As you must know Raoul, most of the bickering on this board is started by Mars Society members who cannot handle a conversation involving the issue of life on Mars or planetary protection. They resort almost always to name calling and insults. I fire back and defend. They do not want to hear anything I say -- so I post the abstracts and papers of professional scientists so they will have to take their arguments to their level, which is wehn the insults start.

I was a member of the Mars Society in 2000, but after I found out what a useless organization it was (mainly it seemed as an excuse to "exclusively" sell Dr. Zubrin's books about Mars at their conventions - they were in boxes at every door at the convention and no other speaker weas allowed to sell their books) and how they were in denial about planetary protection issues and life on Mars, so I decided not to renew my membership. The feeling I got was that most of the people that attend these conventions might also go to Star Trek conventions. That's fine -- but let's not call this thing about running around in canvas sapce suits real science. This is theatre - a publicity stunt involving hundreds of thousands of dollars to draw the media and the general public into a awareness to fund a human mission to Mars. I prefer my tax dollars to be spent on the real ongoing robotic missions to Mars until the life issue is settled, not some dinner theatre troup pretending they are living on Mars in the Utah desert. The scientists in Antarctica have demonstrated survival in much harsher conditions and without canvas spacesuits.

As far as where I stand on human space exploration? I have always supported it. I support the space shuttle, the ISS, and a return to the Moon to set up a scientific working base there. I have been a big fan of all the astronauts from Mercury to the shuttle. I've met and interviewed many of the Apollo astronauts, including Neil Armstrong. A picture of Neil and I is in the back flap of my book Mars: The Living Planet.

In 1995, I had my original guitar instrumental music flown into space aboard the space shuttle Discovery.

One of my good friends is Bill Suitor, the famous Bell rocket belt pilot. Bill also supports ICAMSR.

Finally, I have been observing the moon and planets all my life with various sizes of telescopes. This year I will be photographing the great opposition of Mars with my 10" Meade LX5. I wonder how many of the Mars Society people are actually observers and have telescopes as well? When I was invivted as a guest speaker to the Toronto Mars Society Convention in 2000, no one I spoke with seemed to have a telescope to look at Mars. I thought this was odd considering the lengths they go through to send people there.

Happy July 4th everyone!

:-)

BD