The Mars Society is pleased to announce that Dr. Garrett Reisman, former NASA astronaut, spaceflight pioneer, and USC professor, will serve as a plenary speaker at the 2026 International Mars Society Convention, taking place October 22-24 at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. A veteran of NASA’s astronaut corps, Dr. Reisman flew aboard all three Space Shuttles—Endeavour, Discovery, and Atlantis—and spent 95 days living and working aboard the International Space Station. During his two space missions, he conducted… READ MORE >
Topic Area: Space shuttle
By Lou Farrell, Senior Writer, Red Planet Bound In space exploration, the tiniest mistakes can become mission-ending moments. However, those high-stakes failures represent some of the most valuable data points for space agencies. Every anomaly review, redesign and retest strengthens future missions, turning hard lessons into better hardware and smarter processes. In that sense, progress in the final frontier is a cycle of setbacks, scrutiny and steady space agency improvements rather than a straight line. Learning from the Tragedy of… READ MORE >