The Mars Society is pleased to announce that Dr. Ashwin R. Vasavada, JPL Project Scientist for NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), also known as the Curiosity rover, will give a plenary talk about MSL’s current operations on the Red Planet during the 22nd Annual International Mars Society Convention (October 17-20) at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Dr. Vasavada has been the lead scientist for the MSL mission since 2015, having served prior to that as deputy project… READ MORE >
News & Announcements
By Robert Zubrin, National Review, 08.31.19 On April 11, 2019, the Israeli SpaceIL company’s Beresheet (Hebrew for “In the Beginning”) lunar lander crashed on the Moon. Beresheet’s payload, supplied by the non-profit Arch Mission Foundation, was meant to be an informational backup for the Earth. It included a DVD containing 30 million pages of human knowledge, as well as 60,000 etched pages requiring no computer to read, keys to 5,000 languages, and DNA samples from 25 people. According to Arch Mission Foundation chairman… READ MORE >
We are glad to announce the establishment of Mars Society South Asia (MSSA), the official chapter of The Mars Society for countries in southern Asia. MSSA will serve as a non-profit space advocacy organization dedicated to the human exploration and settlement of the planet Mars. The new group will also act as the main authority for organizing the Indian Rover Challenge (IRC), part of the Mars Society’s Rover Challenge Series (RCS). MSSA teams comprise of alumni of more than 15… READ MORE >
Those interested in serving as a crew member at the Mars Society’s Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS), the largest and longest-running Mars simulation program in the world, located in southern Utah, can now apply for the 2020-21 field season, which runs from October 2020 thru May 2021. The MDRS Crew Application Form and the MDRS Application Instructions & Information are available on the Mars Society / MDRS web site, located at: http://mdrs.marssociety.org/apply-to-field-season, for downloading. Individuals can apply for the MDRS simulation, as… READ MORE >
The Mars Society is pleased to announce that a formal debate on NASA’s proposed Lunar Gateway project will take place at the 22nd Annual International Mars Society Convention on the evening of Thursday, October 17th at the University of Southern California. Currently still in development, Lunar Gateway is intended to operate as a small space station in lunar orbit, providing living quarters for astronauts, a lab for science and research, a holding area for rovers and ports for visiting spacecraft…. READ MORE >
The Mars Society is pleased to announce that Dr. Darlene Lim, a geobiologist at NASA’s Ames Research Center and Bay Area Environmental Research Institute, will give a plenary talk about designing mission elements in support of the human exploration of Mars during the 22nd Annual International Mars Society Convention, scheduled for October 17-20 at the University of Southern California. Dr. Lim is part of a large research network working to get humans to the Red Planet. Her specific contribution to… READ MORE >
The Mars Society is pleased to announce that Dr. Kris Zacny, Vice President & Director of Exploration Technology at Honeybee Robotics, will speak about planetary drills and sampling systems on Mars and the Moon during the 22nd Annual International Mars Society Convention, scheduled for October 17-20 at the University of Southern California. Honeybee Robotics is a long-time supporter of NASA’s exploration missions. The company’s systems for drilling, coring and physical sampling of Mars, the Moon, and asteroids are designed to support scientific inquiry and… READ MORE >
Good at carpentry? Love assembling IKEA furniture? Consider volunteering at the Mars Society’s Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) in southern Utah this fall to help install new upgrades to the facility’s Hab and Science Dome. Participate in our IKEA work crew from October 22 – 25. If you commit to helping out during the entire session, you’ll be able to stay overnight (3 nights) at MDRS in the crew quarters. Round-trip transportation will be provided from Grand Junction, Colorado to… READ MORE >
The Mars Society is pleased to announce that Tom Hoffman, JPL Project Manager of Mars InSight, will address the 22nd Annual International Mars Society Convention, scheduled for October 17-20 at the University of Southern California, to give an update about the lander’s ongoing mission. Mars InSight successfully landed on the surface of the Red Planet in November 2018 in order to examine the deep interior of Mars with the goal of helping scientists better understand how terrestrial planets are formed and evolve…. READ MORE >
The Mars Society, the world’s largest non-profit dedicated to the human exploration of Mars, is pleased to announce that it is now able to accept Bitcoin and several other types of digital currencies as donations to further our goal of future human exploration and settlement of Mars. In addition, the organization is pleased to announce that it has received a large contribution of Marscoin, a digital currency similar to Bitcoin but focused on Mars. Additional donations of Bitcoin, Marscoin, Ethereum… READ MORE >
The Mars Society is pleased to announce that Dr. Luther Beegle, JPL’s Deputy Division Manager for Science, will give an update about ongoing efforts to detect surface and subsurface life on the Red Planet during the 22nd Annual International Mars Society Convention, scheduled for October 17-20 at the University of Southern California. A senior planetary scientist at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Dr. Beegle is involved in the Mars Science Laboratory (Curiosity) mission, searching for and assessing past or present habitable environments… READ MORE >
Commentary by Dr. Robert Zubrin, Founder and President of the Mars Society Originally published in SpaceNews’ Apollo at 50 digital edition On July 20, 1989, the 20th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, President George H.W. Bush got up on the steps of the National Air and Space Museum flanked by Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins and declared that in the tradition of their great feat, he was declaring that the United States would now set its… READ MORE >
To see the Red Planet up close you do not have to book an expensive flight into space. You just have to join almost 400 contestants from five continents who will come to Kielce in September to take part in the final of the international Mars robots competition, the European Rover Challenge. Apart from observing the teams’ struggles, visitors can expect a very attractive Science and Technological Show Zone as well as lectures and workshops both for younger and older… READ MORE >
Ten teams, including entrants from the USA, Russia, Poland, France, Switzerland and Sweden, have been selected out of a field of 100 competitors as finalists in the Mars Society’s Mars Colony Prize design contest. Here is the list including links to their presentations on YouTube: Team/Organization’s Name COUNTRY CrowdSpace Russia/USA Emerging Futures LLC USA Ideacity Poland Kent Nebergall USA LET IT BE France/Switzerland MIT – Star City USA Team Bubolaq USA Team Dvaraka Sweden Wesley Stine USA Wroclaw University of… READ MORE >
Today is the day! The Mars Society is launching its new official web site! After months of hard work by our technical volunteers led by our IT Director, James Burk, we are excited to roll out the new version of our organization’s main web site, located at: www.marssociety.org. As we are sure you will notice, visitors will have quicker and easier access to our web pages and content. To the point, navigating just got a lot simpler! In addition to… READ MORE >
Life on Mars gets a test run in the Utah desert By David Kelly, Los Angeles Times, June 23, 2019 Hang a right a few miles past the Dirty Devil River, bump down Cow Dung Road, and the barren, red landscape beyond morphs from mere desert into something, well, otherworldly. Men and women in spacesuits and oxygen tanks pick their way around boulders. One collects soil samples. Another launches a drone. The aircraft hovers then drops. Whirring blades thwack the… READ MORE >
Presentations for the 22nd Annual International Mars Society Convention (October 17-20, University of Southern California) are invited, dealing with all matters associated with the human exploration and settlement of Mars, including science, technology, engineering, politics, economics and public policy. Abstracts of no more than 300 words should be sent by August 31st, 2019 (please note new date) to ensure scheduling of sessions and inclusion in our printed conference materials. After this date we cannot guarantee that your session will be… READ MORE >
At Today’s NASA, Success Is Not an Option By Robert Zubrin National Review, 06.12.19 The Trump administration has proposed a bold new initiative, dubbed the Artemis Program, that will send astronauts to the Moon by 2024 and Mars by 2033. As detailed by NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine in a presentation on May 23, the program will include some 37 launches by 2028, kicked off by the maiden launch of the agency’s new Space Launch System (SLS) heavy-lift booster in October 2020…. READ MORE >
The University Rover Challenge (URC) awarded the title of World’s Top Mars Rover to the IMPULS team from Kielce University of Technology in Poland on June 1. The 2019 rendition of URC hosted 34 rovers and more than 500 students from ten countries at the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) in southern Utah. URC is an annual competition which asks college students to design and build the world’s best Mars rover. The win for the IMPULS team, their first ever,… READ MORE >
Mars Society president Dr. Robert Zubrin has published a new book. Entitled “The Case for Space: How the Revolution in Spaceflight Opens Up a Future of Unlimited Possibility,” the book has received rave reviews in USA Today and Forbes. According to Glenn Reynolds, writing in USA Today: “In his new book …The Case For Space: How the Revolution in Spaceflight Opens Up a Future of Limitless Possibility, famed astronautical engineer Bob Zubrin talks about the how and the why of… READ MORE >
25 teams, including entrants from the U.S., the U.K., Japan, Poland, France, Switzerland, Sweden, Finland and Israel, have been selected out of a field of 100 competitors as semi-finalists in the Mars Society’s Mars Colony Prize design contest. The Mars Colony Prize design contest challenged people from all walks of life anywhere in the world to design a 1,000 person Mars colony, with design criteria including technical merit (40 points), economic viability (30 points) and social, political, and aesthetic considerations… READ MORE >
The Mars Society is very pleased to announce the winner of its 2019 Mars Society Poster Contest – Joseph Sweeney of Shrewsbury, Massachusetts. In addition to being a creative designer, Joseph is a data analyst and program manager and is also the founder of ‘Aspiring Martians.’ Graphic artists who participated in the annual competition were asked to submit a poster using the theme “The Space Launch Revolution: Opening the Way to Mars” for the 22nd Annual International Mars Society Convention… READ MORE >
According to an article by Jeff Foust in the April 18th issue of Space News, an “Independent report concludes that a 2033 human Mars mission is not feasible.” Foust reports: “STPI (the Science and Technology Policy Institute) at NASA’s direction, used the strategy the agency had laid out in its ‘Exploration Campaign’ report, which projects the continued use of the Space Launch System and Orion and development of the lunar Gateway in the 2020s. That would be followed by the… READ MORE >
By Robert Zubrin Space News, 04.17.19 NASA has proposed to build a lunar orbiting space station, called the lunar Gateway, to use as a base for lunar exploration. This plan is severely defective. The Gateway project may be compared to a deal in which you are offered a chance to rent an office in Thule, Greenland, on the following terms: 1. You pay to construct the building. 2. You accept a 30-year lease with high monthly rents and no exit clause…. READ MORE >
April 15, 2019 The Mars Society has released the first episode in a new podcast series titled “Mars Talk” which will be available in both video and audio formats on the organization’s YouTube channel, via iTunes and the podcast’s website www.MarsTalk.org. Billed as “a community discussion about humanity’s future in space”, the bi-weekly podcast will feature Mars Society chapter leaders and other guests to discuss the Society’s activities as well as those of individual chapters. The podcast will also provide… READ MORE >