SpaceNews Highlights the Planetary Society's Advocacy Work

SpaceNews, the leading newspaper covering the space business, recently featured the Planetary Society as an organization "making a difference" in the space industry.

In their August 26th issue, the paper noted that both the House and Senate agreed to restore more than $100 million to NASA's Planetary Science Division, a nearly unprecedented move in a hyper partisan Congress. But that wasn't all:

One administration official privately credited planetary science advocates as the best organized interest group in the NASA science community. That’s high, if grudging, praise in Washington circles and it demonstrates that even a small, modestly funded organization with as narrow a constituency as planetary science can make a difference.

That is high praise! But it's not just for us, it's for every single one of our members and supporters who took the time to write Congress or the President. We depend on your letters and phone calls to generate the political will it takes to support even a modest program like Planetary Science.

Huge credit is also due to the planetary science community. We've worked closely with professional scientific organizations that encouraged planetary scientists to visit their congressional representatives, write letters, and generally make noise about the future of planetary exploration. The scientific community is unified and that coalition is clearly paying off.

These are exciting times. We're so far from where we could be, but the future is still bright. We're still working hard every day to give NASA the means to explore the planets. 

You can read the rest of the article on the SpaceNews website.