Member News Brief

Recently, the adult child of one of our members has made it to the latest round for the next NASA Astronaut selection! This is an intensely rigorous process, with over 99% of the applicants already having been weeded out. Now the process has moved to interviews and tests at JSC. We are all excited and proud of our extended family member making it this far.

This will be an especially exciting astronaut class as it appears that they may be from whom the first astronauts may be chosen who will leave near Earth orbit since 1972 – indeed, they may go farther into space than anyone has gone before. We should hear the final results early next year.

Till then fingers are crossed! Good Luck!

-Kurt

P.S. The member wants to keep the identity quiet for now – while an incredible accomplishment to make it this far, they prefer to be anonymous till it is known for sure one way or the other.

Clinton: I Support Exploration Of Mars

I was thrilled to see the following notice in the AIAA (American institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics daily news summary for September 13:
Clinton: I Support Human Exploration Of Mars.

Space News (9/13, Subscription Publication) reports that “in a response to a questionnaire on science policy topics released Sept. 13 by ScienceDebate.org,” Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said that she supports a manned mission to Mars, and quotes Clinton as saying, “A goal of my administration will be to…advance our ability to make human exploration of Mars a reality.” Space News notes that Clinton “broadly endorsed” NASA’s efforts, and said she would ensure NASA “has the leadership, funding and operational flexibility” to work with industry. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump “did not formally support a human Mars exploration program” in his response, but said that the federal government “should encourage innovation in the areas of space exploration.”

While the Mars Society is a non-partisan organization, the fact that a major party candidate is explicitly talking about sending humans to Mars is not only exciting in and of itself, but a sea change from the situation only a few years ago. As recently as a couple of election cycles back a Mars Society member got to ask the presidential candidates of one party during the primary season about sending humans to Mars and it was dismissed as a crank question. Our older members may remember a time back in the 70’s when a leading senator (who later became Vice President) led the charge to cancel the human space program in its entirety by cancelling the Space Shuttle, calling it a ‘senseless extravagance’. Now a vigorous space program and sending humans to Mars is becoming bi-partisan national policy. Politicians as odd a set of bedfellows as Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders have both advocated more spending on space exploration. While we are not there yet – the distance we have come is incredible. In no small part this change is due to the dedicated activities of the Mars Society and our like minded sister organizations – that means all of us. I look forward to the future.

– Kurt, President of the Dallas Chapter