Humans to Mars Summit 2015 – Political Roundtable, Building Political Sustainability

While there were plenty of interesting sessions at the Humans to Mars Summit it was the political roundtable which brought home some of the key messages of the conference.
In particular Wayne Hale mentioned three key points:

1) Stop talking to each other. The conference is great, but the message must be continually and effectively discussed with the public coast-to-coast.

2) Technology is not a stumbling block to a Mars mission, political will is.

3) Why are we going to Mars? For business. Mars will be good for business here on Earth.

Moderator: Ann Zulkosky (Director, NASA Programs, Washington Operations, LMCO; former Senate staffer);

Panel:

– Ben Roberts (Senior Policy Advisor for Space, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy)

-Tom Cremins (Senior Advisor to the Administrator for Strategy and Policy Implementation, NASA)

– N. Wayne Hale, Jr. (Director of Human Spaceflight, Special Aerospace Services, LLC)

– Lynda L. Weatherman (President & CEO, Economic Development Commission of Florida’s Space Coast)