Note: This is an academic event for members of the space policy and space history communities.
Presidential Leadership and Space: Kennedy, Nixon, and Reagan
Join the Space Policy and History Forum for a discussion about presidential leadership in space, with a particular emphasis on John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan. The space decisions of these three presidents have had a lasting impact on the course followed by their successors. How will their legacy influence the U.S. space policy of the Trump administration and beyond?Presenters:
- John Logsdon, professor emeritus, George Washington University
- Bhavya Lal, researcher, IDA Science and Technology Policy Institute
This event is now full. Please email Teasel Muir-Harmony at MuirHarmonyT@si.edu to be added to a wait list.
Date and Time
Tuesday, February 19, 4:30 to 5:30 pm. There will be a post-lecture happy hour open to all Forum attendees.
Location
The Forum will take at the National Air and Space Museum (601 Independence Ave SW). Registered attendees will receive further arrival instructions.
Presenters
Dr. John Logsdon is professor emeritus of political science and international affairs at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs, where he was on the active faculty for 38 years. He was the 1987 founder and long-time director of GW’s Space Policy Institute. He has also been a faculty member of the International Space University since 1989. Logsdon’s research interests focus on the policy and historical aspects of U.S. and international space activities. He is author of the award-winning books After Apollo? Richard Nixon and the American Space Program (2015) and John F. Kennedy and the Race to the Moon (2010), and is general editor of the multi-volume series Exploring the Unknown: Selected Documents in the History of the U.S. Civil Space Program. He is a member of the Board of Directors of The Planetary Society and former member of the NASA Advisory Council. From 2008 to 2009 he held the Lindbergh Chair at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum.
Dr. Bhavya Lal leads strategy, technology assessment, and policy studies and analyses at IDA’s Science and Technology Policy Institute (STPI) for various federal space-oriented agencies. Her recent work has focused on issues related to space nuclear power, planetary defense, space situational awareness, commercial space, space property rights, small satellites, and global trends in space. Lal is an active member of the NOAA Advisory Committee on Commercial Remote Sensing and has recently served on two National Academy of Science committees: Space-Based 3D Printing (Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board, 2014), and CubeSats for Science Applications (Space Studies Board, 2016, as Vice-Chair). Before joining STPI, Lal was president of C-STPS, LLC, a science and technology policy research and consulting firm in Waltham, Massachusetts. Prior to that, she was the director of the Center for Science and Technology Policy Studies at Abt Associates, Inc., a consulting company in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Lal holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in nuclear engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a second M.S. from MIT’s Technology and Policy Program, and a Ph.D from George Washington University
Questions?
Contact Teasel Muir-Harmony.
About the Space Policy and History Forum
The Space Policy and History Forum is organized by the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, with support from the Science and Technology Policy Institute (STPI), a federally funded research and development center created by Congress to support the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and other executive agencies in the federal government.