What’s Happening in Space Policy October 14-20, 2018

Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of October 14-20, 2018 and any insight we can offer about them.  The House and Senate are in recess (except for pro forma sessions) until after the mid-term elections.

During the Week

The annual Science Writers’ conference is taking place right now in Washington, D.C.  GeekWire’s Alan Boyle organized a session for tomorrow (Monday) on “Apollo Plus 50” with Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison (Jack) Schmitt, National Space Council Executive Secretary Scott Pace, and National Air and Space Museum space history curator Valerie Neal, moderated by Time magazine’s Jeffrey Kluger.  Registration is closed, but perhaps someone — like Alan (@b0yle) — will be tweeting.  If not, no worries.  The entire conference is full of … science writers.  We’re sure to see stories.

On Thursday, NOAA’s Advisory Committee on Commercial Remote Sensing (ACCRES) will meet.  Coincidentally or not, a notice published in the Federal Register that is dated tomorrow (Monday), but emailed yesterday (as is their practice), contains an interesting notice about imagery of Israel.  “This Notice informs U.S. satellite operators collecting imagery over Israel or with plans to collect imagery over Israel that current restrictions regarding data collection/dissemination of imagery over Israel remain in place with the resolution limit at 2 m GSD.”  It goes on to explain that the Department of Commerce determined that although there are non-U.S. commercial sources of imagery of Israel with less than 2 meter resolution, it is not “readily and consistently available in sufficient quantities to be considered  commercially available.”  If it were “commercially available,” U.S. companies might be able to offer it for sale, too.

ACCRES  takes place at the very same time as another interesting meeting — the National Academies’ Space Technology Industry-Government-University Roundtable (STIGUR).  These meetings are excellent ways of catching up on NASA’s technology investments.  This one features an update on NASA and the Space Technology Mission Directorate, and panel discussions on space nuclear power and on lunar exploration visions and technologies.  (Full disclosure-your SpacePolicyOnline.com editor is a member of the roundtable, so that’s where I’ll be all day.  Hopefully others will be tweeting the ACCRES meeting.)

Note:  NASA scheduled a briefing on Tuesday regarding two upcoming spacewalks.  They are under review because of the Soyuz MS-10 launch failure (Nick Hague was supposed to be one of the spacewalkers).  We haven’t seen an announcement that the Tuesday briefing has been postponed, so we keep it in our list, but the NASA TV and NASA Live schedules don’t mention it so we’re not sure if it will take place or not.

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

Monday, October 15

• Apollo Plus 50 panel at Science Writers’ 2018 Conference, Lisner Auditoriu, George Washington University, Washington, D.C., 10:50-11:50 am ET

Monday-Tuesday, October 15-16

• 2018 VSAT Congress, Jones Day, 300 New Jersey Ave, NE, Washington, DC

Tuesday, October 16

• MSBR Luncheon with Ben Wu, MD Dept of Business and Economic Development, Martin’s Crosswinds, Greenbelt, MD, 11:30 am – 1:30 pm ET
• NASA Briefing on Upcoming Spacewalks, Johnson Space Center, 2:00 pm ET (1:oo pm local), NASA TV [possibly postponed?]

Tuesday-Thursday, October 16-18

• National Academies Committee on Solar and Space Physics, Beckman Center, Irvine, CA

Thursday, October 18

• National Academies Space Technology Industry-Government-University Roundtable (STIGUR), Keck Center, 500 Fifth St. NW, Washington, DC, 8:30 am – 5:00 pm ET
• NOAA Advisory Committee on Commercial Remote Sensing (ACCRES), AIA District Architecture Center, 421 7th Street, NW, Washington, DC, 9:00 am – 4:00 pm ET
• GWU/SSPI CubeSat Presentation and Tour, George Washington University, Washington, DC, 6:00-9:00 pm ET

Friday, October 19

• WSBR Luncheon Feature Blue Origin’s Clay Mowry, City Club of Washington, 555 13th St., NW, Washington, DC, 11:30 am – 1:30 pm ET

Saturday, October 20

• Space Law Session at ABILA’s International Law Weekend, Fordham University, New York, NY, 1:45 pm ET