The Mars Society National Capital Area Chapter
Chapter contacts:

Joe Webster, Outreach Coordinator (703) 799-2493

Eric Choi, Assistant for Outreach (301) 603-8014

The National Capital Area Chapter of the Mars Society is pleased to announce
that Dr. Robert Zubrin, an internationally renowned authority and advocate
of Mars exploration, will deliver a presentation at the National Air and
Space Museum Planetarium on August 31, 2000, from 6:00-7:30 p.m., entitled
“Mars Direct: Humans to the Red Planet within a Decade.” Please note that
the Museum requires all attendees to be in the building by 5:30 p.m.

In July 1989, on the 20th anniversary of the Apollo Moon landing, President
Bush called for America to renew its pioneering push into space with the
establishment of a permanent Lunar base and a series of human missions to
Mars. While many have said that such an endeavor would be excessively
costly and take many decades, a small team at Martin Marietta drew up a
daring plan that could sharply cut costs and send a group of American
astronauts to the Red Planet within ten years. The plan, known as “Mars
Direct,” has attracted international attention, including coverage in such
publications as Newsweek, Fortune, The Economist, Air and Space Smithsonian,
the New York Times, the London Times, the Boston Globe and Izvestia. It has
also been covered by the Discovery Channel, PBS, ABC, NBC, CBS, National
Public Radio, and the BBC. Its principal author, Dr. Zubrin, has presented
it to such fora as the International Astronautical Federation congress in
Germany, and the blue ribbon “Synthesis Group” headed by former Apollo
astronaut General Thomas Stafford, as well as to various government
officials, including NASA Administrator Dan Goldin.

Dr. Zubrin, formerly a Staff Engineer at Lockheed Martin Astronautics in
Denver is now president of his own company, Pioneer Astronautics. He holds
Masters degrees in Aeronautics and Astronautics and a doctorate in Nuclear
Engineering. He is the inventor of several unique concepts for space
propulsion and exploration, the author of over 100 published technical and
non-technical papers in the field, as well as The Case for Mars (Simon &
Shuster, 1996) and Entering Space: Creating a Space-Faring Civilization
(Tarcher-Putnam, 1999). Recently, he founded the Mars Society; an
international organization dedicated to furthering the exploration of Mars
by both public and private means (www.MarsSociety.org).