Policy Blog
The AAS Public Policy team uses the Policy Blog to communicate with the membership about current events in the science policy world. Most policy blog posts are written by the John N. Bahcall Public Policy Fellow.
NSF Cuts in FY24 Appropriations
12 Mar 2024
Cuts to NSF in FY24 Appropriations are deep. What will this mean for astronomy, as well as our current and future telescopes and observatories?
Bipartisan Budget Agreement for FY24 NASA Funding
7 Mar 2024
Congress has just released the latest budget agreement for its fiscal year 2024 (FY24) funding. In this post, we take a closer look at what this budget agreement means for key NASA missions.
Shaping the Future — Planetary Decadals Driving Scientific Discovery
7 Mar 2024
In a new feature, the AAS Policy Blog hosts a series of posts written by guest authors who assess our progress on decadal priorities and identify new opportunities and challenges for the coming decade. This week, Bethany...
Science for a Technological Society
26 Feb 2024
The AAS Policy Blog will have a series of posts written by guest authors who will assess our progress on the decadal priorities and identify new opportunities and challenges for the coming decade. This week, Daniel Baker...
Sign Up for Congressional Visits Day 2024
17 Jan 2024
Congressional Visits Day (CVD) is an opportunity for AAS members to advocate for their science with policy makers in Washington, DC. The deadline to sign up for AAS CVD 2024 is Friday, 2 February.
Policy Sessions at AAS 243
12 Dec 2023
The upcoming New Orleans meeting will be jam-packed with interesting sessions covering all aspects of astronomy. In this post, we highlight some of the policy-related sessions that you can look forward to attending...
White House Proposal for Space Mission Authorization
28 Nov 2023
The White House recently released a proposal for legislation on commercial space authorization and regulation. Here we take a look at the proposal and highlight what it would mean for astronomy.
Legislation on Space Debris and Commercialization
16 Nov 2023
The last few months have seen significant legislative action on space activities. In this blog post we discuss these bills, their impact on our community, and the steps the AAS has been taking to advocate our needs to...
Impact of a Shutdown on Astronomy
19 Sep 2023
With just a few weeks left until the deadline to avert a government shutdown, John N. Bahcall Public Policy Fellow Yaswant Devarakonda discusses how we got here and what we can expect to happen next.
The Satellite and Telecommunications Streamlining Act: A Postmortem Analysis
22 Aug 2023
The Satellite and Telecommunications Streamlining Act, which would have revised the Federal Communications Commission's role in regulating commercial satellites, failed to pass a House vote. Why did it fail and where...