdom of this committee in undertaking to have a long-range look at the future has been borne out.

Questions have been raised about the timing, why should we be coming out with a long-range look at space when we have a number of short-range problems of how do we recover from the Challenger accident.

But in my view, this is an excellent time for this committee to pause, as NASA is pausing, to regroup and rebuild, and to ask the question: Where are we going in space?  I think the worst thing that could happen to the American space program at this point would be to have an aimless lack of goal, a lack of crisp decision, that we need to decide what we are going to do about replacing the Challenger.  We need to decide how it is going to be handled in a budgetary way.  We need to decide what is going to be our launch