Mars Society Conference

I spent the last three days attending the Mars Society Conference here in DC. While I didn't attend Thursday's session, NASA Administrator Mike Griffin and SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk were the first days key speakers and a Mars Blitz on Capitol Hill accomplished 100 visits by teams of citizens in a three hour period. Friday's plenary speakers included NASA Exploration Systems head Scott Horowitz, SETI Institute's Scott Hubbard, and Space Telescope Science Institute's Matt Mountain. More plenary speakers and a rich selection of tracks and a lively banquet filled out the weekend.

The philosophical and policy tracks were particularly strong and I wound up attending these more than the technical tracks (although the Mars Society has a strong hands-on focus with its Mars Analog projects). My other impression was that while I saw some familiar faces, I met some people who joined the space community (outside of professional roles) through the Mars Society. Their overall thinking about space is the same as that of members of the other space organizations I'm active in. Look for several accounts of the conference at HobbySpace and Space Politics.