Events of Interest: Week of April 16-20, 2012
The following events may be of interest in the week ahead. The House and Senate both return to work after a two-week recess.
During the Week
Weather permitting, Tuesday is the day the space shuttle Discovery will make its last trip aboard the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft as it moves from Kennedy Space Center to the Smithsonian’s Udvar-Hazy Center near Dulles Airport, VA just outside of Washington for permanent exhibition. NASA is anticipating spectacular views of Discovery’s arrival as it is flown over national landmarks in the Washington area. Details on where to get the best view are on the Smithsonian’s website as well as NASA’s.
If all goes according to schedule, you can watch Discovery arrive and then hop up to Capitol Hill for the Senate Appropriations Commerce-Justice-Science subcommittee markup of the FY2013 budget requests under its jurisdiction, which include NASA and NOAA. It is at 2:30 pm in 192 Dirksen. This is the first markup of the FY2013 appropriations season that affects NASA and NOAA. It is followed one hour later with the markup of the T-HUD bill that includes the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation.
Of course it’s not clear how many of the space policy community will be in Washington on Tuesday since the National Space Symposium is being held this week (Monday-Thursday) in Colorado Springs, CO.
Those are just a few of the space policy-related events coming up this week. See below for a complete list.
Monday, April 16
- Continuation of events associated with space shuttle Discovery’s departure from Kennedy Space Center (KSC), scheduled for Tuesday morning at 7:00 am ET
- NASA press conference on Upcoming SpaceX Mission to ISS, time TBD (after the Flight Readiness Review is done), Johnson Space Center, Houston TX (watch on NASA TV)
- FameLab Astrobiology final competition, 7:00-9:00 pm ET, Atlanta, GA (watch on NASA TV or livestream)
Monday-Thursday, April 16-19
- National Space Symposium, Broadmoor Hotel, Colorado Springs, CO
Tuesday, April 17
- Space Shuttle Discovery departure from KSC and arrival at Dulles Airport, VA beginning at 7:00 am ET
- Senate Appropriations CJS Subcommittee markup, 2:30 pm ET, 192 Dirksen
- Senate Armed Services subcommittee hearing on Defense Science & Technology, 2:30 pm ET, 222 Russell
- Senate Appropriations T-HUD subcommittee markup, 3:30 pm ET, 138 Dirksen
Wednesday, April 18
- House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on North Korea, 10:00 am ET, 2172 Rayburn
Friday, April 20
- Grand Strategy and the Strategic Triad, 12:00-2:00 pm ET, 200 Senate Visitors Center
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