The Mars Generation is a one-of-a-kind nonprofit organization co-founded in 2015 by then 18-year-old Abigail Harrison, known to many as Astronaut Abby and her mother, Nicole Harrison. At 13 years old, Abby was embraced by the space community as a leader of her generation, the Mars generation when her mother helped her set up a Twitter account to simply get a quote from a NASA employee for a school project. At the age of 15, Abby and Nicole built an outreach program, called the Future of Space to excite kids and adults about space and STEM/STEAM. The Future of Space outreach program helped to lead to the founding of TMG. Abby and Nicole credits the forming of The Mars Generation to the massive support received over the years from the online community they built of people supporting Abby’s dreams and helping to inspire others along the way. With the amazing support of the many leaders on the advisory board, Abby and Nicole launched The Mars Generation nonprofit.

The focus of The Mars Generation is building a stronger tomorrow by energizing our youth today about space and STEM and educating kids and adults about the importance of deep 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 new era in human space exploration ready to inspire today’s youth to venture further than ever before. Human space exploration has and will continue to inspire scientists, engineers, policy makers, artists and writers to change our lives on earth. 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.