Former Pennsylvania Rep. Robert Walker tells Newsmax that Texas Sen. Ted Cruz "will be a great advocate for NASA" as he prepares to head up the Senate subcommittee that oversees the space organization in the newly Republican-led Congress.
"Given his home state and there, we have a lot of the man space operations, which is an area that we're attempting to expand through more commercial activity," Walker, former chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, told J.D. Hayworth and Miranda Khan on "America's Forum" on
Newsmax TV Thursday.
As Cruz takes over the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Science, Space and Competitiveness, the Texas Republican says he wants to see the United States take the lead again when it comes to space exploration and not be so "dependent" on "our international partners."
Walker, who served ten terms in Congress from 1977 until 1997, contends that "to have Ted Cruz advocating in some of those areas would actually put some vitality back into the space program."
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Astrophysicist Neil Degrasse Tyson said in 2009 that Republican administrations have traditionally spent more money on science and space exploration than Democratic administrations, adding that "innovations in science and technology are the engines of economic growth."
The Pennsylvania Republican, who once sat on the board of directors for the Space Foundation, said that Tyson "is spot on."
"The fact is that even during the time when [we] were working to balance budgets in Washington, we managed to put additional money into research and development, in particular into science and health research," he said.
"We expanded out the budgets while we were balancing the budget because we do recognize that science and technology are engines for economic growth in the 21st century," he said.
According to Walker, even though U.S. astronauts have to hitch rides with their Russian counterparts to get to the International Space Station, the U.S. is moving in the right direction now that private companies "are developing new space vehicles for us."
"Space X is not only developing a capsule or developing a launch vehicle ... we have some technologies that are beginning to prove themselves," he said.
"Hopefully, by about 2017 we will have the capability to put American astronauts on American vehicles again," he added.