Are any MarsDrive members going to the 'Exploring the Cosmos Event' with Stephen Hawking over in Cambridge?

Post a message here if you are and we can all meet up.

What were some of the main points covered there? Did they talk about ESA's plans of going to Mars, if they have any?

Well in a way there were a lot of positives to take away.
It's not that NASA doesn't want to go to Mars and it isn't that the technological challenges are too great but it is more a case of formulating a strategy that satisfies the current political and legal climate.

So many people have been shouting foul over the recent NASA changes but what we're seeing is the positives from these changes and how we should be embracing the changes and using them to step up the pace of a realistic manned Mars program.
Also there's an acceptance that NASA alone won't be going to Mars in the near term but with international partners and support from the private sector we could see a manned Mars program much quicker than many have been predicting.

What this has done is to challenge the old guard and ways of doing things with a reality check.
What I see is NASA being told if you want to go to Mars, come up with something we can really work with within the current legal and political climate.
Do what you do well and where there are barriers work with international partners or the private sector to work around them.

Don't get me wrong, this is a rough sketch with a lot of blanks to be filled in but this is not the death of NASA's involvement in going to Mars. Far from it, with groups such as MarsDrive, the Mars Society and the Planetary Society raising public awareness and helping to solve the problems facing a manned Mars program we are better placed now than ever to make this a reality.

We need to get the public behind the manned Mars program, need to encourage international cooperation and need to work on the missions and technologies which can feed into any programs whether that's ESA, NASA, JAXA or combinations of these and others.

I'm personally very excited of where we're at and the challenged ahead.

I've attached a very brief report on the event which includes some photo's, some of the arguments covered and a call to action to all involved in space advocacy.

Many thanks to Bee Thakore of the Planetary Society for the photo's.