Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Planetary Society was established in 1980 by Carl Sagan, Bruce Murray, and Louis Friedman. These three men gathered to launch an American nonprofit organization dedicated to space exploration.
Alan Stern credited The Planetary Society with saving the New Horizons mission through a multi-year campaign against congressional cancellation. Congress considered cancelling the project multiple times during its development phase before the society intervened.
The Planetary Society launched LightSail 1 on the 20th of May 2015 and LightSail 2 on the 25th of June 2019. LightSail 2 successfully used sunlight to change its orbit without fuel, earning recognition from TIME magazine as one of the 100 Best Inventions of 2019.
The Shoemaker NEO Grant program began in 1997 to support amateur astronomers globally. As of 2025, these grants helped discover nearly 500 near-Earth objects and observe over 19,000 others across more than 20 countries.
Mat Kaplan hosted and produced the weekly radio program Planetary Radio starting in 2002 until Sarah Al-Ahmed became the new host and producer in 2023. Casey Dreier serves as Chief of Space Policy and interviews guests with backgrounds in politics for the monthly Space Policy Edition.