What's Happening in Space Policy June 16-20, 2014

Here is our list of upcoming space policy related events for the week of June 16-20, 2014 and any insight we can offer about them.  The House and Senate both are in session this week.

During the Week

Inside the Beltway, perhaps the most interesting event will be Senate debate on a “minibus” appropriations bill that bundles the bill that funds NASA and NOAA (Commerce-Justice-Science or CJS), the bill that funds FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation (Transportation-HUD or T-HUD), and the Agriculture bill.  The Hill newspaper reports that’s the plan and the Senate did begin debate on the motion to proceed to the CJS bill last week, a procedural step.   Those three bills were bundled together in FY2012, too. 

It’s hard to remember the last time the Senate took up the CJS appropriations bill so early in the year.  Typically the Senate turns to such bills after the August recess.   It is amazing to see how much progress is being made on appropriations bills on both sides of Capitol Hill this year thanks to the Ryan-Murray budget agreement reached last December that set the spending limits for FY2014 and FY2015.  It’s never over till the fat lady sings, of course, but one kernel of optimism for those three bills, at least, is that the House already has passed two (CJS and T-HUD) and begun debate on the third (Agriculture) though it is not the Majority Leader’s schedule for the coming week.  Instead the House will be debating the defense appropriations bill, which was reported from committee on Friday (H.R. 4870, H. Rept. 113-473).

Outside the Beltway, the third International Space Station Research and Development Conference in Chicago should be interesting.   Organized by the American Astronautical Society (AAS) in cooperation with NASA and the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), the conference has a very impressive agenda.  AAS sometimes offers webcasts of key sessions of its conferences; we’re checking to see if they are providing webcasts this time and will add the information to our calendar item for that event if the answer is yes.

Those and the other events we know about as of Sunday afternoon are listed below.

Monday, June 16

• The Increasing Role of Space in Maritime Domain Awareness (Secure World Foundation), 1779 Massachusetts Ave., NW, Washington, DC, 12:00-2:00 pm ET

Monday-Friday, June 16-20

• AIAA International Space Planes and Hypersonics Conference, Atlanta, GA
• 35th Annual International Gravitational Physiology Meeting/13th European Life Sciences Meeting, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
  • 1st Aging in Space Symposium is one day (Tuesday) of this conference

Tuesday-Thursday, June 17-19

• 3rd International Space Station R&D Conference, Chicago, IL

Wednesday, June 18

• Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee Hearing on FY2015 Defense Budget Request, 192 Dirksen, 10:00 am ET
• Orion Flight Test Prelaunch Progress Briefing, NASA Kennedy Space Center, FL, 11:30 am ET (watch on NASA TV)

Wednesday-Thursday, June 18-19

• House scheduled to debate the FY2015 Defense Appropriations Bill, the Capitol, time TBD (watch on C-SPAN)

Friday, June 20

• House Science, Space and Technology Hearing on “NASA Security: Assessing the Agency’s Efforts to Protect Sensitive Information,” 2318 Rayburn, 10:00 am ET