Has Mike Griffin joined the mars society?

[chriscdc]

http://www.marssociety.org/about/committee.asp<br /><br />Apparently he is on the steering comittee but under his previous post at nasa.<br /><br />Is this new or has he been there for a while? <br /><br />Does this give hope for a mars mission early on eg 2020-25 rather than 2035?

 

[chriscdc]

Nasawatch seemed surprised to see him (still) there. <br />So has he co-authored papers with them or has he given advice to them on occasion?

 

[lampblack]

Well -- before he became NASA administrator, Michael Griffin co-led a study for the Planetary Society, outlining much of the preliminary thought that resulted in the current plans for using shuttle-derived systems for launch hardware.<br /><br />I am personally unclear as to the relation between the Planetary Society and the Mars Society -- although they've always struck me as being more or less the same folks. If they're different groups, they're different groups with a huge amount of overlap.<br /><br />I'm sure this link has shown up elsewhere. But for whatever it's worth, here's the link to that early study that Griffin helped to write for the Planetary Society:<br /><br />http://planetary.org/aimformars/study-summary.html<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font color="#0000ff"><strong>Just tell the truth and let the chips fall...</strong></font> </div>

 

[radarredux]

> <i><font color="yellow">I am personally unclear as to the relation between the Planetary Society and the Mars Society -- although they've always struck me as being more or less the same folks.</font>/i><br /><br />The Planetary Society used to be anti-manned exploration, favoring instead robotic missions to various bodies in our solar system. The Mars Society has always been manned exploration and focused exclusively on Mars (duh).<br /><br />It was a big deal when the Planetary Society came out to endorse the Vision for Space Exploration because it was a fairly major break from its "pro robotics" position.</i>