What's Happening in Space Policy June 13-18, 2016

Here is our list of space policy events for the week of June 13-18, 2016 and any insight we can offer about them.  The House and Senate are in session this week.

During the Week

The Senate will resume consideration of the FY2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) on Monday, with the hope that it can be completed quickly.  The Senate agreed to close debate on the bill on Friday and complete all debate by 11:00 am ET on Tuesday.  It then will vote on germane amendments and passage of the bill.   Debate over a Nelson-Gardner amendment regarding Russian RD-180 engines took up a good part of Friday, but no vote was taken.  They want to set December 31, 2022 as the end date for using RD-180s, whereas Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain insists on 2019, which was set in law by a previous NDAA.  The Nelson-Gardner amendment also does not mention how many engines may be procured, while McCain insists on only nine more.  The RD-180 debate has been covered extensively by SpacePolicyOnline.com already and will not be repeated here.

Senate leadership wants to finish NDAA and move on to the FY2017 Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations bill, which funds NASA and NOAA among other agencies.

The House plans to take up the FY2017 Defense Appropriations bill this week.  The House Rules Committee will meet on Tuesday to decide which amendments may be offered.  Assuming they agree, the bill will move to floor debate promptly.  The House has passed two of the 12 regular appropriations bills so far (Military Construction-VA and Legislative Branch), while a third (Energy-Water) was defeated.  The Senate has passed three (Energy-Water, and a single bill that combined MilCon-VA and Transportation-HUD). 

The Space Subcommittee of the House Science, Space and Technology (SS&T) Committee will hold a hearing on Wednesday afternoon on “Human Spaceflight Ethics and Obligations: Options for Monitoring, Diagnosing and Treating Former Astronauts.”   This issue of lifetime health care for astronauts has been percolating for years.  It concerns what ethical obligations the government has to provide medical care to astronauts once they leave the corps as well as the useful medical information NASA could gain from following them as the years pass.  The issue was raised as long ago as 2001 in the Safe Passage report from the Institute of Medicine (IOM, now the National Academy of Medicine).  A 2014 IOM report raised the same issues as did an October 2015 report from the NASA Inspector General. The 2005 NASA authorization act directed NASA to consider the need for establishing a lifetime health care program for NASA astronauts.  NASA determined that it needs specific legislative authority to do so and has proposed legislation since then, but it has not been enacted.  The House-passed 2015 NASA authorization act (H.R. 810) directs NASA to respond to the IOM recommendations, but the Senate has not acted on that bill.  Wednesday’s hearing will bring attention to the issue (and there are those who believe that a NASA authorization bill could still get passed by the end of the year).  Scott Kelly, who just returned from a U.S. record-setting 340-day stay aboard the International Space Station (ISS), Michael Lopez-Alegria, who previously held the record for the longest continuous U.S. human spaceflight and is now President of the Association of Space Explorers, and Chris Cassidy, head of the astronaut office at Johnson Space Center, are among the witnesses.  The list also includes Secretary of Labor Tom Perez; the chairman of the 2014 IOM study, Jeffrey Kahn; and NASA Chief Medical Officer Richard Williams.  The House SS&T committee typically webcasts its hearings.

On a totally different subject, Joan Johnson-Freese and Theresa Hitchens will discuss a paper they recently co-authored for the Scowcroft Center at the Atlantic Council on Toward a New National Security Space Strategy on Friday.  Johnson-Freese is a professor at the Naval War College and author of several books on national security space and China’s space program.  Hitchens is currently a senior research scholar at the University of Maryland after serving as head of the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR).  Mike Gruss from Space News will also participate in the discussion.  (We’ve inquired as to whether it will be webcast.  If we find out, we’ll post the information on our Events of Interest list.)

It will be busy up in space this week, too.   On Tuesday, Orbital ATK’s Cygnus spacecraft will depart from the ISS.  Five hours later, a fire will erupt inside the spacecraft as part of an experiment called SAFFIRE to observe how fires evolve in microgravity.   The robotic spacecraft is not designed to survive reentry, so it is a good candidate for such research.   Miles O’Brien had an excellent segment about the experiment on the PBS NewsHour last week.   

Then on Saturday, three crew members (NASA’s Tim Kopra, ESA’s Tim Peake, and Roscosmos’ Yuri Malenchenko) will return home.  NASA TV provides live coverage as usual.  Landing is at 5:12 am Eastern Daylight Time.

Those and other events we know about as of Sunday morning are shown below.  Check back throughout the week to see what’s been added to our Events of Interest list.

Sunday-Friday, June 12-17

• Continuation of the meeting of the U.N. Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, Vienna, Austria

Monday, June 13

• Are We Alone in the Universe?, New York Academy of Sciences, New York, New York, 7:00-8:30 pm ET (webcast)

Tuesday, June 14

• Orbital ATK Cygnus Departure from ISS and SAFFIRE-1 Experiment, release from ISS approximately 9:30 am ET (NASA TV coverage begins 9:00 am ET)
• House Rules Committee meets on FY2017 Defense Appropriations Bill, H-313 Capitol, 3:00 pm ET (usually webcast)

Wednesday, June 15

• House SS&T Sbcmte Hearing on Medical Obligations to Former Astronauts, 2318 Rayburn, 2:00 pm ET (webcast)
• AIAA Spotlight Awards Gala Dinner, Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, Washington, DC

Thursday, June 16

• NASA Mission Status Briefing on Juno Mission, NASA HQ, Washington, DC, 2:00 pm ET (webcast)

Friday, June 17

• Toward a New National Security Space Strategy (Atlantic Council), 1050 15th Street, NW, Washington, DC, 1:00-2:30 pm ET

Saturday, June 18

• Soyuz TMA-19M landing, 5:12 am ET, Kazakhstan