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The 12th Australian Mars Exploration Conference (AMEC2012) will be held in Canberra this coming weekend and is an opportunity for researchers and space enthusiasts to meet and discuss some of the latest Mars releated research.  A draft program has been released and may be downloaded from the AMEC2012 Homepage.  Themes that will be touched upon in presentations include robotic missions to Mars, Martian geology, space policy and Mars in education.  Registration is available for single days as well as both Saturday and Sunday, and includes lunch.  The conference will open with a public lecture by Professor Ross Taylor on the evening of Friday 14th September titled 'Are We Along?'.   REGISTER NOW!!!

The Mars Society Australia is delighted to announce Professor Ross Taylor will deliver the first David Cooper Memorial Lecture on 14th September.  His lecture will be titled 'Are We Alone?'.  This event will be held at the Woden Southern Cross Club at 7pm, and will open the 12th Australian Mars Exploration Conference (AMEC2012) to be held over the weekend of 14th-16th September.  Entry will be $5. Download a lecture flyer.

The David Cooper Memorial Lecture series has been established in memory of David Cooper, co-founder and President of the Mars Society Australia, who sadly passed away in July of this year.

Presentation Summary - Is There Anyone Out There?

Now that thousands of planets outside our solar system have been discovered, it is often supposed that there must be other inhabited worlds out there whose inhabitants are much more advanced than we are. This  question has been around for at least 2500 years. Are we now closer to an...

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At 3:31 pm, Eastern Australian Standard Time on August the 6th, the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) will arrive on the Martian surface.  This mission delivers Curiosity, the largest and most complex rover ever to land on Mars or any other planetary body in the solar system.  The mission is the result of almost a decade’s effort by NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and their partners in Spain, Finland, and Russia. 

According to David Willson, a Mars Society Australia director and engineer working at NASA Ames, “whether it succeeds or fails, this mission will have an impact on the NASA Mars exploration program for years to come.”  

The landing site for MSL is Gale Crater, a large and ancient...

In an email to SpaceX entrepreneur, Mr Elon Musk, today, the MSA President David Cooper expressed, on behalf of our members, the congratulation and admiration of the efforts on the SpaceX team’s first and successful cargo flight to the International Space Station. David's email is reproduced in fiull as follows.

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1^st June 2012

Mr Elon Musk

SpaceX

Dear Sir,

Please accept the congratulations and admiration of our members on the success of your teams effort in supplying the ISS with the first commercial supply flight.

 We see this as a major step forward in the establishment of humans as a space faring species for the betterment of all humankind.

Your personal efforts shows the world what can be done by...