1.  **Background**: Travel funds available to AETD and other
    Directorates at GSFC are limited. It is imperative that such funds
    be distributed, administered, and used efficiently, particularly
    during periods of extreme fiscal constraint.

2.  **Purpose of Travel**: Our employees should be traveling for one of
    five reasons. They should travel to:

    a.  Support Projects as technical experts responsible for a Project
        element or as independent reviewers

    b.  Present approved technical papers consistent with the mission of
        the Center where participation benefits NASA

    c.  Organize and/or otherwise lead sessions at technical conferences
        where participation benefits NASA

    d.  Receive required training to maintain proficiency or
        professional certification that cannot be attained locally

    e.  Attend conferences or workshops where the employee's
        organization will benefit in a clear and compelling way, for
        example, by:

        -   Delivering a paper;

        -   Fulfilling a role in the workshop that is advantageous to
            the Center;

        -   Receive essential technical training or meet a professional
            certification requirement that cannot be attained elsewhere;

        -   Develop essential technical collaborations that can advance
            specific missions; or

        -   Develop partnerships that can bring additional work to the
            Center

> **Limits on Commitments and Representation**. Beyond these purposes,
> no AETD employee can represent a NASA Mission Directorate in official
> or unofficial discussions of any kind with a foreign agency or group
> unless specifically and explicitly requested and approved by the NASA
> Mission Directorate.

3.  **Number of Travelers and Cost of** **Travel**

-   The number and the cost per traveler should be kept as low as
    possible

-   In particular, the number of people attending conferences and
    workshops should be as low as possible. For example, only one person
    should present a paper even if it is co-authored by several authors

-   For overnight trips to the Wallops Flight Facility, AETD employees
    will stay in the rooms of F4 and F5 unless they are unavailable. If
    there are special circumstances requiring the use of a hotel,
    Directorate approval is needed.

4.  **Annual Leave/Personal Days in Conjunction with Travel**: Including
    days spent traveling to and from the TDY location, the total number
    of days spent doing work for the government must be [at least as
    great as]{.underline} the number of days spent on personal
    business.  Days on personal business [include]{.underline}: 
    Weekends not required in order to perform the job, holidays, and
    days on annual leave. This policy applies [up to but not including 7
    days]{.underline}.  On a limited basis, the Directorate will
    carefully consider requests involving 7 or more days.  \
    \
    By way of illustration, consider a trip to Rome in which the
    employee departs on Monday, August 15, and arrives Tuesday (a rest
    day) for a 3 day meeting that takes place Wednesday, Thursday and
    Friday.  Normally, the return trip would be on Saturday, August 20. 
    In this case, the employee will be spending 6 days on official
    business.  The employee, therefore, could fly back on the following
    Friday (August 26) using preceding Saturday, Sunday and Monday,
    Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday for personal business.   \
    \
    In another case, an employee flies to San Francisco on Tuesday,
    August 16, for a 3-day meeting on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday,
    with a normal return on Saturday, August 20.  The employee is
    spending 5 days on official travel.  The following weekend contains
    a 3-day weekend (Monday is St. Alda's Day).  The employee can use
    Saturday, Sunday, Monday (the holiday), and Tuesday for personal
    days and return on Wednesday, August 24.\
    \
    Individual circumstances will be considered in the approval.  A
    solid justification for the assignment is first and foremost, but
    good judgment is also required in requesting and approving annual
    leave as is remembering that as public servants the purpose of the
    travel is, first and foremost, work.  

5.  **Trip Reports**: Trip reports will be required for any travel not
    required by a project, and particularly for international and
    domestic conferences. Concise trip reports must be submitted to the
    Directorate for conference or workshop travel within 2 weeks of the
    completion of travel specifying the benefits accrued to the
    organization and/or the employee. Trip reports should be considered
    a key part of any internal or external audit. Trip reports should be
    sent to the division offices with a "cc" to
    <Bruce.R.Butterworth@nasa.gov>.

6.  **Special Warnings**

-   Self-generated invitations to attend conferences are unacceptable

-   Per Center standard policy, trip reports and expenses will continue
    to be audited periodically

7.  **Required Information for Travel Requests**: For each trip, the
    following information should be included in the paper justification
    (if international) or in the comments section of the Travel Manager
    request:

-   The source of funding

-   The purpose of the travel

-   The number of travelers known attending from the Center

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-   The number of personal days planned in conjunction with the official
    travel

8.  **Advanced Planning (Annual Action):** Each division shall submit to
    the Directorate NLT September 15 a plan for the upcoming FY which
    lists all travel planned that is for anything other than
    Project-mandated. This particularly includes training (other than
    that already approved through the official Center or Agency calls),
    workshops and conferences, domestic or international. The list
    should briefly clarify:

-   Purpose

-   The number of travelers (for the division and others known from
    Goddard)

-   The estimated cost per traveler and for the entire trip

-   The estimated return of the expenditure

-   **NOTE: There may be conference travel unknown that can arise later.
    You are not expected to account for what you cannot know, but you
    are expected to probe aggressively for the conference travel you can
    plan for**.