Sayeda Rubya Hassan Tashri

The Mars Generation is a one-of-a-kind nonprofit organization founded by 18-year-old Abigail Harrison, known to many as Astronaut Abby. At 13 years old, Abby was embraced by the space community as a leader of her generation, which she has coined The Mars Generation. At the age of 15, Abby built an outreach program now called the Future of Space to excite kids and adults about space and STEM. Abby credits the forming of The Mars Generation to the massive support she has received these past few years from her online community of more than 400,000 people. With the amazing support of many professional mentors on the advisory board, Abby sets out to launch this nonprofit, The Mars Generation. The focus of The Mars Generation is building a stronger tomorrow by energizing our youth today about space and STEM, educating kids and adults about the importance of deep space human space exploration to humankind. The Mars Generation will serve as a catalyst to identify students with an interest in STEM and nurture their study in STEM education. The Mars Generation is volunteer-driven with executive and advisory boards of leaders from the space industry as well as nonprofit, education and business sectors. Collaborating with many other space and STEM organizations, The Mars Generation reaches a broad audience, creating a groundswell of support for space exploration and compelling funding of space exploration benefitting the future of the Mars generation. The Apollo era inspired generations to dream big and act big. The Shuttle era allowed us to build a massive orbiting world class research laboratory and maintain a constant human presence in space. Now, we have the Orion Era ready to inspire today’s youth to venture further than ever before. The Mars Generation will renew the importance of and the investment in space exploration to help move us toward the next major goal in space travel: Mars.