Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and NASA chief Charles Bolden sparred Thursday over a fundamental question: Why does the space agency exist?

The junior senator, who chairs the Senate Space, Science and Competitiveness Subcommittee, feels NASA is losing its focus on space exploration and spending too much of its budget on Earth sciences.

"Almost any American would agree that the core function of NASA is to explore space," Cruz said. "Thats what inspires little boys and girls across the country."

Bolden argued that all that Earth science is absolutely critical to space exploration.

Our core mission from the very beginning has been to investigate, explore space and the Earth environment, and to help us make this place a better place, he said during a subcommittee hearing on Obamas $18.5 billion budget (fiscal year 2016) request for NASA.

Cruz dragged out some charts that showed a 41 percent increase in the budget of earth science and a 7.6 percent decrease in space exploration.

The NASA administrator poked fun at Cruzs chartsmanship, while noting he couldnt confirm those numbers. Bolden added that one reason for the drop in exploration and space operations funding is that theres been a conscious effort to make space flight cheaper as NASA tries to go deeper into the solar system.

Who won the back-and-forth? Depends who you ask. Mashable wrote the NASA chief had the perfect comeback to Cruzs criticism. Bloomberg described Bolden as rattled, pointing out that he flubbed some math about the agency's spending under his administration. Cruz corrected the error. (You can watch the videohere).

Many expected Cruz to try to cut NASAs budget when he took over the subcommittee in January. The space agency often endures criticism for spending large sums of money on exploration missions that seem irrelevant to life on Earth. But Cruz and Colorado senator Cory Gardner didnt seem to have a problem with the budget, just where it was being allocated.

That's because, in reality, Cruzs argument was a veiled attack on NASAs research on climate change. Bolden understood that, at one point referencing the threat of sea level rise to Cape Canaveral.

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Ted Cruz, NASA chief spar over space agency's mission