NOT SURE WHAT TO MAKE OF THIS: The Mars Institute has made its debut at the World Space Congress in Houston.

Should this be interpreted as the creation of a new organization which will focus on the space science related to Mars, a collection of greybeards to provide peer review and direction to Mars exploration and thus give some structure and, er, "respectability" to it?

Or should it be interpreted as a mass defection from the Mars Society?

I notice among the list of officers a number of people associated (or formerly associated, perhaps) with the MS, but I have no idea if they plan to work with both organizations or only with the new one. If the latter, this could be a serious blow to the science side of MS (I'd not be too disappointed to see Kim Stanley Robinson depart, as I find his views rather irritating and the near-worship of his books among MSers annoying).

I hope it hasn't come to this, but if it has anyone can probably guess the reasons behind it.