Posted: Jan 11, 2006 05:16 pm EST
The founder of the Planetary Society and Cosmos 1 Project Director Louis Friedman has sent out a reflection on the year that was, and the year that is ahead. The bittersweet conclusions point to only one possible direction: Upwards. Here goes the latest from the Planetary Society.

A great spacecraft mystery -- the Pioneer Anomaly

"Dear Friends,

Our 25th anniversary year was a terrific celebration of The Planetary Society and a great reminder of all the
wonderful things we have accomplished over the last quarter decade and the exciting things still yet to do. In all that we do, your vision and support help us carry out our mission to inspire the people of Earth to explore new worlds and seek other life. Thank you.

Last year was a great one in the exploration of our solar system. The Planetary Society was involved with the highly successful Mars Exploration Rovers, Deep Impact, and Cassini-Huygens missions. We brought sounds of Titan to Earth from the Huygens probe. We also set out to solve a great spacecraft mystery -- the Pioneer Anomaly. And, after years of political activism to convince NASA to do a mission to Pluto, we were finally able to witness the New Horizons spacecraft delivered to the launch site for an expected mid-January 2006 launch.

The loss of Cosmos 1

The dominant event of 2005 for The Planetary Society, and for me personally, was the loss of Cosmos 1. Our solar sail was not just a test of innovative technology, it was also a step toward a private role in space development.

I have said a lot about the technical issues involved in the development of Cosmos 1, the launch vehicle failure, and our determination to try again. The Planetary Society is a pioneer in the arena of private space endeavors -- we built the first privately funded experiment to fly to another world, and we have developed several payloads on planetary missions completely without government funding.But Cosmos 1 was our first complete mission attempt -- the first ever attempt by a public-interest organization to fly a space mission.

Working together with both government and private partners

Unlike many who advocate private space ventures, we are also strong supporters of government space programs. We believe the exploration of other worlds is a worthy and valuable government enterprise, but we also see private initiatives, like ours, can stimulate creative and novel contributions to exploration. We believe in partnership.

While we look for funding for our solar sail re-flight, we will continue our efforts working together with both government and private partners in pursuit of planetary exploration. And, we will extend our ideas of public-private cooperation internationally, encouraging more space agency cooperation and more private involvement international missions.

Looking ahead

Looking ahead to 2006, we are pursuing a Mars Microphone experiment both on the Phoenix mission in 2007 and the Mars Science Laboratory in 2009. We will be pushing hard for an international Europa mission, one that now seems beyond the capability of NASA or ESA to do alone.

We will be encouraging all the space agencies involved in lunar projects (US, Russia, Europe, Japan, India, and China) to try to accomplish more through international cooperation. This, we believe, is absolutely essential if there is to be public support for human space flight to the Moon on the way to Mars.

Also in 2006, we will complete our extrasolar planet catalog, continue working on the mysterious Pioneer Anomaly, begin the only dedicated optical search for extraterrestrial intelligence, and advance ideas for missions to asteroids that might potentially threaten Earth.

For 25 years, The Planetary Society has relied on our Members to enable us to build the kind of partnerships to make things happen. I thank you for your support and I look forward to a new year of exploring other worlds and seeking other life."

Sincerely,

Louis Friedman
Executive Director

A solar sail is a spacecraft without an engine - it is pushed along directly by light particles from the Sun, reflecting off giant mirror-like sails. Because it carries no fuel and keeps accelerating over almost unlimited distances, it is the only technology now in existence that can one day take us to the stars.

The Planetary Society was founded in 1980 by Carl Sagan, Bruce Murray, and Louis Friedman. Carl Sagan is a favorite here at ExWeb - we even named our software Contact for a movie inspired by his novel! The Scientist could like no other capture the imagination of millions and explain difficult concepts in understandable terms.

The Planetary Society is a non-profit, non-governmental membership organization that supports and advocates exploration of the solar system and the search for extraterrestrial life. With 100,000 members in more than 140 countries, the Planetary Society is the largest space-interest organization on Earth. They support various projects and the website is a wealth of news on Space. One of their most thrilling projects lately, was the solar sail Cosmos 1.

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