🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <93010946@sloth.bc.ca> chris@sloth.bc.ca (Chris Brougham) writes:
>I saw an add in S&T for an organization called the "Planetary Society."
>What's this organization all about? are there any members that
>can give me a brief summation of the organizations "mandate?"

It's officially in the business of promoting planetary exploration.  It
does have some tendency to take Carl Sagan's slant on just how that should
be done, since he's the society's President For Life :-).  It supplies some
of the private funding currently supporting work in areas like SETI and
looking for near-Earth asteroids.  It's also been involved in supporting
US hardware for the 1994/1996 Russian Mars probes.

>Apparently the publish a magazine called that "Planetary Report,"
>is this magazine monthly or quarterly and is its format like S&T 
>or a scholalry journal?

Like S&T, not like a journal.  It was bimonthly when I was a member,
although that was a while ago.  It's a great source of glossy photos
and a moderately good source of recent news in the area.  Technical
content is minor, scholarly content is nil.

In general, the Planetary Society does some good work but has politics
that grate on some people (like me).  It's worth trying out.  There are
other organizations that are more heavily into good work and less heavily
into glossy magazines and the Pasadena Party Line, but joining even the
Planetary Society is lots better than doing nothing.
-- 
"God willing... we shall return."       | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
       -Gene Cernan, the Moon, Dec 1972 |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry