Congressional Outreach

The Mars Society recognizes that the sustained support of Congress is vital to the success of any humans-to-Mars program. Thus, we have developed a multi-year strategy to win and retain this support:

1. Local Meetings: As has been our tradition since the creation of the Mars Society, we intend to motivate our members to arrange meetings with their local congressional offices. This strategy helps to show members of Congress that there is support for space exploration within their own districts.
2. Phone/Fax Blitz: We plan to arrange certain days or weeks in which we will ask our membership to call or fax their members of Congress and urge them to support the Vision for Space Exploration (VSE) and suggest ways to improve that program.
3. Washington, D.C. Office: The Mars Society Washington, D.C. virtual office will continue sending letters to every member of Congress as well as coordinating face to face meetings in D.C.
4. Legislative Blitz: In August 2006, we ran an enormously successful legislative outreach event. We intend to run similar programs in the future. As collaborative events with groups like the National Space Society, or as solo efforts, we intend to maintain constant contact with the United States Congress.

CURRENT LEGISLATIVE PUSH
The House of Representatives recently passed their NASA budget, which contained language prohibiting the agency from using any money on Mars-only human spaceflight work. THIS LANGUAGE MUST BE REPEALED by the Senate. Please send your Senators a copy of our letter asking them to overturn this restriction. (PDF; DOC)

If you wish to call your Senators instead of sending a letter, the following script may be helpful. If you're nervous about calling your Congresspeople (and you shouldn't be - they love hearing from constituents), you can even call after hours and leave a voice mail.

Hello, (I'm calling for/I'd like to leave a message for) Senator _________.

My name is __________, and I'm from __________.

I'm calling about the language placed in the fiscal year 2008 budget by the House of Representatives that would prevent NASA from spending any funds on projects exclusively focused on human missions to Mars.

This crippling language would be extremely harmful to NASA and to our nation as a whole since sending humans to mars is crucial to our country's standing as an economic and technological world leader.

Fortunately, the current Senate version of the budget does not contain this language; however, it may get through should Senators not oppose this wording.

Please ask Senator _________ to oppose this anti-Mars language. Thank you.

2008 SEA Blitz
The Mars Society will once again be playing an integral part in the Space Exploration Alliance's semi-annual Space Blitz of Capitol Hill. The next event is Feb 10-12, 2008; more details will be posted here as they become available.

Resources For Contacting Congress

• How to set up a meeting with a Congressional representative
• Sample letter requesting a meeting with your Congressperson
• Talking points to bring to meetings - Generic
• Talking points to bring to meetings with a Democrat
• Talking points to bring to meetings with a Republican

Links

• Article on Congressional Outreach
• Article on The Great 2006 Mars Blitz
• Mars Society Participates in SEA Blitz
• The NASA Bugdet Put in Perspective
• NASA Procurement Map: Breakdown of NASA funding by state, congressional district, school, company, etc.
• Constellation Workforce: Jobs created by the Moon-Mars program