FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
July 31, 2020

Congressman Mike Garcia Offers Remarks on the Historic Launch of
NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover

 Last evening, Congressman Mike Garcia spoke from the Floor of the House of Representatives to celebrate yesterday’s successful launch of NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover. The Perseverance Rover’s mission will assist in the evaluation of demands of living on Mars - a critical step in the feasibility of crewed missions. This mission reflects several milestones: this rover will be the first to prioritize the finding of evidence of ancient life and the first demonstration of powered flight on another planet with the Ingenuity helicopter. Weather, environmental data, and soil samples will be collected that will then be returned to Earth for future analysis.

Here are some excerpts from Congressman Garcia’s speech:

”. . . I stand here this evening inspired. More specifically, I am proud and I am in awe of our American space program and the monumental step they took this morning with the launch of the Perseverance Mars rover on the back of an Atlas V rocket."

"As Americans, we carry an inherent desire to push ourselves forward through adversity. In mankind’s evolutionary journey from the caves all the way up now to Mars, there is no greater enemy to the American Spirit than complacency and self-doubt."

"And while we celebrate this achievement of American innovation and our ability to work through challenging and seemingly impossible problems, we must also remain vigilant. While our aim and our mission are admirable, not every country carries that same passion and desire for peaceful exploration. We need to look no further than the Chinese Communist government and their willingness to antagonize us while continuing to increase their footprint in the vacuum of space. They are not a near-peer threat; they are in fact a peer threat, especially in this domain."

"I spoke earlier of the American Spirit . . . it is a story of exploration and it is a story we haven’t finished writing. We continue the next chapters so that our children and our children’s children may know what it means to succeed where others thought we would stumble . . . to accomplish what others thought were impossible."

"We can hold Communist China accountable and limit its dangerous power grab. We can survive COVID-19 and develop and deliver a vaccine to our entire country as well as the world. And we can continue to Persevere in our quest to become a multi-planetary species. We can do all of the above, and we will."

You can watch Congressman Garcia’s full speech below: