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Casey Dreier

Chief of Space Policy, The Planetary Society

[email protected]

+1-626-793-5100

Casey leads The Planetary Society's advocacy and policy efforts to advance planetary exploration, planetary defense, and the search for life. He educates and empowers the organization's members to take political action. He writes, teaches, and speaks to The Society's members, the public, and policymakers to impress upon them the importance, relevancy, and excitement of space exploration.

Casey is committed to demystifying the politics and policy process behind space exploration for all audiences. He is a trusted source for journalists and has been featured in many publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Scientific American, Vox, and The Verge, to name a few. He also has appeared as an expert on BBC News and both seasons of National Geographic's MARS series as a "MARS Big Thinker".

He also leads the strategic planning of The Planetary Society's space policy and advocacy program. He works closely with The Society's leadership, its Board of Directors, and other policy experts to craft the organization's formal positions and goals for the future of space exploration. He provides trusted analysis of the budgetary, political, and policy decisions relating to space, pursues original research, and works collaboratively to generate policy ideas and guidance for the U.S. space program.

He also hosts the podcast Planetary Radio: Space Policy Edition, which has been published monthly since 2016. And has written the free monthly newsletter, The Space Advocate, since 2015.

Casey has a degree in Physics with a concentration in Astronomy from Oberlin College.

You can contact Casey via email at: [email protected], or find him on Threads @CaseyDreierSpace.

Latest Articles

NASA's FY 2025 budget request is not enough

Federal spending caps and inflation take a bite out of NASA's ambitions.

The Planetary Society advocacy priorities in NASA’s final 2024 budget

Funding for the Near-Earth Object Surveyor, support for VERITAS, and a second lease on life for Mars Sample Return were all included in the final congressional budget for NASA in 2024.

Can SpaceX’s Starship save Mars Sample Return?

Though promising conceptually, Starship presents more questions than answers for NASA's Mars Sample Return needs.

Latest Planetary Radio Appearances

Space Policy Edition: Real and Acceptable Reasons for Space Exploration

Former NASA Administrator Mike Griffin discusses his claim that there is a tension between the so-called Real reasons that motivate spaceflight and the prosaic, Acceptable reasons used to justify space exploration within the public sphere.

Tales of totality: The adventures of an eclipse chaser

Jim Bell, a professor from the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University and former president of The Planetary Society's Board of Directors, shares captivating tales from his global eclipse-chasing journeys.

Geothermal activity on the icy dwarf planets Eris and Makemake

A team co-led by the Southwest Research Institute has made a groundbreaking discovery, revealing evidence of hydrothermal or metamorphic activity on the icy dwarf planets Eris and Makemake in the Kuiper Belt. The lead author of this research, Chris Glein, joins Planetary Radio to explain.