After a year of bureaucratic dithering by others, a core group of scientists and engineers has agreed to spearhead utilization of the U.S. National Laboratory on the International Space Station. The permanent board of the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (Casis) has a steep learning curve, but its members appear willing to spend some serious time putting out the word that there's a unique microgravity research facility available in orbit to anyone with a good idea for using it, free of charge.

In November 2008, the year Wanda Austin became CEO of The Aerospace Corp., Aviation Week & Space Technology featured her on the cover with a three-page profile inside. “The fact that Austin is a woman and an African-American is impossible to miss,” the magazine wrote.

Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), currently the longest-serving woman in Congress, will now become the first woman to lead one of what is perhaps its most powerful panels, the Senate Appropriations Committee. Mikulski takes control of the committee after the recent death of Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), who had chaired the full committee since 2009 and led Democrats on the defense subcommittee since 1989. And she will serve alongside Sen. Richard Shelby (Ala.), who will lead Republicans on the panel.

Teeing up an issue for Congress in 2013, Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), have introduced a bill that would push the FAA to begin setting privacy rules for the use of UAVs in civilian airspace. UAVs can carry “infrared thermal imagers, radar and wireless network 'sniffers,' with the capability to collect sensitive detailed information while operating in the skies above,” according to Markey. As such, he is seeking to regulate their use.

Senior NASA managers and their White House overseers are pondering whether it might be politically possible to mount a near-term mission to capture a small asteroid and reposition it in orbit around the Moon, where it could serve as a proving ground for hardware and crews en route to larger objects deeper into space.

In 2004, the Joint Strike Fighter's program manager, Lockheed Martin Vice President Tom Burbage, observed that if any one big defense program falters, the rippling effects impact all programs.