WASHINGTON -- Queen Elizabeth II plans to stop
by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center when she visits the United States in May to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the English settlement at Jamestown, Va.
U.S. Sen.
Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.)--arguably the Queen of Goddard--intends to be on hand
May 8 when the Queen of England and her husband, Prince Philip, visit the
Greenbelt, Md.-based NASA field center May 8 to tour the facility and make a
phone call to the astronauts aboard the international space station.
"I am so
proud to welcome the Queen of England and the Duke of Edinburgh to Maryland's world-class space facility, and to show Her Majesty and His Royal Highness the
truly extraordinary contributions that Goddard makes to science, exploration
and discovery," Mikulski said in an April 24 statement announcing the visit.
The announcement
of Queen Elizabeth II's visit comes on the heels of an agreement between NASA
and the British National Space Center to study how the two agencies will work
together on space exploration. The memorandum of understanding was signed here
April 19 by NASA Administrator Mike Griffin and his British counterpart.
Steve
Atkins, an official at the British Embassy, said April 24 that the Queen's
visit to Goddard is coincidental to the agreement signed last week and was
added to itinerary primarily as a way to honor the spirit of exploration that
marked the settlement at Jamestown. "The NASA visit is about modernity and
looking forward to the next generation of explorers," he said.
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