What's Happening in Space Policy November 21-25, 2016

Here is our list of space policy events for the week of November 21-25, 2016 and any insight we can offer about them.  The House and Senate are not in session this week.

During the Week

The United States celebrates Thanksgiving on Thursday.  Across the nation, people are focused on shopping, cooking and traveling to celebrate with friends and family more than attending meetings on space policy or anything else.  We do not have a single space policy event on our list for this week in the United States and only one that will be held abroad (see below).

This is, indeed, a good time to take a breath after a fractious election season.  Melanie Kirkpatrick, acting editorial features writer for the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), published a commentary on Thursday noting that “healing” is the watchword of post-election America.  Author of “Thanksgiving: The Holiday at the Heart of the American Experience,” she shared the story of how Thanksgiving became a national holiday at a time of national strife and urged that this year it serve as “a moment to focus on our blessings as Americans, on what unites us, not on what divides us.”  

The tale of the First Thanksgiving with Pilgrims and Native Americans in 1621 is fairly well known, but how the holiday evolved over the centuries less so.  Presidents had occasionally designated national days of thanks since the time of George Washington, but the holiday did not achieve permanence at the national level until it was proclaimed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863.  Yes, 1863, in the middle of the Civil  War and just months after the horrific Battle of Gettysburg with its approximately 50,000 casualties (killed, wounded or missing).  Poet, novelist and magazine editor Sarah Josepha Hale (a very interesting woman) had made it her mission to establish a single national day of Thanksgiving.  Over three decades, she convinced many states to declare a day of thanks, but they were on various dates.  Her goal was a single national day every year.   Lincoln agreed as part of an effort to unite Americans on both sides of the conflict by reminding them of all that is good about our country even in such a painful time.  He issued a Proclamation on October 3, 1863 designating the last Thursday of November (the date originally chosen by George Washington) as a day of thanksgiving.  Kirkpatrick’s commentary is behind the WSJ paywall unfortunately, but her bottom line is “Lincoln’s Thanksgiving proclamation was profoundly hopeful, reminding the American people of the nation’s capacity for renewal.  It’s a message that resonates today.”

On that note, SpacePolicyOnline.com wishes everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving.

Meanwhile, there is one space policy-related conference that we know about this week — in Dubai.  Sponsored by the United Nations Office of Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), this “High Level Forum” focuses on space as an economic driver for socio-economic sustainable development.  Among the co-sponsors are the Secure World Foundation, Sierra Nevada Corporation’s Space Systems Division and the International Committee on Global Navigation Systems.   It is part of the lead-up to UNOOSA’s UNISPACE+50 conference that will take place in 2018, the 50th anniversary of the first UNISPACE conference (two others were held in 1982 and 1999).   The website does not indicate if any of this week’s conference will be webcast.