Mark is based in Houston, where he has written on aerospace for more than 25 years. While at the Houston Chronicle, he was recognized by the Rotary National Award for Space Achievement Foundation in 2006 for his professional contributions to the public understanding of America's space program through news reporting. He has written on U. S. space policy as well as NASA's human and space science initiatives.
Mark was recognized by the Texas Associated Press Managing Editors and Headliners Foundation as well as the Chronicle in 2004 for news coverage of the shuttle Columbia tragedy and its aftermath.
He is a graduate of the University of Kansas and holds a Master's degree in Journalism and Mass Communications from Kansas State University.
“Honey, I shrunk the NASA payload,” is a global crowdsourcing initiative unveiled by the space agency on April 9 to significantly reduce the size of rugged instruments, sensors and experiments that can be launched to the Moon.
NASA has selected Masten Space Systems, of Mojave, California, to launch, land and oversee operations of eight science payloads at the lunar south pole for at least 12 days in 2022 under its Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative.
NASA will invest $7 million to advance a range of 23 early stage technologies with the potential to hasten the journey of humans to Mars and increase the odds of success for robotic missions selected to explore potentially habitable extrasolar planets and ocean worlds.
