Terrell Miller wrote:

"Abdul Ahad" wrote in message
om...
The Planetary Society Completes Grassroots Campaign in Support of
Human Exploration of Mars

November 26, 2003:

On November 10 of this year, The Planetary Society launched a
grassroots campaign aimed at the President of the United States with a
clear purpose in mind: to convince the President that sending humans
to Mars the should be NASA's primary goal in the coming decades.

okay, my head is spinning here. Twenty years ago when I was a member, the PS
(or more specifically, Carl Sagan) was hell-bent and determined to keep
humanity's dirty little bootprints off of the universe.

What's happened in the meantime, or are they still that way and this is some
kind of reverse-psychology thing?

Well, if you don't pay attention to societies that you don't like because
of ideological reasons then you may miss a few things.

Such as Carl Sagan actually changing his mind before he died.

The Planetary Society never was a united body against manned
space flight. It has been exploration oriented and a lot of there
effort has been toward robot deep-space operations. They
definitely fight for these type of missions.

The Planetary Society is one of the most effective private
space operations around and has been a positive force
for years.

If you want a reference to a scientest who has never changed his
mind about there being no need for any manned space flight I
will mention James Van Allen.

Mike Walsh