Space Policy : NRC examines public view of human spaceflight + Upcoming space events

A National Research Council (NRC) panel will meet this week to discuss the public’s view of human spaceflight : New NRC Panel on Public Opinion About Human Spaceflight to Meet April 5 – SpacePolicyOnline.com

The National Research Council’s (NRC’s) Committee on Human Spaceflight and one of its two supporting panels have had several meetings already, but on Friday, April 5, the second supporting panel will meet for the first time.  This panel is focused on the topic of public and stakeholder opinions about human spaceflight.

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A list of space policy related events this week: Space Policy Events of Interest: April 1-5, 2013

And here is a giant collection of space related events happening in April: Space Conference News: Events for April 2013.

NASA Insight mission will study the insides of Mars

The NASA JPL Insight mission intends to put a lander on Mars in 2016. Its primary scientific focus will be on studying the Red Planet’s interior:  InSight mission to find what lies beneath Martian surface – Spaceflight Now

From the Insight Overview:

InSight (Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) is a NASA Discovery Program mission that would place a single geophysical lander on Mars to study its deep interior. But InSight is more than a Mars mission – it is a terrestrial planet explorer that would address one of the most fundamental issues of planetary and solar system science – understanding the processes that shaped the rocky planets of the inner solar system (including Earth) more than four billion years ago.

By using sophisticated geophysical instruments, InSight would delve deep beneath the surface of Mars, detecting the fingerprints of the processes of terrestrial planet formation, as well as measuring the planet’s “vital signs”: Its “pulse” (seismology), “temperature” (heat flow probe), and “reflexes” (precision tracking).

Here’s an animation of the lander’s initial operations:

Members of the Insight team talk about the mission:

Video: Rocket Mountain College Astronaut Panel, March 22, 2013

The Space Show posts audio and video recordings of a space panel discussion event  held on Friday, March 22nd at Rocky Mountain College in Billings, Montana: Rocky Mtn. College Astronaut Panel 2, Friday Afternoon, 3-22-13 – Thespaceshow’s Blog

The panel included Dr. John Jurist, Dr. Harrison Schmitt, Walter Cunningham, and Dr. Loren Acton. The video caption includes the following description of the event:

We welcomed our panel members and the live Rocky Mountain College student, professor, and community audience to our afternoon 1 hour 34 minute panel in which we focused on human spaceflight, the Saturn V, the Saturn 1B, and the Space Shuttle, along with space science, risk taking, and what each panel member thought was most valuable for scientific reasons in the solar system. We took many audience questions on a wide ranging group of topics including why spend money on space, especially in this difficult economy, solar cells, Boy Scouts and space, and what it was like to walk on the Moon

Everyone can participate in space