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Hello Subscriber!

This is the Mars Society Netherlands' newsletter for April 2020. The pandemic has left its traces in the Mars-minded world. Last month ESA and Roscosmos announced that due to delays because of Covid-19 meassures they will postpone their ExoMars2020 mission for two years, rebranding it Exomars2022. So we will have to wait two more years before the Rosalind Franklin rover is going to bring us new images from Mars. Meanwhile NASA says it's still on schedule for launching its mission to Mars later this year. So NASA's rover Perseverance, carrying a small helicopter, will bring us some new views on the red planet next year.
Due to the Covid-19 meassures we of the Mars Society Netherlands are not planning any physical meetings for now. But we've been thinking about another activity to keep your thoughts about Mars alive!  

Activities: writing contest

Because we can't organize any physical meetings for the time being, we came up with a contest. We want to ask you to write a short story that takes place in a future martian society. Your story can go about anything you like, but it should be set against the background of people living on Mars. In your story, we would like you to describe the solutions people have found for Mars' challenges and how living on Mars differs from living on Earth. The author of the best story wins a T-shirt with our logo. Please send your story to: info@marssociety.space before the 1st of June 2020. 

Guidelines:

• You can write your story in Dutch or English. The story should have a maximum of 2000 words.
• By submitting your story, you give the Mars Society Netherlands the right to publish it on their website. 
• After the 1st of June 2020, the board members of the Mars Society Netherlands will elect the best contribution. The winner will be personally notified before the 1st of July. The winning story will be published on the website of the Mars Society Netherlands. 

Recommended: The Case for Space

If you read this newsletter regularly, or have followed the Mars Society for a while, you've probably heard about the book 'The Case for Mars' by Robert Zubrin, the society's founder. Now Mr. Zubrin has written a new book, that puts the scope layed out in his first book a bit wider. The new book, 'The Case for Space' starts with the present day space race between SpaceX, Blue Origin, NASA and some other players to send the biggest rocket into orbit against the lowest price. Zubrin believes that this race will eventually kick off a new space age. He meticulously describes which steps should be taken to first conquer Earth's orbit and then the moon, Mars and beyond. The author gives economical and technical solutions for almost all the challenges the solar system might put on our path when we travel through it and start living in other places than Earth. This book definitely is a must-read for everybody interested in space flight, exploration and colonization. 

Further News:

	Mars Society to Hold 2020 International Teleconvention The Mars Society is pleased to announce that the 23rd Annual International Mars Society Convention will be convened Thursday-Sunday, October 15-18, 2020 all over the world via the Internet!
	Choosing rocks on Mars to bring to Earth If you could bring something back from Mars to Earth, what would you choose? This question is becoming reality, as ESA opens a call for scientists to join a NASA team working to determine which martian samples should be collected and stored by the Perseverance rover set to launch this Summer.
	Mars Helicopter Attached to NASA's Perseverance Rover With the launch period of NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance rover opening in 14 weeks, final preparations of the spacecraft continue at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. In the past week, the assembly, test and launch operations team completed important milestones, fueling the descent stage — also known as the sky crane — and attaching the Mars Helicopter, which will be the first aircraft in history to attempt power-controlled flight on another planet.

Marssociety Netherlands
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