Fall 2015 issue of The Planetary Report is Here!

At last! The fall issue of The Planetary Report is off the press—or ready for Planetary Society members to download now.

Let me start by thanking all of you wonderful members for your patience. As you know, 2015 has been an incredible year for The Planetary Society. Unfortunately, the trickle-down effects of so much extra activity affected the magazine schedule. But we love producing The Planetary Report for you, and we will be working hard to catch up over the next couple of issues. 

To commemorate our 35th anniversary, we chose to look outward—at the remarkable gains we Earthlings have made in exploring our celestial neighborhood over the last 35 years. In “The Extraordinary Pace of Progress,” chief operating officer Jennifer Vaughn, and director of science and technology Bruce Betts, look at how much we have seen and done in space since The Planetary Society formed.

Naturally, we’ve accumulated a lot of photos in that time, many that only we have seen. I took a couple of pages here to show you a handful of pictures of our founders from the Society’s younger days.

Casey Dreier continues the discussion on the Humans Orbiting Mars (HOM) concept and links to the Society’s recently-released report of the same name, as well as to our new website, hom.planetary.org.

Last issue, we asked you to give us your opinions on this plan to get humans to Mars, along with your thoughts on the Society’s mission and vision. We share a few of your letters here.

Bruce Betts updates us on Planetary Deep Drill testing and announces The Planetary Society’s involvement with Mastcam-Z, the color stereo mast imager selected for NASA’s Mars 2020 rover.

Tying these features (and more) together, Bill Nye opens the issue with “Your Place in Space.” In it he reminds us that we’ve done, and continue to do, great things; but there’s also so much more to explore!

If you haven’t already, please join us in the adventure.

Donna Stevens
Editor
The Planetary Report