NASA’s Exploration Systems Mission Directorate Responses to Questions from NASA Watch Feb. 27, 2008
Q: Did NASA pay for Scott Horowitz to attend the Stanford University meeting “Examining the Vision – Balancing Science and Exploration” meeting last week? Did NASA send him to this meeting as a task under his current position as a special government employee with NASA? If so what contract or project (s) was his travel charged to? Is Horowitz required to prepare a trip report or summary of his activities in connection with this meeting? Will any such reports be made available to the media?
A: These questions were answered by NASA’s Langley Research Center spokesman Keith Henry.
From Scott Horowitz (via Keith Henry at NASA LaRC PAO):
“Doc’s Aerospace paid all of the expenses. I was not representing NASA. I was invited to be a panel member on the “Science in exploration” panel. I provided information on how exploration enables science, the cooperation between ESMD, SMD, ARMD and SOMD, the capabilities of the transportation architecture, and the international nature of the exploration Strategy.”
Q: Did NASA pay for any civil servants and/or contractors to attend the Stanford University meeting “Examining the Vision – Balancing Science and Exploration” meeting last week? If so which civil servants and/or contractors attended? What contracts and/or projects was this travel and work time charged to? Are these attendees required to prepare a trip report or summary of their activities in connection with this meeting? Will any such reports be made available to the media?
A: The following link on the Planetary Society Web site shows the agenda and attendees list (scroll to attendees list at bottom of page) – http://soe.stanford.edu/research/evlist.html
Three NASA employees are listed: Brian Muirhead of JPL and Chris MacKay and Russ Kerschmann of Ames Research Center.
NASA’s Constellation Program funded Muirhead’s travel. MacKay and Kerschmann did not incur travel expenses.
The following link on the Planetary Society Web site shows an article that details the workshop product: http://www.planetary.org/programs/projects/advocacy_and_education/space_ advocacy/20080214.html
The NASA attendees were not required to prepare trip reports or other summaries of their activities at the conference.
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