Mars Society

The Mars Society is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that is funded by donations and operated by volunteers. Membership to the Mars Society is available to all on payment of a small fee. These goals were set out in the Founding Declaration of the Mars Society. Elon Musk, Gregory Benford The society is a member of the Alliance for Space Development and has chapters in Australia, Canada, Europe, Japan, and many other countries. ==Philosophy and propositions==

about Mars Direct and critiques on NASA's human Mars mission proposals, as part of Ames Research Center's 75th-anniversary lecture series (2014) Many of the Mars Society's members believe that a human mission to Mars is achievable within a decade (as laid out in Zubrin's Mars Direct concept) and such a mission would lay the foundation for the colonization of Mars. The Mars Direct philosophy, a simplified approach to a human exploration mission to Mars, has permeated through the society's lobbying efforts. During testimony to the 2009 Augustine Commission, a panel set up by the Obama administration to outline the future of the U.S. space program, Zubrin advocated initiating a lean human Mars program in a similar manner to Mars Direct. The committee was indifferent to the testimony; in the final report, the commission concluded that a human Mars mission in general would "demand decades of investment and carry considerable safety risk to humans". In 2005, Robert Markley, a science fiction researcher, pointed out that Zubrin used his president of the Mars Society position to espouse his own views on how human missions to Mars should be carried out. To make the Mars Direct plan appealing to the American public, he compared Mars to the Great American Frontier and the colonization of Mars as a way to resolve social stagnation and "Hobbesian despair" on Earth. Mars would be a way to give birth to an ideal society. In effect, Markley commented, Zubrin has created an "interplanetary vision of manifest destiny". Most members of the Mars Society agreed with the less extreme version of Zubrin's ideal, in that colonizing Mars is critical for preventing a dystopian future for humankind. Markley commented in 2005 that the Mars Society is somewhat similar to the Royal Society at its founding in the 17th century: "as much of a social club of enthusiasts as a professional scientific organization", with influences from science fiction. In a way, he continued, the Mars Direct plan provided a grand vision for future Martian endeavors to follow and the Mars Society is a platform for exploring the implications of Mars colonization. ==Background and founding==

The forerunner of the Mars Society was a small network of space enthusiasts colloquially known as the Mars Underground, which emerged around 1978. The members of this network were frustrated by the U.S. administration's lack of attention to Mars exploration. until the sixth and final one in 1996. At the now-defunct aerospace company Martin Marietta, Robert Zubrin – who had attended the third Case for Mars convention in 1987 – and engineer David Baker developed the human Mars mission plan, titled Mars Direct. The core tenet of the Mars Direct plan is to use existing technologies and eliminate the need for dangerous space rendezvous or an expensive space station. A modified Mars Direct plan (called NASA Design Reference Mission 3.0) was budgeted by NASA at ; The book criticized prior Mars exploration mission proposals for being too costly and complicated, proposed an alternative mission plan based on the Mars Direct plan, gave philosophical arguments for it and rebutted criticisms of the plan. The Mars Society was founded by Zubrin on 13 August 1998 during the Mars Society's first convention in Boulder, Colorado, The first convention saw the signing of the Founding Declaration of the Mars Society which outlined primary goals for the society, amidst rifts between Mars Society members' Martian ideals. On the second day of the convention, there was an intense debate about the ethics of Mars terraforming, which science writer Oliver Morton described as 'rancorous'. The moderator of the debate was Chris McKay. On one side of the debate were Zubrin and a few other people, who championed that terraforming is the end goal of Mars colonization. On the other side of the debate, the audience reminded them that for life on Mars, the act of terraforming will be similar to that of Native American genocide. The terms '' and 'manifest destiny' used by the Zubrin side were prohibited in later conventions. The next few conventions organized additional debates between proponents of nuclear power/terraforming and environmentalists. ==Past activities==

and Dragon spacecraft at the 2006 Mars Society convention In Zubrin's book "The Case for Mars", he recounts how the big break for the Mars Society came when Michael D. Griffin advocated for their ideas to then NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin. Later in mid-2001, the Mars Society received a check from Elon Musk at a fundraiser event. despite pleas for collaboration from Zubrin. By April 2002, Musk had abandoned the temporary foundation entirely; instead, he founded SpaceX to build a low-cost rocket and invited aerospace engineers whom he had met at Mars Society-sponsored trips. his acceptance of the Mars Pioneer Award from the society in 2012 and his presentation at the society's 2020 convention. After the first convention, the Mars Society decided to construct a Mars analog facility named Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station (FMARS) on Devon Island, Nunavut, Canada. The FMARS is the second Mars analog facility in the world; the first one is the Haughton–Mars Project. Some of FMARS's construction cost was paid by the Mars Society and the Haughton–Mars Project team. Other funding came from commercial sponsorship, such as with the Discovery Channel. FMARS was first occupied during a test run in July and August 2000. In December 2001, In August 2008, the Mars Society announced the project TEMPO3 after a preliminary selection of proposals. TEMPO3 was conceived as a system of two CubeSats attached to a tether and spun with carbon dioxide-powered thrusters, aimed to demonstrate rotational artificial gravity system in space. Neither of these proposals were built: the Mars Gravity Biosatellite was canceled in June 2009 due to a lack of funding Mars One, a now-defunct non-profit organization founded in 2011, aimed to establish a human settlement on Mars through a one-way mission called Mars to Stay. The MIT researchers criticized the plan as infeasible and suicidal. According to Dwayne A. Day from The Space Review, the MIT team won the debate by making specific and realistic arguments. He also noted that the popularity of Mars One had dwarfed that of the Mars Society, stating that the perceived absurdness of Mars One may potentially be detrimental to the Mars Society's reputation. ==Current projects==

in Hanksville, Utah, with a central habitat, rover hangar, dome, greenhouse and an observatory The Mars Society's premier project is the Mars Analog Research Station Program. The program aims to further the understanding of Mars missions' technical and human factors via its two Mars analog habitats: the Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station (FMARS) and the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS). The FMARS is located on Devon Island in Canada and near the Haughton impact crater, above the 75th parallel north where the island is uninhabited and barren. The MDRS is located near Hanksville, Utah, where the habitat is isolated from civilization. Both stations' locations are chosen for the landscape similarities with Mars. Because these stations are meant for research, both FMARS and MDRS are closed to public visits. The Mars Society is also planning to build another Mars analog station in Arkaroola, Australia, as of October 2022. The station would replicate a spacecraft launching directly from the Earth's surface, featuring a mock propulsion module, heat shield and landing engines. MarsVR Project is a virtual reality program that simulates MDRS and terrain one square mile around the base. The program was made in collaboration with a local virtual reality company. MarsVR is used to train MDRS's crews by simulating the use of spacesuits, airlocks, rovers and activities such as cooking. The software can also simulate playing sports on Mars such as soccer and mountaineering. In 2023, the Mars Society established the non-profit Mars Technology Institute and the corresponding C corporation Mars Technology Lab to research solutions for labor, agriculture, and energy problems in the colonization of Mars. The Institute plans to outsource research to universities before building its own campus. ==See also==