Events of Interest: Week of July 4-8, 2011

Hope that everyone is enjoying the July 4 holiday! This is a slow week for space policy related events, despite the fact that both the House and Senate will be in session. The House had its break last week and the Senate planned to be off this week, but after President Obama criticized Congress for leaving town while the debt limit talks were still underway, the Senate changed its mind.

During the Week

The BIG EVENT this week, of course, is the final launch of the space shuttle. Atlantis is scheduled to lift off at 11:26 am ET from Kennedy Space Center, FL. We will be there covering the event live. Follow us on Twitter: @spcplcyonline

Also important is the House Appropriations subcommittee markup of the appropriations bill that includes NASA and NOAA, and the separate appropriations bill that includes the U.S. Geological Survey, on Thursday. That will be the first official congressional action on the FY2012 budget requests for those agencies.

Wednesday-Friday, July 6-8

• National Research Council (NRC) Committee on Assessment of NASA’s Earth Science Program, Seattle, WA. The only open sessions of the meeting are on July 6 from 1:00-4:00 pm PDT.

Thursday, July 7

• House Appropriations Committee Interior-Environment subcommittee markup of the Interior-Environment bill, which includes the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), which operates the Landsat satellites and is proposing to take over the entire Landsat program from NASA, 9:00 am EDT, B-308 Rayburn.
• House Appropriations Committee Commerce-Science-Justice subcommittee markup of the CJS bill, which includes NASA and NOAA, 10:15 am EDT, H-140 Capitol.

Friday, July 8

• Final launch of the space shuttle program. Atlantis launch scheduled for 11:26 am EDT from Kennedy Space Center, FL.