Author: Michael Stoltz

Posts by Michael Stoltz

2019 Mars Society Convention Schedule Online

The full itinerary for the 22nd Annual International Mars Society Convention is now available for viewing online. Please visit https://bit.ly/2kPIDqa to see the four-day conference schedule, running from October 17-20 at the University of Southern California (Los Angeles). The Mars Society convention program includes a series of plenary talks, panel discussions and public debates on important issues related to planning for a human mission to the Red Planet and general space exploration. Conference highlights will include an update about NASA’s… READ MORE >

Arch Mission Foundation Chairman Nova Spivack to Address Mars Society Convention

The Mars Society is pleased to announce that Nova Spivack, a world-renowned futurist and Chairman & Co-Founder of the Arch Mission Foundation, will give a plenary talk about his foundation’s efforts to preserve humanity’s knowledge and our planet’s biology through the establishment of off-world archives at the 22nd Annual International Mars Society Convention, set for October 17-20 at USC in Los Angeles.  Mr. Spivack’s plenary talk will occur during the conference’s opening session on the morning of October 17th. The Arch Mission… READ MORE >

JPL’s Ashwin Vasavada to Address 2019 Mars Society Convention

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 >

[R.Zubrin] The Tardigrades-on-the-Moon Affair

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 >

Mars Society in South Asia

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 >

Crew Application for MDRS 2020-21 Now Open

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 >

Debate on NASA Lunar Gateway to be held at Mars Society Convention

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 >

NASA Geobiologist to Address Mars Society on Human Design Mission Elements for Red Planet

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 >

Honeybee Robotics VP to Discuss Planetary Drilling at Mars Society Convention

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 >

Volunteers Needed @MDRS

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 >

Mars InSight Project Manager to Give Update at Mars Society Convention

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 >

JPL Senior Scientist to Discuss Search for Life at Mars Society Convention

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 >

MDRS Makes the Los Angeles Times

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 >

Call for Papers (2019 Mars Society Convention)

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 >

[National Review Op-Ed] Zubrin Critique of NASA’s Vendor-Driven Artemis Program

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 >

2019 University Rover Challenge Crowns New Champion

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 Publishes “The Case for Space”

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 >

Semi-Finalists Selected for Mars Colony Prize Competition

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 >

We’ve Got a Winner!! 2019 Mars Society Poster Contest

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 >

Zubrin Comments on New Independent Report on Human Mars Mission

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 >

[R.Zubrin Op-Ed] Lunar Gateway or Moon Direct? [4.17.19]

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 >

Mars Society Announces New Podcast “Mars Talk” Highlighting Chapter Activities & Space News

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 >

Robert Zubrin to Introduce New Book at SoCal Meeting

The Mars Society Southern California (SoCal) chapter is pleased to announce that it will be hosting a special event this Friday (April 19th) at 7:00 pm in Pasadena with Mars Society President Dr. Robert Zubrin speaking about his new book, “The Case for Space: How the Revolution in Spaceflight Opens Up a Future of Limitless Possibility.” In his latest work, due out next month, Dr. Zubrin talks about the new space race, not involving rival superpowers, but rather competing entrepreneurs… READ MORE >

Happy Yuri’s Night from Mars

Members of Crew 208 (Medical Makers) recently celebrated Yuri’s Night 2019 at the Mars Society’s Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) in southern Utah. Completing its 10-day field simulation this past weekend, the 5-member team was glad to join in the world-wide effort to commemorate humanity’s achievements in space exploration. Based in Canada, Medical Makers is a global community of innovators, patients, and healthcare providers who use low-cost technologies to make sustainable solutions to save lives, time and money…. READ MORE >

Mars Society China Takes Off

Following a whirlwind tour of eastern China by Mars Society President Dr. Robert Zubrin and his wife, science educator Hope Zubrin, the Mars Society China has taken off. During the course of the week-long visit in late March, organized by Mars Society China Executive Director Angela Tingting Cui and her capable team, Dr. Zubrin gave a series of talks at Shanghai JiaoTong University and Beijing BeiHang University, “Case for Mars” book clubs in Jinan and Beijing and a Chinese space agency institute… READ MORE >