Elon was a member and served briefely at high levels until he became uncomfortable with the mom and pop operation of the Mars Society on a financial basis based on some word of mouth comments I've heard (take with a grain of salt). He strongly believes in establishing a human colony on Mars and you could make a case that he is more effectively pursuing this goal than Zubrin. The key question is how much was he inspired by Zubrin and how much did Zubrin's plan contribute to the goals he set for himself?

As for the society as a whole, I'd say the recent CBS pole shows the Mars Society has not been effective in increasing support for a mission to Mars (at least on a sustained level) and told Zubrin that in the town hall meeting. I had a long talk with a entreprenurial member afterwards with similar views on the need for the Mars Society to better understand the depth of support and opposition as well as the reasons for it to design an effective public education campaign. I recommednded he run for one of the open steering committee seats and he is considering it.

What the society has been effective at is giving Zubrin a bully pulpit for promoting the exploration of Mars. If you read the comments you'll see Cowing got his numbers way wrong. The actual number results in a value of about $25.00 per member. Up front the article lists one third of the members as students so Keith should have started off dividing the total income by $41.67 rather than 50. In addition there are numerous lifetime and family memberships as well. However, I must add that I have never been clear whether they count inactive members. I have always been a Mars Society supporter since it's founding, but have not always paid dues so I'm not entirely uncomfortable with some metric other than just current PAID membership. I also believe this has been common practice at other space organizations. I would however prefer that they all clearly state current membership, total repeat membership, and total who ever joined. My son's first time member number was in the 15,000s for reference. The conference dues do now include a nonmember registration option, but have not always done so. While it may have been true in the past I do not believe that simply attending a conference makes you a member.

I have not experienced the issue with being pestered for donations either unless you get bent out of shape by a reminder at the bottom of every MS E-mail update. I read the updates and ignore the note at the bottom.

Mike Griffen and Scott Horowitz, and most of the "Case for Mars" conference leaders were on the steering committee at one time for an extended period of time. I do not know the current SC membership and did not attend the meeting as an observer as I often due since my son was with me. I have met a lot of people who work for NASA at these conferences. They do tend to be more risk averse than the average MS member.

Regards,
Mark