Marsweek at MIT

[SEDShead]

Mars Week 2002, a three-day conference about the exploration of Mars, will
be held at the MIT campus in Cambridge on October 4-6. Mars Week is an
annual conference discussing the engineering, scientific, political and
social aspects of Mars exploration. Topics will include present and future
missions, including the prospects for the human exploration and settlement
of the Red Planet. The student-run conference is organized by the MIT Mars
Society, a chapter of the Mars Society, an international organization
founded in 1998 to further the goal of human space flight to Mars through
public outreach and technical research. For further information, please
refer to our web page: http://web.mit.edu/mars/www/marsweek02/
<http://web.mit.edu/mars/www/marsweek02/> .

In addition to the usual series of talks, networking opportunities, and
youth outreach activities, two hours will be dedicated this year to students
presentations. Each presenter will be given 15 minutes to present his/her
work, followed by 5 minutes Q&A. Both individual and team projects are
welcome. The audience will include students, industry professionals, science
specialists, and academic experts. Some teams will also be selected for a
poster session. Prizes will awarded to the authors of the best
presentations.

If you would like to present your work during Mars Week 2002, send a short
email to marsweek02@mit.edu <mailto:marsweek02@mit.edu> with you topic, the
name(s) of the team member(s), and whether you would like to be considered
for the poster session as well. If we feel your topic is relevant, you will
be invited to submit an extended abstract (2-4 pages) by Monday, September
9. The final selections will be made by Friday, September 20.

[neubjr]

Marsweek has been an excellent forum for students interested in the exploration of space to meet each other and learn a little about Mars and discover people interested in similar things. In the past it has mainly been students from the New England area, but we really want to get students from around the country coming too.

The main focus of the conference is on students (although professionals and others are more than welcome as well). Online registration is not up yet, but will be shortly. I just wanted to encourage everyone to come because it is really a great time for students to form connections with other students and professionals in the field.

Hotels in the Boston area book up fairly fast, so you might want to look into those before October roles around.

Joshua.

[neubjr]

Online Registration just went up for this coming Marsweek

You can register from the Marsweek webpage:
http://web.mit.edu/mars/marsweek/

This conference is probably the cheapest conference with some real high-profile speakers. So I encourage everyone to come. I suppose that the fact that I am in charge of planning it also adds a bit of bias on my part, but I really do think that it is going to be an excellent conference for people of all ages to attend.

-Joshua.