45 – Coming Together for Mars (feat. Jeff Johnson)

Missions to Mars don’t happen by accident. A ton of planning goes in long before the spacecraft is even selected. Understanding the consensus wishes of the scientific community is critical to putting resources into the right missions, and one group that helps gather that consensus is the Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group. Jake is joined by Jeff Johnson, planetary scientist from Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab and the current MEPAGC hair to talk about how MEPAG works and everything that it does. (note: in the interview, you may hear Jeff mistaken identify himself as the Goals Chair. He is in fact, the MEPAG Chair) We Talk Mars Program Analysis and the Decadal Survey The MEPAG Goals Document (2015) The 2013 Planetary Sciences Decadal Survey Previous Coverage of Mars Policy Episode 27: The Policy of Mars (feat. Casey Dreier) Follow Jeff and MEPAG Jeff’s Profile at JHUAPL’s Website MEPAG Website (JPL) MEPAG Committee Members Follow Jake & WeMartians Website (www.wemartians.com) Patreon (www.patreon.com/wemartians) WeMartians Shop (shop.wemartians.com) Twitter (@we_martians) Facebook (@wemartians) Instagram (@wemartians) Jake’s Twitter (@JakeOnOrbit) The Off-Nominal Podcast WeMartians music is “RetroFuture”, “Electrodoodle”, and “On My Way” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Get a Shirt! The storm may be huge and terrible, but it’s time is limited. If you’ve been following along, you’ll know it’ll be over…soon! Get the shirt on our shop! Or, support Opportunity as she hunkers down through the worst of it in her typical, extra-nominal way.