MARS — Residents are invited to attend the Mars New Year Blast Off Dinner, which will kick off the second Mars New Year event in early May.

The dinner, which is $100 per person, will be held from 6 to 10:30 p.m. on May 4, at the Twelve Oaks Mansion in Adams Township.

The Mars New Year will be held from May 4 to May 6 in downtown Mars.

Karen Harvey, the coordinator of the dinner, said those interested in space will have a rare opportunity to hear about that subject from two professionals in the field.

The keynote speaker is Jay Apt, who is a Harvard and MIT graduate, former astronaut with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration who logged 847 hours in space, pilot, former director of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History and current professor at Carnegie Mellon University.

Harvey said Apt’s keynote speech will focus on spacewalking and the life of an astronaut, from training to space travel.

She said Apt was out of the country during the first Mars New Year in June 2015.

“We are really excited to have him this time,” she said.

The other speaker is Katie Beckwith, a 2007 Mars High School graduate who now works at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

In addition to a cocktail hour, dinner and the two speakers, Harvey said stargazing through telescopes set up on the Twelve Oaks property could be included in the evening.

“That’s if the weather cooperates,” Harvey said.

She said the Blast Off Dinner for the inaugural event drew 120 people, which was the maximum that the former venue could accommodate.

“This year, we have a maximum of 200,” she said.

She said the Mars New Year committee also expects the event itself to be larger, as NASA is planning a bigger presence all three days.

“We’re almost doubling our efforts,” Harvey said.

Those interested in the Mars New Year Blast Off Dinner can buy tickets online at www.marsnewyear.com under the “what’s happening” tab.