SMAS January winter lecture series

Thursday, January 13th: SMAS Club meeting via zoom, starting at 7:00 p.m.
Guest speaker and Solar System Ambassador Pat Monteith will give a presentation “Back to the Moon and on to Mars”

On July 20, 1969, the whole world held its breath and stood still as NASA Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin descended to the lunar surface; everyone erupted in a worldwide celebration as the two space pilots touched down onto the Sea of Tranquility. Now, more than 50 years later, the US is still benefiting from the six Apollo moon-landing missions. The International Space Station was the next focus for many years, but as recently as 2015, NASA laid out plans to land humans on Mars by 2030.  This undertaking changed a few years ago and NASA has since realized it might make more sense to first go back to the Moon.  Learn about NASA’s plans to develop a sustainable infrastructure on the Moon and how they plan to use a new powerful rocket, spacecraft, and a moon-orbiting gateway to eventually fly humans to Mars.