The Steering Committee of the Mars Society today issued a resolution supporting the revival of NASA

The Mars Society announced today that it is initiating an annual open spacecraft design contest. Named the Kepler Prize after the great renaissance thinker who first derived the laws of celestial motion based on observations of the planet Mars, the award for the winning team each year will be a trophy and two crew slots in the Mars Society’s Mars Desert Research Station. In addition, the winning team will be invited to present its work at a plenary session of the Mars Society’s international convention. The contest is open to all individuals and teams who want to contribute their ideas in Mars mission design. For its first year’s contest, the Kepler Prize will be given to the team that presents the best design of an Earth Return Vehicle (ERV) for use in piloted Mars missions. In the contest, participants will propose their design for the ERV and have it judged based on set criteria and mission requirements.

On January 1, 2003 the new Musk Mars Desert Observatory at the MDRS achieved First Light. The initial image taken was the Great Nebula in Orion, a nursery for the birth of young stars. Crew astronomers Pete Detterline and Debi Lee Wilkenson labeled it “New stars for a new year.” The following night, the crew was able to take higher resolution photographs, including this one (right) of M51, the Whirlpool Galaxy before the clouds rolled in. The color wheel will be hooked in shortly.

The Mars Society announced today that it will build an astronomical observatory at its Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) in southern Utah. Funding to establish the observatory was provided by a major donation by a Mars Society member who wishes to remain anonymous. The other prime sponsor of the observatory is Celestron, which has donated a high quality computerized eleven inch Schmidt Cassegrain Nexstar11GPS telescope for initial operations. Celestron has begun production of its new fourteen inch Schmidt Cassegrain system which includes a newly designed heavy-duty computerized German equatorial mount. This system, known as the CGE 1400, will be the finest instrument ever produced for the advanced amateur and university astronomy market. The Mars Society is in discussions with Celestron to obtain one of these systems for the Mars Society Desert Observatory as soon as one becomes available.

The first Mars Desert Research Station crew rotation of the fall 2002 season is now nearing its conclusion. MDRS crew # 7 was commanded by Franco-American geologist Charles Frankel and included Hilary Bowden (United Kingdom, journalist and health & safety officer); Stacy Cusack (USA, executive officer, CapCom and geologist); Pierre-Emmanuel Paulis (Belgium, educational liaison); Derek Shannon (USA, geobiologist); and Alain Souchier (France, engineer and CRV operator). In the course of their 14-day stint, the international crew brought the Desert Station up to speed, implementing a number of new systems added in the past few months by Frank Schubert, Jeff Zerr and co-workers. Most notable is the

The 2002 MDRS field season has started with a new addition to the station, the H. T. Odum greenhouse. After the first greenhouse succumbed to the 60-plus-mph Utah winds last season, several teams of volunteers from the society’s GreenHab group installed a new beefed-up design this summer and fall. The 12′ long, 14′ diameter cylindrical structure is made of a sturdy steel frame with clear polycarbonate glazing panels donated by Suntuf, Inc. The Suntuf SUNLITE (R) and Suntuf (R) panels are clear, rigid, light-weight and nearly indestructible. Before the new structure was installed, 12-18″ of desert soil was excavated, then backfilled into the bottom of the cylindrical structure as a foundation for the insulated floor. In addition to several tons of soil ballast, the structure is secured with steel guy cables on the sides and ends. It was designed as an analog of an inflated Martian greenhouse and houses the ‘living machine’ aqueous biome component of the new water recycling system.

The Mars Desert research Station will resume operations November 9, commencing a field season that will run until April 27, 2003. The crew of the Mars Desert Research Station rotates every 2 weeks. These are the scientists and engineers who live and work on site within the MDRS. They explore all of the facets of human exploration in a simulated Mars environment. As the MDRS

The Mars Society had a major presence at the recent World Space Congress, which ran in Houston October 13, through 19. Mars Society president, Dr. Robert Zubrin, had a plenary address at the congress

The proceedings of the Mars Society conventions of 1999, 2000, and 2001 have been published. The volume, entitled