About Us
SpacePolicyOnline.com provides news, information and analysis about the policy aspects of the full scope of the U.S. space program — civil (NASA, NOAA, FAA/AST, and other civil agencies), military (DOD and the intelligence community), and commercial — as well as international space activities and space law. The space program is much more than NASA.
Marcia S. Smith is the founder and editor of SpacePolicyOnline.com. She has more than four decades of experience in space policy, including 31 years at the Congressional Research Service (CRS) on Capitol Hill and three at the Space Studies Board (SSB) and Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board (ASEB) of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Prior to CRS, she worked at George Washington University and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
She is the North American Editor of the quarterly journal Space Policy, and is a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) and the American Astronautical Society (AAS). Here are links to a one-page biography and a list of publications since 1973 (other than publications on SpacePolicyOnline.com).
The Congressional Research Service, where Smith worked from 1975-2006, provides objective, non-partisan research and analysis exclusively to the Members and committee of Congress. In addition to the many public CRS reports she authored, Smith also testified to congressional committees many times over her career. Some of her written statements at congressional hearings remain available on the Internet and are relevant to today’s debates.
- NASA’s Space Station Program: Evolution of Its Rationale and Expected Uses. Testimony to the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, Subcommittee on Science and Space, April 20, 2005
- Potential International Cooperation in NASA’s New Exploration Initiative. Testimony to the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, Subcommittee on Science, Technology and Space, April 27, 2004
- The U.S. Human Space Flight Program and the Space Shuttle Columbia Accident. Testimony to the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, Subcommittee on Science, Technology and Space, April 2, 2003
- NASA’s Space Station Program: Evolution and Current Status. Testimony before the House Science Committee. April 4, 2001