ESA Director General Jan Woerner (center) and Nicolas Chamussy, executive vice president of space systems at Airbus Defence and Space (second from right) get some help from organizers of The Moon Race holding up the inflatable moon that made the rounds at the 2018 International Astronautical Congress in Bremen, Germany, Oct. 1-5. Credit: ESA photo by Philippe Sebirot

BREMEN, Germany — In recent years, the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) has been a venue for discussing Mars exploration plans. It’s helped that, in 2016 and 2017, Elon Musk attended to give plenary talks on his Mars mission concepts, a rock star livening up a normally staid technical conference. But other companies and organizations joined in as well: Lockheed Martin used past events to discuss its “Mars Base Camp” concept for Mars exploration.

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Jeff Foust writes about space policy, commercial space, and related topics for SpaceNews. He earned a Ph.D. in planetary sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a bachelor’s degree with honors in geophysics and planetary science...