Holiday Greetings from Maggie Zubrin

Holiday Greetings from the snow dusted plains of Colorado. As the year winds to a close, we members of the Mars Society, like all people of the earth, have much to be thankful for, much to remember and some new and heavy sorrows to bear. This year we saw our first full field season at our Devon Island research base, a station that was put together on faith, sweat and charity. Mars Society volunteer docents stood on stage in the shuttle launch information center at Kennedy Space Center and spoke with scientists from Poland, France, Denmark and Boston who were actively engaged in Mars research at the top of the earth.

It's been a long four years since our first mailing - four years that saw The Mars Society go from a hope and a vision to an internationally recognized world-class research organization. It would be easy to sit back and say - we did it! But we have only begun, for our goal has never been to forward The Mars Society, but rather to forward the cause of humanity by advocating a program of manned exploration of Mars, the Solar System and beyond, to the stars.

If I had a dollar for every time someone has asked me "Why go to Mars?" we would never need to look for additional funding resources. I can best answer the why question by sharing an anecdote. At this summer's annual convention in Stanford, one of our active members came up to speak with me. He spoke of the gratification he experienced in helping to make our future in space a reality. Then he blew me away by saying that, in the Mars Society, he had found his tribe, his extended family, and his kinship circle. His words have stuck with me, because I think he was bang on.

We are more than colleagues, more than coworkers or even co-religionists and we are none of those things. We are members of a tribe, scattered by time and place, but united still, not only by belief, but driven by our passion to expand our niche, to carve out a future home for the species of the earth. We are ethical, intellectual, creative, hopeful and hardworking. We represent all that defines a human being, the best and sometimes the worst, and we will succeed, because the pull of the earth's gravity is not strong enough to hold us. So, roll up your sleeves, tribesmen and women, the path has yet to be cleared, though we have made a great start. On to Mars!

Maggie Zubrin
The Mars Society

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