Weekly Space Hangout - January 6, 2017: Abigail "Astronaut Abby" Harrison

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Host: Fraser Cain (

@fcain

)

Special Guests:

This week's guest is Abigail "Astronaut Abby" Harrison. Abigail is the founder of

The Mars Generation

nonprofit. Currently a sophomore at Wellesley College in Massachusetts majoring in Astrobiology and Russian. Harrison is positioned to enter a PhD program upon graduation and continue her pursuit of becoming a scientist, astronaut and member of the first human crew to land on Mars in the 2030's. Hundreds of thousands of supporters from around the world follow her journey to becoming an astronaut via the blog Harrison authors at

AstronautAbby.org

.

The Mars Generation

is a 510c3 nonprofit in the United States. The organization is volunteer-driven with a board of directors that includes astronauts, engineers, scientists and professionals from the nonprofit and business communities. With a reach of more than 10 million people in the organization's first year of operation and more than 650 students from around the world participating in its Student Space Ambassador Leadership Program, over 600 donors, 350 members and several space industry sponsors in place, the organization continues to grow and offer programs to excite and educate students and adults about the importance of human space exploration and STEM education.

Guests:

Alessondra Springmann (

sondy.com

/

@sondy

) Dave Dickinson (

www.astroguyz.com

/

@astroguyz

) Yoav Landsman (

@MasaCritit

)

Their stories this week:

Discovery missions

101 Astronomy Events for 2017

SpaceX is back in business!

We use a tool called Trello to submit and vote on stories we would like to see covered each week, and then Fraser will be selecting the stories from there. Here is the link to

the Trello WSH page

(http://bit.ly/WSHVote), which you can see without logging in. If you'd like to vote, just create a login and help us decide what to cover!

If you would like to join the Weekly Space Hangout Crew, visit

their site here

and sign up. They're a great team who can help you join our online discussions!

If you would like to sign up for the

AstronomyCast Solar Eclipse Escape

, where you can meet Fraser and Pamela, plus WSH Crew and other fans, visit our site linked above and sign up!

We record the Weekly Space Hangout every Friday at 12:00 pm Pacific / 3:00 pm Eastern. You can watch us live on Universe Today, or the

Universe Today YouTube page<

Fraser Cain

Fraser Cain

Fraser Cain is the publisher of Universe Today, founding the website in March 1999. He's also the co-host of Astronomy Cast.