Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - Space Policy Edition #23 - Blitzing Congress: Planetary Society volunteers visit Capitol Hill

Episode Date: March 2, 2018

Society members from 21 states descended on the U.S. capitol for a "blitz" of 178 meetings in two days. Casey and special guest Matt Renninger explain why that is such an important activity, and blitzers Leah and Stefanie Griffith share their story of coming to Washington to speak for space.  More resources to explore this month’s topics are at  http://www.planetary.org/multimedia/planetary-radio/show/2018/space-policy-edition-23-blitzing-congress.htmlLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Time for the Space Policy Edition of Planetary Radio. This is our edition for March of 2018, the 22nd time we have come to you with this special broadcast, this special podcast about space policy happenings in Washington, D.C. and elsewhere around the globe. I'm Matt Kaplan, the host of Planetary Radio. That theme song that you heard is the closest we'll get to getting to talk to Jason Callahan today because, of course, Jason composed and created it for us. But Jason was unable to join us today because of other business. able to join us today because of other business. Fortunately, we have in his place our colleague Matt Redinger, who is the Senior Government Relations Manager for the Planetary Society. And with Matt, of course, is Casey Dreyer, the Planetary Society's Director of Space Policy. Welcome, guys. Hey, Matt. Let's just be honest. Jason's totally sleeping in right now. He just didn't want to do the show.

No, Jason had a two-day conference that he was at this week. And this week was actually quite busy for us, so we couldn't record it earlier. My other colleague, Matt, was happy to step in. And actually, it was almost more relevant anyway, because he was such a big part in the topic we're going to talk about today. Thanks, guys. I'm happy to be here, even though I know I'm a poor stand-in for Jason, but I'm excited to be on. Oh, you're too self-deprecating. Matt, we are thrilled to have you, and welcome back to the show.

And it has been an extremely busy week. Before we talk about why, you know what's coming, folks. Here's that pitch. Are you a member of the Planetary Society? All of the stuff that you were about to hear about was enabled by our members. So why not become one of them? If you're listening to this, you clearly care about space policy. You care about our destiny across the solar system and beyond. The best way to become a part of that, to stand behind it, is to go to planetary.org membership and join us.

Join the tens of thousands of other people who are allowing, enabling the Planetary Society to do what it does. Planetary.org membership. Casey, you're just back from Washington. Tell us about the big happenings there this week, beginning with the Blitz. I liked what you were saying earlier about things happening in Washington, DC. Well, the Planetary Society was helping to make those things happen this last week. We were unusually active. This is kind of a big week for us. It was the Space Exploration Alliance Legislative Blitz. Space Exploration Alliance is just a loose group of forward-facing nonprofit space organizations. The Planetary Society is the largest one among them. And we brought nearly 60 of our members from 21 different states to Washington, D.C. to meet with Congress,

to have them go around, talk about space exploration, how important it was for them, and to become really engaged citizens in the political process. And the shorthand we use for this is called the legislative blitz, or congressional blitz. It's just a lot of effort. So we call it a blitz, we just steamroll through Congress, I think we had something like 178 meetings over two days. And we had a lot of activity and a lot of members. And again, this is one of the benefits of being a member, you get to come and represent the Planetary Society and talk to Congress,

the people who are literally making the decisions about the future of the space program. And it was a lot of fun, but it's also a lot of work to put together. We have great partners with Explore Mars who help us do a lot of the legwork in putting that event together. Just awesome to see that kind of energy,

passion, and commitment from our members coming from around the country to participate and speak up for space. We're going to talk some more about some of those volunteers. But Matt Renninger, you used to be on the other side of this. You were a congressional staffer. When you saw these crazy space geeks coming toward your office in the past, did you just say, oh, no, or try and lock the door? So this is what is so powerful, especially when it comes to space science about these groups. That with space, this might have been,

in addition to the couple of times that Casey came through, which was a happy coincidence, that I ever maybe saw somebody on topics related to space. So this might have been my only interaction with folks where they're actually advocating for this. The materials that they left for me, the suggestions and policy prescriptions that they made, the appropriations, asks that they brought to the table might have been the only ones that crossed my desk. And as Casey always says, 80% of this is showing up. Those folks showed up and those were the

resources that I went to when it was time to put together funding requests. So we have a training session on the Sunday before we do this on the Monday and Tuesday at the end of February. In a sense, we're really competing for the mind share of these congressional staff who work in these offices. And as you implied, Matt worked in a congressional office for four years. Matt, like on average, how many meetings did you hold per day with constituents and interest groups? On a session day, as I'm sure you saw, Casey, we're in there, maybe many of the folks who are listening who've had a chance to go to Capitol Hill and do an advocacy day or swing by their member's office. It's a small space. It's packed and you move people through quickly. It's a small space, it's packed, and you move people through quickly. I could do up to 10 to 15 meetings a day on topics ranging from social security to space,

back to back, and you have to retain the information and be able to recite it when your boss wants the recap of the meetings that you did that day, because ultimately, you're trying to get all that information to the member. Generally, space is not a part of those meetings. There's much more organized and, I guess, maybe rich areas for lobbying and citizen interest, you know, healthcare, much more divisive issues that really generate activity and action around the country. You said maybe once a year you would see a person come in about space or you just rarely have the office contacted about it? I was spoiled, right, Casey, because you were a constituent.

So I heard from you. Well, before me, let's say, before my excellent advocacy. Exactly. Yeah, that was certainly a special case. But yeah, maybe once or twice a year. And certainly, if it was more than once a year, you could bet that one of those was going to be a corporate interest. So that was really what was unique about what we see with the Blitz and my experience with

Blitzers when I was on the other side of this. With Jason Callahan working with you, that's still just three of you guys to handle all of this. It certainly implies that the volunteers who joined you, who went to that orientation and then spread out to all these offices, they were a really important part of this. They're literally the critical part. I mean, this is why we're organizing this. And I would say Rick Zucker at Explore Mars did a lot of work helping to set up the scheduling and organization. We work with some other partner organizations to put the structure there. But fundamentally, it's about enabling that face-to-face interaction between citizens and the people who represent them in Congress. And to make sure that among

the things that they hear about every day from people who have interest on Capitol Hill and the future of legislation, that space is a part of it. Because again, if you don't actively stake out your ground in their heads and in their awareness, it's just going to fall by the wayside, even if they like it. I'd just like to emphasize as well the importance, the important role that the members played in this just in terms of metrics. All of last year, so in the nine months or the eight months that I was on board, we were able to crack 100 in-person congressional visits. I think it was around 112. So that just goes to show you how important this day, or I guess this series of two days, is to our overall messaging on Capitol Hill

throughout the year. It's not just us in a vacuum. And Matt and I talk about this a lot. We try to tell our members about this. This is our working together. This is like the ultimate sense of we have each other's backs here. So we do a lot of the groundwork, particularly Matt and Jason do a lot of the groundwork throughout the year, you know, interfacing with these offices, key offices, socializing them to these ideas about space exploration. When a society member walks in, they're not coming in at zero, right? They're coming into an office

that's already been interested in the idea. And then we cap it by saying, look, these people care so much about this issue that they are willing to travel across the country on their own dime and spend two days that they could have been taking a vacation in Aruba or something somewhere, right? But they're coming to DC in February to tell you about space. And that means so much because again, and this is the ultimate thing, we're not benefiting financially from any of these policies that we're talking about.

We have no self-interest in this beyond the personal joy of discovery that we get from these types of missions. Then after our members leave, Matt and I and Jason all go to work and we follow up with all the offices. We really use this to leverage this experience into something greater. It's not just a one-off. And that's that really that interplay between society membership and the space policy and advocacy team and this year-round commitment to advocacy in Washington, D.C. That's a great point that Casey made about Jason and I being in year-round laying the groundwork, and it helps set the stage for some of these meetings. But my favorite part of the whole

day that Jason and Casey and I spent on the Hill was getting emails and texts from the members who we had worked with in the training who said, hey, I just came out of this office that you may not have been in before. They heard about the caucus and they want follow-up. And we were able to use the space between our next meetings to look up where those offices were. And then we're running upstairs really quick to drop off one pagers on the Planetary Science Caucus or answer a follow-up question with staff who we otherwise would have had a really hard time. We would have had to spend a bunch of time and capital getting in the door there, and our members enabled it for us.

So Casey said we are going to follow up with all of these offices and take advantage of the beachhead that our members have established for us, but we were already doing that the day of, and it was just an incredible experience. What united these volunteers? I mean, what did they share in common, and how did they differ? We had some time, Matt and I and Jason had talked with all of our members that were there. That's also the fun thing. I just love engaging with our members. And each person had a different story of how they got there. But they all seem to share this fundamental commitment. I think

there are two things. One is just an optimism that their participation could make a difference. And that is so critical. In this world, it's so easy to become cynical. But when you're cynical, you don't do anything. You know, you've lost already. You're done. Essentially give up in a sense. So having that optimism that through my own effort, working with organizations that I believe in, I can make a difference. That is literally how things change. All of our members had that fundamental optimism that I want to contribute to the betterment of humankind and human exploration and pushing back these boundaries of ignorance of human knowledge. And that's this really beautiful thing. And then everyone also had,

I think, this really energy and excitement to say like they just loved space. They love these ideas of exploration. It just, it gets you, right? I mean, this is why we become members of the Planetary Society. There's something inside of us that has just moved at a fundamental level. That's what Carl Sagan captured so beautifully and eloquently in his writings and his shows. and eloquently in his writings and his shows. And what Bill Nye touches on when he gets these crowds excited and riled up about science, something about discovering the unknown. It's hard to describe. This is why I'm not a writer, right? This is hard for me to describe.

But I think that feeling, that passion was shared. And that's what's also really rewarding about this experience. And we talked with members about this. At home, no one gets this, you know. I joined the Planetary Society because none of my friends understand why this is so important. But here, they were just, they felt that connection instantly with every other member. And that release of just like, oh, these people get it. And that was just like a really beautiful thing for me to see too, that we are finding each other, right? That have the shared passion for space and we're doing something about it. And I think that really brought all of those people together. There are some great individual stories about people who did attend the Blitz. And we're going to meet a couple of

the people, a mother and daughter team who were with you on the Blitz. But you also, Casey, told me about one guy who had to raise money and did it online so that he could be part of this. It just said so much about the commitment that people had that one of the members, he had a GoFundMe account. You know, it's not cheap to go to Washington, D.C. in the middle of February. And he raised money, crowdsourced money to get hotel and travel from halfway across the country. And just to do that, just to come, the amount of work just to get to that point, it was just a beautiful statement that it became a priority of his life to do that. Wonderful guy. We had other members flying across the country, just saying, I've done this for the first time, reawakening these like, you know, long held passions that they finally had time or energy or something

changed. They were able to do it this year. People from Washington, DC to Maryland right around to California to Washington, Illinois, New York, New Jersey. It was just people made that effort. It was just a really amazing and impressive thing to see our members do. Let's take a couple of moments now to meet Stephanie and Leah Griffith, mother and daughter, who, as we said, joined you on The Blitz. Stephanie and Leah, thank you very much for being part of this Space Policy Edition, and special thanks for making your way to Washington, D.C. and being part of the Blitz just a few days ago. Huge honor to be a part of it.

Thank you so much for having us. And Leah, I think that's you talking, right? Yeah, that's me. Stephanie, my colleague Casey Dreyer made the point that so many of you, the 60 or so volunteers who joined the Blitz, it cost you money. You had to pay for it with your own dime. You could have gone to Disney World. You came to D.C. to talk to Congress people.

What drove you to do this? Well, I really think that NASA is so important for education as an American brand, as an employer and a spinoff employer or innovator. Also, the global sciences are very interested in it, NASA. I don't want to see this damaged or limited in any way. I really find this very important for our progress and our economy. No argument here. Leah, your mother told me that you were kind of the engine that got her and your dad, who was also on the trip, to both join the Planetary Society, but I'll bet also to go and be part of the Blitz. Yeah, I've always been a space advocate. I've always wanted to be an aerospace engineer. And I'm a part of a lot of NASA's education programs.

So I really wanted to be a part of it and actually make a difference and have an impact in the program that's done so much for me. So I'm really glad that my parents could come along and help. Do you have any idea what generated your strong interest, your enthusiasm for space and science? Actually, that's a pretty unique story. So when I was in the eighth grade, I attended a UT lecture in astrochemistry just for the heck of it. And it was really fun. And I actually, you know, I learned that I'm actually really passionate about space and all the things that are out there. And, you know, living under the Texas sky kind of really helps you get an outlook of how important space is. So now you're a junior at Anderson High School there in Austin.

Among other things, you have this great extracurricular program that I have real affection for. Tell us about your work in FIRST Robotics. Robotics is a huge part of my life. I spend, you know spend upwards of 12 hours there a day. It's such a great network of family and friends. She sleeps and eats there too. Yeah. A lot of pizza. Oh my God. Oh yes. Yes. Yes. We actually have a tent there right now inside the building for people who sleep there. Yeah, so it's really fun. And you get to learn to engineer by yourself with minimal guidance from a mentor and compete and do

all this type of outreach activities like with NASA and kind of reach out. And it's really fun. I think you also reach out to elementary schools and you lobbied for STEM at the Texas Capitol. Yeah, as a member of SACOT, the STEM Advocacy Conference of Texas, I went to the Texas State Capitol to advocate for increased STEM funding in rural areas. Yeah. I want you to tell people the name of your team because it's pretty clever. It's the Austin Cans because we Austin Cans. It isn't nerdy at all. Nah. Had either of you been on Capitol Hill before?

No. Nope. It was the first time. It was actually that blew our minds, how accessible the lawmakers are, and also how well informed the office staff is, and how interested they are, and how positive their feedback is. That was really joyous to be part of. And across the party lines, it didn't matter. Some would say, I would like to double the budget of NASA. That'd be awesome. And everybody wanted to be an astronaut at one point. And some were so knowledgeable, I had to say, why don't you go to the next lawmaker to lobby for me? Because you are even more informed than I am.

And so that was really a joyous experience to feel the positive feedback across the party lines. It was really a beautiful thing to be part of. Leah, how many meetings did you have? We met with 12 representatives. And we tried to sneak in two more that were not on the list because we had so much fun with it. You couldn't ask for people with a better attitude toward this. I mean, when you think of all the Americans who are so cynical about Congress, it sounds like you found a very enthusiastic audience in the offices that you visited. Yeah, that was really, really inspiring to be able to, you know, actually have a real conversation with these people.

It wasn't just us stating what we wanted and them saying yes or no. It was a really dynamic conversation with most of them. And they really wanted to know what we want. I mean, it's not just that they knew so much about the space program already, because so many states are really affected by NASA programs, even if it's not directly NASA. But it might be a country like Lockheed Martin that is in their district. So they were all really informed about the dynamics of NASA and the impact this has in its district. So there was a real interest there and a real passion of the lawmakers also. So it was really fun to see. You think you'd want to do this again?

Absolutely. You'll see me again next year. Don't worry about it. Yeah. Oh, without a doubt. All the years to come. Yes. You'll see me. You'll get sick of me. If you let us, we'll be there. Totally. Yes. Leah, most of your future is still ahead of you. Certainly your professional future. Did this increase your interest in staying involved with space?

Oh, my gosh, yeah. Before this event, I knew I wanted to do the aerospace industry, but I wasn't exactly sure how I wanted to put my efforts to where they should be. And this really solidified what I wanted to do and kind of enhanced my passions for the aerospace industry. what I wanted to do and kind of enhance my passions for, you know, the aerospace industry. Stephanie, I salute you and, and dad, your husband for being part of this, but also for bringing Leah along.

And I bet all of you were, were just terrific ambassadors for space advocacy. She brought, she brought us along. You have it all wrong. We were just the over 18-year-old accompanying her, and that was it that qualified us. She was definitely the engine. So she inspires all of us. You're only increasing my envy. I wish I had been there with you. Maybe next year, I hope to see both of you there. Perfect.

We will app, if they let us, it was so much fun and so inspiring and really so cordial and informed and all the prejudice one might have against being an advocate were fully proven wrong. Well, thanks again for being a part of the Blitz in Washington, DC, but also for taking a few minutes to join us on the Space Policy Edition of Planetary Radio. And Leah, I look forward to hearing great things from you. Maybe you can be my guest someday on Planetary Radio. We'll talk about your research or the engineering or, you know, the rocket that you've led development of.

I would be honored. And I really hope that comes someday when I can make that kind of impact. Thank you. Thank you so much, Matt. that comes someday when I can make that kind of impact. Thank you. Thank you so much, Matt. Stephanie and Leah Griffith, a couple of the Planetary Society members who joined Matt and Casey and Jason on the Blitz in Washington, D.C. on Capitol Hill. Thanks very much to them and to all of the volunteers who participated. When we come back from a quick break, we're going to talk about another big event that the Planetary Society sponsored, and it has to do with that Planetary Science Caucus that we

have also talked about on the show. I'll be back in just a moment with Matt Renninger and Casey Dreyer after this word. Hello, I'm Robert Picardo, Planetary Society board member and now the host of the Society's Planetary Post video newsletter. There's a new edition every month. We've already gone behind the scenes at JPL, partied at Yuri's Night, and visited with CEO Bill Nye. We've also got the month's top headlines from around the solar system. You can sign up at planetary.org forward slash connect. When you do, you'll be among the first to see each new show. I hope you'll join us.

We're back with the March 2018 edition of the Space Policy Edition of Planetary Radio. I'm Matt Kaplan of the Planetary Society with the director of space policy, Casey Dreyer, and Matt Renninger, our senior government relations manager based inside the Beltway there in Washington, D.C. Spends a lot of time on Capitol Hill. We talked in the first part of this one's show about the blitz that took place and all the volunteers who helped make more than 170 personal visits with our representatives possible, talking about space exploration, exploration of the solar system, space science, planetary science. Casey, we need to talk about this other event that you guys put on for this, the new caucus, this new group of Congress people

that has come together for planetary science. Yeah. So because we're gluttons for punishment, we decided to do an event within the event. We helped organize a congressional briefing. And the topic we chose was sample return. That's something that the Planetary Society is obviously really interested in, something we're talking about right now with our planet back, our own just personal, you know, sci-tech investments and so forth. But also, it's one of the most important scientific goals for planetary science. It's enshrined in the decadal survey written by the National Academies. And we have a lot of really amazing sample return missions either happening, about to happen, or under study that may happen very soon. This seemed like a perfect thing to coordinate with this new Planetary Science Caucus. And we also have, there's a group of congressional staff that are really interested on space issues. It just had this really nice intersection of opportunity. And so we said, sure, let's schedule

a congressional briefing during the Blitz. And then our Blitzers could drop in and, you know, they can enjoy this topic as well. We got some scientists from NASA and the Smithsonian and Cornell University came by and all talked about these incredible missions. Maybe even just a step back, Matt, what is the role of congressional briefings? Again, from the staff perspective that you have, why are these important

and why are these a good use of our time and energy to do these? So congressional briefing essentially means schools in session, right, for a staffer. You get education two ways. Folks can come into your office, you can have a face-to-face meeting, and you can get your information that way. Obviously with that, a lot of the times people have an agenda. With congressional briefings, that's much less so the case, especially when you have witnesses coming in, like you said, places from NASA who are there to educate and

give you the facts without a particular slant. And that was the case with this briefing. So those who attended, obviously, our members who were there for the blitz, but also staff who would have received the invite over the internal dear colleague system, which is what staff used to get a heads up on what's going on on the Hill, what opportunities are available, what what briefings happening that day, it was their email. And if it's a topic that crosses either their personal interest or their portfolio, they come by to essentially get an hour crash course in a topic, this one being sample return. So without this opportunity, I doubt there were that many staff out there who were sitting at their desk saying, you know what I'm going to do with my spare five

minutes between these next two meetings, get on the computer and research sample return. That's just simply not going to happen. So we brought that opportunity to them. We're able to ping folks and say, hey, this is happening. And members left their desk. They took time as a commodity. It's especially precious up there. And they chose to spend it with us learning about these missions that Casey mentioned. So you mostly have staffers attend this, but you did get a few members as we've had in the past. Yeah, that's the beauty of the caucus that Matt and the society helped put together. Derek Kilmer, who's the co-chair of the caucus, he's a member from Washington's 6th District up in Washington State, and Democrat, and dropped in to welcome the crowd there and to meet the

scientists face-to-face. And Matt, you had a really nice way of putting this as to what ultimately our goal is, because these aren't advocacy events, right? These are information events. And really, that opportunity, well, you say, the opportunity that we're setting up. Right. I mean, the caucus has its mission statement and its stated goals. And our society members might be familiar with those at this point. But what we're really trying to do at its deepest, most fundamental sense is give members of Congress access to scientists. It was really great for me to walk into the room a little early and see the five scientists who were there for the panel,

having a conversation on the sideline with Congressman Kilmer, having 10 minutes beforehand, just one-on-one with a member of Congress who sits on the Appropriations Committee, who needs to be educated about these issues because he, in a very large way, is deciding the future of what will happen with many, if not all of their missions as the bills move through his committee. Creating that access is what's really, really exciting and valuable at the caucus. I think my favorite line from the whole briefing was where Congressman Kilmer said he had seen Slash play in person, but this was his favorite rock show he had ever been to. Referring to the samples that he got to handle while he was there before the briefing. We had Tim McCoy, who has this awesome title.

He's the curator in chief of the Smithsonian's Natural History Museum's meteorite collection. And he very graciously brought in some meteorite samples and some lunar samples so people could take a look at that. For me, my personal peak geek out moment was that he brought ALH 84001, which is everyone's, yeah, right? Even more than the lunar rocks. Everybody's favorite piece of Mars. Exactly, right? What is it? The rock that launched a dozen ships, if I could take that. It was Homer. Yeah, the rock, not the face.

Yeah, that's exactly. It was a chunk. It wasn't the entire meteorite, but it was a chunk take it. It was Homer. It was Homer. Yeah, the rock, not the face. Yeah, exactly. It was a chunk. It wasn't the entire meteorite, but it was a chunk of it. And I got to hold it in its little, it was in a container. I just thought, you know, just getting to hold it.

And that's what I love about sample return in a sense. And even to a bigger idea, planetary exploration, is that there's such a physical component to it. It's just become so real when you hold something in your hand that you know came from Mars.

Like that is a profound moment. There's something primal about that, just as Homo sapiens, right? That we have our, it's not hitting our frontal cortex. It's some lytic system response that this is a real thing. And we could do this. We can just bring more of these back if we wanted to. Seeing other meteorites, the lunar samples, of course, they had some of the orange soil that Jack Schmidt and Apollo 17 picked up, which is just cool that it was like, oh, there's that rock.

Oh, yeah, that person grabbed this 50 years ago or 45 years ago and brought it back from the moon. It was just spectacular. So it was a really fun briefing. from the moon. It was just spectacular. So it was a really fun briefing. Casey, I am obligated to make you green with envy. I actually held a piece of ALH, that mysterious bit of Mars, with tweezers in my gloved hand at UC San Diego a while back. But I also want to remind folks who might have missed it that our February 14th edition of Planetary Radio, the regular weekly show, we featured Derek Kilmer, co-chair of the Planetary Science Caucus, with his colleague and friend Randy Holcren from the Republican side of the House. It was a great conversation,

too, if people want to go back and take a listen to a Democrat and a Republican actually agreeing and having a good time talking about stuff. Yeah, that's exactly right, Matt. It was a great interview, and it was just a precursor of things to come. So this briefing was the first official event that we got rolling, and we're going to have a lot more of those going forward in the future. We're going to be bringing in Bill and other scientists from the community, getting those folks in front of members of Congress, being a resource for them. And so far, the response has been incredible.

We're over 20 co-sponsors now, Republican and Democrat, House and Senate, totally bipartisan and bicameral. It's unlike anything else that has happened before specifically in this space. It's unlike most other things that are going on now in Washington at this time, as I'm sure you know. And the Bill you mentioned, of course, is our boss, the CEO, Bill Nye, the science guy. So speaking of the future, what is ahead? How do you follow this up, guys? I mean, Casey, you already said that you'll be following up with all of the representatives and senators that the volunteers and you guys visit. Casey, you're going to take care of that for me? That sounds great. Absolutely. And to be more... Yeah, I was just about to be more accurate. Matt will be following up. I was just about to give you credit. Just for the record, we will be following up the Royal We which I usually mean by that is Matt and Jason, of course, will be following up in DC. And then we have a couple other events coming up very near term. Bill Nye will be going to talk about planetary defense issues and near Earth objects. We have a more formal launch event coming up later this year. And again, more is this is the idea that we've built a structure that makes it significantly easier to do events like these going forward. We're able to depend on these offices that have

joined the caucus, have demonstrated to their staff and to themselves that they're interested in these topics, and they're willing to help with the organization, with the scheduling, with the raising awareness of these things. And there's just so many fun things to do. There's exoplanets to talk about. There's the search for life. We have a Mars launch and landing this year coming up with InSight. All of these things can be part of this caucus to get people excited, to get them engaged, and just to get them that, as what Matt said, that face time with the scientists themselves to just learn about these issues. And again, what we're doing is we're competing for that mindshare. We're being a part of this. We're being loud in a sense. We're being engaged. We're being present. And planetary science, space science, NASA issues don't just fall by the wayside here. Because again, it's like, what a great way to break up your day. If you're having a tough day or a lot of hard issues or really politically divisive stuff going on, you can take a break, grab a donut and a cup of coffee, and learn about ways that we can bring rocks back from Mars.

I'm just so hopeful with the increased frequency that we're going to be doing these things now, like Casey pointed out, that more of our members get the opportunity that those who came for the Blitz got to see this briefing and be involved with these things. It's not going to be a once a year or a one-off deal. This will be happening constantly throughout the calendar. And if folks are in Washington, I really encourage you to try to attend one of these. That's really that difference that our members have allowed us to do by investing in this program. Again, this is a voluntary, you don't have to be a member of the planetary side. You just naturally, you choose to join it, you choose to financially support us. And because of that, we've been able to grow our program and we've been able to hire people like Matt,

who then I can tell to go do all of these face-to-face meetings so I can sit back and smoke my cigars on my back porch in the sun all the time. But that really have that constant presence on the Hill and to be able to do all of this legwork. And, you know, in a sense, we're just getting started. And it's a function of, it's a direct function of, I just want to make sure to thank those members and our donors who have enabled this to happen, because without this, we don't exist. You want to be thanked by Casey. You want that

gratitude to apply to you. Planetary.org slash membership is the place to go to be a part of this movement. We hope you'll take a look there today and take a look at some of the great other benefits that you get from being part of the Planetary Society. And you also will know that you are supporting this podcast, all of Planetary Radio, PlanetVac, as Casey mentioned, our own little sample return project that we are working on with Honeybee Robotics. There is so much great stuff going on, and you will be standing behind all of it as a member of the society. Gentlemen, I think we've wrapped it up. Matt Renninger, I'm going to send you and Jason Callahan some Dr. Scholl's pads,

because you're going to be walking those halls. Thanks, Matt. We appreciate it. You better send an extra pair. Jason likes to double up on those, I think. Okay. I just do it to be a little bit taller. I wish I could have joined you over this terrific week that you've just described. Casey, anything else to add? Well, just that we will be kind of returning to our normal style of planetary radio space policy additions next month. We've done a lot this month and a lot have been very kind of topical, smaller episodes. We'll have more detailed kind of in-depth policy stuff and more interviews coming up. But we were just so excited

about the Blitz personally, that opportunity to engage with the members and that experience for me is just always such an energizing experience. And I'm just so inspired by our members who participated. And so if you're listening and you were there, thank you so much for being there. You guys are an inspiration to me, to Matt, to Jason, everyone here at the Society. It was

fantastic. You guys are the best. Casey Dreyer is the Director of Space Policy for the Planetary Society. His colleague, our colleague, is Matt Renninger, who is the Senior Government Relations Manager for the Society. And their colleague, Jason Callahan, is the third member of the Space Policy team for the Society. He will rejoin us when we come back to you on the first Friday in April of 2018. Hope you will join us then and between now and then for the regular weekly edition of Planetary Radio. We've got a show about Planet Pack Zodiac coming up just a few days after this episode appears online. Thanks very much for listening to us. And guys, thank you once again. I'll talk to you soon. See you, man. Thanks, Matt.