http://www.spacepolitics.com Because sometimes the most important orbit is the Beltway... Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:49:26 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en If your idea of space advocacy can't be contained to 140-character tweets, you're in luck: a couple of organizations have set plans for grassroots lobbying efforts on Capitol Hill early next year. The Space Exploration Alliance has announced plans for its 2010 Legislative Blitz, scheduled for February 21-23. ... http://www.spacepolitics.com/2009/11/19/sea-prospace-set-plans-for-lobbying-blitzes/ It seems some NASA supporters took the news about a potential across-the-board budget cut in FY2011 (which may or may not happen, and may or may not include NASA) pretty hard: on the microblogging service Twitter, the news generated a flurry of tweets in the last day or so, all ... http://www.spacepolitics.com/2009/11/19/watch-out-whitehouse-tweeps-want-to-savenasa/ In late September Save Space kicked off its efforts to get half a million letters in support of the space program delivered to the White House by the end of October. By late October, though, that goal looked doubtful: the metrics they had provided (in terms of web traffic ... http://www.spacepolitics.com/2009/11/18/save-space-claims-its-met-its-goal/ After Tuesday's meeting between Presidents Obama and Hu, the two countries issued a joint statement covering a wide range of issues, including one paragraph about space issues: The United States and China look forward to expanding discussions on space science cooperation and starting a dialogue on human space flight and space ... http://www.spacepolitics.com/2009/11/18/taking-another-small-step-on-a-journey-of-a-thousand-miles/ An intriguing hearing has popped up on the schedule of the aviation subcommittee of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee: "Commercial Space Transportation". No other details about the hearing are listed, other than the date (December 2, 10 am). The overall T&I committee is chaired by James Oberstar (D-MN), best ... http://www.spacepolitics.com/2009/11/17/and-speaking-of-hearings/ The House Science and Technology Committee has released the list of witnesses for Thursday's hearing on "The Growth of Global Space Capabilities": Marty Hauser, Vice President, Washington Operations & Research and Analysis, The Space Foundation J.P. Stevens, Vice President, Space Systems, Aerospace Industries Association Scott Pace, Director, Space Policy Institute, George Washington University Kai-Uwe ... http://www.spacepolitics.com/2009/11/17/global-space-capabilities-and-other-hearings/ Space advocates have talked for a long time about winning a substantial budget increase for NASA. That talk has been emboldened in the last few months by the Augustine committee, whose report found that an increase of up to $3 billion a year was "more appropriate" to support human ... http://www.spacepolitics.com/2009/11/17/sharpening-the-budget-cleaver/ On Thursday Time magazine released its annual "best inventions" list. Topping the list as the best invention of the year, in the minds of the magazine's staff, were NASA's Ares rocket, dubbing the Ares 1 "a machine that can launch human beings to cosmic destinations we'd never considered before". ... http://www.spacepolitics.com/2009/11/16/praise-and-ridicule-for-ares-award/ One of the more prominent space supporters in the Senate won't be leaving as soon as previously planned. As both the Washington Post and The Hill report, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) plans to remain in the Senate at least through the Texas gubernatorial primary next March. Hutchison, ... http://www.spacepolitics.com/2009/11/14/hutchison-to-remain-in-the-senate/ After the Space Frontier Foundation announced yesterday that it planned to revive the citizen space lobbying effort March Storm in 2010, I was curious what the response of ProSpace, who had run the event for most of its history, might be. I got the following press release earlier today from ... http://www.spacepolitics.com/2009/11/13/prospace-responds-regarding-march-storm/