This is Robert Picardo and you're
watching the Planetary Post.
See, Bob, I told you you'd be better at the intro than I would be
I guess you're right.
You have a gift.
My guest of course is Bill Nye our CEO and fearless leader at the Planetary Society.
Bill was my guest on the very first Planetary Post over two years ago.
I'm happy that you are watching again
and watching now because today we're
gonna talk about the subject: space
advocacy... why bother?
That's a good title.
Space advocacy. How do we do that and does it really work?
So congressmen and Senators here in the U.S. work for you. They do what we tell them because-
They want to get reelected.
Yeah, they want to get reelected, so when they hear from their constituents
even constituents that are not in the
United States, people who live overseas
who realize that NASA is the world's
largest Space Administration so
influencing NASA is a great value, they
do what people ask them to do.
For example we just got these spectacular images down from Ultima Thule.
This is a snowman, barbell shaped
object way out past the orbit of Pluto
These images will give us more
information about the solar system,
its origin, and where ultimately you and I
came from. That picture is possible
because the Planetary Society went to
Barbara Mikulski's office, she was the
senator from Maryland at that time, it
takes letters and emails from people
like you to get US Congress to act.
Planetary Post watchers saw me interview Alan Stern the principal investigator of New Horizons
Alan thanks Planetary Society, when when the budget was in trouble for the mission to move
forward, he credits the Planetary Society
as a major force in keeping their funding.
Many of the members of the New Horizon team are member of the Planetary Society
because we believe in its mission.
We wouldn't have done New Horizons if it hadn't been from the support the
Planetary Society and not just once, many
times over many years. It made a difference.
We could not have done this without the Planetary Society.
We now at the Planetary Society are very active in several missions that are being
constructed, designed right now: the
Europa clipper and we really really want
to bring samples back from the surface
of Mars. This is not trivial. The samples
are going to be collected by the 2020
Rover but there isn't exactly all the
way finished, filled out a plan to bring
them back.
And that's why advocacy matters.
YES!
So, I'm a concerned member of the public,
I believe in space exploration, I want to support it. What do i do? How can I act to help?
That's excellent Robert. You can act by
going to the ACTtion center at planetary.org and there we'll
have petitions, sample letters for you to
send to your congressman senator,
we'll have ways for you to participate in the community. And we can work together to, dare I say it...
change the world!
