Chris Scolese: Welcome everybody. I don't think
I need to introduce Senator Mikulski, I think you all figured that out as we
walked in. Senator Mikulski of course is
currently the Vice Chair of the Appropriations Committee.
She was the Chair of it, and we have a lot to be thankful for from
the Senator for this year for the budget that we got. Without her leadership
and her efforts, you know, today would
not be as happy a day as it is. Senator Mikulski
has been very critical in advancing
servicing for NASA and for the nation
Many of you worked the Hubble servicing missions, they were the beginning of
real servicing and proving that we could do things
this next step to do robotic servicing is
going to take us beyond Earth orbit
to allow us to do other things to help us help other agencies
accomplish what they want, in industry and extend the nation's
leadership in servicing. With that Senator, we'd like you
to cut the ribbon of our Robotic Operations Center
called ROC and then we'd like you to say a few words. Mikulski: We need a countdown
Scolese: Ok. 3 2 1?Mikulski: Why don't we- no backward
Scolese: Is that good? Ok everybody 3 2
[Applause] 1!
Scolese: Senator?
Mikulski: Good morning Goddard! How are we today?
[Applause] I am so happy to be
here with you, in the new year. Next week Congress
goes back into session, the President will give his State of the Union
and while he's telling us his take on it. I want to go back
and tell him what I've seen, and I'm going to tell him, "Before you leave
get the hell out here to Goddard and you're going to feel better
about America. You're going to be feeling better about
the world, and you're even going to know more about the universe.
God bless you here at Goddard, really. Their eyes
on the universe. I'm so proud of you
I am proud of you and what you do
every single day in every single way. The way you
signed up for your mission, and for the purpose of making
sure that we are the preeminent power
in space. But when we go into space we
don't go to conquer, we go to discover.
To discover new things about the Universe.
New things about galaxies or super novas.
And also while we're up there, we also want to make sure
we're doing good back here. And you and I know
that one of the greatest inventions that we've had has been the
satellite. The satellite has revolutionized
everything. We couldn't have most of our technology today
without satellites. But satellites
are just like people. They get old,
they end up in the wrong parking spot, they need
replacements, et cetera. They need
help, and this is why we need satellite
servicing. We need satellite servicing.
[Applause] Old satellites shouldn't die they
shouldn't fade away or fly away, they need to be serviced.
And when we knew that satellites really for the good
of our networks and for the good of our
economy, we need to be able to reuse them. And that's why
when we said we needed satellite servicing
Why not do it at Goddard? Because why not do it
at Goddard? They know how to service things in space. Look they
took a telescope that weighed all those tons up there
and remember when Hubble had a problem?
You remember when Hubble needed a contact lens? The most expensive contact lens
in techno-ophthalmology there.
And yet, it went up, the fix went up
the astronauts were daring but because of
here at Goddard, we were able to
service. Working with our astronaut team we were
able to get Hubble back on track and of course
it has become the greatest telescope since Galileo
invented the first one.
but that was only a forerunner of what we can do. The James Webb will go up, we will be looking
at heliophysics. We'll continue to study "Mission to Planet Earth"
to see if there's intelligent life there, keep on looking,
don't give up on it, we'll find it, we've got some water left.
we'll do it. But at the end of the day we also
wanted to talk about how to use our incredible workforce
for the good of our,
for the good that is much needed. And that's why we've developed
the satellite service mission. And now when I look at this
glitzy, glitzy endeavor back
here and I see this robot that they're going to do
a demonstration with- you know I could use one of those.
I'm only four foot eleven, I could use a robot to service my
high shelves. I need a high shelf robot
here and so on, but
it is just amazing. But you know what's amazing? Of course the
technology is amazing, and just as we have
technological intelligence, technology intelligence
is only as good as the human intelligence behind it.
And that's you. I want you to know I so
admire you. It has been my joy,
my joy to represent you now for almost
30 years. You know I grew up with the space program
I knew when the first rockets went up. I was thrilled
when at Christmas some many years ago when they read
Genesis as they circled the Earth. I was so relieved
when they not only went to the moon, but then came back from the moon.
And all the wonderful things when Goddard- when Hubble was really
working again. But through it all it was not the rocket ships
it was not the telescopes
it was always the people. It's always you, I so hope
respect you, I really want you to know my heart will always
be with you, and may the force be with us all, thank you
very much.
[Applause]
Scolese: We're just going to go off and tour so for people who want to get
to the all hands, it's best to head over to building 8 now. Or 3.