Events of Interest: Week of April 23-27, 2012
The following events may be of interest in the coming week. The House and Senate both are in session this week.
During the Week
After the excitement of last week with its space shuttle Discovery flyover of Washington, DC and the National Space Symposium in Colorado, this week may pale in comparison. Especially since the transport of space shuttle Enterprise from Washington to New York was postponed because of weather; no new date has been announced, but presumably that could still happen this week. Enterprise, which never flew in space, lost its spot at the Smithsonian to Discovery and is being relocated to the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in New York City.
In any case, Tuesday promises to be interesting with a press conference at Seattle’s Museum of Flight (10:30 am PT, 1:30 pm ET) to announce the formation of a company, Planetary Resources, Inc., that plans to mine asteroids. Press reports indicate that company backers include movie director and explorer James Cameron; Google executives Larry Page and Eric Schmidt; space entrepreneurs Eric Anderson and Peter Diamandis; and former Microsoft executive Charles Simonyi who flew into space twice as a “tourist” on Russian Soyuz spacecraft, one of which is now on display at the Museum of Flight.
Apart from that, the various subcommittees of the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) will markup their sections of the FY2013 defense authorization bill late in the week; Strategic Forces is on Thursday. And it wouldn’t be surprising if the full House Appropriations Committee marks up the Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) bill sometime during the week, although there is no such announcement as of Sunday afternoon; CJS subcommittee markup was completed last week. Full committee markup of the Energy and Water appropriations bill, which also was marked up at subcommittee level last week, is scheduled for Wednesday at 11:00 am.
Tuesday, April 24
- Planetary Resources Inc. press conference, Seattle Museum of Flight, 10:30 am PT (1:30 pm ET)
Wednesday, April 25
- Marshall Inst and TechAmerica Space Enterprise Council meeting on Commission on the Future of the Aerospace Industry: A Look Back and a Look Forward, 601 Pennsylvania Ave., NW (Indiana Avenue entrance), 9:00 am ET
Wednesday-Friday, April 25-27
- National Research Council (NRC) Study Committee on Implementation of a Sustained Land Imaging Program, NRC Keck Center, 500 5th St., NW, Washington, DC (some sessions of this meeting may be closed)
Thursday, April 26
- House SS&Tsubcommittee hearing on NASA’s aeronautics program, 2318 Rayburn, 10:00 am ET
- HASC Strategic Forces Subcommittee markup FY2013 defense authorization bill, 2212 Rayburn, 1:30 pm ET
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