Dear Mary Anne,

Mr. LAMPSON (for himself, Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas, Mr. BELL, Mr. HONDA, Mr. GREEN of Texas, Mr. ORTIZ, Mr. EVANS, Ms. LINDA T. SANCHEZ of California, Mr. PASCRELL, Mr. HALL, Mr. REYES, Mr. ISRAEL, Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas, Mr. EDWARDS, Mr. COSTELLO, Mr. LIPINSKI, Mr. GORDON, Mr. UDALL of Colorado, Mr. LARSON of Connecticut, Mr. MILLER of North Carolina, Mr. FROST, Mr. SANDLIN, Mr. TURNER of Texas, Mr. WU, Mr. KUCINICH, Ms. ESHOO, and Ms. MCCARTHY of Missouri) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Science

"(1) Within 8 years after the date of enactment of this Act, the development and flight demonstration of a reusable space vehicle capable of carrying humans from low Earth orbit to the L 1 and L 2 Earth-Sun libration points and back for the purposes of assembling large-scale space structures such as would be required for scientific observatories, to the Earth-Moon libration points and back, and to lunar orbit and back.

"(2) Within 10 years after the date of enactment of this Act, the development and flight demonstration of a reusable space vehicle capable of carrying humans from low Earth orbit to and from an Earth-orbit crossing asteroid and rendezvousing with it.

"(3) Within 15 years after the date of enactment of this Act, the development and flight demonstration of a reusable space vehicle capable of carrying humans from lunar orbit to the surface of the Moon and back, as well as the development and deployment of a human-tended habitation and research facility on the lunar surface.

"(4) Within 20 years after the date of enactment of this Act, the development and flight demonstration of a reusable space vehicle capable of carrying humans from low Earth orbit to and from Martian orbit, the development and deployment of a human-tended habitation and research facility on the surface of one of the moons of Mars, and the development and flight demonstration of a reusable space vehicle capable of carrying humans from Martian orbit to the surface of Mars and back."

Note carefully that detection observatories at L1 and L2, and on the Moon, and flight to KY26, and flight to Phobos and Deimos, take priority over manned flight to Mars' surface.

I think that with refinements, inculding the addition of explicit language on the purpose of the observatories (early detectio of impactors, comet and asteroid), and possibly the addition of say 5 years or so to the deadlines, which I expect Chairman Boehlert to add, this enabling legislation will do fine, and not only in Committee, but before the House and Senate.

Everyone here is really tired of the Mars Nuts trying to dictate the nation's space agenda, and using foul means to try to ram their agenda fown everyone's throats.

It's been a long hard struggle, and certainly one of my biggest problems has been trying to make my UK editor understand what a pack of demented vicious fascist swine some of these folks are.

ep