HOUSTON, June 18 (Xinhua) -- Congressmen from the U.S. state of Texas, where the Johnson Space Center is located, have rallied to defend the country's imperiled back-to-the-moon program, citing its workforce job security, technological prowess and the inspiration of manned space operations.

    Their testimony was given in a public hearing Wednesday as part of a White House-ordered review of the direction, timetable and spending for NASA's bid to return astronauts to the lunar surface by 2020, according to newspaper Houston Chronicle.

    With the looming retirement of the space shuttle fleet in 2010 leaving a five-year gap in manned U.S. space operations, Pete Olson, representing Sugar Land, Texas, expressed concerns about job losses within NASA and its contractor workforce, including Johnson Space Center.

    "They are jobs we won't easily get back, and as this economy struggles to rebound, this kind of job loss will not be ignored," he said.

    The Johnson Space Center and NASA account for roughly 20,000 jobs in the Houston area and billions of dollars in economic activity.

    Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison joined Oslon, saying in prepared testimony that the five-year gap threatens to the NASA workforce with "long-term implications."

    U.S. President Barack Obama has ordered a thorough review of the future of the nation's space program and whether the U.S. can afford to return to the moon or send humans to Mars. The next few months could be critical to the jobs of thousands of space program employees and contractors of NASA.

    The best-case scenario now for Texas' interests is that the 10-member independent panel appointed by Obama will recommend that the White House adopt former President George W. Bush's previous NASA road map. The Bush plan for the Constellation program would unite the Ares rocket system and the Orion crew capsule to reach the orbiting International Space Station beyond 2015 and the moon by 2020.

    But space experts said the panel is more likely to recommend changing the scope, budget and timetable for manned space operations. The most thorny problem is that the massive federal deficit could squeeze all discretionary spending over the next decade.

    The human flight program is already suffering cutbacks. Obama's proposed budget trims support for future manned exploration, and a House Appropriations Committee panel has agreed to cut Obama's proposed 18.7-billion-dollar NASA budget by 651 million, including a 17 percent cut in space exploration. Under the White House's next NASA budget, a total of 3.8 billion dollars will be cut for manned space exploration over the next four years.

    Wednesday's hearing in Washington D.C. is the first by the White House review panel, which will visit Houston in July.