I have found that when Apache is having a fit, it is possible to break up a post into little chunks. All the post is present. It is simply distributed over multiple Post ID's. We have plenty of Post ID's, so this solution may be of interest to our members.
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]]>::EDIT:: Remainder of above post from the Mars Society website... (Ps. If you click the title above, it will take you to the original article.)
SpaceX’s methodology is to build, fly, crash, and fix what went wrong, then try again, each time pushing further into the flight envelope. On its first try, Starship made it halfway through its flight envelope. It may take them a few more tries before they make it all the way and become fully operational, finally achieving the dream of cheap access to orbit. But they will do it.
“And when that day comes, the human race will be halfway to anywhere.”
April 20, 2023
The Mars Society today congratulated SpaceX for the first flight test of its fully reusable Starship space launch system. The test flight, which for the first time launched the Starship upper stage integrated with its Superheavy booster, was, by a factor of two, the most powerful rocket launch in human history.Lasting over three minutes, the flight test revealed numerous issues with the system, including insufficient protection of the launch infrastructure, failures during launch or flight of eight out of the Superheavy’s 33 Raptor engines, and failure of the system to separate the Starship from the Superheavy as designed. These issues can now be corrected in preparation for the next flight test.
Commenting on the test, Mars Society President Dr. Robert Zubrin said “The Starship test flight today was a remarkable achievement. The vehicle was able to survive numerous subsystem failures to make it through Max Q and all the way to stage separation, thereby providing a wealth of data to SpaceX engineers to now correct and then move forward.
Mars Society’s Telerobotic Mars Expedition Design Book Now Available Online
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MARS SOCIETY ANNOUNCEMENT
View this email in your browserMars Society’s Telerobotic Mars Expedition Design Book Now Available Online
The Mars Society’s latest publication, “Telerobotic Mars Expedition Design: New Ways to Explore Mars”, a 152-page paperback / e-book published by Polaris Books and edited by Frank Crossman, is now available for purchase online at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.
In January 2022, the Mars Society announced the holding of an international contest – Telerobotic Mars Expedition Design Competition – for the best design plan of diverse teams of specialized robots using a 10-metric ton Mars lander, an essential requirement for any human Mars exploration mission. Contest planning requirements focused on engineering design, mission cost, science return, exploration preparation, and schedule.
Systems were demonstrated by using expeditions consisting of platoons of robots, including wheeled or treaded ground rovers, helicopters, airplanes, balloons, or other types of flight vehicles, and legged robots, including those in humanoid, cat-like, or insectoid forms. Missions of this type could return scientific bonanzas while also preparing Mars landing sites for human arrival.
With over 20 teams having participated in the 2022 contest, six groups from around the world that submitted the best overall telerobotic expedition designs were announced during the 25th Annual International Mars Society Convention in October, with those winners designated to have their plans incorporated into the new publication.
“The book has six team designs of the coordinated efforts of several distinct types of robots (flyers, four-legged walking, wheeled and tracked) that reach Mars in a 10-ton payload via a powered landing to the surface. The robot platoons are deployed to gather critical information that will pave the way for future human missions, but they also conduct their own science experiments.
“Four of the six designs include advanced analysis tools to search for microbial life on Mars. One design uses VR to tele-robotically coordinate and drive the robot platoons from Earth. Another one coordinates over a hundred flying robots and two-dozen walking robots carried in robot transporters to explore lava tubes for future human habitation,” said Mr. Crossman.
Obtain your copy of “Telerobotic Mars Expedition Design” today via Amazon or Barnes & Noble and prepare yourself for an extraordinary journey on how humanity can use robotics to greatly increase the exploration of the Red Planet and lay the groundwork for future human bases and settlement on Mars.
For more details about the Mars Society, its mission, programs, and publications, please visit: marssociety.org.
The Mars Society
11111 West 8th Avenue, unit A
Lakewood, CO 80215 U.S.A.
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]]>April 20th, 2023
Mars Society Hails Starship Flight Test
The Mars Society today congratulated SpaceX for the first flight test of its fully reusable Starship space launch system. The test flight, which for the first time launched the Starship upper stage integrated with its Superheavy booster, was, by a factor of two, the most powerful rocket launch in human history. Lasting over three minutes, the flight test revealed numerous issues with the system, including insufficient protection of the launch infrastructure, failures during launch or flight of eight out of… READ MORE >
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]]>Thank you for bringing this initiative to our attention!
Please keep an eye on developments, and post anything you think might be worth keeping in the forum archive.
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]]>Here is News a Private Astrobiology Mission to Find Life
'Mars Society in Favor of ALFA Mars Initiative to Find Martian Life before Human Exploration'
https://www.marssociety.org/news/2023/0 … ploration/
A new science project initiated by ALFA Mars (Agnostic Life Finding Association – Mars), a group of scientists, engineers, science communicators, and volunteers aiming to determine whether indigenous life is present today on Mars before humans walk on its surface, has received the public backing of the Mars Society, the world’s largest space advocacy group dedicated to the human exploration and settlement of the red planet.
“We believe that ALFA Mars offers a new and important approach to locating current life on the red planet, one that should be supported in a variety of ways to ensure that its mission is carried out prior to the initial human exploration of Mars,” said James Burk, Mars Society Executive Director.
ALFA Mars is developing an instrument that will isolate genetic polymers from large volumes of Martian subsurface ice, mined during future Mars ISRU missions, in an effort to find evidence of present day life. The concentrated biomolecules will then be analyzed on-site to determine whether they are truly traces of the Martian biosphere. Scientists from the ALFA Mars team are convinced that a small and flexible private mission has a high chance of finding life on Mars before humans set foot there.
“We are an international astrobiology group with the goal of finding life on Mars before the first humans arrive there. Since government agencies currently do not share our objective, we have decided to pursue our mission with private funding”
Administered by the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution, ALFA Mars is actively seeking research and industry collaborators, financial support, and volunteers to move forward with its planned mission to detect life on the red planet.
]]>Red Planet Bound [Blog]
In Person or Proxy to Mars and Beyond?
By Larry Klaes, Guest WriterIn 1972, singer, pianist, and composer Sir Elton H. John (born 1947) released a song titled “Rocket Man”. This music piece, which was inspired by a Ray Bradbury (1920-2012) science fiction story of the same name, has an individual who sees his job in outer space not as some grand adventure as one might expect of a typical astronaut, but rather as ordinary and isolating.
Not only does this Rocket Man miss Earth and his wife living there, declaring “it’s lonely out in space,” he also says that “Mars ain’t the kind of place to raise your kids/In fact it’s cold as hell/And there’s no one there to raise them/If you did.”
As a life-long space and astronomy enthusiast, when I first became aware of this song, I was highly disappointed with its message. “Rocket Man” was a definite reflection of the counterculture era, where many rejected what they saw as the militant flaws and antiquated traditions of society which held back all but a select privileged few.
The space program fell into that category, being seen as a vehicle of a predominantly white male military-industrial complex. That it was also so publicly prominent only made it an even easier target for criticism, especially the kind that asked why we were spending money on sending humans to the Moon when there were so many problems on Earth that needed fixing first.
Even as a kid I knew this was an “apples and oranges” situation. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA, was funded far less than most other government agencies of that era, a status that remains to the present day. Diverting all its resources to social agendas would have been a temporary band aid at best, not a real solution to modern civilization’s myriad of problems.
Nevertheless, the general public which had supported the early bold declaration of “sending a man to the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth” within ten years had undergone a significant sea change by the time NASA was actually placing astronauts on our planet’s nearest celestial neighbor at the end of the 1960s and into the early 1970s.
I had grown up in that era of the early Space Age when humans were actively circling Earth in preparation for launching representatives of our species to land on the Moon while robotic probes had begun to reveal other worlds such as Venus and Mars. I bought into the future storyline of the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey and all those other pro-space entertainment media so prevalent then that humanity would almost automatically spread out and colonize first the Moon and then the other places in our Sol system, before moving on into the wider Milky Way galaxy.
I did not pay much attention to the geopolitical and social forces driving and affecting the space programs then, not just because I wasn’t able to fully comprehend them as a naive kid, but also because I felt they were only temporary issues, ones humanity would conquer as easily and rightly as we were doing with our move into outer space. After all, didn’t Star Trek show a future just a few centuries from now where Earth was united, we were flying about the galaxy in fancy starships, and dealing with all sorts of new alien neighbors as part of a collective called the United Federation of Planets (UFP).
So, when I heard Elton John warbling a very popular tune that said the starry realm was unpleasant, lonely, and not something good for bringing up children in, I was concerned his words would only add fuel to the fire that was already setting back our “manifest destiny” in the Final Frontier in the beginning of the 1970s.
The Apollo lunar program was already being defunded after the seventeenth mission, which in turn was killing off any plans for manned lunar colonies. The logical promise of sending humans on to the planet Mars after the success of Apollo, as soon as the 1980s it was being declared, was also placed on a shelf. No one was saying such missions were being cancelled, but it was pretty obvious that no one at NASA was seriously working on such an adventure by then, nor would they be any time soon.
Many in the West thought that America’s superpower rival, the Soviet Union, would pick up the gauntlet we had dropped and soon there would be cosmonaut boot prints on the Moon and Mars as they went on to become the dominant society throughout the Sol system and beyond.
Since then, a lot has changed. The American manned space program is not only picking up again, with real plans to settle the Moon with a new generation of astronauts as well as send these explorers on to Mars in the 2030s, but there is also a new Space Race of a kind, this time mainly with China. Upon jumping into this race with their first successful satellite launch in 1970, the “People’s Republic” now has a second crewed space station circling Earth while simultaneously conducting automated rover and sample return missions to the Moon and their first wheeled explorer conducting science on the Red Planet.
My attitude and views on our ventures into the Final Frontier have also changed over the decades. I am still quite the space supporter, but I am seeing it now as happening in certain different ways, in particular how we should venture into the void directly with fellow human beings.
When I used to read and hear certain professionals, whom I automatically assumed should have been big supporters of manned space exploration and settlement, publicly state that robots were better for exploring the cosmic void than human beings, I was indignant. They were going against the virtually predestined vision for our species expansion into the Milky Way galaxy and all those other stellar islands out there. Humans had to be an integral part of this future, otherwise our species and society would end up either stagnating or outright destroying itself in the very nest of its birth. No one in their right mind would keep a child in their crib and expect them to develop properly otherwise.
To read the full blog, please click here.
The Mars Society
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]]>NASA Assoc. Admin. Bhavya Lal to discuss Mars nuclear propulsion at 2022 Mars Society Convention
Dr. Bhavya Lal, NASA Associate Administrator for Technology, Policy, and Strategy, will give a plenary talk about the strategic and policy challenges related to nuclear propulsion for a human mission to Mars during the 25th Annual International Mars Society Convention, scheduled for October 20-23, 2022 at Arizona State University.
Dr. Lal is responsible for providing evidence-driven advice to NASA leadership on internal and external policy issues, strategic planning, and technology investments. She also provides executive leadership and direction to the Office of Technology, Policy and Strategy within the office of the administrator. Dr. Lal is currently the acting chief technologist of NASA, the first woman to hold the position in NASA’s 60+ year history.
Before joining NASA, she had served as a member of the Presidential Transition Agency Review Teams for both NASA and the Department of Defense. For 15 years prior to that, Dr. Lal led strategy, technology assessment, and policy studies and analyses at the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) Science and Technology Policy Institute (STPI) for government sponsors including the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), the National Space Council, NASA, Department of Defense, and other Federal Departments and Agencies.
Dr. Lal holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in nuclear engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a second master’s from MIT’s Technology and Policy Program, and a Ph.D. in Public Policy and Public Administration from George Washington University.
For more details about this year’s Mars Society convention, including online registration, call for papers, and volunteer and sponsorship opportunities, please visit our web site (www.marssociety.org).
The Mars Society
11111 West 8th Avenue, unit A
Lakewood, CO 80215 U.S.A.
www.marssociety.org
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@TheMarsSocietyCopyright (c) 2022 The Mars Society
All rights reserved.
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]]>2022 Mars Society Convention to Receive Briefing about Model Mars STEAM Learning Platform
The Mars Society is pleased to announce that Dr. Jan Millsapps, a veteran filmmaker and Professor Emeritus of Cinema at San Francisco State University, will give a presentation during the 25th Annual International Mars Society Convention (October 20-23, 2022 at ASU in Tempe) about Model Mars, a unique, interdisciplinary STEAM learning platform that invites young people from around the world to create their own futures as virtual settlers living in simulated communities on Mars.
Launched in early 2022 by Dr. Millsapps and her development team, Model Mars serves as an “edutainment” platform designed to prepare young people for living on the Red Planet. The prototype experience, involving youth participants and advisors from five continents, culminated in a Mars-wide convocation and opening of the virtual Mars Museum. The Model Mars project was also recently featured at a United Nations event in Daejeon, South Korea.
In addition to her work on Model Mars, Dr. Millsapps is considered a pioneering figure in the new media movement, an early web innovator, and an accomplished writer. She has also produced films, videos, and interactive media on subjects ranging from domestic violence to global terrorism and has written two space-themed novels.
Her recent documentary, Madame Mars: Women and the Quest for Worlds Beyond, premiered at the United Nations in Vienna and has been shown at Puerto Rico’s famed Arecibo Observatory, the venerable University of Cambridge in the U.K., the New York Academy of Sciences’ Global STEM Summit, and at numerous film festivals, winning first prize for a professional documentary at the 2019 Raw Science Film Festival in Los Angeles. In 2020-21 she and her film were chosen for the U.S. State Department’s educational and cultural exchange program, the American Film Showcase, with screenings to date in Kyrgyzstan, Columbia, Pakistan, Czechoslovakia, Indonesia, and Germany.
Dr. Millsapps has spoken about the need for diversity in space at several Mars Society Conventions, the United Nations, the SETI Institute, and at the Bay Area Taste of Science. In 2021 she gave a keynote address on space equity at the Space and Extreme Environment Research Center in Brazil. She is also a founding member of the global Space4Women support and advocacy group, and in 2020 was named a mentor for the Space4Women network by the United Nations Office of Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA).
For more details about this year’s Mars Society convention, including online registration, call for papers, a list of confirmed speakers, and volunteer and sponsorship opportunities, please visit our web site (www.marssociety.org). Also please note that early bird ticket prices are available until Wednesday, August 31st, 5:00 pm MT.
The Mars Society
11111 West 8th Avenue, unit A
Lakewood, CO 80215 U.S.A.
www.marssociety.org
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@TheMarsSocietyCopyright (c) 2022 The Mars Society
All rights reserved.
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]]>White House Asst. Director for Space Policy to Address 2022 Mars Society Convention
The Mars Society is pleased to announce that Ezinne Uzo-Okoro, White House Assistant Director for Space Policy, will speak virtually about “In-Space Capabilities for Mars and Beyond” at the 25th Annual International Mars Society Convention on Friday, October 21st, 1:30 pm EST / 10:30 am PST.
Ms. Uzo-Okoro determines civil and commercial space policy priorities for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Her portfolio includes Orbital Debris, In-space Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing (ISAM), Earth Observations, Space Weather, Aeronautics, and Planetary Protection.
In 17 years at NASA, she contributed to over 60 missions and programs – as an engineer, technical expert, manager, and executive – in earth observations, planetary science, helio-physics, astrophysics, human exploration, and space communications, which represent $9.2B in total program value. At NASA Headquarters, she led a helio-physics portfolio of spaceflight missions, including PUNCH, TRACERS, and MAGIC.
While at NASA Ames, Ms. Uzo-Okoro directed the Small Spacecraft Mission Design Division, including the Mission Design Center, led teams in developing advanced spacecraft mission concepts, and developed partnerships with government agencies. In several Chief Engineer roles, she provided oversight for over 20 programs on systems engineering and software systems as technical authority. She led a mission design concept for a constellation of eight small satellites for the HelioSwarm mission.
At NASA Goddard, within the flight segment, she contributed significantly in areas of engineering leadership and technical development of flight hardware and software on several spacecraft missions, including TESS (launched 2018), NICER (launched 2017), GPM (launched 2014), Constellation Program - Orion/EFT-1 (launched 2014), ELC (launched 2009), and Cassini (Saturn's Orbit Insertion in 2004). Within the ground segment, she co-led the $300M Spacecraft Communication and Navigation Integration Project with JPL and NASA Glenn partners. She served as the technical authority on over 20 mission operational readiness reviews. Within R&D, she led the development of remote-sensing image registration algorithms, which resulted in NASA-owned registration algorithm patents.
Ms. Uzo-Okoro holds a bachelor's degree in Computer Science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; master’s degrees in Systems Engineering, Space Robotics, and Science & Technology Policy, from Johns Hopkins University, MIT, and Harvard University, respectively; and a Ph.D. in Space Systems from MIT on the robotic assembly of satellites.
She founded Terraformers.com to grow affordable food through productive and networked backyard gardens, as a precursor to growing food in space. Her immigration story is profiled in President George W. Bush’s book, 'Out of Many, One'.
For more details about this year’s Mars Society convention, including online registration, call for papers, a list of confirmed speakers, and volunteer and sponsorship opportunities, please visit our web site (www.marssociety.org). Also please note that early bird ticket prices are available until Wednesday, August 31st, 5:00 pm MT.
The Mars Society
11111 West 8th Avenue, unit A
Lakewood, CO 80215 U.S.A.
www.marssociety.org
https://www.facebook.com/TheMarsSociety
@TheMarsSocietyCopyright (c) 2022 The Mars Society
All rights reserved.
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]]>Voyager Space CEO Dylan Taylor to Discuss Future of Space Industry at Mars Society Convention
The Mars Society is pleased to announce that Dylan Taylor, Chairman & CEO of Voyager Space, a multi-national space holding firm that acquires and integrates leading space exploration enterprises globally, will give a plenary talk about how the commercial space industry will likely evolve over the next five years during the 25th Annual International Mars Society Convention, scheduled for October 20-23 at Arizona State University (Tempe).
As an early-stage investor in more than 50 emerging ventures, including Accion, Kepler, York, Astrobotic, Made in Space, Relativity, and Planet, Mr. Taylor is widely considered one of the most active private space investors in the world.
Mr. Taylor’s technical background, global business experience and passion for space make him a unique figure within his industry. He regularly speaks and writes about the future of the space economy and is sought after by the media for his expertise in the financial aspects of space investing as well as industry dynamics. In addition, Mr. Taylor flew on board Blue Origin’s NS-19 mission into space in December 2021.
He has also had an extensive philanthropic impact on the space industry. In 2017, Mr. Taylor founded the nonprofit and social movement, Space for Humanity, which seeks to democratize space exploration and develop solutions to global issues through the scope of human awareness to help solve the world’s most intractable problems. Additionally, he is the Co-Founding Patron of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, which seeks to promote the growth of commercial space activity.
For more details about this year’s Mars Society convention, including online registration, call for papers, and volunteer and sponsorship opportunities, please visit our web site (www.marssociety.org). Also please note that early bird ticket prices are available until Wednesday, August 31st, 5:00 pm MT.
The Mars Society
11111 West 8th Avenue, unit A
Lakewood, CO 80215 U.S.A.
www.marssociety.org
https://www.facebook.com/TheMarsSociety
@TheMarsSocietyCopyright (c) 2022 The Mars Society
All rights reserved.
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]]>Sponsorship Opportunities with the 2022 Mars Society Convention
The Mars Society will be holding its 25th Annual International Mars Society Convention October 20-23, 2022, this year in-person, at Arizona State University in Tempe (outside Phoenix).
The Mars Society has held its international convention every year since 1998. Our last on-site event was convened in 2019 at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, with approximately 400 people in attendance and 100 speakers over the course of the four-day event.
Facing the global pandemic, Mars Society leadership decided to go virtual for its 2020 and 2021 conventions. In addition to hearing key scientists, commercial space executives, government officials, and members of the media discuss Mars and space exploration, attendees were able to network with each other and the speakers using a variety of virtual tools including a conference session scheduling application, chat and collaboration tools, and virtual networking tools.
This year's convention, marking a quarter of a century, will be a combination of both formats, with both in-person and virtual attendees, allowing for continued expansion of our public and online audience, with the same state-of-the-art virtual options and networking tools.
Last year, we had over 5,000 people joining us to watch the convention online, and we expect more this October, in addition to the usual hundreds of people attending the event in-person in Arizona.
Sponsors involved in supporting our international convention will receive a first-class presence in our event experience and will also be mentioned across our print and online materials leading up to and during the conference. There will be three primary levels of sponsorship - Gold, Silver, and Bronze - $5,000, $2,500 and $1,000 respectively.
For more details about this year's convention sponsorship options, please visit: https://bit.ly/39JE3Tn, and for general information about the convention and the Mars Society, go to: https://www.marssociety.org. Please email James Burk, Mars Society Executive Director, at: jburk@marssociety.org with any questions.
The Mars Society
11111 West 8th Avenue, unit A
Lakewood, CO 80215 U.S.A.
www.marssociety.org
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@TheMarsSocietyCopyright (c) 2022 The Mars Society
All rights reserved.
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]]>MARS SOCIETY ANNOUNCEMENT
View this email in your browserMars Society Concludes Int'l Mission to Mars Design Class & Competition for High School Students
The Mars Society, the world’s largest nonprofit organization dedicated to sending humans to Mars, has recently concluded its first cohort of a groundbreaking educational program “International Mission to Mars”, an engineering design competition for high school students. The program is modeled on the approach taken in engineering design courses at some of the leading universities in the world. In conducting this program, the Mars Society sought to demonstrate the value of a new and much more creative way to teach science and engineering at the secondary school level than is currently being practiced.
The first cohort represented a diverse and multicultural group of 40 high-school age students from around the world who were organized into five teams based on their time zones. Students hailed from the U.S., Canada, Germany, Poland, the United Arab Emirates, Peru, the Philippines, Singapore and India.
The team scoring highest in the competition was Team 2, who named themselves “N.E.W. E.R.A.”, and consisted of students from across Asia and the Americas. We also provided individual winners for each of the four scoring categories: Team 5 won for Science, Team 3 won for Engineering, Team 2 won for Human Factors, and Team 1 won for Cost. All five of the teams created excellent design concepts and are being recognized for their achievements in multiple ways.
The students were provided background lectures via Zoom video conferencing by some of the most prominent Mars experts in the world on a wide variety of topics. These included how to search for life on Mars, how to design spacesuits and other critical mission elements, and the science and technologies behind Mars exploration.
Guest lecturers included:
Dr. James Bell, principal investigator of the Mastcam-Z camera system on NASA’s Perseverance rover, who shared the latest techniques and approaches for exploring Mars with rover-based science instruments.
Dr. Steven Benner, an expert microbiologist who covered the nature of DNA and RNA and how to detect life signatures.
Dr. Carol Stoker, a NASA Ames scientist who discussed concepts and approaches for searching for life on Mars, as well as past attempts.
Dr. Chris McKay, a NASA Ames researcher who covered his work in searching for life on the Red Planet and in extreme environments on Earth.
Homer Hickam, the author of “Rocket Boys” (which was made into the movie “October Sky”), who shared his experiences with rocketry as a high schooler in the 1950s and as a NASA employee during the Space Shuttle era in support of astronaut training.
Dr. Lawrence Kuznetz, a former Apollo mission controller who is also an expert on lunar & Mars surface EVA suits.
Dr. Greg Autry, a space policy expert with Arizona State University who provided a professional roadmap for students interested in pursuing space careers.
Dr. Reut Sorek-Abramovich, co-founder of the D-MARS analog program based in Israel, who is an expert in field science and astrobiology.
Dr. Geoffrey Landis, NASA scientist and science fiction author, who discussed his work on NASA’s Mars Pathfinder and Mars Polar Lander missions.
Dr. Madhu Thangavelu, an expert on lunar exploration from the University of Southern California.
Dr. David Poston, formerly with Los Alamos National Laboratory and an expert on the use of nuclear power in space.
Dr. Nathaniel Putzig, a scientist from the Planetary Science Institute and expert on mapping water ice on Mars.
Ashwini Ramesh, an aerospace engineer and educator, who has researched the approaches to grow and create all types of food on Mars.
Dr. Ken Brandt, a NASA Solar System Ambassador, who covered past failures and successes of Mars missions as well as landing site selection criteria.
Caleb Eastman, an engineering expert, who focuses on both hardware and software robotics technologies.
The Mars Society has made nearly all of these educational lectures available to the general public via its YouTube Channel.
The program succeeded in teaching these high school students advanced concepts about science, engineering, technology and mission design. The participants then designed their own Mars surface mission, including its habitat, surface vehicles, scientific instruments, power system and other equipment and supplies, crew size and composition, mission location, scientific objectives, rations, duration, and exploration plan. They had 30 metric tons of useful payload that had already been delivered to the Martian surface, plus an ascent vehicle capable of returning up to six astronauts from Mars to Earth.
The students created mission design elements with four major factors in mind: Science, Engineering, Human Operational Challenges, and Cost. These factors were the key elements of the scoring rubric, and teams were organized to have students focused specifically on these areas, so that the proper discussion and tradeoffs could be made in their final designs. In addition to handling their own area as well as they can, the students worked out the best possible compromises to produce the best overall result.
The designs of each team were written up in a report, with each team member responsible for authoring a section. In addition, eight coaches/mentors were also assisting and supporting the students with their design work and presentation preparation activities.
The final shootout occurred in three rounds. During the first rounds, each team had 30 minutes to present their designs of a human Mars expedition to a panel of eminent judges. During the second round, each of the teams had 30 minutes to make criticisms of the other teams’ designs. For the third round, the participating teams had 30 minutes to defend their design by rebutting the criticism advanced by the other teams, as well as to present a final “closing argument” on why their design was the best. All three rounds can be viewed on our Youtube Channel.
An expert panel of judges rated the participants’ designs, presentations and rebuttals based on their technical and scientific merit and how they address the four major factors.
The Mars mission designs will be published by the Mars Society in a book, which will be available for sale on Amazon.com. Students who participated in the design activities will receive a certificate attesting to their participation, useful for augmenting their college entry applications.
In addition, the winning design team has been invited to present their proposal at the 25th Annual International Mars Society Convention this October at Arizona State University. The Mars Society will also organize a special panel at the event with several of the program participants (including students) to discuss the overall learnings from this program.
The Mars Society would like to thank the following individuals for participating in the program as a mentor, judge, or volunteer: Sherry Bell, Sabine Heinz, Trudi Hoogenboom, Tobias Koch, Gary Madonna, Haritina Mogusanu, Jonathan Nalder, Kent Nebergall, Emmanuel Olobae, Ashwini Ramesh, Mara Santos, Reut Sorek-Abramovich, Julia Alvarez Vallero, Bryan White, Nicole Willett, and Emma Young. The program was conceived by Dr. Robert Zubrin and coordinated by James Burk, the Executive Director of the Mars Society.
The Mars Society is now seeking educational grants and other funding sources in order to continue and even expand this program next year. Inquiries can be directed to Mars Society Executive Director James Burk at jburk@marssociety.org.
The Mars Society
11111 West 8th Avenue, unit A
Lakewood, CO 80215 U.S.A.
www.marssociety.org
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@TheMarsSocietyCopyright (c) 2022 The Mars Society
All rights reserved.
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]]>NASA Deputy Admin. Pamela Melroy to Address 2022 Int’l Mars Society Convention
The Mars Society is very pleased to announce that NASA Deputy Administrator Pamela Melroy will give a keynote talk titled “The Human-Machine Teaming Path to Get Us There” during the 25th Annual International Mars Society Convention at Arizona State University on Friday, October 21st (11:00 am local time).
As Deputy Administrator, Ms. Melroy performs the duties and exercises the powers delegated by the Administrator, assists the Administrator in making final agency decisions, and acts for the Administrator in his absence by performing all necessary functions to govern NASA operations. She is also responsible for laying the agency’s vision and representing NASA to the Executive Office of the President, Congress, heads of federal and other appropriate government agencies, international organizations, and external organizations and communities.
Ms. Melroy was commissioned through the Air Force Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) program in 1983. As a co-pilot, aircraft commander, instructor pilot, and test pilot, she logged more than 6,000 flight hours in more than 50 different aircraft before retiring from the Air Force in 2007. She is a veteran of Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm and Operation Just Cause, with more than 200 combat and combat support hours.
Ms. Melroy was selected as an astronaut candidate by NASA in December 1994. Initially assigned to astronaut support duties for launch and landing, she also worked advanced projects for the Astronaut Office. She also performed Capsule Communicator (CAPCOM) duties in mission control. In addition, she served on the Columbia Reconstruction Team as the lead for the crew module and served as Deputy Project Manager for the Columbia Crew Survival Investigation Team. In her final position, she served as Branch Chief for the Orion branch of the Astronaut Office.
One of only two women to command a space shuttle, Ms. Melroy logged more than 38 days (924 hours) in space. She served as pilot on two flights, STS-92 in 2000 and STS-112 in 2002, and was the mission commander on STS-120 in 2007. All three of her missions were assembly missions to build the International Space Station.
After serving more than two decades in the Air Force and as a NASA astronaut, Ms. Melroy took on a number of leadership roles, including at Lockheed Martin, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Nova Systems Pty, Australia, and as an advisor to the Australian Space Agency. She also served as an independent consultant and a member of the National Space Council’s Users Advisory Group.
Ms. Melroy holds a bachelor’s degree in Physics and Astronomy from Wellesley College and a master’s degree in Earth and Planetary Sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
For more details about this year’s Mars Society convention, including online registration, call for papers, and volunteer and sponsorship opportunities, please visit our web site (www.marssociety.org). Also please note that early bird ticket prices are available until Wednesday, August 31st, 5:00 pm MT.
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