Space Policy Edition: How a Report Can Move Mountains

Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science

The Planetary Society

Science, Technology

4.8 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 1 November 2019

⏱️ 90 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

How can a simple report—just words on a page—lead to creation of a spacecraft? We explore how a 2019 report on the need for a dedicated, space-based telescope to find threatening near-Earth asteroids motivated NASA to pursue that very mission. We speak with Dr. Jay Melosh, planetary scientist and chair of the National Academies committee behind that report, on how it came together and how the process works behind the scenes. We also check on NASA's budget process in Congress and news from the International Astronautical Congress in Washington, D.C. More resources about this month’s topics are at https://www.planetary.org/multimedia/planetary-radio/show/2019/space-policy-edition-43.html

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0:00.0	It's time when again for the Space Policy Edition of Planetary Radio.
0:19.0	I am Matt Kaplan, the host of Planetary Radio, joined by the Chief Advocate of the Planetary Society.
0:24.9	That is Casey Dreyer.
0:26.3	Welcome back, Casey.
0:27.9	It's a big day.
0:28.9	Yeah, it's Halloween.
0:30.7	It's a very exciting day for me. And what a day, I mean, as we speak, it has only been moments since the House of Representatives
0:40.2	voted for only the third time in the history of the United States to take up
0:46.0	impeachment proceedings against a president of the United States and of course the
0:51.4	big subject in all of this is space exploration.
0:54.3	Yeah, exactly. This is all about the space exploration policy and really taking the
0:59.2	White House to account. No, yes. This will be, let's say, possibly driving some wedges between the parties and also taking up quite a bit of oxygen in the room, metaphorically, that will make it difficult let's say to get our budget
1:16.5	passed in time by November 21st even assuming everything is kind of worked out between
1:21.5	the two parties on NASA priorities.
1:23.2	So we will be watching this, of course, like hopefully all people, particularly US
1:29.0	citizens, a pretty big deal.
1:31.2	Of course, this is one of those good examples that reminds us that space policy and
1:35.9	politics generally is along for the ride in in the US Congress not really leading the show.
1:43.0	Yeah, it's going to be an interesting, well let's put it this way,
1:45.8	an even more interesting several weeks ahead in DC.
1:50.2	And probably space policy is not the only thing that's going to be taking a back seat for a while.
1:56.0	There are many other things for us to talk about and you have a terrific interview coming up that I already have gotten to listen in on. It's going to
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