What's Happening in Space Policy July 11-16, 2016

Here is our list of space policy events for the week of July 11-16, 2016 and any insight we can offer about them.  The House and Senate are in session this week.

During the Week

The Washington space policy community is still reeling from the news of Molly Macauley’s murder Friday night while walking her dogs near her home in Baltimore.  Molly was one of the most respected and admired members of our relatively small group of space policy analysts and practitioners and was well-known to just about everyone in it.  No word yet on funeral arrangements.  We’ll certainly post any information we get.  Molly was Vice President of Research and a Senior Fellow at Resources for the Future, a Washington-based think tank, which has posted a lovely tribute to her.

Meanwhile, the work of the space policy community must go on. This is the last week Congress is scheduled to meet until after Labor Day, so there’s a lot they should be getting done.  Whether they do or not remains to be seen with everyone focused on tragic deaths elsewhere in the country.  Senate leaders tried to bring up the defense appropriations bill last week, but Democrats blocked it.  They’re going to try again tomorrow.  On Friday, the House approved a motion to go to conference on the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), so that’s a step in that direction anyway, but authorization bills don’t provide any money.  Only appropriations bills do that.  There’s no indication when the Senate will resume consideration of the Commerce-Justice-Science Appropriations bill, which includes NASA and NOAA, and it is not on the House calendar either.  The House and Senate will have four weeks after they return on September 6 to get some sort of appropriations passed to keep the government operating after FY2016 ends on September 30.

There are three congressional hearings about space this week.   First is a House Science, Space, and Technology (SS&T) Committee hearing on “Astronomy, Astrophysics and Astrobiology” with witnesses talking about programs at NASA and the National Science Foundation. That begins at 10:00 am ET on Tuesday.  An hour later (which means the two will overlap), the House Small Business Committee holds a hearing on the role of small business and NASA.  It’s the first time we can think of that that committee has held a space hearing.  Witnesses are from Explore Mars (Beverly, MA), Emergent Space Technologies (Greenbelt, MD), Craig Technologies (Cape Canaveral, FL) and Honeybee Technologies (Brooklyn, NY).

On Wednesday, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) will chair only his third space hearing since becoming chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee’s Space, Science and Competitiveness Subcommittee at the beginning of 2015.   He’s been busy running for President and reportedly will speak at the Republican Convention next week, but on Wednesday he will focus on “NASA At a Crossroads: Reasserting American Leadership in Space Exploration.”  Witnesses are Bill Gerstenmaier from NASA; Mary Lynne Dittmar from the Coalition for Deep Space Exploration; Mike Gold from SSL (formerly Space Systems Loral); Mark Sirangelo from Sierra Nevada Corporation; and Dan Dumbacher, formerly NASA, now at Purdue.  We published summaries of Cruz’s previous two space hearings: February 25, 2015 on U.S. Human Space Exploration Goals and Commercial Space Competitiveness and  March 13, 2015 on NASA’s FY2016 budget request.

The American Astronautical Society, CASIS and NASA will hold the 5th International Space Station R&D conference in San Diego Tuesday-Thursday, with a special pre-conference session tomorrow afternoon on utilization of Japan’s Kibo module.  The conference itself will be webcast — lots of really interesting speakers each day, including a conversation with Mark and Scott Kelly and CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Sanjay Gupta on the Twins Study from Scott Kelly’s 340-day stay aboard ISS.  Remember that all times in the agenda are in Pacific Daylight Time (Eastern Daylight Time – 3).

Two interesting national security space seminars also are on the docket this week. The Hudson Institute holds a meeting on Space and the Right to Self Defense on Wednesday afternoon to discuss a report it just published on that topic. The study director, Hudson Institute Fellow Rebeccah Heinrichs, will moderate a discussion with Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) and former Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl.   Thursday morning, the Air Force Association’s Mitchell Institute will hold a breakfast meeting featuring Elbridge Colby of the Center for a New American Security on U.S. defense and deterrence strategy for space.

Those and other events we know about as of Sunday morning are shown below.  Check back throughout the week for additions to our Events of Interest list.

Monday-Thursday, July 11-15 

• 5th International Space Station R&D Conference (AAS/NASA/CASIS), San Diego, CA (webcast)  [Monday is a pre-conference day; the conference itself is Tuesday-Thursday.  It is not clear if the pre-conference activities on Monday also will be webcast]

Monday-Sunday, July 11-17

• Farnborough Air Show, Farnborough, UK

Tuesday, July 12

• House SS&T Subcommittee hearing on Astronomy, Astrophysics and Astrobiology, 2318 Rayburn, 10:00 am ET (typically webcast)
• House Small Business Subcommittee hearing on Small Business and NASA, 2360 Rayburn, 11:00 am ET (typically webcast)

Tuesday, July 12 – Tuesday, July 19

• Intl Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS), Prague, Czech Republic

Wednesday, July 13

• NASA Media Telecon on SpaceX CRS-9 Mission (to be launched July 18), San Diego, CA (in conjunction with the ISS R&D Conference), 2:00 pm ET  Listen on NASA’s News Audio Site
• Senate Commerce Subcommittee Hearing on NASA and Reasserting American Leadership in Space, 253 Russell, 2:30 pm ET (typically webcast)
• Space and the Right to Self Defense (Hudson Inst), 1201 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Washington, DC, 3:30-4:30 pm ET (webcast)

Thursday, July 14

• Future Space 2016 (Future Space Leaders Foundation), 106 Dirksen (7:30 am – 12:00 pm ET) followed by luncheon at Reserve Officer Association building across the street (12:30-1:30 pm ET)
• U.S. Defense and Deterrence Strategy for Space (AFA Mitchell Institute), Air Force Association, 1501 Lee Highway, Arlington, VA, 8:00 am ET

Saturday, July 16

• 40th Anniversary of the Landing of Viking on Mars, Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum, Denver, CO, 10:00 am – 4:00 pm Mountain Time