December 18, 2009 by Gregory Tucker.

 ”President Obama: Set the Course for Mars”

The failure of the Augustine Commission to provide the Obama administration with a worthy objective for the American human spaceflight program threatens to leave NASA rudderless. Under these conditions, those who believe that the space program needs a real goal - and that goal should be humans to Mars - need to step forward. For this reason, the Mars Society is launching an international petition campaign, calling on President Obama to set the course for Mars. The petition is open to all to sign, regardless of age or nationality, because the question of whether NASA succeeds in doing what it can and should do to open the space frontier is a matter of vital concern to all humankind.

On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set foot on the Moon. In the 40 years since, no human has gone farther. Four decades of stagnation in human spaceflight is more than enough. We do not need a fifth. It is time for the people to speak. Sign the petition. Spread the petition. Post links to it on every website you can. Let the voice of the future be heard.

The petition can be found at www.HumansToMars.org

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December 14, 2009 by dallasmarssociety.

There were 15 persons in attendance.

The Dallas Mars society welcomed Klingons from IKV Melota (http://www.ikvmelota.org/) to the November meeting. We were very impressed with IKV Melota’s interest, intelligence, and knowledge which led to stimulating and very interesting conversations about Mars and space. We extend a special thanks to IKV Melota for joining the meeting.

Thanks also to Tom for preparing and bringing a preliminary proposal for the Dallas Mars Society to host the 2011 Mars Society national convention in the DFW area. The proposal was very professional and well thought through. We discussed potential venues for the convention and advertising. At the next meeting, the group agreed to discuss the 2011 convention further and vote on whether to propose to host the convention.

The group also discussed the upcoming Perry Middle School project. The Mars Society Dallas chapter and the National Space Society Dallas chapter both plan to donate $125 to cover the $250 cost to repair Perry’s space station moc-up module. The repairs will occur after the first of the year and the repaired space station-moc up will be displayed during Perry’s space station week in March.

We also discussed the Mars rover Spirit which currently has a problem with one of its wheels http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/spotlight/20091210a.html. Curtis brought a copy of a news article on NASA/JPL-Caltech and Microsoft’s Be a Martian. This exciting and fun website allows anyone to participate in Mars research and help improve Martian maps.

Due to the holidays, we will not be meeting in December. Our next meeting will be held in January.

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