Planetary Society

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The Planetary Society
Motto: Exploring New Worlds
Making you a part of the new age of space exploration
Type: NGO and Non-profit Foundation
Location: Pasadena, California
Key people: Bruce Murray, Louis Friedman, Carl Sagan, Bruce Betts
Fields: Space advocacy
Members: +100,000
Website: Planetary.org

The Planetary Society is a large, publicly supported, non-government and not-for-profit organization that has many research projects related to astronomy. It was founded in 1980 by Carl Sagan, Bruce Murray, and Louis Friedman, and has members from 125 countries around the world. The society's mission is "To inspire and involve the world's public in space exploration through advocacy, projects, and education."

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.

Planetary Society founders
Planetary Society founders

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.

Contents

[edit] Members

The Planetary Society's current Board of Directors includes the following:

Notable members of its Advisory Council include:

[edit] Projects

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

[edit] The Planetary Report

The Planetary Report is the bimonthly internationally recognized flagship magazine of The Planetary Society, featuring lively articles and full-color photos to provide comprehensive coverage of discoveries on Earth and other planets.

This bimonthly magazine reaches over 100,000 members of The Planetary Society all over the world, with news about planetary missions, spacefaring nations, intrepid explorers, planetary science controversies and the latest findings in humankind's exploration of the solar system.

[edit] Planetary Radio

Members of The Planetary Society also host a weekly 30 minute radio programme and podcast.

[edit] External links