What's Happening in Space Policy November 7-11, 2016

Here is our list of space policy events for the week of November 7-11, 2016 and any insight we can offer about them.  The House and Senate are in recess until November 14.

During the Week

Welcome back to Standard Time in the United States.  Daylight Saving Time ended overnight.  Adjust your clocks accordingly!  We lost an hour of sleep in the process, but can catch up on Friday, which is a Federal Holiday (Veterans Day).

One hardly needs to say what the big news is this week.  Election Day is Tuesday, November 8. Who will control the White House, the House of Representatives, and the Senate are all at stake and the results are completely up in the air.  Voter turnout will be, as always, a critical factor.  Get out and exercise your right – and your responsibility – to choose our nation’s leaders. 

For the space program, especially NASA and NOAA, which are part of the non-defense discretionary part of the budget, the congressional races may be more important than the White House.   The Clinton and Trump campaigns haven’t said much about their positions on civil and commercial space, but what they have said is very similar — they want the United States to be a leader in space with a bold exploration program that incorporates international and commercial partners.  One area of difference, not surprisingly, is NASA’s role in earth science research.  The Clinton campaign is enthusiastically supportive of NASA’s earth science program and its role in understanding climate change; the Trump campaign thinks NASA should focus on space exploration while other agencies study the Earth.

Congress, however, is still battling over how to rein in the deficit.   The draconian sequestration rules have been held in abeyance since FY2013 by two-year agreements negotiated in 2014 by the Republican House and Democratic Senate (the Ryan-Murray deal), which relaxed budget caps for FY2014 and FY2015, and in 2016 by outgoing House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), and President Obama for FY2016 and FY2017.  Sequestration is still the law of the land (the 2011 Budget Control Act — BCA), however, and whether it is strictly followed, loosely followed, or ignored (perhaps repealed) in the future depends in large measure on what parties control which parts of the government.  NASA has fared extremely well in recent years (Congress is poised to give NASA about $1 billion more than President Obama requested in appropriated funds for FY2017) in part because the BCA caps have not been rigorously enforced.  The two parties have been battling for years on how to cut the deficit.  Republicans want to do it entirely through spending cuts.  Democrats want a combination of spending cuts and tax increases.  Both parties want to protect the defense budget, though there are many differences on the details.  That leaves mandatory spending programs (Social Security, Medicare, etc.) and non-defense discretionary agencies (e.g. NASA and NOAA) as the go-to places to look for whatever cuts are to be made.  Generally speaking, Democrats are more protective of those activities than Republicans, hence the inclusion of tax increases in their deficit-reduction strategy to ensure they are not eviscerated in the process, but tax increases aren’t very popular. 

This election has been … draining … and many look forward to its end, but the nation’s problems will still be there on November 9 or whenever the outcome is known (it may not be on November 9 after all, there are many close races). The new leaders, whoever they are, will have a lot to do.  Every vote matters.  GET OUT AND VOTE.

In addition to voting, there are number of interesting things to do this week.  NASA has two media events, tomorrow (Monday) and Thursday, on small satellites for earth science.  Tomorrow’s virtual briefing (listen at www.nasa.gov/live) will discuss the agency’s overall program of utilizing cubesats and microsatellites for earth science research, including technology developments, and a preview of three upcoming small satellite missions.  Thursday’s briefing at NASA HQ (watch on NASA TV) is specifically about one of them — a constellation of eight small satellites to be launched next month that will gather data on the formation and intensity of tropical cyclones and hurricanes (CYGNSS). 

Meanwhile, out at the National Academies’ Beckman Center in Irvine, CA, the steering committee of the Earth Science and Applications from Space (ESAS) Decadal Survey will meet tomorrow through Thursday.  On Wednesday, it will hold a webinar for members of the earth science community to get an update on the status of the Survey and ask questions of the co-chairs, Waleed Abdalati and Bill Gail. 

In Paris, European Space Agency (ESA) Director General Jan Woerner will hold a press conference tomorrow morning about the ESA Ministerial Meeting coming up next month.  It will not be webcast, unfortunately, but ESA says a video recording will be posted to the ESA website within 24 hours.

Lastly, the Atlantic Council will hold the next in its “Captains of Industry” series on Wednesday featuring representatives of four leading U.S. and European defense and aerospace companies (Airbus, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, and Thales USA) and the National Venture Capital Association on “Corporate-Venture Investing in Aerospace and Defense.”  It will be webcast.

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

Monday, November 7

• ESA Press Briefing on Upcoming Ministerial Meeting, ESA Headquarters, Paris, FR, 08:30 Central European Time (no webcast, but video to be posted to ESA website within 24 hours)
• NASA Media Telecon on Earth Science Small Satellites, virtual, 2:30 pm ET (listen at www.nasa.gov/live)

Monday-Thursday, November 7-10

• National Academies ESAS Decadal Survey Steering Committee, Beckman Center, Irvine, CA
  • Webinar for members of the earth science community, November 9, 1:00-3:00 pm PT (4:00-6:00 pm ET)  (WebEx)

Tuesday, November 8

• ELECTION DAY IN THE UNITED STATES

Tuesday-Thursday, November 8-10

• Global MilSatCom, Riverbank Plaza Hotel, London, UK

Wednesday, November 9

• Corporate-Venture Investing in Aerospace and Defense (Atlantic Council), 1030 15th St, NW, Washington, DC, 4:30-6:00 pm ET (webcast)

Thursday, November 10

• NASA Media Bfg on CYGNSS Earth Satellite Constellation, NASA HQ, Washington, DC, 1:00 pm ET (NASA TV)