Posted by tourdemars to Mars Society at May 13, 2002 12:00 PM

Even after 30 years of using tiny computers, I can still be impressed by the work that they make possible for tiny teams with tiny budgets. When university students enter domains that used to be owned by superpowers, we should take a moment to marvel at the tools that enable such things. have the honor of being a charter member of The Mars Society (www.marssociety.org), the group that believes we should have at least one backup planet. As part of the society's Translife Initiative, students at three universities—MIT, the University of Washington and Australia's University of Queensland—are planning the first private biological space mission, the Mars Gravity Biosatellite (www.marsgravity.org). Launching in 2005, it will yield the first data ever produced on birth and development of mammals in Mars-level gravity (which is three-eighths that of Earth).