Planetary Society

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Planetary Society founders

The Planetary Society is a large, publicly supported, not-for-profit organization that has many research projects related to astronomy. It is based in Pasadena, California (the same city as NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory) but has an international membership. It was founded in 1980 by Carl Sagan, Bruce Murray, and Louis Friedman. The Society is dedicated to the exploration of Mars and the rest of the Solar System, the search for Near Earth Objects, and the search for extraterrestrial life. Its mission is "To inspire the people of Earth through education, research, and public participation to explore other worlds and seek other life."

The Society launched the Cosmos 1 craft in June 2005 to test the feasibility of Solar sailing, but the satellite's launch rocket failed shortly after liftoff. It is now raising seed funding for the next solar sail spacecraft.

Its current Board of Directors includes the following:

Neil deGrasse Tyson, Chairman of the Board
Wesley Huntress, President
Bill Nye, Vice President
Louis Friedman, Executive Director
Ann Druyan
Daniel Geraci
Heidi Hammel
John Logsdon
Christopher McKay, Advisory Council Chair
Bruce C. Murray
Elon Musk
Joseph Ryan
Steven Spielberg
George Yancopoulos

Notable members of its Advisory Council include:

[edit] Projects

The Planetary Society sponsors projects to seed further exploration. Members privately fund these projects:

Earthdials
Mars Stations
Near-Earth Objects Research and Missions
Planetrek
Political Action
Red Rover Goes to Mars
Red Rover, Red Rover
Scholarships
Search for Extraterrestrial Life
Solar sailing with Cosmos 1

[edit] The Planetary Report

Main article: Planetary Report

The Planetary Report is the bimonthly flagship magazine of the Society. As one of the membership benefits, it reaches over 100,000 members six times a year (as of 2005). Over 90 percent of Society members view it as their first source of news about space exploration.