This section is designed to give you a snapshot of what we are doing at MarsDrive and some of the unique ways we are working towards our goals.Your support enables us to do these and as many other projects as we can find the resources for-
Technical Projects-
- The Mars Sample Return Contest that produced 5 designs and gave this subject 2 years of useful publicity
Judges were Chris Mckay, Louis Friedman and Donald Rapp (originally Dr Robert Zubrin also)
- Development of new contest/prizes and scholarship ideas at present- These have great leveraging power to keep R&D going or to produce breakthrough results like the X Prize in 2004
Human Mission design/funding projects-
- Grant Bonin's Mars For Less
- Our own MarsDrive Reference Mission 2.5 new last year ( PDF available to anyone who wants to see it- Presented at last years ISDC)
- Funding for Mars Gravity Biosat
- The Mars Consortium Project- Article published and now working at further developing this plan and holding a conference for it in the near future
Building Bridges with other space groups- Encouraging unity
- Partnerships with the Moon Society
- Support for The Space Frontier Foundation (supporting their conference last year as a sponsor)
- Partnership with Mars Society and promotion of their conferences and Tempo3 Project (we added 35 new members to their 119)
- Joined with and contributing to The Space Renaissance Initiative, a grouping of 33 space organizations for space development. We are on their executive committee also.
- Keeping the redevelopment of Red Colony going
- Working on a new A.I feature for The Space frontier Foundation "Ask a Mars Question"
Promotion of A Human Future on Mars-
- Widely Published articles to promote human space flight plans for cheap space access and Mars missions in private sector
- Networking- Including-
Gave our plans to Elon Musk on 2 occaisons
- Lengthy discussions with Burt Rutan
- Interviews with lead scientists for Mars missions- Steve Squyres, Pete Smith, astronaut Andy Thomas and Anousheh Ansari
- Website outreach to students (our most popular page is "Mars Facts"- )(also our kids for mars website- still active)
- Published The Space Activist Handbook to help political action for space as an aid
- Published The Mars Manifesto with Buzz Aldrin, Arthur C Clark (before he died), Ray Bradbury and Alan Bean endorsements- http://www.marsmanifesto.com/
- Members took part in the Mars Society blitz on congress
Outreach-
- Reached/educated over 400 new (non space)people for Mars at a Paintball Scenario game last year-
- Helped organize Yuri's Night events- In Austin Texas and on their organizing board
- We have registered over 1000 members on our various online websites and pages. Facebook, Myspace, Second Life, Youtube etc Also, in Second Life
- Radio Interviews on The Space Show- Both Frank Stratford and Hal Fulton have been on there to date.
- Website development/outreach- We have built over 50 new links in also.
- Conference participation- ISDC, TMS and X Prize and SFF conferences.
- In Australia we helped start the Victorian Space Alliance, a grouping of scientists, engineers and space industry professionals to push for an Australian space program-
- Planning for a "Space Expo" aimed at the general public in the next year or two.
Future Projects-
- Educational outreach in schools and universities
- Expanded Contests and Prizes for human space flight R&D
- Small scale unmanned test space missions
- Conferences for Mars Consortium and Expo
- Construction of a "Mars Biosphere"- Something we can either push others to fund or facilitate, a testing ground for Mars missions.
- Cheap Space Access Design Contest- For new vehicles and technologies to make all space travel cheaper and safer.