What's Happening in Space Policy July 25-29, 2016

Here is our list of space policy related events for the week of July 25-29, 2016 and any insight we can offer about them.  The House and Senate are in recess until September 6.

During the Week

Nationally, the big event this week is the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.  Not much is expected in the realm of space policy, although former astronaut Mark Kelly will speak on Wednesday.  He will appear with his wife, former Rep. Gabby Giffords, who survived an assassination attempt in 2011.  They have become leaders in the gun control movement and that is expected to be the focus of their presentation, not the space program (but one never knows).   None of the congressional Democrats with leading roles in space policy are on the speakers list as of today (Sunday), although Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) will be there.  He represents the district that includes the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena and is known as a strong supporter of JPL programs, but he no longer serves on the House Appropriations subcommittee that funds NASA.  He moved over to the Intelligence Committee and his comments are more likely to focus on those issues.  The latest version (July 21) of the 51-page Democratic party platform has one paragraph about NASA that expresses pride in what it has accomplished and promises to “strengthen support for NASA and work in partnership with the international scientific community to launch new missions into space.”   We didn’t see anything about either commercial or national security space activities in the document.

Within the space policy community, the focus this week will be meetings of the NASA Advisory Council (NAC) and its committees all week.  The meetings are at the Ohio Aerospace Center in Cleveland, but will be available by WebEx and telecon for those who cannot attend in person.  This will be the first NAC meeting since Steve Squyres stepped down as chair.  Former astronaut Ken Bowersox has been appointed the interim chair.  He had been chairing the NAC Human Exploration and Operations (NAC/HEO) Committee and Wayne Hale has been appointed to fill that position.

The NAC/HEO committee meets tomorrow and Tuesday.  Michele Gates, program director for the Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) is on the schedule for 2:30 pm ET tomorrow (Monday) to give an update on ARM, which just went through one of its milestone reviews — Key Decision Point-B or KDP-B — on July 15 to determine whether the project is ready to move into Phase B.  [A description of KDPs and project phases is in the NASA Procedural Requirements (NPR) 7120 document for those keenly interested in NASA program management.]  NASA has not made any announcement about what transpired at the KDP-B review.  We were told nothing would be out until this coming week, so hopefully Gates will provide that information. 

The other NAC committees/task groups meet Monday-Wednesday in advance of the full NAC meeting Thursday and Friday.  Always interesting to listen to if you have the time.

AIAA’s Propulsion and Energy Conference is also on tap this week in Salt Lake City, Utah.  Great line-up of sessions and speakers.   Winner for cleverest title in our view is “Launch Vehicle Reusability:  Holy Grail, Chasing Our Tail, or Somewhere in Between?”  The conference will be livestreamed.  Remember that Utah is in the Mountain Daylight Time (MDT) zone, which is two hours behind Eastern Daylight Time (i.e. 9:00 am MDT is 11:00 am EDT).

Those events and others we know about as of Sunday morning are shown below.  Check back throughout the week for additions to the Events of Interest that we learn about later.   For convenience, we’re grouping all the NAC meetings together rather than listing them day-by-day.  They are listed separately in our Events of Interest list.

NASA Advisory Council (NAC) and its subgroups, Monday-Friday, July 25-29, all at Ohio Aerospace Institute, Cleveland, Ohio and available by WebEx/telecon

• Human Exploration and Operations Committee, Monday-Tuesday
• Science Committee, Monday-Wednesday
• Ad Hoc Task Force on STEM Education, Tuesday (joint with Science Committee 3:15-5:15 pm ET)
• Technology, Innovation, and Engineering Committee, Tuesday
• Aeronautics Committee, Tuesday
• Institutional Committee, Tuesday-Wednesday
• Full NAC, Thursday-Friday

Other Events

Monday-Tuesday, July 25-26

• National Academies Workshop on 2016 Review of NASA’s Evidence Reports for Human Health Risks, Keck Center, 500 5th Street, NW, Washington, DC

Monday-Wednesday, July 25-27

• AIAA Propulsion & Energy Conference, Salt Lake City, Utah (livestreamed)

Monday-Thursday, July 25-28

• Democratic National Convention, Philadelphia, PA (former astronaut Mark Kelly scheduled to speak on Wednesday)

Tuesday, July 26

• MSBR Luncheon Featuring NOAA’s Karen St. Germain, Martin’s Crosswinds, Greenbelt, MD, 11:30 am – 1:30 pm ET

Tuesday-Friday, July 26-29

• Enceladus and the Icy Moons of Saturn, Boulder, CO