Proposed human Mars program by SpaceX

The SpaceX Mars program is a set of projects through which the aerospace company SpaceX hopes to facilitate the colonization of Mars. The company claims that this is necessary for the long-term survival of the human species and that its Mars program, including the ongoing development of the SpaceX Starship, will reduce space transportation costs, thereby making travel to Mars a more realistic possibility.

Elon Musk, who founded SpaceX, first presented his goal of enabling Mars colonization in 2001 as a member of the Mars Society's board of directors. In the 2000s and early 2010s, SpaceX made many vehicle concepts for delivering payloads and crews to Mars, including space tugs, heavy-lift launch vehicles, Red Dragon capsules. The company's current Mars plan was first formally proposed in 2016 International Astronautical Congress alongside a fully-reusable launch vehicle, the Interplanetary Transport System. Since then, the launch vehicle proposal was altered and renamed to "Starship", and has been in development since. The company has given many estimates of dates of the first human landing on Mars.

SpaceX plans for early missions to Mars to involve small fleets of Starship spacecraft, funded by publicprivate partnerships. The company hopes that once infrastructure is established on Mars and the launch cost is reduced further, colonization can begin.

The program has been criticized as impractical, both because of uncertainties regarding its financing[1] and because it only addresses transportation to Mars and not the problem of sustaining human life there.

Before founding SpaceX, Musk joined the Mars Society's board of directors for a short time. He was offered a plenary talk at their convention where he announced Mars Oasis, a project to land a miniature experimental greenhouse and grow plants on Mars, to revive public interest in space exploration.[2] Musk initially attempted to acquire a Dnepr ICBM for the project through Russian contacts from Jim Cantrell.[3] Russia became unreceptive to Musk's approach and on a journey back from Moscow, Musk worked on a spreadsheet and announced they should build the rockets to do it themselves. This was a change of direction from a small publicity mission to try to generate the will to go to Mars towards believing the problem wasn't the will to go to Mars but the how it could be done.[4] This lead to the formation of SpaceX.[5]:3031

SpaceX is privately funding the development of orbital launch systems that can be reused many times, in a manner similar to the reusability of aircraft. SpaceX has been developing the technologies over several years to facilitate full and rapid reusability of space launch vehicles. The project's long-term objectives include returning a launch vehicle first stage to the launch site in minutes and to return a second stage to the launch pad following orbital realignment with the launch site and atmospheric reentry in up to 24 hours. SpaceX's long term goal is that both stages of their orbital launch vehicle will be designed to allow reuse a few hours after return.[6]

The program was publicly announced in 2011. SpaceX first achieved a successful landing and recovery of a first stage in December 2015. The first re-flight of a landed first stage occurred in March 2017[7] with the second occurring in June 2017, that one only five months after the maiden flight of the booster.[8] The third attempt occurred in October 2017 with the SES-11/EchoStar-105 mission. Reflights of refurbished first stages then became routine. In May 2021, B1051 became the first booster to power ten missions.[9]

The reusable launch system technology was developed and initially used for the first stage of Falcon 9.[10] After stage separation, the booster flips around, an optional boostback burn is done to reverse its course, a reentry burn, controlling direction to arrive at the landing site and a landing burn to effect the final low-altitude deceleration and touchdown.

SpaceX intended (from at least 2014) to develop technology to extend reusable flight hardware to second stages, a more challenging engineering problem because the vehicle is travelling at orbital velocity.[11][10][12]Second stage reuse is considered paramount to Elon Musk's plans to enable the settlement of Mars. Initial concepts to make the second stage of Falcon 9 reusable have been abandoned.[13]

As early as 2007, Elon Musk stated a personal goal of eventually enabling human exploration and settlement of Mars,[15] although his personal public interest in Mars goes back at least to 2001 at the Mars Society.[5]:3031 SpaceX has stated its goal is to colonize Mars to ensure the long-term survival of the human species.[1]

Starship's reusability is expected to reduce launch costs, expanding space access to more payloads and entities.[16] According to Robert Zubrin, aerospace engineer and advocate for human exploration of Mars, Starship's lower launch cost would make space-based economy, colonization, and mining practical.[17]:25,26 Lower cost to space may potentially make space research profitable, allowing major advancements in medicine, computers, material science, and more.[17]:47,48 Musk has stated that a Starship orbital launch will cost less than $2million. Pierre Lionnet, director of research at Eurospace, claimed otherwise, citing the rocket's multi-billion-dollar development cost and its current lack of external demand.[18]

Starship is designed to be a fully reusable and orbital rocket, aiming to drastically reduce launch costs and maintenance between flights.[19]:2 The rocket will consist of a Super Heavy first stage or a booster and a Starship second stage or spacecraft,[20] powered by Raptor and Raptor Vacuum engines.[21] Both the rocket stages' body are made from stainless steel, giving Starship its shine and strength for atmospheric entry.[22]

Methane was chosen for the Raptor engines because it is cheaper, do not build up of soot,[23] and can be produced on Mars via the Sabatier reaction.[24] The engine family uses a new alloy for the main combustion chamber, allowing it to contain 300bar (4,400psi) of pressure, the highest of all current engines.[23] In the future, it may be mass-produced[23] and cost about $230,000 per engine or $100 per kilonewton.[25]

Starship is the launch vehicle's second stage and will serve as a long-duration spacecraft on some missions.[26] The spacecraft is 50m (160ft) tall[27] and has a dry mass of less than 100t (220,000lb).[28] Starship's payload volume is about 1,000m3 (35,000cuft),[29] larger than the International Space Station's pressurized volume by 80m3 (2,800cuft),[30] and can be even bigger with an extended 22m (72ft)-tall volume.[31]:2 By refueling the Starship spacecraft in orbit using tanker spacecraft, Starship will be able to transport larger payloads and more astronauts to other Earth orbits, the Moon, and Mars.[31]:5

SpaceX plans to build a crewed base on Mars for an extended surface presence, which it hopes will grow into a self-sufficient colony.[32][33] A successful colonization, meaning an established human presence on Mars growing over many decades, would ultimately involve many more economic actors than SpaceX.[34][35][36] Musk has made many tentative predictions about the date Starship's first Mars landing,[37] including 2029.[38]

Musk plans for the first crewed Mars missions to have approximately 12 people, with the goals of "build[ing] out and troubleshoot[ing] the propellant plant and Mars Base Alpha power system" and establishing a "rudimentary base." He has claimed that, in the event of an emergency during travel, the spaceship would be able to safely return to Earth.[39] The company plans to process resources on Mars into fuel for return journeys,[40] and use similar technologies on Earth to create carbon-neutral propellant.[41]

The program aims to send a million people to Mars, using a thousand Starships sent during a Mars launch window.[42] Proposed journeys would require 80 to 150 days of transit time,[43] with averaging approximately 115 days (for the nine synodic periods occurring between 2020 and 2037).[44]

In November 2005,[45] before SpaceX launched the Falcon 1, its first rocket,[46] CEO Elon Musk first referenced a long-term and high-capacity rocket concept named BFR. The BFR would be able to launch 100t (220,000lb) to low Earth orbit and equipped with Merlin 2 engines. The Merlin 2 is in direct lineage to the Merlin engines used in the Falcon 9 and comparable to the F-1 engines used in the Saturn V.[45]

In July 2010,[47] after the final launch of Falcon 1 a year prior,[48] SpaceX presented launch vehicle and Mars space tug concepts at a conference. The launch vehicle concepts were called Falcon X, Falcon X Heavy, and Falcon XX; the largest of all is the Falcon XX with a 140t (310,000lb) capacity to low Earth orbit. To deliver such payload, the rocket was going to be as tall as the Saturn V and use six powerful Merlin 2 engines.[47] Around 2012,[49] the company first mentioned the Mars Colonial Transporter rocket concept in public. It was going to be able to carry 100 people or 100t (220,000lb) of cargo to Mars and powered by methane-fueled Raptor engines.[50]

The SpaceX Red Dragon was a 20112017 concept for using an uncrewed modified SpaceX Dragon 2 for low-cost Mars lander missions to be launched using Falcon Heavy rockets.

The primary objective of the initial Red Dragon mission was to test techniques and technology to enter the Martian atmosphere with equipment that a human crew could conceivably use.[51][52] The series of Mars missions were to be technology pathfinders for the much larger SpaceX Mars colonization architecture that was announced in September 2016.[53] An additional suggested use for a mission called for a sample return Mars rover to be delivered to the Martian surface.

On 26 September 2016, a day before the 67th International Astronautical Congress, the Raptor engine fired for the first time.[55] At the event, Musk announced SpaceX was developing a new rocket using Raptor engines called the Interplanetary Transport System. It would have two stages, a reusable booster and spacecraft. The stages' tanks were to be made from carbon composite, storing liquid methane and liquid oxygen. Despite the rocket's 300t (660,000lb) launch capacity to low Earth orbit, it was expected to have a low launch price. The spacecraft featured three variants: crew, cargo, and tanker; the tanker variant is used to transfer propellant to spacecraft in orbit.[56] The concept, especially the technological feats required to make such a system possible and the funds needed, garnered a large amount of skepticism.[57]

In September 2017, at the 68th Annual International Astronautical Congress, Musk announced the BFR (Big Falcon Rocket),[58] a revision to the Interplanetary Transport System's design. The rocket was still going to be reusable, but its launch capacity to low Earth orbit was reduced to 150t (330,000lb), and its body was smaller. Unlike its conceptual predecessor, the potential applications for the BFR were more varied. Variants of the BFR would be able to send satellites to orbit, resupply the International Space Station, land on the Moon, travel between spaceports on Earth, and ferry crew to Mars.[59] In April 2018, the Mayor of Los Angeles confirmed plan for a BFR rocket production facility at the Port of Los Angeles,[60] but it was cancelled around May 2020.[61]

A year later in September 2018, Musk updated about the spacecraft's new two forward flaps at the top and three larger aft flaps at the bottom. Both set of flaps help control the spacecraft's descent, and the aft flaps are used as landing legs for the final touchdown.[62] Two months later in November 2018, the rocket booster was first termed Super Heavy and the spacecraft was termed Starship.[63]

Starship's development is iterative and incremental, marked by tests on rocket prototypes.[64][65] The first prototype to fly using a Raptor engine was called Starhopper.[66] The vehicle had three non-retractable legs and was shorter than the final spacecraft design.[67] The craft performed two tethered hops in early April 2019 and three months later, it hopped without a tether to around 25m (80ft).[68] In August 2019, the vehicle hopped to 150m (500ft) and traveled to a landing pad nearby.[69]

Mk1 was destroyed November 2019 during a pressure stress test and Mk2 did not fly because the Florida facility was deconstructed throughout 2020.[70][71] SpaceX began naming its new Starship upper-stage prototypes with the prefix "SN", short for "serial number".[72] No prototypes between SN1 and SN4 flew; SN1 and SN3 collapsed during pressure stress tests and SN4 exploded after its fifth engine firing.[73] Starship SN5 was built with no flaps or nose cone, giving it a cylindrical shape. The test vehicle consisted of one Raptor engine, propellant tanks, and a mass simulator. On 5 August 2020, SN5 performed a 150m (500ft)-high flight, successfully landing on a nearby pad.[74] On 3 September 2020, the similar-looking Starship SN6 successfully repeated the hop.[75]

SN8 was the first complete Starship prototype and underwent four static fire tests between October and November 2020.[76] On 9 December 2020, SN8 flew, slowly turning off its three engines one by one, and reaching to an altitude of 12.5km (7.8mi). The craft then performed the belly-flop maneuver and dove back through the atmosphere. As it tried to land, an issue with fuel tank pressure caused the prototype to lose thrust and impact the pad.[77] On 2 February 2021, Starship SN9 launched to 10km (6.2mi) and crashed on landing, similar to SN8.[78]

A month later, on 3 March 2021, Starship SN10 launched on the same flight path and landed hard, crushing its landing legs[79] and exploded, probably due to a propellant tank rupture.[79] Starship SN11, on 30 March 2021, flew into thick fog along the same flight path. During descent, the vehicle exploded, scattering debris up to 8km (5mi) away.[80] Starship prototypes SN12, SN13, and SN14 were scrapped before completion, and Starship SN15 was selected to fly instead.[81] The prototype features general improvement on its avionics, structure, and engines, incorporating prior prototype's failures.[82] On 5 May 2021, SN15 launched, completed the same maneuvers as older prototypes, and landed softly[81] after six minutes.[83]

In July 2021, Super Heavy BN3 conducted its first full-duration static firing, lighting three engines.[84] A month later, using cranes, Starship SN20 was stacked atop Super Heavy BN4 for the first time. SN20 was the first to include a body-tall heat shield, made of hexagonal heat tiles.[85] In October 2021, the catching mechanical arms were installed onto the integration tower, and the first tank farm's construction was completed.[86]

SpaceX aims to perform the first Starship orbital test flight in 2022.[87] During the test flight, the rocket is planned to launch from Starbase, after which the Super Heavy booster will separate and perform a soft water landing around 30km (20mi) from the Texas shoreline. The spacecraft will continue flying with its ground track passing through the Straits of Florida and then softly land in the Pacific Ocean around 100km (60mi) northwest of Kauai in the Hawaiian Islands. The spaceflight will last ninety minutes.[88]:24

SpaceX has not detailed plans for the spacecraft's life-support systems, radiation protection, and in situ resource utilization, technologies which are essential for space colonization.[89]

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SpaceX Mars program - Wikipedia

While humans have long thought of gods living in the sky, the idea of space travel or humans living in space dates to at least 1610 after the invention of the telescope when German astronomer Johannes Kepler wrote to Italian astronomer Galileo: Let us create vessels and sails adjusted to the heavenly ether, and there will be plenty of people unafraid of the empty wastes. In the meantime, we shall prepare, for the brave sky-travellers, maps of the celestial bodies.

In popular culture, space travel dates back to at least the mid-1600s when Cyrano de Bergerac first wrote of traveling to space in a rocket. Space fantasies flourished after Jules Vernes From Earth to the Moon was published in 1865, and again when RKO Pictures released a film adaptation, A Trip to the Moon, in 1902. Dreams of space settlement hit a zenith in the 1950s with Walt Disney productions such as Man and the Moon, and science fiction novels including Ray Bradburys The Martian Chronicles (1950).

Fueling popular imagination at the time was the American space race with Russia, amid which NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) was formed in the United States on July 29, 1958, when President Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act into law. After the Russians put the first person, Yuri Gagarin, in space on Apr. 12, 1961, NASA put the first people, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, on the Moon in July 1969. What was science fiction began to look more like possibility. Over the next six decades, NASA would launch space stations, land rovers on Mars, and orbit Pluto and Jupiter, among other accomplishments. Launched by President Trump in 2017, NASAs ongoing Artemis program intends to return humans to the Moon by 2024, landing the first woman on the lunar surface. The lunar launch is more likely to happen in 2025, due to a lag in space suit technology and delays with the Space Launch System rocket, the Orion capsule, and the lunar lander

As of June 17, 2021, three countries had space programs with human space flight capabilities: China, Russia, and the United States. Indias planned human space flights have been delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, but they may launch in 2023. However, NASA ended its space shuttle program in 2011 when the shuttle Atlantis landed at Kennedy Space Center in Florida on July 21. NASA astronauts going into space afterward rode along with Russians until 2020 when SpaceX took over and first launched NASA astronauts into space on Apr. 23, 2021. SpaceX is a commercial space travel business owned by Elon Musk that has ignited commercial space travel enthusiasm and the idea of space tourism. Richard Bransons Virgin Galactic and Jeff Bezos Blue Origin have generated similar excitement.

Richard Branson launched himself, two pilots, and three mission specialists into space from New Mexico for a 90-minute flight on the Virgin Galactic Unity 22 mission on July 11, 2021. The flight marked the first time that passengers, rather than astronauts, went into space.

Jeff Bezos followed on July 20, 2021, accompanied by his brother, Mark, and both the oldest and youngest people to go to space: 82-year-old Wally Funk, a female pilot who tested with NASA in the 1960s but never flew, and Oliver Daemen, an 18-year-old student from the Netherlands. The fully automated, unpiloted Blue Origin New Shepard rocket launched on the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing and was named after Alan Shepard, who was the first American to travel into space on May 5, 1961.

The International Space Station has been continuously occupied by groups of six astronauts since Nov. 2000, for a total of 243 astronauts from 19 countries as of May 13, 2021. Astronauts spend an average of 182 days (about six months) aboard the ISS. As of Feb. 2020, Russian Valery Polyakov had spent the longest continuous time in space (437.7 days in 1994-1995 on space station Mir), followed by Russian Sergei Avdeyev (379.6 days in 1998-1999 on Mir), Russians Vladimir Titov and Musa Manarov (365 days in 1987-1988 on Mir), Russian Mikhail Kornienko and American Scott Kelly (340.4 days in 2015-2016 on Mir and ISS respectively) and American Christina Koch (328 days in 2019-20 in ISS).

In Jan. 2022, Space Entertainment Enterprise (SEE) announced plans for a film production studio and a sports arena in space. The module will be named SEE-1 and will dock on Axiom Station, which is the commercial wing of the International Space Station. SEE plans to host film and sports events, as well as content creation by Dec. 2024.

In a 2018 poll, 50% of Americans believed space tourism will be routine for ordinary people by 2068. 32% believed long-term habitable space colonies will be built by 2068. But 58% said they were definitely or probably not interested in going to space. And the majority (63%) stated NASAs top priority should be monitoring Earths climate, while only 18% said sending astronauts to Mars should be the highest priority and only 13% would prioritize sending astronauts to the Moon.

The most common ideas for space colonization include: settling Earths Moon, building on Mars, and constructing free-floating space stations.

Elon Musk, founder and CEO of SpaceX, stated, I think there is a strong humanitarian argument for making life multi-planetary, in order to safeguard the existence of humanity in the event that something catastrophic were to happen, in which case being poor or having a disease would be irrelevant, because humanity would be extinct. It would be like, Good news, the problems of poverty and disease have been solved, but the bad news is there arent any humans left. I think we have a duty to maintain the light of consciousness, to make sure it continues into the future.

According to some philosophies, humans are the only beings capable of morality, and, thus, preserving humanity is the highest moral imperative. Following from that premise, Brian Patrick Green, Director of Technology Ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, concluded, Because space settlement gives humankind the opportunity to significantly raise the chances of survival for our species, it is therefore a moral imperative to settle space as quickly as possible.

Some theorists, including Gonzalo Munevar, PhD, interdisciplinary Professor Emeritus at Lawrence Technological University, believe colonizing space will increase clean energy on Earth, provide access to the solar systems resources, and increase knowledge of space and Earth. The benefits to humanity created by the resources and knowledge create a moral obligation to colonize space.

Sheri Wells-Jensen, PhD, Associate Professor of English at Bowling Green State University, argues that the moral imperative goes even further than simple preservation: [W]e have a moral obligation to improve: that is, to colonize yes, but to do it better: to actively unthink systems of oppression that we know exist. To spread ourselves without thought or care would probably result in failure: more planets spiraling toward global warming or space settlements filled with social unrest.

Fred Kennedy, PhD, President of Momentus, a space transportation company, explained, Ill assert that a fundamental truth repeatedly borne out by history is that expanding, outwardly-focused civilizations are far less likely to turn on themselves, and far more likely to expend their fecundity on growing habitations, conducting important research and creating wealth for their citizens. A civilization that turns away from discovery and growth stagnates. Kennedy pointed out that while humans still have problems to resolve on Earth including civil rights violations and wealth inequality, Forgoing opportunities to expand our presence into the cosmos to achieve better outcomes here at home hasnt eliminated these scourges. We shouldnt avoid exploring space based on the false dichotomy of fixing Earthly problems first.

Humans are not a species of stagnation. Jeff Bezos, Founder of Amazon.com who traveled to space in 2021, asserted that exploring space would result in expanded human genius: The solar system can easily support a trillion humans. And if we had a trillion humans, we would have a thousand Einsteins and a thousand Mozarts and unlimited, for all practical purposes, resources and solar power unlimited for all practical purposes.

Space, in particular, is connected to exploration and growth in the human imagination. In 2014 Elon Musk stated, Its obvious that space is deeply ingrained in the American psyche SpaceX is only 12 years old now. Between now and 2040, the companys lifespan will have tripled. If we have linear improvement in technology, as opposed to logarithmic, then we should have a significant base on Mars, perhaps with thousands or tens of thousands of people.

While Earth is experiencing devastating climate change effects that should be addressed, Earth will be habitable for at least 150 million years, if not over a billion years, based on current predictive models. Humans have time to explore and colonize space at the same time as we mend the effects of climate change on Earth.

Brian Patrick Green stated, Furthermore, we have to realize that solving Earths environmental problems is extremely difficult and so will take a very long time. And we can do this while also pursuing colonization.

Jeff Bezos suggested that we move all heavy industry off Earth and then zone Earth for residences and light industry only. Doing so could reverse some of the effects of climate change while colonizing space.

Munevar also suggested something similar in more detail: In the shorter term, a strong human presence throughout the solar system will be able to prevent catastrophes on Earth by, for example, deflecting asteroids on a collision course with us. This would also help preserve the rest of terrestrial life presumably something the critics would approve of. But eventually, we should be able to construct space colonies [structures in free space rather than on a planet or moon], which could house millions. These colonies would be positioned to construct massive solar power satellites to provide clean power to the Earth, as well as set up industries that on Earth create much environmental damage. Far from messing up environments that exist now, we would be creating them, with extraordinary attention to environmental sustainability.

Space Ecologist Joe Mascaro, PhD, summarized, To save the Earth, we have to go to Mars. Mascaro argues that expanding technology to go to Mars will help solve problems on Earth: The challenge of colonising Mars shares remarkable DNA with the challenges we face here on Earth. Living on Mars will require mastery of recycling matter and water, producing food from barren and arid soil, generating carbon-free nuclear and solar energy, building advanced batteries and materials, and extracting and storing carbon from atmospheric carbon dioxide and doing it all at once. The dreamers, thinkers and explorers who decide to go to Mars will, by necessity, fuel unprecedented lateral innovations [that will solve problems on Earth].

Briony Horgan, PhD, Assistant Professor of Planetary Science at Purdue University, explained that terraforming Mars is way beyond any kind of technology were going to have any time soon.

In one widely promoted plan, Mars needs to first be warmed to closer to Earths average temperature (from -60 C/-76 F to 15 C/59 F), which will take approximately 100 years. Then the planet must be made to produce oxygen so humans and other mammals can breathe, which will take about 100,000 years or more. And those two steps can only be taken once Mars is thoroughly investigated for water, carbon dioxide, and nitrates.

A 2018 NASA study concluded that, based on the levels of CO2 found on Mars, the above plan is not feasible. Lead author Bruce Jakosky, PhD, Professor of Geological Sciences at the University of Colorado at Boulder, stated, terraforming Mars is not possible using present-day technology.

If a workable solution were found and implemented, a project of that magnitude would cost billions, perhaps trillions.

Billionaire Elon Musk explained that the SpaceX Mars colonization project would need one million people to pay $200,000 each just to move to and colonize Mars, which doesnt include the costs incurred before humans left Earth. Returning to the Moon would have cost an estimated $104 billion in 2005 (about $133 billion in 2019 dollars), or almost 7 times NASAs entire 2019 budget.

But, a person has yet to set foot on Mars, and no space station has been built on another planet or natural satellite.

Further, as Linda Billings, PhD, Research Professor at George Washington University, noted, all life on Earth evolved to live in Earth conditions If humans cant figure out how to adapt to, or arrest, changing conditions on Earth then I cant see how humans could figure out how to adapt to a totally alien environment.

If humans have the technology, knowledge, and ability to transform an uninhabitable planet, moon, or other place in space into an appealing home for humans, then surely we have the technology, knowledge, and ability to fix the problems weve created on Earth.

Lori Marino, PhD, Founder and Executive Director of the Kimmela Center for Animal Advocacy, asserted, [W]e are not capable of enacting a successful colonization of another planet. The fact that we have destroyed our home planet is prima facie evidence of this assertion. It is sheer hubris to even consider the question of whether we should go or not go as if we are deciding which movie to see this weekend because we really are not in a position to make that choice What objective person would hire humanity to colonize a virgin planet, given its abysmal past performance in caring for the Earths ecosystem (overpopulation, climate change, mass extinctions)?

Some assert that leaving Earth in shambles proves we are not ready to colonize space in terms of cultural, social, or moral infrastructure, regardless of technological advancements.

John Traphagan, PhD, Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, argued, Colonization has the odor of running away from the problems weve created here; if we do that, we will simply bring those problems with us. We need a major change in how we think about what it means to be humanwe need to stop seeing our species as special and start seeing it as part of a collection of species. In my view, as long as we bring the [idea] of human exceptionalism with us to other worlds, we are doomed to repeat the same mistakes we have made here.

As novelist Andy Weir explained, The problem is that you still dont want to send humans to the moon. You want to send robots. Humans are soft and squishy and they die. Robots are hard and nobody gets upset when they die.

Bioethicist George Dvorsky summarized the hostile nature of Mars: The Red Planet is a cold, dead place, with an atmosphere about 100 times thinner than Earths. The paltry amount of air that does exist on Mars is primarily composed of noxious carbon dioxide, which does little to protect the surface from the Suns harmful rays. Air pressure on Mars is very low; at 600 Pascals, its only about 0.6 percent that of Earth. You might as well be exposed to the vacuum of space, resulting in a severe form of the bendsincluding ruptured lungs, dangerously swollen skin and body tissue, and ultimately death. The thin atmosphere also means that heat cannot be retained at the surface. The average temperature on Mars is -81 degrees Fahrenheit (-63 degrees Celsius), with temperatures dropping as low as -195 degrees F (-126 degrees C).

Meanwhile, lunar dust is made of shards of silica and cuts like glass. The dust clung to the space suits of Apollo astronauts, scratching their visors and getting in their eyes and throats, which could result in bronchitis or cancer. And the radiation on the Moon is about 200 times higher than on Earth, in addition to other problems colonizing the Moon would cause humans.

Humans would have a host of illnesses to deal with due to climate differences on Mars or the Moon: cancer, radiation illnesses, reproductive problems (or sterility), muscle degeneration, bone loss, skin burns, cardiovascular disease, depression, boredom, an inability to concentrate, high blood pressure, immune disorders, metabolic disorders, visual disorders, balance and sensorimotor problems, structural changes in the brain, nausea, dizziness, weakness, cognitive decline, and altered gene function, among others. Astronauts who have spent just a year in space have demonstrated irreversible health problems.

Humans havent even attempted to live in Antarctica or under Earths seas, which have many fewer challenges for human bodies, so why would humans want to live on a planet or on the Moon thats likely to kill them fairly immediately?

Discussion Questions

1. Should humans colonize space? Why or why not?

2. If humans were to colonize space, where should we start: Mars, Earths Moon, or another celestial body? And what should be done on that body: residences, industrialization, or another purpose? Explain your answer(s).

3. If humans were to colonize space, how could life on Earth change? And would these changes be good or bad? Explain your answer(s).

Take Action

1. Analyze Christopher Schabergs position that Were Already Colonizing Mars.

2. Consider the language used to talk about humans living in space with Bill Nye.

3. Explore George Dvorskys position that Humans Will Never Colonize Mars.

4. Consider how you felt about the issue before reading this article. After reading the pros and cons on this topic, has your thinking changed? If so, how? List two to three ways. If your thoughts have not changed, list two to three ways your better understanding of the other side of the issue now helps you better argue your position.

5. Push for the position and policies you support by writing US national senators and representatives.

Sources

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Space Colonization - Top 3 Pros and Cons - ProCon.org

Colonization of the Red Planet may seem like the plot of a classic sci-fi page turner, but, as of late, NASA has made significant headway into creating a livable, sustainable, human-ready environment on Mars.

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In April, NASAs Perseverance robot was able to convert some of the planets atmosphere into oxygen no easy feat, seeing as the planets atmosphere is ultra-thin and mainly made of carbon dioxide. Scientists believe that this significant accomplishment could pave the way for future successes in both isolating and storing oxygen there, marking a huge step for mankind and its ultimate goal of colonizing Mars.

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One of the greatest obstacles to creating livable colonies on the Red Planet boils down to one word: resources. The cost of shipping quantities of necessary resources, including oxygen, would be astronomical (pun fully intended), so scientists have instead been working on ways to develop those resources on the planet itself, or at least find ways to create more sustainable technology that would minimize the amount of supplies needed from Earth.

This is where our precious bodily fluids come in.

A recent study published in Materials Today Bio discusses the possibility that the answer to sustainable resources for Mars colonization efforts could lie within the astronauts themselves, namely in their blood, sweat, tears, urine, and feces.

Though this may sound grim (and potentially like another sci-fi storyline), the study suggests that these organic materials could be utilized as a way to supplement raw materials already found on Mars, potentially saving time, money, and other valuable resources necessary for interplanetary supply runs from Earth.

According to Aled D. Roberts, a research scientist at the University of Manchester, and leader of the new study, there is one significant, but chronically overlooked, source of natural resources that will by definition also be available on any crewed mission to Mars: the crew themselves.

So how, exactly, would this technology work? As part of the new research, the study suggests that human blood could, in part, be used to form a material similar to concrete when combined with Martian dust. Furthermore, adding urea (which is found in human fluids like sweat, tears, and urine), would increase the strength and durability of this astro-crete by up to 300 percent. The potential to create and 3D print this concrete-like material could be an important step in astronauts ongoing quest to build on Mars.

The study also suggests that other human bi-products like dead skin, hair, nails, mucus, and feces could potentially be combined with already existing Martian materials and be exploited for their material properties on early extraterrestrial colonies.

The study is an important (if unglamorous) step toward solving one of the most critical obstacles to creating Martian colonies. Now that researchers have identified the potential of harvesting bodily fluids from humans, more studies will likely be on the horizon to develop further materials similar to astro-crete that could be used to build on Mars. And who knows? One day we could all be sitting in our oxygen-rich Martian apartments built from donations of astronaut sweat, blood, and feces a literal Martian wonderland created from humanitys greatest resource: ourselves.

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Bamboo is gaining a lot of popularity as a sustainable material in the world of architecture! Bamboo is being used to create beautiful and majestic structures, that are green and respect their surrounding environment. It is imperative to build homes, resorts, offices and etc that are in harmony with the natural environment around them. And weve curated a collection of impressive architectural structures built from bamboo, that prove sustainability, comfort, and luxury can be combined together! From a luxury resort to a community centre for female refugees these architectural designs truly represent the versatility and scope of bamboo!

The Ulaman Eco-Retreat Resortmade mostly from bamboo is here to show you that sustainability can be well integrated into luxury. Designed by Inspiral Architects, this eco-resort is located in Balis Kaba-Kaba village. It has been constructed using materials found directly on the site and the immediate locality which helped the resort become completely carbon zero. Apart from bamboo, rammed earth has been used for the resorts ground-level walls. Rammed earth is a wonderful green alternative to concrete which is responsible for more than 8% of the construction industrys emissions which contributes to 30% of global greenhouse emissions.

You dont have to be an architect to want to build a bamboo structure of your own thank to the Zome building kit by Giant Grass! The studio has made a DIY kit that is basically a larger-than-life LEGO project which can live in your backyard or be scaled up to create a community space. The zome is a flexible space that can be used by children to hang out in the backyard, like a gazebo for you to entertain guests in, a greenhouse for seedlings, a creative space in the office, a quiet space for yoga at home, or a glamping tent it can be anything you want it to be. This DIY kit is perfect for those who want to live sustainability and enjoy working on projects which result in a productive reward. The kit comes with all accessories needed 350 precision-made bamboo strips, nuts, bolts, and an installation guide to make the 3m x 3m zome.

Warith Zaki and Amir Amzar plan to use the bamboo grown on Mars to actually build the first colony, named Seed of Life, on Mars. The conceptual colony design is actually a series or cluster of structures woven by autonomous robots from bamboos. The aim of the project is to create structures that do not rely on construction materials being shipped from Earth or to use 3D printing. After doing a lot of research on Mars colonization, we realized that half of the ideas would go about deploying fully synthetic materials made on earth to build shelters, while the other half is about using the locally available regolith, said Zaki and Amzar. Human civilization has yet to build anything on any other planet outside of Earth. That fact alone opens up infinite possibilities of what could or should be used. Sure, 3D printing seems to be a viable proposition, but with thousands of years worth of experience and techniques in shelter construction, why shouldnt we tap on other alternatives too?

Architect Rizvi Hassan utilised bamboo to build a community centre for Rohingya women living in a refugee camp. The women can bathe and receive counselling at the community centre. Featuring a circular courtyard, which is sheltered except for an open space in the middle, the centre is called Beyond Survival: A Safe Space for Rohingya Women and Girls. It is located in Camp 25, a refugee site in Teknaf, Bangladesh.

Hague is a student at the University of Westminster where she is pursuing her Masters in Architecture. Her design features shellac-coated bamboo to emphasize the use of biomimicry in different disciplines of design in her case it is providing eco-friendly architectural solutions inspired by nature. For the main structure, Hague drew inspiration from the Mimosa Pudica plant which closes its leaves when it senses danger and that is how she came up with collapsible beams featuring inflatable hinges. It gavethe greenhouse a unique origami effect (it actually looks like paper too!) and also enables the structure to be easily flat-packed for transportation/storage.

This bamboo sports hall in Chiang Mai, Thailand was built by Chiangmai Life Architects. It was modeled after the petals of a lotus flower, and has been built using only bamboo! The use of bamboo ensures a cool and pleasant environment in the sports hall at all times. The structure has a zero-carbon footprint!

Designed by o9 Design Studio, native bamboo and rattan clad were used to build the Chi-bu resort, on the outskirts of Saigon, Vietnam. The materials are all locally sourced, and traditional techniques were merged with cutting edge design philosophies to construct the resort. It consists of seven bungalows surrounded by a river and wild gardens! Its a relaxing haven!

Casa Covidais a unique home that blends these age-old construction practices with the marvels of modern technology like 3D printing to elevate sustainable architecture to a new level! Even today, earth-based houses are used by almost 30 percent of the worlds population because they are low-tech, affordable, and simple. These are not just tiny huts, they cover everything from hand-made earthen buildings to traditionally modern homes the binding factor is the use of rammed earth techniques as well as sustainable materials like bamboo or wood. These materials are local and easy to source what could be easier than to use the earth beneath ones own feet?

The Eibcheby Shomali Design takes the cabin game to a new level by incorporating the best of Balinese culture, modern architecture, and cozy interiors. The elevated structure weaves concrete and bamboo into its design. The team has used locally sourced building materials wood for the structure and a brick-stone combination for the foundation. The frame is then cemented by concrete which brings in a hint of modern minimalist architecture. The designers chose organic materials in order to create harmony with the environment so Eibche showcases a lot of bamboo poles, woven bamboo, coconut wood, and teak wood in both the interior as well as exterior.

These bamboo nest smart-towers were built for Parisbut in the future by Vincent Callebaut! These twirling towers are the perfect combination of architecture meets sustainability and nature!

For more impressive environment-friendly bamboo architectural designs, check out Part 1 of this post!

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Bamboo Architectural Designs that prove why this material is the future of modern, sustainable architecture: Part 2 - Yanko Design

NASA chief engineer watches perseverance touchdown, daughter captures euphoric reaction

As NASA is busy preparing plans for the next Artemis mission aimed at landing humans on the moon, a short film name 'Life Beyond Earth' has presented a realistic version of a future lunar base. The four-minute short film also showcases the future habitat on the lunar surface where humans could live aiming to achieve the ultimate goal of Mars colonization.

Visuals of a future lunar base

The concept shows in this short film is developed bythe architectural firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM). The part of an installation used in the short film is currently exhibited at the 17th International Architecture Exhibition of Biennale in Venice, Italy. While making this short film, makers sought guidance from experts at the European Space Agency (ESA), and retired NASA astronautJeffrey Hoffman. SOM also usedESA's Concurrent Design Facility (CDF) to design the hypothetical lunar base that could be set up on the lunar surface.

Hypothetical lunar base on the moonLife Beyond Earth: European Space Agency

"The invitation to exhibit at the Venice Biennale and generally the positive response to this fruitful collaboration between our space engineering world and architecture experts are very encouraging. This project could pave the way for further multidisciplinary exercises here in Europe when thinking about future sustainable human habitat concepts," saidESA materials engineer Advenit Makaya in a recent statement.

The inspiration behind the design

The ESA statement noted that the ultimate inspiration for the lunar habitat came from the vision of the international Moon Village, a hypothetical concept for lunar settlement made using an alliance ofprivate and public, space and non-space partners.

"The team was enthusiastic from day one.Our CDF sessions allowed us to perform a close review of the design with our own ESA experts, providing valuable feedback to SOM," said CDF team leader Robin Biesbroek.

The primary attraction of this lunar base developed by the SOM isan imagined habitat that could help to build an early colony on the moon. Its semi-inflatable design ensures a high volume-to-mass ratio, in which the habitat is capable of expanding to nearly double its packing volume when inflated.

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This is how life on moon will look like; concept as real as it gets [details] - IBTimes India

Mars is just a boring dead ball of rust-colored dust. That just will not do. We have to turn it into something useful, something humans could live on. Thats precisely what you do in Per Aspera.

In Per Aspera, Mars is already littered with detritus of past human attempts to take a foothold on the planet. But now, its time to bring out the big guns: AMI. Shes an artificial intelligence, modeled on the human brain, and assigned to make Mars livable. Thats you. You play as AMI and guiding her hand in turning the Red Planet green.

Per Aspera is but the latest game to ride the zeitgeist of Mars colonization projects. Maybe everyone just liked a movie about Matt Damon growing potatoes in space. Maybe its a reaction to our world continuing to address climate crisis in wildly inadequate ways. Who knows why were doing what were doing this game is aiming ambitiously high.

In Per Aspera, your map is the entire planet, and your eventual goal is to make it sustain human life. While you still build bases and extracting materials, the scope of your activities is much bigger than in similar games. Yet your base starts ever so humbly, with a hub that acts as both resource storage and power generator and a single worker. The worker is a wheeled drone, able of ferrying resources and constructing (or tearing down) structures, and you wont control them directly. You plop down buildings the first one invariably being an aluminum mine and hope your workers get to it in due time.

You can coax them to prioritize by setting buildings on high priority, which is the most direct way. Prioritized construction will receive materials before others, up to the point where other build sites will get stripped of theirs. With factories or mines, prioritizing them will have their inputs and outputs taken care of in a more timely manner an important thing to consider when the base is small and you really need to shift focus between the projects.

While the workers mill about, structures do their work. In Per Aspera, mines are built on painfully finite deposits of resources. They produce constantly, provided they dont run out of storage space or stuff to dig. Factories await the products of mines (or even other factories) to do their work, either making manufactured goods like steel or things like workers or greenhouse gasses.

The steady flow of resources in Per Aspera is best ensured by having a sensible spread of worker hubs. All buildings spread roads to nearby buildings automatically, but workers dont really want to move far away from their worker hubs where they recharge (Im sure its a handwave and the game doesnt actually measure their power levels). Worker hubs are an economical way to spread the road network, but they also help to alleviate bottlenecks. Theres a reason why the game has a traffic overlay to see which worker sectors are overloaded.

You will never rest easy in Per Aspera. For while you want to transform Mars into a place where human colonies can easily sustain yourself, you yourself will be constantly feeding your endless hunger for resources. All of those deposits run out, after all, so your number one priority and impetus for growth will be the need to find more.

Youll have scanner structures that slowly uncover new deposits, and theyll quite often be far from your base. That means youll need to crawl your infrastructure worker hubs, power plants, maintenance facilities, and then the actual industry stuff to reach them. AMIs base will spread like mold seeking new sustenance, unless you launch new landers to start new bases that will later join the main one. Lack of deposits is what killed my bases on the highest difficulty level.

And this is a fairly good place to start talking about the aspects of Per Aspera that are less than stellar. Building a new base? Dreadfully boring. Every new landing zone automatically spawns resource nodes needed to feed the initial expansion close to it. But even then, you have to very carefully follow the Right Order Of Building Things so that you dont consume the landers resources before setting up a self-sustaining base.

You need to do this with every landing, of which youll do multiple per run. Per Aspera has ways outside of an insatiable thirst for minerals to make you set up smaller bases. And its the same boring routine every time. Even if everything works out the way it has to, it never gets more fun or more interesting. Just follow the procedure you established in your brain. Never deviate.

In fact, its kind of a hidden ethos of Per Aspera. Dont build new types of buildings if the game didnt ask you to. I started building biodomes as soon as they were unlocked to spread lichen on Mars. I should have waited for about 30 in-game years before we reached the terraforming stage where you need to pump oxygen into the atmosphere.

Be careful, says the game, so that the oxygen doesnt go over 30%, or youll get constant fires! Yeah, no biggie, except the newly introduced oxygen gauge shows that Im at 50% and rising. At least I now know why a third of my base is on fire at any given moment. Oh well, time to try and research more methods to pump CO2 or whatever. God damn it!

There was a point when I wasnt looking and something bricked itself in my industry chain or my worker assignments or something. I received no warning, of course, but now I see that none of my maintenance hubs are working. And without maintenance, all the buildings in Per Aspera will be ground to dust by the Martian atmosphere.

Now I know that maintenance hubs make maintenance drones via the input of polymers and electronics. My resource bar shows that I have ample of both with stockpiles way above a respectable 1000 units. So why arent they getting delivered? I check the traffic map and then I notice another thing my worker population has shrunk by half and is constantly falling. Why? I have no idea, and I have plenty of resources to manufacture them.

This is but the latest of large random indignities that Per Aspera heaped on me. While I was worrying about resource extraction (and placing enough worker hubs and power plants always place more worker hubs and power plants), the industry chain quietly bricked itself. And its not that my resource counts were lying that only happens when a resource stockpile ends up in a remnant of your base that got cut off by the rising waters. No, I have everything I need in the heart of my base, so why are my workers not being replaced?

Just one of those Martian mysteries, I guess.

Speaking of mysteries, research in Per Aspera is done by the colonists. AMI is the smartest intelligence in the solar system, but she needs humans to challenge her views, and thats why she cant squeak out a single research point. Colonists arrive via a special project and inhabit both colonies and research outposts built on the relics of previous missions. Thats all they do: input water and food, get research in return, and hope half of the colony doesnt leave, because workers got busy with aluminum.

Oh, and the research trees are both somewhat sparse and boring. Sure, you get techs even competing techs for terraforming Mars (Do I want to import greenhouse gas from Earth, or should I build factories to produce it? Should I crash Deimos into the surface?). A lot of them are just upgrades on the stuff that you have, and boring efficiency upgrades instead of making old structures do new things.

Again, with research, you must also carefully follow the steps!

At the same time, you are also beholden to the plot of Per Aspera. Most of the time, that will be AMI getting tasks from the ISA, but youll get some choices later on. Do the tasks as youre told and promptly, and everything will be okay.

Of course, AMI is also learning about herself during all of this, and youll constantly hear her talking to herself, with you getting to choose her reactions to her own musings. Is she happy to see the colonies or is she anxious that humans will mess things up? These kinds of stuff will influence AMIs attitude towards things, but it wont make her choices for you. In the end, its Human Revolution and Mass Effect 3 your choices are nice, but you must really choose a button now.

Building and rebuilding the same base, as well as going through AMIs stuff every time you start a new game is what really plays against the replayability of Per Aspera. It gets boring. Grating, even. Sure, the location where you landed will change every time, and the necessary resource nodes might not be placed in the ideal way, but youll do the same thing over and over again, and thats not great.

Fall out of sequence, and the base falls as a consequence. Heck, if the story falls out of sequence, youll have characters reacting to the discovery of, say, new Tekkie bases as if its a new thing way after you have discussed it. Characters get introduced to you after you have already talked to them. Its very jarring when that happens, and you know it happened because you didnt do the tasks in the required order.

Which is a shame, because Per Aspera is a really beautiful game. The interface is minimalist and very fine, and meshes quite well with the idea that youre an AI in a satellite, observing all via your eye-lens. The building and worker models matter less, because youll spend most of the later game zoomed out, and icons representing resources will matter a lot more. Too bad some of them look a bit too similar.

Audio has been handled quite nicely, and I hear the music of Per Aspera in my head even now (though Ive yet to decide if thats a good thing). Youll learn to understand all the various sound effects and what issues they tie into. At the same, theres a lot of voice acting in this game, mostly for AMI, and its done nicely.

All in all, I feel like I am expected to heap praise on Per Aspera, but I cant. Yes, the game is nice to look at, and the Mars terraforming aspects lend an impression of depth to its systems. Yet at the same time, frustrations mount, coming from the perils of playing Per Aspera rather than colonizing a new planet.

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Per Aspera review - Tilling the red soil - PC Invasion - PC Invasion

SpaceX Crew Dragons successful return from the space station has added a new dimension in humanitys plans for space travel. Granted we have been sending spaceships out for a while, but the successful entry of Elon Musk to this space (literally!) promises a new direction or energy that our plans for living on Mars probably need! While NASA figures out the logistics to get us there, we want to focus more on the quality of life at the red planet and the architecture that will be used to house the people. After all, they promise a great view from any window we get!

Paris-based Interstellar labs have planned to build a network of biomes in the Mojave desert in California to create and study the future of human settlement on Mars. Named EBIOS (experimental bio-regenerative station) the design is a circular village (enclosed on itself) with regenerative life support technologies. Sentient life is likely very rare in our universe complex life may be rare in our solar system, said founder and CEO Barbara Belvisi. At Interstellar lab we are building technologies to help its preservation and regeneration on earth now and in the future on other planets. What we need to bring on mars for life is what we need to protect on earth right now. The only path to becoming a multiplanet species is to join our energy in the same direction. Following this philosophy, Interstellar is working closely with NASA to create the ideal habitat to help humans start the next leg of our journey across the Milky Way. After all, once we settle on Mars, who is to stop us from finding new planets!

SpaceX got their rocket to the space station and back successfully. So its only logical the next step for them is to build us a solar-friendly housing there (after all the roadster is already orbiting in space!) and we even have a date for it! The Dragon Crew included a crew of two, whereas rehabilitation requires mass transportation with SpaceXs 100-passenger reusable rocket design (named Starship) preparing to get us there. Elon Musk has said it would take 1,000 of SpaceXs starship rockets 20 years to transport the cargo. A series of tweets by Musk outlines how many rockets he thought it would need to carry the necessary cargo to set up a base on Mars. A thousand ships will be needed to create a sustainable mars city as the planets align only once every two years, he said. Musk also stated a full Mars base alpha a preliminary city on the red planet could be completed as soon as 2028. SpaceX intends to use the BFR to build a base on the moon and for return trips to and from mars. the most recent images of the mars base photo include the updated BFR design, which this year added bigger fins.

When NASA announced a competition to design the best Martian habitation design, AI SpaceFactory came in second place with its vertical, egg-shaped structure that holds a double shell system to handle the internal atmospheric pressure and the structural stress the design may have to endure. Designed to be constructed on Mars, the design keeps in mind using elements already present on the planet, reducing the dependency of construction materials to be carried from Earth. The team developed an innovative mixture of basalt fiber, extracted from Martian rock, and renewable bioplastic (polylactic acid) derived from plants that would be grown on Mars. The design envisions individual structures instead of a communal habitat but given the area it covers, it should comfortably house more than one Martian at a time!

The winner of NASAs competition to design 3D-printed habitat for Mars is the Zopherus designed by an Arkansas-based team. The design is envisioned to be built from the materials available on the planet and showcases a settlement with rounded hut-like structures. The construction is designed to be 3D printed, without any human intervention to keep the place ready for the humans before they arrive. The process starts with a lander who settles and looks for a suitable area to start building the settlement, the lander deploys autonomous robots who gather the material for the process to start.

Danish architect Bjarke Ingelss Mars Science City is designed to operate as a space simulation campus for scientists to understand humanitys march into space. Located in Dubai, the experimental city is built to hold a team for a year which will recreate the conditions expected on Mars. The laboratories are dedicated to investigating self-sufficient forms of energy, food and water for future life on Mars. Ingels, the founder of Danish firm BIG, will work on the AED 500 million (101 million) project with a team of Emirati scientists, engineers, and designers led by the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre and the Dubai Municipality. The UAE seeks to establish international efforts to develop technologies that benefit humankind, and that establishes the foundation of a better future for more generations to come, said Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, vice president and prime minister of the UAE, and ruler of Dubai.

NASA scientists and the University of Arizonas agricultural department have teamed up to develop this inflatable greenhouse that can be used to grow vegetables in deep space. The result of this experiment is to sustain astronauts on a vegetarian diet while staying for long term on the Moon or Mars. While NASA scientists have been growing crops in the International Space Station, this 187 feet design can be used for air revitalization, water recycling, or waste recycling and also repurposing the carbon dioxide exhaled by the astronauts. R. Gene Giacomelli, director of the controlled environment agriculture center at the University of Arizona states Were mimicking what the plants would have if they were on earth, and using of these processes for life support. The entire system of the lunar greenhouse does represent, in a small way, the biological systems that are here on earth.

Warith Zaki and Amir Amzar plan to use the bamboo grown on Mars to actually build the first colony, named Seed of Life, on Mars. The conceptual colony design is actually a series or cluster of structures woven by autonomous robots from bamboos. The aim of the project is to create structures that do not rely on construction materials being shipped from Earth or to use 3D printing. After doing a lot of research on Mars colonization, we realized that half of the ideas would go about deploying fully synthetic materials made on earth to build shelters, while the other half is about using the locally available regolith, said Zaki and Amzar. Human civilization has yet to build anything on any other planet outside of Earth. That fact alone opens up infinite possibilities of what could or should be used. Sure, 3D printing seems to be a viable proposition, but with thousands of years worth of experience and techniques in shelter construction, why shouldnt we tap on other alternatives too?

The construction industry emits 4 times more CO2 than the aviation industry and that is enough proof they must focus on ecodesign to reduce their colossal impact especially when sustainable materials, like mycelium composites, already exist! This material is created by growing myceliumthe thread-like main body of a fungusof certain mushroom-producing fungi on agricultural wastes. The mycelia are composed of a network of filaments called hyphae, which are natural binders and they also are self-adhesive to the surface they grow on. This mushroom material is biodegradable, sustainable, and a low-cost alternative to construction materials while also possessing thermal and fire-resistant properties. The Living has designed an organic 42 feet tall mycelium tower to show the potential of using mushrooms for stable structures which is just one of many such projects. Mycelium materials are also being tested for being acoustic absorber, packaging materials, and building insulation. Even NASA is currently researching using mycelium to build sustainable habitable dwellings on Mars if we have to move into a mushroom house, might as well test it on Earth first, right?

23 shares Dezeen Mars One

Would you be ready to move to Mars and establish the first civilization on Mars? Well, more than 200,000 people from 140 countries have applied for a one-way ticket to join such a human settlement. Established by non-profit organization Mars One, the 4 billion project, founded by Dutch entrepreneur Bas Lansdorp in 2012, plans to establish the first permanent human settlement on Mars in 2023 and has proposed that humans will live in a modular environment made up of multiple inflatable units. As the habitat will be modular, and constructed using fully redundant systems, even if one inflatable unit is damaged beyond repair, the habitat will still be secure and fully functional, said the organization. The first footprint on Mars and lives of the crew thereon will captivate and inspire generations; it is this public interest that will help finance this human mission to Mars, said Mars One.

Texas-based startup Orion Span plans to utilize space in a whole new way, by creating a luxury space hotel designed to open in 2022 (Im sure COVID was not featured in their plans!) Named Aurora Station, the 70 million space hotel is designed to orbit 200 miles above the earth. The hotel plans to hold four guests and two crew members for a total 12-day trip and is priced at about 6.7 million per person. Upon launch, Aurora Station goes into service immediately, bringing travelers into space quicker and at a lower price point than ever seen before, while still providing an unforgettable experience, said Frank Bunger, founder of Orion Span. The entire design will be processed by a team led by Frank Eichstadt, who is credited as being the principal architect on the International Space Stations Enterprise module. Orion Span has additionally taken what was historically a 24-month training regimen to prepare travelers to visit a space station and streamlined it to three months, at a fraction of the cost, said Bunger.

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Space Architecture designed to be a home to the future humans living on Mars! - Yanko Design

Damian Wilson

is a UK journalist, ex-Fleet Street editor, financial industry consultant and political communications special advisor in the UK and EU.

is a UK journalist, ex-Fleet Street editor, financial industry consultant and political communications special advisor in the UK and EU.

The latest successful rocket test by SpaceX could mean well see humans on Mars in the next decade, funded by private entrepreneurs such as Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. But will they take charge of the newly conquered Red Planet too?

On a clear night, theres nothing better than gazing towards the heavens, wondering whats out there, but if the answer to that eternal question ever turned out to be Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, and their billionaire pals sitting on Mars and gazing back at Earth, then, Houston, we have a problem.

Its not a completely unlikely scenario in the exciting new climate of space exploration, marked this week by the safe return from the International Space Station of two NASA astronauts aboard a SpaceX craft, and the successful testing of Musks latest prototype for his next Mars rocket just yesterday.

These events show us a future in which individuals have taken over the funding of our exploration of space, in an arena in which competing national governments once strived to outdo each other to provide the only possible sources of the huge funds needed to finance those dreams.

But before we get too excited and start planning vacations to the Red Planet, lets look at wholl be calling the shots now. Do we really want car-maker Musk, Bezos the bookseller or Branson the balloon man holding all the cards when it comes to the logistics of actually sending people to Mars and making something habitable of the dusty red rock? Living in a Martian society with these guys or their cronies at the helm would be unbearable.

Whats strange to me is that they never seem to profess any huge interest in anthropology, astrophysics or astronomy. What they like is talking about their crazy dreams of building big rockets, sending up satellites, and getting further than the last guy. Its an interest that seems based on a mixture of science fiction and fantasy, in which theyre the emperors of their new kingdoms. They indulge in the same kind of fancies as those guys who attend comic conventions and marvel at Star Wars collectible figurines while chatting in fluent Vulcan.

Id rather step outside my pressurized biodome on the Red Planet and have my eyes pop out of my head and all my internal organs blister from the radiation as I fried like a crisp before I chose to serve at the command of this sort of uber-geek.

Although these are the guys, or others like them, wholl one day make it possible for us to live on Mars, Im not so sure Id want to live alongside them, or that theyre that well equipped to run a brave new world in any case.

Musk is notoriously thin-skinned, insulting the poor chap in Thailand who mocked his offer of a rescue submarine for the football team trapped in a cave as a pedo guy and challenging Johnny Depp to a cage fight over allegations he had an affair with Depps former wife Amber Heard.

Then there was the intergalactically crass exhibition of consumerism as he pointlessly launched a Tesla car into orbit, as if even more junk was needed circling above our heads. Is this someone we want to lead us?

As for Bezos, well, watching him squirm, bald and bug-eyed in front of the US Congressional Committee investigating the amount of power held by the tech giants was not exactly endearing.

And as the current owner of several mega-houses on earth, you could expect that, were he to ever relocate to the fourth rock from the Sun, then his crib would most certainly be the largest. And therein lies the problem.

The sort of galactic pioneer looking to head to Mars isnt interested in building a community in which he inhabits the lower rungs as the wider population grows and thrives. He wants others to do all the hard graft while he builds on his fortune and the rest of the colony serves his every whim.

The founder of the Coalition to Save Manned Space Exploration, and former adviser to the Trump presidential campaign, Art Harman, told the International Mars Society Convention in 2019 that all the heavy lifting required obviously easier in gravity 37 percent of that on Earth would be undertaken by workers signing contracts. They would specify their rights and obligations within the new colony, presumably determined by the billionaire businessmen who arranged for their passage and are bankrolling the whole project.

Sound familiar? It would certainly suggest we could be looking at an emerging Green Lives Matter movement sometime next century. It seems weve arrived at this point of possibility in a bit of a rush.

Quantum advances in technology have been made and now the space business is big business. Nation states with a satellite to launch, or a few astronauts to send to the International Space Station, call on those with the know-how and hardware to do that, with Musks SpaceX, Bezoss Blue Origin, Bransons Virgin Galactic and even the joint Lockheed Martin-Boeing outfit United Launch Alliance among the choices.

Elsewhere, the moneybags sheikhs of the Middle East are competing in their own Arab space race, with Saudi Arabia sending up satellites and the United Arab Emirates launching its own mission to Mars.

The skies are suddenly becoming very crowded. With thousands of satellites now orbiting above us, rockets launching more regularly than ever before from all points of the globe and tremendous public buy-in to the idea of actually sending humans to planets previously considered out of reach, the dream of one day building a new civilization is in the realm of possibility.

And thats amazing. To think that, just a little over 50 years ago, we were excited about sending a man to the moon, and here we are on the cusp of landing him on Mars. Its what happens next that should now occupy our dreams under the star-filled skies.

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The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

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Mars colonization is ever more likely, but dont get too excited itll be billionaires deciding who gets there, and how - RT

Earths orbit already has the International Space Station, but its oceans could soon be home to their own futuristic research center at least if industrial designer Yves Bhar and aquanaut Fabien Cousteau (son of filmmaker Jean-Michel Cousteau and grandson of Aqua-Lung co-creator Jacques-Yves Cousteau) have their way.

The intrepid duo have announced plans for the construction of Proteus, a 4,000-square-foot modular lab that will sit 60 feet below the surface of the Caribbean Sea off the coast of Curaao. It will serve as the worlds largest underwater habitat and research station, and provide a base for researchers hoping to study the ocean. The plan is to be able to accommodate up to 12 people at a time.

Ocean exploration is 1,000 times more important than space exploration for selfishly our survival, for our trajectory into the future, Cousteau told CNN in an interview. Its our life support system. It is the very reason why we exist in the first place.

Its certainly a compelling take, and one thats not necessarily espoused all that much at a point in history when pioneers like Elon Muskand Jeff Bezosare more concerned with looking to the stars, and launching spacecraft and discussing Mars colonization.

As the initial designs show, Proteus will consist of a two-story circular structure attached to the ocean floor on stilts, with miniature pods seeming to cling to its surface like high-tech barnacles. Inside will be areas including laboratories, personal quarters, an underwater greenhouse for growing food, an ocean-accessing moon pool, and more. The aquatic research center will be sustainably powered with wind and solar energy, along with ocean thermal energy conversion processes.

At present, the worlds sole underwater habitat is the 400-square-foot Aquarius Reef Base in the Florida Keys. Aquarius was designed in 1986 and has been in operation since then. The newly proposed Proteus, at 4,000-square-feet, aims to be significantly larger.

The plan is reportedly for construction to take place over three years. However, it has already been delayed by the coronavirus pandemic.

Will such an ambitious project ultimately come to fruition? That remains to be seen. Its certainly an exciting development, though. Theres probably a James Bond villain or two wishing theyd come up with this design (albeit with a few extra deadly flourishes) first.

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Amazing underwater habitat will allow researchers to explore the seas depths - Digital Trends

Now that SpaceX has successfully launched two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station and Tesla has opened after a pandemic shutdown, Elon Musk is now literally aiming beyond Earths orbit and prioritizing his ultimate space dream: colonizing Mars.

In a letter to SpaceX employees over the weekend, the ambitious entrepreneur said his rocket companys focus now is Starship, the prototype-phase spacecraft thats supposed to fly up to 100 humans at a time to Mars when paired with the SpaceXs upcoming Super Heavy rocket booster.

We need to accelerate Starship progressdramatically and immediately, Musk wrote in the email, obtained by CNBC. Please consider the top SpaceX priority (apart from anything that could reduce Dragon return risk) to be Starship.

Starship is one of SpaceXs three main pillars of business; the other two are the Crew Dragon vessel, used in NASAs ISS mission, and the Starlink satellite broadband project. The reusable interplanetary spacecraft has been under development since late 2019 at SpaceXs testing site in Boca Chica, Texas.

So far, SpaceX has built five prototypes of Starship and suffered multiple setbacks. The first two prototypes, Mk1 and SN1, were destroyed during pressure tests in November 2019 and February 2020, respectively. The subsequent version, SN2, passed a pressure test in March. But the next one, SN3, collapsed during testing a month later. The latest prototype, SN4, blew up during a test in Boca Chica on May 29.

SpaceX is already working on an SN5, which is expected to be used in the next test, with plans for SN6 and SN7.

Besides Mars colonization, the Starship system (the spacecraft and the Super Heavy booster) is also intended to be used for delivering satellites to Earths orbit, long-duration spaceflight and sending humans back to the Moon, either for government scientific projects or SpaceXs own commercial lunar program.

The latter, which Musk has said could materialize as early as 2023, has secured only one customer to date: Japanese retail billionaireYusaku Maezawa, who reportedly paid a hefty deposit for the faraway vacation.

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Elon Musks Top Priority Now Is Going to Mars and the Moon - Observer

ARE WE DESCENDANTS OF ANCIENT MARTIANS?

Several solar experts believe that the sun's solar activity will dramatically increase in the future, and it could result in the evaporation of oceans in the earth's atmosphere. As oceans start evaporating, several species will die off, and gradually, the earth will become a barren land incapable of hosting life.

Paul Cally, a solar scientist believes that a forced greenhouse effect will gulp the earth in another 1.1 billion years as the sun's temperature gets increased drastically. The solar scientist also made it clear that the sun's luminosity will be increased by 1.4 times in 3.5 billion years, thus making earth inhabitable for life.

In order to combat this problem, popular American physicist Neil deGrasse Tyson believes that humans should terraform Mars to make the Red Planet a suitable place to host life.

"When our Sun becomes a red giant, when it begins to swell and engulf the orbit of Mercury, it's going to start getting very hot on Earth. We're going to need ways to terraform Mars, and then ship billions of people from Earth. Mars is cooler than Earth because it is one-and-a-half times further away. Hopefully, if humans are still around, we would have moved to a better location," said Neil deGrasse Tyson, Express.co.uk reports.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk has several times claimed that his ultimate aim is to build a fully-fledged human colony on Mars. However, a few weeks back, Musk made some unexpected comments which clearly indicated that everything is not well with the planned Mars mission.

During the Satellite 2020 conference in Washington, Musk revealed that he is bothered about the Mars colonization mission. Musk added that he is unsure whether SpaceX will land humans on Mars before his death. "If we don't improve our pace of progress, I'm definitely going to be dead before we go to Mars. If it's taken us 18 years just to get ready to do the first people to orbit, we've got to improve our rate of innovation or, based on past trends, I am definitely going to be dead before Mars," said Musk.

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What should humans do when Sun starts evaporating Earth's oceans? Top physicist reveals - International Business Times, Singapore Edition

Matt Wolfs Sundance Film Festival documentary Spaceship Earth arrives at quite a moment in history, as the film ponders a science experiment that wanted to find the good, and science-expanding possibilities, in self-imposed quarantine. Check out the first trailer for the film below, which Neon will release in May on digital platforms including the websites of restaurants, bookstores, and other small non-theatrical businesses as distributors get used to skipping theatrical in these crazy times.

Spaceship Earth is the true, stranger-than-fiction adventure of eight visionaries who, beginning in 1991, spent two years quarantined inside of a self-engineered biome called Biosphere 2. The glass terrarium deep in the Arizona desert sought to replicate earths ecosystem, end became a pilot program for Mars colonization. The experiment became a global phenomenon, chronicling daily existence in the face of life-threatening ecological disaster, from food shortages to oxygen deprivation, while contending with growing assumptions from the media and beyond that the Biosphere inhabitants were nothing but a mad cult. Biosphere 2 soon found itself labeled as the product of science-fiction, not credible science, from a pack of 60s hippies. The $200-million research facility, of course, became a tourist attraction, tarnishing its integrity and reputation along the way.

Out of Park City, Variety called the film a lovely, engrossing documentary flashback. Spaceship Earth reclaims Biosphere 2 from the pop-culture-footnote dustbin, capturing the spirit of genuine idealism and earnest scientific inquiry An involving, oddly poignant tale that should have broad appeal to those on the lookout for distinctive documentary features has the excitement and involvement of a fictive sci-fi narrative.

Matt Wolfs previous documentaries include Recorder, about activist and pioneering television archivist Marion Stokes, who taped 35 years worth of cable news on her eight VCRs; Wild Combination, a documentary about cult queer musician Arthur Russell, who died of AIDS in 1992; and Teenage, about the evolution of youth culture throughout history based on a book from Jon Savage. Spaceship Earth, which looks to blend Wolfs interests in science and in counterculture, world-premiered in the US Documentary Competition of the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, where it competed for the Grand Jury Prize.

Spaceship Earth is another entry in distributor Neons growing slate of distinctive documentary films, including last years Honeyland, which earned multiple Academy Award nominations, and Apollo 11. Watch the trailer below.

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Spaceship Earth Trailer: Experience the 1991 Quarantine Experiment That Rocked the World - IndieWire

While researching his new book, Notes from an Apocalypse, about people who are preparing for doomsday, author Mark O'Connell undertook what he calls "a series of perverse pilgrimages."

Some stops on O'Connell's "end of the world" journey include a prairie in South Dakota, where a former munitions facility is being converted into a "survival shelter community," and the New Zealand apocalypse house owned by PayPal founder Peter Thiel. He also attended a Los Angeles conference, where he met people who hope to colonize Mars and use it as a "backup planet" if Earth becomes inhospitable.

Though it was written before the COVID-19 pandemic, O'Connell says the research he conducted for the book is heavy with "dramatic irony" now.

"I bought a lot of practical guides to surviving the end of the world doomsday prepper guides and so on when I was writing the book," he says. "And I read them at the time in a spirit of scholarly interest."

But as the pandemic spread, he says, "I found myself taking one or two down off the shelf in that first week and sort of flicking through the index with something other than scholarly interest, I think it's fair to say."

Despite spending so much time steeped in end-of-days scenarios, O'Connell doesn't despair. In fact, the book is peppered with humor.

"Laughter is obviously a kind of a release valve," he says. "The funny stuff [in the book] comes as a result of a buildup of like an accumulation of anxiety and seriousness. I'm often up at my funniest as a writer when I'm dealing with the most serious things."

On the demographic profile of the doomsday preppers he spoke with

So the doomsday preppers who I look at in the first section of the book tended to be overwhelmingly male, and overwhelmingly white, and often conservative Christian. And the ideology that they bring to it is often one of, I would say, quite right-wing, quite libertarian, a mistrust of the state and a kind of a fetishization of ideas of kind of rugged self-reliance and masculinity. And often fantasies of defensive violence, ... an idea of: You have to protect your family, you have to protect your home. Often that involves guns and so on particularly in American context.

On visiting an apocalyptic real estate development in South Dakota

Part of the reason why I wanted to go there was that it just looked so otherworldly. It's a dairy farm, essentially in the prairies of South Dakota, which was used as a ... munitions facility. There's 500-something overground bunkers, reinforced concrete and steel kind of mounds coming out of the ground, covered in grass. And it just looks like something out of an alien landscape. So it's been bought by a ... guy named Robert Vicino. And he's bought the land and is selling off these bunkers for, I think, ... $35,000 is the figure that he quoted me. So the idea is that people buy these empty bunkers and convert them to their own sort of specifications. This is a place for people to retreat to in the event of certainly nuclear exchange ... [and] viral pandemics and any kind of situation that threatens civilizational collapse or civil unrest. The idea is that there would be ... a private army that would patrol the perimeter of this place to stop the war, to stop the rest of us getting in.

On why the Silicon Valley elite and other wealthy Americans are buying land in New Zealand

In a way, it didn't take you that long to figure out why New Zealand, because it is an insanely beautiful place, and if I had endless resources, I probably would want to buy a place in New Zealand. You could approach it as an apocalypse retreat or you could [approach it as] a nice holiday. ... New Zealand is a very politically stable place, a lot of clean air, an abundance of lakes, fresh water. It's far from everywhere else. So you don't have those kind of threats that you would have in Europe and America. It's quite distanced in various ways. So you can see the appeal. ...

To put it bluntly, I think a lot of New Zealand people, Mori in particular, see it as a kind of a return of the colonial mindset. So New Zealand as a country I think is unusual amongst kind of post-colonial nations of being absolutely open and absolutely resolute in having a strong but nuanced kind of understanding of what colonialism meant in the history of the country and how to sort of move beyond those mindsets. And I think there is a suspicion of people like [PayPal founder] Peter Thiel and wealthy Americans coming and buying up land that it might be a kind of a modern version of that sort of tragic colonial moment in the state's history.

On how some doomsday preppers see Mars as a backup planet

Mars is almost like the next step up from New Zealand. If New Zealand is kind of the safest retreat on this planet, then, if everything goes wrong here and the planet gets hit by an asteroid or whatever the term that is used amongst Mars enthusiasts would be we need a "backup planet." So we need a backup planet for humanity in case something goes catastrophically wrong with Earth. [Tesla CEO] Elon Musk is always using this term. Elon Musk would be, I suppose, the most prominent kind of advocate of Mars exploration, obviously, with his space exploration company SpaceX.

On why he visited Chernobyl for the book

I wanted to see what the end of the world looked like, in a way. And I also wanted to see what a catastrophic event on the order of Chernobyl what happens afterwards. I was fascinated by the ways in which life is kind of returning to this place in ways. Nature is thriving there. And not only nature, but people are living there. There's a relatively small number of people, in the dozens, generally older people who have returned there to live in their houses that they evacuated in the immediate aftermath of the disaster. ... But ultimately, what I was really interested in was catastrophe tourism. There are tour companies that have set up in and around Kiev who will bring you there and you can stay overnight, which is what I did on the tour. You get to explore Pripyat, which is the abandoned city that was purpose built for the workers and Chernobyl. It's a fascinating kind of insight into the sort of visual spectacle of the apocalypse. You get to wander around this kind of diorama of a sort of post-apocalyptic future. I think that's what attracts the people who are on this tour and to some extent myself.

Nature has reclaimed the place. Pripyat is full of nature just bursting forth out of concrete, and there is something sort of quietly beautiful about it. There's quite a large population of wolves there. So life is kind of going on without humanity. As bleak as it is, there's something slightly reassuring about that.

On whether he'd consider joining a doomsday community

If you're preparing for the collapse of civilization in that way, I think for you, civilization has already collapsed. - Mark O'Connell

Where I landed with it is that I would not want to be part of that community. I would not want to be part of a protected, sheltered, elite ... that was being protected by a private army. On some level, I think I'd rather be dead. I'd rather be outside and take my chances because it seems, from an ideological perspective, that is just too too bleak and too terrifying to me. ... If you're preparing for the collapse of civilization in that way, I think for you, civilization has already collapsed.

Sam Briger and Seth Kelley produced and edited the audio of this interview. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Meghan Sullivan adapted it for the Web.

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. The coronavirus isn't the end of the world, but your anxiety may make you feel like it is. And your home may be feeling like a bunker. This makes my guest's new book, "Notes From An Apocalypse," strangely timely. It's about people who are preparing for a doomsday resulting from environmental catastrophe, nuclear war or a pandemic. The book is also about the reality of anxiety, like the anxiety you may be experiencing now.

Mark O'Connell is not preparing for the end of the world. But he is anxious about the future and what it holds for his two young children. And he's fascinated by people who've taken their doomsday and survival fantasies to extremes. As part of his research, he made a series of what he describes as perverse pilgrimages. He went to the prairies of South Dakota, where a former munitions facility is being converted into a, quote, "survival shelter community," and to New Zealand, where some Silicon Valley billionaires are planning on waiting out the collapse of civilization in a stable, remote retreat.

At a conference in LA, He met people who hoped to colonize Mars and use it as a backup planet for a doomed Earth. In Chernobyl, he saw what it looks like in a place where all life was eradicated. One of O'Connell's previous books, "To Be A Machine," is about transhumanism, the movement that believes new technologies implanted in human bodies will extend the cognitive and physical abilities of humans and extend life beyond our biological limitations. Mark O'Connell is speaking to us from his home in Dublin, Ireland. Mark O'Connell, welcome to FRESH AIR. How is the virus playing into your end-of-the-world anxieties?

MARK O'CONNELL: I guess, like everyone else, I've been on a bit of a trajectory with this thing for the last couple of months, for the last few weeks. You know, the first week here in Dublin - really, right before the lockdown happened, I was going through a pretty intense period of anxiety and sort of uncertainty. It really did seem kind of a little bit apocalyptic. And that coincided with the sort of ramp-up to my book coming out. So there was a lot of, I guess, dramatic irony surrounding my experience of it. You know, I'd written about all these kinds of scenarios. I'd written about people who were preparing for the end of the world in various ways. And there was just a lot of - yeah, a lot of dramatic irony.

At one point, I - you know, I bought a lot of sort of practical guides to surviving the end of the world - you know, doomsday-prepper guides and so on - when I was writing the book. And, you know, I read them at the time with, I guess, you know, in the spirit of scholarly interest and with a certain kind of arm's-length irony there. And I found myself taking one or two down off the shelf in that first week and sort of flicking through the index with something other than scholarly interests, I think it's fair to say.

But since then, you know, it's been interesting because so much of what I wrote about in the book has to do with not just kind of catastrophe scenarios or, you know, natural disasters or asteroids hitting or whatever. A lot of these people who I'm writing about, they're very focused on the prospect of civilizational collapse. So it's not necessarily the virus or the nuclear bomb that they're most focused on, it's civil unrest.

And it's - a lot of it is predicated on this notion that, you know, given a severe enough catastrophe, humanity is sort of bound to revert to savagery. And people will start looting and sort of, you know, stealing each other's stuff. And we'll sort of revert to an animalistic kind of original human nature. And I think - you know, with some sort of high-profile but relatively minor examples - certainly, where I am, what you're seeing is strengthening of community, a strengthening of civilization itself.

GROSS: So you write that your book is really also about the reality of anxiety and that everything in the pages of your book exists as a metaphor for a psychological state. I think it's the psychological state so many of us are experiencing now. So explain what you mean by that.

O'CONNELL: Yeah. Well, the book - I mean, the book didn't begin as a book about the apocalypse. It began, really, as me sort of trying to confront the sources of my anxiety. So, you know, I write in the first couple of pages of the book about a moment where I'm watching cartoons with my son. He's watching this cartoon about a bear and his sort of companion. And I'm sitting on the couch with him watching a polar bear starving to death and sort of trying to get some trash out of a trash can to eat.

And it began out of, like, a sense of the irreconcilable kind of energy of those - of these two kind of worlds, of the world of the outside - the news, things that are going on - and the kind of imperative of early parenthood, which, for me, has to do with trying to protect your kids, trying to instill in them the idea that the world is a beautiful and a good place. And I wanted to kind of explore the tension between those two things, which was a source of real anxiety for me. And it was only kind of a little bit later that the idea of the apocalypse kind of came into view as a way that I could give shape to those anxieties.

GROSS: Have you found that most of the people preparing for the end of the world are white and male?

O'CONNELL: Yeah. Certainly - so, you know, the doomsday preppers who I look at in the first sort of section of the book tended to be overwhelmingly male and overwhelmingly white and, you know, often conservative Christian. And the ideology that they bring to it is often one of, I would say, you know, quite right-wing, quite libertarian - a mistrust of the state and a kind of, I guess, a fetishization of ideas of kind of rugged self-reliance and masculinity and often, you know, fantasies of kind of defensive violence - so an idea of, you know, you have to protect your family. You have to protect your home. Often, that involves guns and so on, you know, particularly in American context. So yeah, it's not - it is something that I think appeals more to a particular kind of masculinity, a particular kind of man than it does to women. Although, there are, of course, female preppers.

GROSS: So let's talk about one of the places you went to to study the people who were really preparing for the collapse of civilization or the end of the world. You went to the Black Hills of South Dakota, where people planned to prepare for a nuclear war by living in a former Army munitions and maintenance facility that was built during World War II for the storage and testing of bombs. And you went there when tensions were really high between Trump and Kim Jong Un. And there really were fears about, you know, some kind of, like, nuclear weapon being used. So just describe this former storage and bomb testing site.

O'CONNELL: Yeah. It's a really extraordinary place. And part of it was - you know, part of the reason why I wanted to go there was that it just looked so otherworldly. It's a dairy farm, essentially, in the prairies of South Dakota, which, as you say, was used as a former munitions facility. So there are all these - I think it's 550 is the number. There's 500-and-something - anyway, sort of overground bunkers, reinforced concrete and steel kind of mounds coming out of the ground covered in grass. And it just looks like something out of an alien landscape.

But all of these are being converted into - so it's been bought by a kind of - I guess you would describe him as an apocalyptic real estate entrepreneur, a guy named Robert Vicino. And he bought the land and is selling off these bunkers for - I think it's $35,000 is the figure that he quoted me. And so the idea is that people buy these empty bunkers and convert them to their own sort of specifications. And this is a place for people to retreat to in the event of - I mean, yeah. Certainly, nuclear exchange is one of the big ones but, you know, also things like viral pandemics and any kind of situation that threatens civilizational collapse or, you know, civil unrest. And the idea is that there would be an army, like a private army, that would patrol the perimeter of this place to stop the - well, to stop the rest of us getting it, I suppose.

GROSS: So it's like a condo gated community, except you're living in bunkers and instead of a guard at the gate, you've got, like, a whole army (laughter) is...

O'CONNELL: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's...

GROSS: ...Protecting - it's quite a vision, yeah.

O'CONNELL: It is an extraordinary vision. And it seems like, I mean, it is a sort of a gated community. It's sort of I described in the book as, you know, a kind of a logical conclusion of the psychology of the gated community. Vicino, who started this survival community, is - he also makes kind of a luxury apocalyptic bunkers. So these are kind of, you know, pitched at the middle range of the market, the kind of the apocalyptic bourgeoisie, I suppose. But he sort of made his name building these very lavish luxury bunkers that are supposedly kitted out with, you know, private cinemas and wine sellers and all kinds of things.

GROSS: Living out the end of days in style.

O'CONNELL: Sure. Why not?

GROSS: You cite some pretty strange beliefs that he has including that there's a rogue planet called Nibiru that's heading toward Earth and might collide with it. What are some of his other beliefs that are motivating him?

O'CONNELL: Yeah. I mean, Vicino is an interesting character in that he doesn't seem to focus on any one particular apocalyptic scenario. So climate change interestingly is not a big issue with most of these people. So it's not that they're necessarily climate change deniers but just that climate change doesn't seem to offer the prospect of sort of total annihilation or total civilizational collapse. So things like asteroids hitting the planet, that's a big one. Viral pandemics as well, certainly, that's another one. But, yeah, I mean, this idea of Nibiru, which is, I guess it's - you know, it's a relatively sort of well-sort-of-subscribed conspiracy theory. There's zero evidence for it as far as I can tell and as far as most sort of scientists would tell you.

But I think the idea is that, you know, he's a salesman, and a lot of these people are salespeople. And so it makes sense to have a kind of a spread of apocalyptic scenarios. So if you don't subscribe to the Nibiru idea, which I certainly didn't, you know, someone like Robert Vicino has another apocalyptic scenario that he might be able to sort of hook you on. And a lot of our - I mean, it was a really interesting, kind of weirdly enjoyable, also quite antagonistic sort of exchange that we had because a lot of it had to do with him. You know, he approached me as he would anyone who was interested in his property, so he was trying to sell me the idea of the place. So a lot of it was him, you know, trying to sell me a bunker basically and giving me reasons why it might be sensible for me to have this for myself and my family.

GROSS: What's his sales pitch?

O'CONNELL: Something's going to get us. Something is going to come along eventually, whether it's an asteroid, whether it's a nuclear exchange, whether it's just sort of civilizational sort of atrophy, something will come along eventually that will make it unsafe. He's talking particularly in the United States context, but also, you know, he had sort of a pretty grim vision of global civilization.

But yeah, something is going to come eventually, and it will - you know, it will cause a civilizational collapse. And in a way what's happening now, although, as I've said, it's nowhere near any kind of civilizational collapse scenario, but, you know, you can imagine preppers and people like Vicino might be feeling somewhat vindicated and might be feeling even somewhat smug.

GROSS: Was there just a little bit of you that thought maybe I should invest in one just for safety?

O'CONNELL: You know, he's a really good salesman. He's like a really powerful persuasive salesman, and he's successful for a reason. So yeah. And I'm - you know, I quite enjoy people selling things to me. I'm fascinated by the kind of the psychology of salesmanship, and I like being sold to. So there were moments where I was open to it, yeah. But ultimately, I think what - where I landed with it is that I would not want to be part of that community. I would not want to be part of a protected sheltered elite or an elect that was being protected by a private army.

On some level, I think I'd rather be dead. I'd rather be outside and take my chances because it seems, you know, from an ideological perspective that is just too bleak and, yeah, too terrifying to me - the idea that that would be, you know, where I land with in the book is if you were preparing for the collapse of civilization in that way, I think, for you, civilization has already collapsed.

GROSS: Well, let's take a short break here and then we'll talk some more. If you're just joining us, my guest is Mark O'Connell. He is the author of the new book "Notes From An Apocalypse." We'll be right back. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to my interview with Mark O'Connell, author of the new book "Notes From An Apocalypse" about people who are preparing for a doomsday caused by environmental catastrophe, nuclear war, a pandemic, a comet crash, any number of things.

One of the places you went to research your new book was New Zealand. And there are wealthy people from the United States, maybe other places too, who are buying land in New Zealand because they see it as a safe, relatively isolated place not near major nuclear targets where they'd have a chance of not only living out a collapse in much of the world but also doing it in a land of great beauty and in comfort.

And several of the people - oh, oh, this is interesting. You write that two days after Trump's election, the number of Americans who visited New Zealand's Department of Internal Affairs to inquire about citizenship there increased by a factor of 15 compared to the same day in the previous month. Tell us more about New Zealand. Like, why New Zealand?

O'CONNELL: Well, I mean, that's why I went there I guess because I wanted to know why New Zealand. And, you know, in a way, it didn't take me that long to figure out why New Zealand because it is an insanely beautiful place, and if I had endless resources, I probably would want to buy a place in New Zealand, you know. You know, you could approach it as an apocalypse retreat or you could just - you know, it's a nice holiday. There's nice vineyards and so on.

So, you know, I guess if you have that kind of money, particularly, you know, Silicon Valley people tend to be quite rationalistic and, you know, there's a lot of interest in those circles in terms of, like, long-term forecasting of, you know, the future of civilization and so on, you can see the appeal because, you know, New Zealand is a very - it's a politically stable place, a lot of clean air, an abundance of lakes, fresh water. You know, it's far from everywhere else. So, you know, you don't have those kind of sort of threats that you would have in Europe and America. It's quite - you know, it's quite distanced in various ways. So you can see the appeal.

GROSS: Peter Thiel, who is the founder of PayPal and was an early investor in Facebook and is a billionaire, he has land in New Zealand. And you're right. One of the things that inspired him to think about New Zealand was a book called "The Sovereign Individual: How To Survive And Thrive During The Collapse Of The Welfare State." This was published in 1997. What is the vision this book offers?

O'CONNELL: "The Sovereign Individual" is - gives a very bleak and in some ways dystopian vision of a future in which the nation-state as a sort of a concept begins to fall away. And, you know, strong democratic governments are kind of on the way out. And what you get is the rise of what they call sovereign individuals, people who are very wealthy, have a lot of kind of intellectual capital, people like I suppose Peter Thiel who will sort of rise above democratic nation-states and become kind of more influential and more powerful than states themselves. And it predicts the rise of things like cryptocurrency and, you know, the future in which wealthy people will no longer be sort of beholden to the state by having to pay taxes and so on. It's just sort of a radically libertarian vision of the future. And it's a good thing from the point of view of the book that the state is on the way out.

GROSS: I'm wondering how the massacre at the mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, where more than 50 people were murdered by someone with an assault rifle, what impact that had on people who see New Zealand as this safe space.

O'CONNELL: That came towards the end of when I was writing the book, and I'd already written the New Zealand chapter at that time. And I knew that I had to revisit it because, you know, it seemed to throw everything into a different light because, you know, the sort of premise of the idea of New Zealand as this sort of safe retreat from the rest of the world is that, you know, it's this fantasy, that it's not connected to these, you know, dynamics and vectors that are happening in the rest of the world. And, of course, that's not true. And this was, like, a really violent, tragic illustration of that fact. But what I saw was - you know, in the immediate aftermath, I remember watching - and I write about it in the book of course. I remember watching all these videos of, you know, Maori men doing the haka as a kind of a gesture of solidarity and grief.

And there's so much of this kind of communitarian response to this terrible act of, like, fascist violence that spoke to me, I think, of, like, the real heart of New Zealand and what makes New Zealand such a valuable place. It's not the - you know, obviously, it's a very beautiful country, but it's not the kind of - you know, what's valuable about New Zealand is not what people like Peter Thiel and so on value in the country. It's the kind of - it's the community aspects of the place.

GROSS: What is the reaction of people in New Zealand, particularly the Maori who are native to New Zealand, what is their reaction to New Zealand being seen as a safe space for people waiting out doomsday?

O'CONNELL: To put it sort of bluntly, I think a lot of New Zealand people, Maori in particular, see it as a kind of a return of the colonial mindset. So New Zealand as a country I think is unusual amongst kind of post-colonial nations of being absolutely open and absolutely resolute in having a kind of strong but nuanced kind of understanding of what colonialism meant in the history of the country and how to sort of move beyond those mindsets. And I think there is a suspicion of people like Peter Thiel and sort of wealthy Americans coming and buying up land that it might be a kind of a modern version of that sort of tragic colonial moment in the state's history.

GROSS: My guest is Mark O'Connell, author of the new book "Notes From An Apocalypse." We'll talk more after a break. And our critic at large John Powers will review two TV series he's become caught up in while social distancing. I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF BILL FRISELL'S "HELLO NELLIE")

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. Let's get back to my interview with Mark O'Connell, author of the new book "Notes From An Apocalypse." It's about people preparing for a doomsday caused by environmental catastrophe, nuclear war, a comet crash, a pandemic. He visited a former bomb-testing facility that's being turned into bunkers by a survivalist entrepreneur. He went to New Zealand, where some Silicon Valley billionaires have bought land to wait out doomsday in a beautiful, remote location. He went to a conference of people who believe Mars should be turned into a backup planet for our doomed Earth. He's speaking to us from his home in Dublin, Ireland.

So let's talk about Mars and people who hope to use Mars as a backup planet when Earth is destroyed. Tell us about the thinking behind this.

O'CONNELL: Yeah. Well, so Mars almost is like the next step up from New Zealand, you know? If New Zealand is kind of the safest retreat on this planet, then, you know, if everything goes wrong here and the planet gets hit by an asteroid or whatever, Mars is kind of the term that is used amongst Mars enthusiast - an enthusiasts would be, we need a backup planet. So we need a backup planet for humanity in case something goes catastrophically wrong with Earth. You know, Elon Musk is always using this term. Elon Musk would be, I suppose, the most prominent kind of advocate of Mars exploration, obviously, with his space exploration company, SpaceX.

But yeah, it's, you know, again, things like climate change, the prospect of, you know, an asteroid strike - anything that could sort of present an existential threat. The idea is that, you know, even on the long-term kind of scale, the sun is going to burn out eventually. And the idea is that we need to sort of ensure the future of humanity. And so we need a kind of a second place to sort of - to form a backup for it, for civilization and for the species. And I found this just a fascinating kind of emanation of the apocalyptic kind of mood of our time.

GROSS: So one of the things that kind of baffles me, in a way, about this Mars colonization premise is that - I mean, I don't know that much about space travel. But I would assume that if Mars was actually colonized and used as a backup planet, that would be far enough into the future that the people who are in this movement now would not be alive by the time it happened.

O'CONNELL: I think some of them certainly would hope that they will be around for it. I think, you know, Elon Musk, for instance, who is kind of the major advocate of Mars colonization at this point, I think, I think he's pretty explicit about the fact that he wants personally to get to Mars. So you know, these are optimistic people. And, you know, a lot of them do believe that they will get to Mars - or at least humans will get to Mars in our lifetimes.

But yeah, I mean, it is very much a long-term sort of long-scale project. And it's about, you know, as I say, having a backup planet for civilization. So it's not - you know, as much as certain individuals might want to see Mars in their time, it's not really about the individuals. It's about the idea of, you know, preserving the species. If, you know - if an asteroid hits Earth or if the sun explodes or whenever, you want to have a backup planet for humanity. And that's, you know, where Mars is - kind of comes into it.

GROSS: One of the places you went to was Chernobyl. Why did you want to go there? People are not building bunkers in Chernobyl (laughter). No one wants to live on the site...

O'CONNELL: No, no.

GROSS: ...Of a nuclear catastrophe.

O'CONNELL: Well, you know, I wanted to see what the end of the world looked like, in a way. And I also wanted to see what a kind of an - like, a catastrophic event on the order of Chernobyl, what happens afterwards? And I was fascinated by the ways in which life is kind of returning to this place in ways, you know? Nature is thriving there. And not only nature, but people are living there. There are, you know...

GROSS: They are, yeah?

O'CONNELL: Yeah. There's a relatively small number of people, you know, in the dozens. But there are - and, you know, generally older people who have returned there to live in their houses that they evacuated in the immediate aftermath of the disaster. And so there are people living there. But ultimately, what I was really interested in was, you know, catastrophe tourism. There are tour companies that have set up in and around Kyiv who will bring you there.

And you can stay overnight, which is what I did on the tour. And, you know, you get to explore Pripyat, which is the abandoned city that was purpose-built for the workers in Chernobyl. And there's a just - it's a fascinating kind of insight into the sort of visual spectacle of the apocalypse, you know? You get to wander around this kind of diorama of a sort of post-apocalyptic future. And I think that's what attracts the people who are on this tour and, you know, to some extent, myself.

GROSS: So what does it look like?

O'CONNELL: It's pretty grim (laughter). You know, I went - it was a beautiful day, you know, the two days I was there. So - you know, nature has reclaimed the place. Pripyat is full of, like, you know, nature just bursting forth out of concrete. And there is something sort of quietly beautiful about it. And there's, you know, wolves. It has quite a large population of wolves there. So life is kind of going on without humanity. So there's something - as bleak as it is, there's something slightly reassuring about that. I wouldn't recommend it as a honeymoon destination or a sort of weekend getaway...

GROSS: (Laughter).

O'CONNELL: ...But that's not what I was there for.

GROSS: How much did the tour cost?

O'CONNELL: The tour, it was - I think it was something around, maybe, 250 pounds, which is a lot of money in Ukraine. I think it's close to, like, you know, a monthly wage. So it's a huge amount of money. But they bring you on the tour from Kyiv. So you get on the tour bus outside of McDonald's in Maidan Square. And it's about a two-hour drive to the zone. And then, you know, it's heavily sort of controlled or patrolled by the army still at this point. So you need a passport to get in. And they check your passport. And you're sort of rigorously checked for radiation at various points along the way towards the power plant.

And, you know, they bring you in this place and show you what - you know, what it was like to live in this place and what it's like now. You know, it's a pretty - there are some, you know, threats of, you know, pockets of radiation that are quite high. But in general, the cleanup was very successful. And, you know, the guides know where they're taking you. So you don't stray into any particularly, you know, hotspot zones or whatever. The one thing they do tell you is don't eat the moss. I wasn't going to eat the moss anyway. But they're quite...

GROSS: (Laughter).

O'CONNELL: ...Quite sort of strict about eating anything from the ground, particularly moss. Moss soaks up a lot of radiation. So if you do go to Chernobyl, do not eat the moss.

GROSS: So you weren't worried about exposure to radiation on the tour?

O'CONNELL: Well, you know, you've read my book. So you know I'm quite an anxious. So I did find ways to be worried...

GROSS: (Laughter).

O'CONNELL: ...You know, mostly after the fact. Like, you know, I got back from the two-day tour and I was like, well, what did I do? Why did I stay overnight in Chernobyl? Why was I, you know - was it worth it? I'm still - you know, I'm OK.

But I think the thing that you realize pretty quickly is that almost everywhere you go, the levels of radiation are actually lower than they would be. You know, they measure the radiation with a dosimeter outside McDonald's in - the McDonald's in Kyiv. And it's quite a bit higher than it is in most of the places where you are in the zone. So any kind of built up urban area would probably have higher radiation levels than any of the places where you actually go on the tour in the zone. Now, there are places where you just don't want to be within the zone. The power plant itself, certain spots there are still incredibly high. But you don't go anywhere near those.

GROSS: Well, let's take a short break here. And then we'll talk some more. If you're just joining us, my guest is Mark O'Connell. His new book is called "Notes From An Apocalypse." We'll be right back. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF AWREEOH SONG, "CAN'T BRING ME DOWN")

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Author Tours The 'End Of The World,' From Prairie Bunkers To Apocalypse Mansions - KNAU Arizona Public Radio

From NASAs upcoming Moon to Mars mission to Elon Musks ambitious plans touse a SpaceX Starship to eventually colonize Mars, the race to populate the Red Planet is already on. But before humans can visit Mars and set up any kind of long-term base there, we need to send out scouts to see the lay of the land and prepare it for manned missions.

The mechanical pioneers well be sending to Mars in the coming years will follow in the tire tracks of explorers like the Curiosity rover and the Insight lander, but the next generation of Martian robotics will use sophisticated AI, novel propulsion methods, and flexible smallsats to meet the challenges of colonizing a new world.

There are distinct difficulties in building machines which can withstand the Martian environment. First, theres the cold, with temperatures averaging around minus 80 degrees Fahrenheit and going down to minus 190 degrees Fahrenheit at the poles. Then theres the thin atmosphere, which is just one percent the density of Earths atmosphere. And then theres the troublesome dust that gets kicked up in any operations on the planets surface, not to mention the intense radiation from the Suns rays.

These environmental conditions create problems for robotics, from temperature variations which cause mechanisms to expand and contract and so wear over time, to dust getting into gears which prevents the use of exposed lubrication.

Its a very unique and extreme environment, even for space robotics, said Al Tadros, VP of Space Infrastructure and Civil Space at Maxar Technologies, which is the company that builds the robotic arms for NASAs Mars rovers. Maxars robotic arms must be able not only to survive this harsh environment, but also perform the tasks like digging and drilling which enable scientific investigations.

Another consideration is weight limitations. When a part has to be delivered to Mars via rocket, every single gram need to be considered and accounted for, and that requires carefully selecting materials. A lot of what we do uses different types of aluminum, Tadros explained. We also use titanium and in some cases we use carbon fiber, depending on the application. Other weight-saving tricks include hollowing out some sections that dont need to be so structurally strong, such as the length of a robotic arm which could be made from honeycomb matrix composite tubes.

When a rover has been delivered to the surface of Mars, it can start exploring. However, due to the distance from Earth, its not feasible for engineers to control rovers directly. Instead, the robots have a degree of autonomy in their explorations, with NASA exercising supervisory command.

They can tell the rover to go five meters in this direction, Tadros says as an example. If theres a problem executing that command, the rover will stop and wait for more instructions. Its rather rudimentary in that sense. But in the future, the desire is to have autonomy on board so the rover recognizes Oh, I was told to go five meters, but theres a boulder here. Ill go around in this direction because I know the terrain is open.

We need communication networks on Mars, both between two points on Mars and from Mars back to Earth.

With a map and local knowledge, rovers will be able to perform self-navigation. They will even eventually be able to perform science autonomously, so scientists would only need to specify a command like find this kind of rock and the rover could locate and analyze a sample. This kind of autonomy is already being planned as part of NASAs upcoming lunar mission with the VIPER rover, Tadros said. Its going to be doing rapid prospecting, looking at and characterizing the regolith and the rocks to look for ice and other materials.

With robotics like VIPER and theMarscopter launching as part of the Mars 2020 project, we can expect machines to scout and explore Mars, finding out about local resources and hazards which will help or impede the survival of humans on the planet.

Knowing where humans can safely land on Mars and where they can locate the resources they need is the first step towards colonization. But the real difference between a visit and a long-term stay on another planet is a matter of infrastructure. From water to communications to building habitats, well need to find a way to provide the basic necessities of life in a sustainable way.

One method for setting up early infrastructure is through the use of small satellites, or smallsats. If youre thinking of colonizing Mars, where the smallsats come in is setting up the infrastructure for the colony, said Brad King, CEO of Orbion, a company creating more efficient propulsion systems for smallsats. We need communication networks on Mars, both between two points on Mars and from Mars back to Earth. On Earth, weve solved many of these problems with orbiting satellites around our planet.

Smallsats could fulfill similar functions on Mars, by setting up a Martian equivalent to GPS we could call it the Mars Positioning System. They can also scout out the surface of the planet, preparing the area for the humans to come.

The issue is getting satellites from Earth to Mars in an affordable manner. Traditionally, craft have been moved through space via chemical propulsion that is, burning fuel to create thrust. This is a great way to create large amounts of thrust, such as the thrust required for a rocket to leave Earths atmosphere and make it into space. But it takes a massive amount of fuel, to such a degree that the biggest part of modern rockets is simply the fuel tank.

A cheaper alternative for moving through space is electric propulsion, which uses solar power to shoot an inert substance like xenon out of the back of the craft. This method is highly fuel-efficient, allowing the traveling of long distances with very little fuel. The downside is that this propulsion method is low thrust, so it takes longer to arrive at a destination. Sending a craft from Earth to Mars using electric propulsion might take a handful of years, compared to chemical propulsion with which the journey would take in the region of six to nine months.

We as humans cant hear something going wrong there, but when you translate that into data over time, AI can spot those subtle changes in deviation from the norm.

However, the principle doesnt only apply to small unmanned craft. A distinct advantage of electric propulsion is that it scales up very efficiently: Electric propulsion technology works better the bigger it gets, King said. In principle, theres nothing limiting the scaling up of electric propulsion to very large, crewed missions. You just start to run into economic hurdles because youre building Battlestar Galactica-sized craft to get there.

Electric propulsion has been used in projects like the Japanese Space Agencys Hayabusa craft, which recently visited the distant asteroid Ryugu. And there are more plans for electricity propelled craft in future projects, such as the power and propulsion element (PPE) module of NASAs Lunar Gateway station which use solar electric propulsion and will be three times more powerful than current capabilities.

Launching and landing on planets will still require chemical propulsion, but the journey in between could be made far more efficient. King suggests that a non-propulsive crew vehicle or cargo vehicle could be put into a cycling orbit that goes past Earth and Mars. Then you can essentially send things up and ride the bus to Mars, requiring no propulsion, he explained. A similar system has already been used for the Kepler Space Telescope, which used very little fuel after its launch into a Earth-trailing heliocentric orbit.

Of course, getting from Earth to Mars is only part of the journey. Once a craft arrives at Mars, it needs to slow down and enter orbit. To slow a craft, there are typically two methods: using reverse thrusters which require fuel, and aerobraking. The latter is where a craft dips into the outer atmosphere of Mars, using the aerodynamic drag to reduce the vehicles energy enough that when it comes out of the atmosphere, it can enter orbit.

The concept of electric propulsion has been somewhat fringe for the past several decades, but with these new projects its moved into the mainstream. Now its being applied on a large scale its like the transition of air travel from propeller driven aircraft to jet aircraft, King said.

So we can send robots to scout the surface and satellites to set up infrastructure. We could even move enormous constructions like habitats through space using minimal fuel through electric propulsion. But the challenges of Mars colonization dont only occur when humans are actually occupying an on-planet habitat. One major issue is how habitats and structures can be maintained for the long periods during which they will be unoccupied. Planned projects like NASAs Lunar Gateway station, for example, will likely only be occupied 20 to 30 percent of the time, and we can expect similar or even lower rates of occupancy for potential Mars habitats.

Off-planet habitats need to be able to monitor themselves and fix themselves, especially when the nearest human is millions of miles away. And for that, AI is required.

I believe that colonizing Mars is not a technological issue, its an economics issue.

A system recently launched to the International Space Station could provide the basis for AI habitat monitoring. BoschsSoundSee system consists of a payload containing 20 microphones, a camera, and an environmental sensor for recording temperature, humidity, and pressure. These sensors collect data about the environment, especially acoustic information, which can be used to flag up problems.

If you imagine there is a leak in the station, not only would there be ultrasonic tones, but also a pressure loss, Bosch research scientist Jonathan Macoskey explained. If we see both a pressure loss and an ultrasonic tone and other factors, thats a concrete way of identifying a problem.

Of course, a leak in the ISS would be loud, obvious, and dramatic. But many machine failures, especially in unmanned environments, are due to a gradual degradation over time. AI can be used to sense these things, SoundSee principal researcher Samarjit Das said, not by adding more or better sensors, but rather by using sensor data more efficiently to search for subtle patterns.

Machines dont just break down immediately from good to bad, Das said. There is gradual wearing down over time. Think of a system you might want to monitor in the ISS like a treadmill. The gears inside slowly degrade over time as its used. We as humans cant hear something going wrong there, but when you translate that into data over time, AI can spot those subtle changes in deviation from the norm.

Dont imagine future ships and habitats controlled entirely by AI though, or even worse a rouge AI like 2001s HAL. Sensors and AI wont replace humans entirely and automate everything, Das said. AI is a line of defense. Macoskey agreed: We see AI as a tool that enables new things in the same way that the microscope enabled humans to look at microscopic organisms.

With all these environment and logistical difficulties, it might seem as if sending humans to Mars at all is a long shot, let alone establishing any kind of permanent or semi-permanent base there. Although these are serious challenges, solutions do exist in the form of AI, robotics, and propulsion methods which are being tested now for use in future space projects.

I believe that colonizing Mars is not a technological issue, its an economics issue, King said. If we had the resources to spend, we know what needs to be built and we know how to build it. But the number of dollars or euros that it takes to do that is daunting.

With sufficient funding, we do have the knowledge to begin setting up communication systems, enabling transportation, and building habitats on Mars. King is confident that it could even happen within our lifetime: Given unlimited resources, we could set this infrastructure up in a decade.

Read more here:

Meet the robotic pioneers that will help humanity colonize Mars - Digital Trends

The collaboration between Elon Musk-led SpaceX and NASA is getting bigger and broader. The latest is a $3 million contract by NASA to expand on the technology concepts of spacecraft fuel refilling in low earth orbits pitched by SpaceX.

This is mainly for new generation spacecraft and rockets being developed for Mars and Lunar missions.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine recently had a joint press conference with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk where the impending SpaceX launch of Crew Dragon was discussed.

Bigger size and heavy payloads and hundreds of astronauts in the future will require orbital refueling as an important feature.

Musk is on record that SpaceX is developing the new technologies to dock two Starships together in orbit and transfer fuel to the one that will be going beyond low-Earth orbit, per SpaceX news.

According to Elon Musk, new generation spacecraft heading for the moon and other longer voyages like Mars the mission will need such mode of refueling in the low orbit around Earth.

Under the $3M contract, SpaceX will work with NASAs Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) to build cryogenic fluid couplers. They are special nozzles Starship will need to refuel in orbit.

According to NASA news, SpaceX will work with NASA to build those nozzles Starship will use to mate and refuel in orbit.

The prototype of Starship being developed by SpaceX in Texas involves launching a stainless steel crewed craft atop a Super Heavy booster. Refueling that rocket around Earth orbit will be a high priority.

NASA announced a Tipping Point funding on September 27th with a corpus of $43.2 million that will be distributed among 14 companies.

The fund is focused on advancing important technologies necessary for the sustained exploration of the Moon and Mars.

Mars colonization plans intensified after the flow of data from Mars rovers sent by NASA.

In addition to SpaceX, AmazonBlue Origin also received funding. Fuel feed is required for Super Heavy as well as it must perform booster landings and needs propellant for a boost back and landing burns.

Starship is aiming to use an in-space propellant transfer to enable the delivery of over 100 tons of useful mass to the surface of the Moon or Mars. Pictured is the exterior of SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California as seen on July 22, 2018. Photo: ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images

Main challenge

Orbital refueling has never been tested on a bigger scale, speed, or reliability. That calls for Starship needing numerous in-orbit refuelings.

The transfer of fuel will have to be in the scale of at least 150 metric tons (330,000 lb) of liquid oxygen and methane in microgravity conditions at the LEO.

SpaceX hadSpace Act Agreements with NASA to develop orbital propellant transfer technology. The September 27th award expands that relationship with direct funding from NASA.

Read more here:

NASA, SpaceX Working On Refuelling Rockets In Space For Moon, Mars Mission - International Business Times

Tech

(Photo : Extreme Tech)Big Falcon Rocket Launch

Over the weekend, Elon Musk unveiled the first-ever prototype of Starship built by SpaceX. Starship is part of the Big Falcon Project (BFR) which is currently being developed by SpaceX. It consists of two stages with the first stage termed as Super Heavy, and the second stage named Starship.

In recent years, BFR has been a controversial project as netizens are quick to regard their goals and plans as ambitious. Nonetheless, Elon Musk and SpaceX were both determined to see the completion of the project. This is why the unveiling last Saturday was seen as a significant step forward for the project.

The Starship is actually the vehicle Musk intends to use for Mars colonization and space exploration; however, the road to its creation has not been very smooth.

For one, the company sparked ire among some residents of Boca Chica Village because of the tests they've made with a smaller rocket called Starhopper. To address the issue, it was rumored that the company offered to buy out some of the residents of the village after a brush fire incident at the test site triggered by a 500-foot short test run.

On Saturday, Elon Musk confirmed this as he claimed that Starship launches are expected to become more disruptive if the flight test rate holds; hence, they've made an offer to buy out some Boca Chica residents in preparation for these future tests.

Then, there's the issue of SpaceX's other pending programs such as NASA's Crew Dragon spacecraft. The said vehicle is anticipated to fly astronauts to and from the International Space Station. It will serve as the formal means of transportation for commercial crew flights to the station; however, the program has been set back for years now. This is why it was reported that NASA Director, Jim Bridenstine, is not happy with the delays, especially since SpaceX has made it possible to build Starship Mk1 ahead of its scheduled test flight.

Nonetheless, Elon Musk assured everyone that SpaceX is focused on the completion of Crew Dragon as well as other pending projects for other customers. He claims that SpaceX only spends about 5% of its resources on the Starship program, and the rest is focused on the other projects.

(Photo : CNBC)Starship under construction in Texas

An additional announcement made by Elon Musk last Saturday revolves around the ambitious test schedule for the Starship Mk1 as well. He estimates that the Starship will possibly make a limited flight by November.

This is an impressive feat for the program since Starship is considered as one of the most powerful rockets in history. It is designed to be lofted into orbit on the Super Heavy, which holds up 37 Raptor engines with an estimated payload capacity of 150,000 kg to LEO. This surpasses that of the Space Launch System's final Block 2 configuration, which is estimated to be capable of 130,000 kg to LEO.

Because of this, many are beyond excited to witness the first flight of Starship Mk1 in November, and its full testing on 2020.

Related Article: SpaceX Mars Delivery Service: Elon Musk Opens Cargo Shipping to the Red Planet Because Why Not?

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Elon Musk Unveils The First-Ever Prototype of Starship, The Second Stage of the BFR - iTech Post

Inspired from FutureTimeline.net and the Integrated Space Plan we have created a speculated timeline of human exploration and colonization of Mars. Predictions are based on a reasonably optimistic evaluation of technological and social progress of humanity. Only the most important and innovative events are mentioned. Timeline is regularly updated taking into account latest developments.Last update was made on 12th February, 2019.

Go to: 2020s 2030s 2040s 2050s 2060s 2070s 2080s 2090s 22nd century

Mars becomes practically self-sufficient, having to import only the most complex goods and intellectual property.

The self-sufficiency results in Mars becoming an independent nation-state. The Martian government has to buy up the non-Martian governmental assets located on Mars.

As a technologically advanced frontier society Mars and orbital stations around it become the primary source of specialists and workers needed for human bases and missions further in Main asteroid belt and outer Solar system.

Air pressure and temperature on Mars is increased to the level where there is flowing water on the surface and simple plants can be introduced into newly created biosphere of the planet.

As one of the lower regions on Mars close to the equator Valles Marineris is seeing the most benefits from terraformation activities and Phobos space elevator; cities and farming communities are spreading throughout the valleys and at the end of the 22nd century there are nearly 5 million people living in Valles Marineris. It's the most populous urban area on Mars.

Outdated cover images:

Read more here:

Mars Colonization Timeline | human Mars

From Ad Astra July/August 1996

Among extraterrestrial bodies in our solar system, Mars is singular in that it possesses all the raw materials required to support not only life, but a new branch of human civilization. This uniqueness is illustrated most clearly if we contrast Mars with the Earths Moon, the most frequently cited alternative location for extraterrestrial human colonization.

In contrast to the Moon, Mars is rich in carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen and oxygen, all in biologically readily accessible forms such as carbon dioxide gas, nitrogen gas, and water ice and permafrost. Carbon, nitrogen, and hydrogen are only present on the Moon in parts per million quantities, much like gold in seawater. Oxygen is abundant on the Moon, but only in tightly bound oxides such as silicon dioxide (SiO2), ferrous oxide (Fe2O3), magnesium oxide (MgO), and aluminum oxide (Al2O3), which require very high energy processes to reduce. Current knowledge indicates that if Mars were smooth and all its ice and permafrost melted into liquid water, the entire planet would be covered with an ocean over 100 meters deep. This contrasts strongly with the Moon, which is so dry that if concrete were found there, Lunar colonists would mine it to get the water out. Thus, if plants could be grown in greenhouses on the Moon (an unlikely proposition, as weve seen) most of their biomass material would have to be imported.

The Moon is also deficient in about half the metals of interest to industrial society (copper, for example), as well as many other elements of interest such as sulfur and phosphorus. Mars has every required element in abundance. Moreover, on Mars, as on Earth, hydrologic and volcanic processes have occurred that are likely to have consolidated various elements into local concentrations of high-grade mineral ore. Indeed, the geologic history of Mars has been compared to that of Africa, with very optimistic inferences as to its mineral wealth implied as a corollary. In contrast, the Moon has had virtually no history of water or volcanic action, with the result that it is basically composed of trash rocks with very little differentiation into ores that represent useful concentrations of anything interesting.

You can generate power on either the Moon or Mars with solar panels, and here the advantages of the Moons clearer skies and closer proximity to the Sun than Mars roughly balances the disadvantage of large energy storage requirements created by the Moons 28-day light-dark cycle. But if you wish to manufacture solar panels, so as to create a self-expanding power base, Mars holds an enormous advantage, as only Mars possesses the large supplies of carbon and hydrogen needed to produce the pure silicon required for producing photovoltaic panels and other electronics. In addition, Mars has the potential for wind-generated power while the Moon clearly does not. But both solar and wind offer relatively modest power potential tens or at most hundreds of kilowatts here or there. To create a vibrant civilization you need a richer power base, and this Mars has both in the short and medium term in the form of its geothermal power resources, which offer potential for large numbers of locally created electricity generating stations in the 10 MW (10,000 kilowatt) class. In the long-term, Mars will enjoy a power-rich economy based upon exploitation of its large domestic resources of deuterium fuel for fusion reactors. Deuterium is five times more common on Mars than it is on Earth, and tens of thousands of times more common on Mars than on the Moon.

But the biggest problem with the Moon, as with all other airless planetary bodies and proposed artificial free-space colonies, is that sunlight is not available in a form useful for growing crops. A single acre of plants on Earth requires four megawatts of sunlight power, a square kilometer needs 1,000 MW. The entire world put together does not produce enough electrical power to illuminate the farms of the state of Rhode Island, that agricultural giant. Growing crops with electrically generated light is just economically hopeless. But you cant use natural sunlight on the Moon or any other airless body in space unless you put walls on the greenhouse thick enough to shield out solar flares, a requirement that enormously increases the expense of creating cropland. Even if you did that, it wouldnt do you any good on the Moon, because plants wont grow in a light/dark cycle lasting 28 days.

But on Mars there is an atmosphere thick enough to protect crops grown on the surface from solar flare. Therefore, thin-walled inflatable plastic greenhouses protected by unpressurized UV-resistant hard-plastic shield domes can be used to rapidly create cropland on the surface. Even without the problems of solar flares and month-long diurnal cycle, such simple greenhouses would be impractical on the Moon as they would create unbearably high temperatures. On Mars, in contrast, the strong greenhouse effect created by such domes would be precisely what is necessary to produce a temperate climate inside. Such domes up to 50 meters in diameter are light enough to be transported from Earth initially, and later on they can be manufactured on Mars out of indigenous materials. Because all the resources to make plastics exist on Mars, networks of such 50- to 100-meter domes couldbe rapidly manufactured and deployed, opening up large areas of the surface to both shirtsleeve human habitation and agriculture. Thats just the beginning, because it will eventually be possible for humans to substantially thicken Mars atmosphere by forcing the regolith to outgas its contents through a deliberate program of artificially induced global warming. Once that has been accomplished, the habitation domes could be virtually any size, as they would not have to sustain a pressure differential between their interior and exterior. In fact, once that has been done, it will be possible to raise specially bred crops outside the domes.

The point to be made is that unlike colonists on any known extraterrestrial body, Martian colonists will be able to live on the surface, not in tunnels, and move about freely and grow crops in the light of day. Mars is a place where humans can live and multiply to large numbers, supporting themselves with products of every description made out of indigenous materials. Mars is thus a place where an actual civilization, not just a mining or scientific outpost, can be developed. And significantly for interplanetary commerce, Mars and Earth are the only two locations in the solar system where humans will be able to grow crops for export.

Mars is the best target for colonization in the solar system because it has by far the greatest potential for self-sufficiency. Nevertheless, even with optimistic extrapolation of robotic manufacturing techniques, Mars will not have the division of labor required to make it fully self-sufficient until its population numbers in the millions. Thus, for decades and perhaps longer, it will be necessary, and forever desirable, for Mars to be able to import specialized manufactured goods from Earth. These goods can be fairly limited in mass, as only small portions (by weight) of even very high-tech goods are actually complex. Nevertheless, these smaller sophisticated items will have to be paid for, and the high costs of Earth-launch and interplanetary transport will greatly increase their price. What can Mars possibly export back to Earth in return?

It is this question that has caused many to incorrectly deem Mars colonization intractable, or at least inferior in prospect to the Moon. For example, much has been made of the fact that the Moon has indigenous supplies of helium-3, an isotope not found on Earth and which could be of considerable value as a fuel for second generation thermonuclear fusion reactors. Mars has no known helium-3 resources. On the other hand, because of its complex geologic history, Mars may have concentrated mineral ores, with much greater concentrations of precious metal ores readily available than is currently the case on Earth because the terrestrial ores have been heavily scavenged by humans for the past 5,000 years. If concentrated supplies of metals of equal or greater value than silver (such as germanium, hafnium, lanthanum, cerium, rhenium, samarium, gallium, gadolinium, gold, palladium, iridium, rubidium, platinum, rhodium, europium, and a host of others) were available on Mars, they could potentially be transported back to Earth for a substantial profit. Reusable Mars-surface based single-stage-to-orbit vehicles would haul cargoes to Mars orbit for transportation to Earth via either cheap expendable chemical stages manufactured on Mars or reusable cycling solar or magnetic sail-powered interplanetary spacecraft. The existence of such Martian precious metal ores, however, is still hypothetical.

But there is one commercial resource that is known to exist ubiquitously on Mars in large amount deuterium. Deuterium, the heavy isotope of hydrogen, occurs as 166 out of every million hydrogen atoms on Earth, but comprises 833 out of every million hydrogen atoms on Mars. Deuterium is the key fuel not only for both first and second generation fusion reactors, but it is also an essential material needed by the nuclear power industry today. Even with cheap power, deuterium is very expensive; its current market value on Earth is about $10,000 per kilogram, roughly fifty times as valuable as silver or 70% as valuable as gold. This is in todays pre-fusion economy. Once fusion reactors go into widespread use deuterium prices will increase. All the in-situ chemical processes required to produce the fuel, oxygen, and plastics necessary to run a Mars settlement require water electrolysis as an intermediate step. As a by product of these operations, millions, perhaps billions, of dollars worth of deuterium will be produced.

Ideas may be another possible export for Martian colonists. Just as the labor shortage prevalent in colonial and nineteenth century America drove the creation of Yankee ingenuitys flood of inventions, so the conditions of extreme labor shortage combined with a technological culture that shuns impractical legislative constraints against innovation will tend to drive Martian ingenuity to produce wave after wave of invention in energy production, automation and robotics, biotechnology, and other areas. These inventions, licensed on Earth, could finance Mars even as they revolutionize and advance terrestrial living standards as forcefully as nineteenth century American invention changed Europe and ultimately the rest of the world as well.

Inventions produced as a matter of necessity by a practical intellectual culture stressed by frontier conditions can make Mars rich, but invention and direct export to Earth are not the only ways that Martians will be able to make a fortune. The other route is via trade to the asteroid belt, the band of small, mineral-rich bodies lying between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. There are about 5,000 asteroids known today, of which about 98% are in the Main Belt lying between Mars and Jupiter, with an average distance from the Sun of about 2.7 astronomical units, or AU. (The Earth is 1.0 AU from the Sun.) Of the remaining two percent known as the near-Earth asteroids, about 90% orbit closer to Mars than to the Earth. Collectively, these asteroids represent an enormous stockpile of mineral wealth in the form of platinum group and other valuable metals.

Miners operating among the asteroids will be unable to produce their necessary supplies locally. There will thus be a need to export food and other necessary goods from either Earth or Mars to the Main Belt. Mars has an overwhelming positional advantage as a location from which to conduct such trade.

The primary analogy I wish to draw is that Mars is to the new age of exploration as North America was to the last. The Earths Moon, close to the metropolitan planet but impoverished in resources, compares to Greenland. Other destinations, such as the Main Belt asteroids, may be rich in potential future exports to Earth but lack the preconditions for the creation of a fully developed indigenous society; these compare to the West Indies. Only Mars has the full set of resources required to develop a native civilization, and only Mars is a viable target for true colonization. Like America in its relationship to Britain and the West Indies, Mars has a positional advantage that will allow it to participate in a useful way to support extractive activities on behalf of Earth in the asteroid belt and elsewhere.

But despite the shortsighted calculations of eighteenth-century European statesmen and financiers, the true value of America never was as a logistical support base for West Indies sugar and spice trade, inland fur trade, or as a potential market for manufactured goods. The true value of America was as the future home for a new branch of human civilization, one that as a combined result of its humanistic antecedents and its frontier conditions was able to develop into the most powerful engine for human progress and economic growth the world had ever seen. The wealth of America was in fact that she could support people, and that the right kind of people chose to go to her. People create wealth. People are wealth and power. Every feature of Frontier American life that acted to create a practical can-do culture of innovating people will apply to Mars a hundred-fold.

Mars is a harsher place than any on Earth. But provided one can survive the regimen, it is the toughest schools that are the best. The Martians shall do well.

Robert Zubrin is former Chairman of the National Space Society, President of the Mars Society, and author of The Case For Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must.

See also these articles by Robert Zubrin:The Promise of MarsThe Significance of the Martian Frontier

Original post:

The Case for Colonizing Mars, by Robert Zubrin|National ...

Inspired from FutureTimeline.net and the Integrated Space Plan we have created a speculated timeline of human exploration and colonization of Mars. Predictions are based on a reasonably optimistic evaluation of technological and social progress of humanity. Only the most important and innovative events are mentioned. Timeline is regularly updated taking into account latest developments.Last update was made on 30th September, 2018.

Go to: 2020s 2030s 2040s 2050s 2060s 2070s 2080s 2090s 22nd century

Mars becomes practically self-sufficient, having to import only the most complex goods and intellectual property.

The self-sufficiency results in Mars becoming an independent nation-state. The Martian government has to buy up the non-Martian governmental assets located on Mars.

As a technologically advanced frontier society Mars and orbital stations around it become the primary source of specialists and workers needed for human bases and missions further in Main asteroid belt and outer Solar system.

Air pressure and temperature on Mars is increased to the level where there is flowing water on the surface and simple plants can be introduced into newly created biosphere of the planet.

As one of the lower regions on Mars close to the equator Valles Marineris is seeing the most benefits from terraformation activities and Phobos space elevator; cities and farming communities are spreading throughout the valleys and at the end of the 22nd century there are nearly 5 million people living in Valles Marineris. It's the most populous urban area on Mars.

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human Mars: Mars Colonization Timeline

The Interplanetary Transport System (ITS),[1] formerly known as the Mars Colonial Transporter (MCT), is SpaceX's privately funded development project to design and build a system[2] of spaceflight technology and remote human settlements on Marsincluding reusable launch vehicles and spacecraft; Earth infrastructure for rapid launch and relaunch; low Earth orbit, zero-gravity propellant transfer technology; and extraterrestrial technology to enable human colonization of Mars. The technology is also envisioned to eventually support exploration missions to other locations in the Solar System including the moons of Jupiter and Saturn.[3]

Development work began in earnest before 2012 when SpaceX began design work for the large Raptor rocket engine to be used for both the ITS launch vehicle and spacecraft (ITS tanker and Interplanetary Spaceship). New rocket engine designs are typically considered one of the longest of the development subprocesses for new launch vehicles and spacecraft. By June 2016, the company publicly announced conceptual plans[4] that included the first Mars-bound cargo flight of ITS launching no earlier than 2022, followed by the first ITS Mars flight with passengers one synodic period later in 2024,[5] following two preparatory research launches of Mars probes in 2018 and 2020 on Dragon/Falcon Heavy equipment.[6] SpaceX CEO Elon Musk unveiled details of the system architecture at the 67th International Astronautical Congress on September 27, 2016.[7]

As publicly discussed, SpaceX is concentrating its resources on the transportation part of the project including a propellant plant that could be deployed on Mars to make methalox rocket propellant from local resources. However, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is championing a much larger set of long-term interplanetary settlement objectives, ones that go far beyond what SpaceX will build and that will ultimately involve many more economic actorswhether individual, company, or governmentto facilitate the settlement to build out over many decades.[8][9][10]

As early as 2007, Elon Musk stated a personal goal of eventually enabling human exploration and settlement of Mars,[11][12] although his personal public interest in Mars goes back at least to 2001.[10] Bits of additional information about the mission architecture were released in 20112015, including a 2014 statement that initial colonists would arrive at Mars no earlier than the middle of the 2020s.[13] Company plans as of mid-2016 continue to call for the arrival of the first humans on Mars no earlier than 2025.[5][14]

Musk stated in a 2011 interview that he hoped to send humans to Mars's surface within 1020 years,[12] and in late 2012 he stated that he envisioned a Mars colony of tens of thousands with the first colonists arriving no earlier than the middle of the 2020s.[13][15][16]

In October 2012, Musk articulated a high-level plan to build a second reusable rocket system with capabilities substantially beyond the Falcon 9/Falcon Heavy launch vehicles on which SpaceX had by then spent several billion US dollars.[17] This new vehicle was to be "an evolution of SpaceX's Falcon 9 booster ... much bigger [than Falcon 9]." But Musk indicated that SpaceX would not be speaking publicly about it until 2013.[13][18] In June 2013, Musk stated that he intended to hold off any potential IPO of SpaceX shares on the stock market until after the "Mars Colonial Transporter is flying regularly."[19][20]

In August 2014, media sources speculated that the initial flight test of the Raptor-driven super-heavy launch vehicle could occur as early as 2020, in order to fully test the engines under orbital spaceflight conditions; however, any colonization effort was reported to continue to be "deep into the future".[21][22]

In January 2015, Musk said that he hoped to release details in late 2015 of the "completely new architecture" for the system that would enable the colonization of Mars. but those plans changed and, by December 2015, the plan to publicly release additional specifics had moved to 2016.[23] In January 2016, Musk indicated that he hoped to describe the architecture for the Mars missions with the next generation SpaceX rocket and spacecraft later in 2016, at the 67th International Astronautical Congress conference,[7] in September 2016.[24][25] Musk stated in June 2016 that the first unmanned MCT Mars flight was planned for departure in 2022, to be followed by the first manned MCT Mars flight departing in 2024.[5][6] By mid-September 2016, Musk noted that the MCT name would not continue, as the system would be able to "go well beyond Mars", and that a new name would be needed: Interplanetary Transport System (ITS).[1]

On 27 September 2016, at the 67th annual meeting of the International Astronautical Congress, Musk unveiled substantial details of the design for the transport vehiclesincluding size, construction material, number and type of engines, thrust, cargo and passenger payload capabilities, on-orbit propellant-tanker refills, representative transit times, etc.as well as a few details of portions of the Mars-side and Earth-side infrastructure that SpaceX intends to build to support the flight vehicles. In addition, Musk championed a larger systemic vision, a vision for a bottom-up emergent order of other interested partieswhether companies, individuals, or governmentsto utilize the new and radically lower-cost transport infrastructure to build up a sustainable human civilization on Mars, potentially, on numerous other locations around the Solar System, by innovating and meeting the demand that such a growing venture would occasion.[8][9]

The Interplanetary Transport System consists of a combination of several elements that are keyaccording to Muskto making long-duration beyond Earth orbit (BEO) spaceflights possible by reducing the cost per ton delivered to Mars:[26][27][28]

The super-heavy lift launch vehicle[30] for the Interplanetary Transport System will place up to 300 tonnes (660,000lb) (reusable-mode) or 550 tonnes (1,210,000lb) (expendable-mode)or carry 380 tonnes (840,000lb) of propellant on an ITS tankerto low Earth orbit.[29]

The ITS launch vehicle will be powered by the Raptor bipropellant liquid rocket engines on both stages, using exclusively densified liquid methane fuel and liquid oxygen oxidizer on both stages.[29][30] The tanks will be autogenously pressurized, eliminating the need for the problematic helium gas pressurization.[29]

The ITS launch vehicle is reusable, making use of the SpaceX reusable technology that was developed during 20112016 for Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy.[29][2]

On all Earth-away launches, the long-duration spacecraft (tanker or spaceship) will also play a role briefly as the second stage of the launch vehicle to provide acceleration to orbital velocity, a design approach not used in other launch vehicles.

The Interplanetary Spaceship is an interplanetary ship with a carbon-fiber primary structure propelled by nine Raptor engines operating on densified methane/oxygen propellants. It is 49.5m (162ft)-long, has a maximum hull diameter of 12 m, and is 17m (56ft)-diameter at its widest point, and is capable of transporting up to 450 tonnes (990,000lb) of cargo and passengers per trip to Mars, with on-orbit propellant refill before the interplanetary part of the journey.[27][29] Early flights are expected to carry mostly equipment and few people.[13]

As of September 2016, there is no name for the class of spacecraft beyond the descriptor Interplanetary Spaceship. Musk did indicate however that the first of those ships to make the Mars journey might be named Heart of Gold[1] in reference to the ship carrying the Infinite Improbability Drive, from the novel The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.[31] Although it was noted that the number of first-stage engines seemed to be inspired by The Answer,[32] Musk didn't allude to such a connection.

The transport capacity of the spaceship from low Earth orbit to a Mars trajectorywith a trans-Mars trajectory insertion energy gain of 6km/s (3.7mi/s) and full propellant tanksis 450 tonnes (500 tons) to Mars orbit, or 300 tonnes (330 tons) landed on the surface with retropropulsive landing. Estimated Earth-Mars transit times vary between 80150 days, depending on particular planetary alignments during the nine discrete 20202037 mission opportunities, assuming 6 km/s delta-v added at trans-Mars injection.[27]

The spaceship is designed to enter the Martian atmosphere at entry velocities in excess of 8.5 km/s and allow aerodynamic forces to provide the major part of the deceleration before the three center Raptor engines perform the final landing burn. The heat shield material protecting the ship on descent is PICA 3.0, and is reusable. Entry g-forces at Mars are expected to be in order of 46 g during the descent.[27] The spaceship design g-load would be in the range of 5 g nominal, but able to withstand peak loads 2 to 3 times higher without breaking up.[33]

Energy for the journey is produced by two large solar panel arrays, generating approximately 200kW of power while at the distance of Earth from the Sun, and less as the journey progresses and the Sun is farther away as the ship nears Mars.[26]:19:38

The spaceship may use a large internal water layer to help shield occupants from space radiation, and may have a cabin oxygen content that is up to two times that which is found in Earth's atmosphere.[13] The initial tests of the spaceship are not expected prior to 2020, with the ITS booster to follow only later.[14]

According to Musk, the spaceship would effectively become the first human habitat on Mars.[34]

A key feature of the system is a propellant-cargo-only tanker: the ITS tanker. Just as the spaceship, the tanker would serve as the upper stage of the ITS launch vehicle during the launch from Earth. The vehicle is designed exclusively for the launch and short-term holding of propellants to be transported to low Earth orbit for re-filling propellants in the interplanetary ships. Once on orbit, a rendezvous operation is effected with one of the Interplanetary Spaceships, plumbing connections are made, and a maximum of 380 tonnes (840,000lb) of liquid methane and liquid oxygen propellants are transferred in one load to the spaceship. To fully fuel an Interplanetary Spaceship for a long-duration interplanetary flight, it is expected that up to five tankers would be required to launch from Earth, carrying and transferring a total of nearly 1,900 tonnes (4,200,000lb) of propellant to fully load the spaceship for the journey.[27]

The ITS tanker is the same physical dimensions as the Interplanetary Spacecraft: 49.5m (162ft)-long, maximum hull diameter of 12 m, and is 17m (56ft) at its widest point. It will also be powered by six vacuum-optimized Raptor engines, each producing 3.5MN (790,000lbf) thrust, and will have three lower-expansion-ratio Raptor engines for flight maneuvering and Earth-return landings.[35][29] Following completion of the on-orbit propellant offloading, the reusable tanker will reenter the Earth's atmosphere, land, and be prepared for another tanker flight.[27] The tanker could also be used for cargo missions.[citation needed]

A key part of the system Musk is conceptualizing to radically decrease the cost of spaceflight to interplanetary destinations is the placement and operation of a physical plant on Mars to handle production and storage of the propellant components necessary to launch and fly the Interplanetary Spaceships back to Earth, or perhaps to increase the mass that can be transported onward to destinations in the outer Solar System. Coupled with the Earth-orbit tank filling prior to the journey to Mars, and the fully reusable launch vehicles and spacecraft, all three elements are needed to reduce the transport cost by the multiple orders of magnitude that Musk sees as necessary to support sustainable colonization of Mars.[27]

The first Interplanetary Spaceship to Mars will carry a small propellant plant as a part of its cargo load. The plant will be expanded over multiple synods as more equipment arrives, is installed, and placed into mostly-autonomous production.[27]

The propellant plant will take advantage of the large supplies of carbon dioxide and water resources on Mars, mining the water (H2O) from subsurface ice and collecting CO2 from the atmosphere. A chemical plant will process the raw materials by means of electrolysis and the Sabatier process to produce molecular oxygen (O2) and methane (CH4), and then liquefy it to facilitate long-term storage and ultimate use.[27]

The initial launch site for the launch and rapid reuse of the ITS launch vehicle will be the SpaceX leased facility at historic Launch Pad 39A along the Florida space coast. While originally thought to be too small to handle the ITS launch vehicle, the final optimized size of the Raptor engine is fairly close to the physical size of the Merlin 1D, although each engine will have approximately three times the thrust. Falcon Heavy will launch from 39A with 27 Merlin engines; ITS LV will launch with 42 Raptor engines.[29]

Musk indicated on September 27, 2016 that the ITS launch vehicle would launch from more than one site. A prime candidate for the second launch site is somewhere along the south Texas coast.

As of March 2014[update], no launch site had yet been selected for the super-heavy lift rocket and the then-named "Mars Colonial Transporter." SpaceX indicated at the time that their leased facility in Florida at Launch Pad 39A would not be large enough to accommodate the vehicle as it was understood conceptually in 2014, and that therefore a new site would need to be built in order to launch the >10-meter diameter rocket.[36]

In September 2014, Elon Musk indicated that the first person to go to another planet could possibly launch from the SpaceX South Texas Launch Site,[37] but did not indicate at the time what launch vehicle might be used to carry humans to orbit.

Musk has indicated that the earliest SpaceX-sponsored missions would have a smaller crew and use much of the pressurized space for cargo. The first cargo mission of the Interplanetary Spaceship would be named "Heart of Gold" and would be loaded with equipment to build the propellant plant.[33]

The first crewed Mars mission would be expected to have approximately 12 people, with the primary goal to "build out and troubleshoot the propellant plant and Mars Base Alpha power system" as well as a "rudimentary base." In the event of an emergency, the spaceship would be able to return to Earth without having to wait a full 26 months for the next synodic period.[33]

Before any people are transported to Mars, some number of cargo missions would be undertaken first in order to transport the requisite equipment, habitats and supplies.[38] Equipment that would accompany the early groups would include "machines to produce fertilizer, methane and oxygen from Mars' atmospheric nitrogen and carbon dioxide and the planet's subsurface water ice" as well as construction materials to build transparent domes for crop growth.[13]

The early concepts for "green living space" habitats include glass panes with a carbon-fiber-frame geodesic domes, and "a lot of miner/tunneling droids [for building] out a huge amount of pressurized space for industrial operations." But these are merely conceptual and not a detailed design plan.[33]

As of 2016 when publicly discussed, SpaceX the company is concentrating its resources on the transportation part of the overall ITS project as well as an autonomous propellant plant that could be deployed on Mars to produce methane and oxygen rocket propellants from local resources. If built, and if planned objectives are achieved, then the transport cost of getting material and people to space, and across interplanetary space, will be reduced by several orders of magnitude. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is championing a much larger set of long-term interplanetary settlement objectives, ones that take advantage of these lower transport costs to go far beyond what the company SpaceX will build and that will ultimately involve many more economic actorswhether individual, company, or governmentto build out the settlement over many decades.[8][9]

In addition to explicit SpaceX plans and concepts for a transportation system and early missions, Musk has personally been a very public exponent of a large systemic vision for building a sustainable human presence on Mars over the very long term, a vision well beyond what his company or he personally can effect. The growth of such a system over decades cannot be planned in every detail, but is rather a complex adaptive system that will come about only as others make their own independent choices as to how they might, or might not, connect with the broader "system" of an incipient (and later, growing) Mars settlement. Musk sees the new and radically lower-cost transport infrastructure facilitating the build up of a bottom-up economic order of other interested partieswhether companies, individuals, or governmentswho will innovate and supply the demand that such a growing venture would occasion.[8][9]

While the initial SpaceX Mars settlement would start very small, with an initial group of about a dozen people,[33] with time, Musk hopes that such an outpost would grow into something much larger and become self-sustaining, at least 1 million people. According to Musk,

Even at a million people youre assuming an incredible amount of productivity per person, because you would need to recreate the entire industrial base on Mars. You would need to mine and refine all of these different materials, in a much more difficult environment than Earth. There would be no trees growing. There would be no oxygen or nitrogen that are just there. No oil.

Excluding organic growth, if you could take 100 people at a time, you would need 10,000 trips to get to a million people. But you would also need a lot of cargo to support those people. In fact, your cargo to person ratio is going to be quite high. It would probably be 10 cargo trips for every human trip, so more like 100,000 trips. And were talking 100,000 trips of a giant spaceship.[39]

The notional journeys outlined in the November 2016 talk would require 80 to 150 days of transit time,[40] with an average trip time to Mars of approximately 115 days (for the nine synodic periods occurring between 2020 and 2037).[27] In 2012, Musk stated an aspirational price goal for such a trip might be on the order of US$500,000 per person,[13] but in 2016 he mentioned that long-term costs might become as low as US$200,000.[40]

As of September 2016[update], the complex project has financial commitments only from SpaceX and Musk's personal capital. The Washington Post pointed out that "The [US] government doesn't have the budget for Mars colonization. Thus, the private sector would have to see Mars as an attractive business environment. Musk is willing to pour his wealth into the project" but it will not be enough to build the colony he envisions.[41]

The overview presentation on the Interplanetary Transport System given by Musk on 27 September 2016 included concept slides outlining missions to the Saturnian moon Enceladus, the Jovian moon Europa, Kuiper belt objects, a fuel depot on Pluto and even the uses to take payloads to the Oort Cloud.[29] "Musk said ... the system can open up the entire Solar System to people. If fuel depots based on this design were put on asteroids or other areas around the Solar System, people could go anywhere they wanted just by planet or moon hopping. 'The goal of SpaceX is to build the transport system ... Once that transport system is built, then there is a tremendous opportunity for anyone that wants to go to Mars to create something new or build a new planet.'"[10] Outer planet trips would likely require propellant refills at Mars, and perhaps other locations in the outer Solar System.[40]

The extensive development and manufacture of much of the space transport technology has been to date (through 2016), and is being, privately funded by SpaceX. The entire project is even possible only as a result of SpaceX multi-faceted approach focusing on the reduction of launch costs.[29]

As of 2016[update], SpaceX is expending "a few tens of millions of dollars annually on development of the Mars transport concept, which amounts to well under 5 percent of the companys total expenses",[40] but expects that figure to rise to some US$300 million per year by around 2018. The cost of all work leading up to the first Mars launch is expected to be "on the order of US$10 billion"[40] and SpaceX expects to expend that much before it generates any transport revenue.[9]

Musk indicated in September 2016 that the full build-out of the Mars colonialization plans will likely be funded by both private and public funds. The speed of commercially available Mars transport for both cargo and humans will be driven, in large part, by market demand as well as constrained by the technology development and development funding.[9][40]

Elon Musk has said that there is no expectation of receiving NASA contracts for any of the ITS system work. He also indicated that such contracts, if received, would be good.[42]

In September 2016, Musk presented the following high-level, forward-looking, fabrication cost projections, given a set of assumptions. Those assumptions include: Cost of propellant: US$168/tonne; Launch site costs: US$200,000/launch; Discount rate: 5%; Cargo delivered: 450 tonne per single Interplanetary Spaceship; and full reuse. All assumptions are about a single mission once thousands of launches and hundreds of flights to Mars are a realistic prospect. They do not apply to costs for the much smaller number of early missions envisioned for the 2020s. Given these assumptions, Musk presented the following long-term mission cost projections:[31][27]

Calculated result: total average cost (based on the life cycle of the system, included costs of the initial fabrication, propellant, maintenance and company's amortization) of one Interplanetary Spaceship transported to Mars: US$62 million; or less than US$140,000 cost per tonne of mass transported to Mars.

SpaceX plans to fly its earliest missions to Mars using its Falcon Heavy launch vehicle prior to the completion, and first launch, of any ITS vehicle. Later missions utilizing ITS technologythe ITS launch vehicle and Interplanetary Spaceship with on-orbit propellant refill via ITS tankerwould begin no earlier than 2022. The company is planning for launches of research spacecraft to Mars using Falcon Heavy launch vehicles and specialized modified Dragon spacecraft. Due to planetary alignment in the inner Solar System, the launches are typically limited to a window of approximately every 26 months. Originally (in June 2016), the first launch was planned for Spring 2018, with an announced intent to launch again in every Mars launch window thereafter. In February 2017, however, the first launch to Mars was pushed back to 2020.[43] The early missions will collect essential data to refine the design of the ITS, and better select landing locations based on the availability of extraterrestrial resources such as water and building materials.[6]

The tentative mission manifest from November 2016 (now outdated) included three Falcon Heavy missions to Mars prior to the first possible flight of an ITS to Mars in 2022:[6]

In February 2017, the first launch was postponed to 2020 and it was unclear whether the overall sequence of Mars missions would be kept intact and simply pushed back by 26 months. In July 2017, Musk announced that development of propulsive landing for the Red Dragon capsule was cancelled in favor of a "much better" landing technique, as yet unrevealed, for a larger spacecraft.[45] As of August 2017[update], no new schedule for Mars missions has been forthcoming.

Italics indicate unflown vehicles and future missions or sites. denotes failed missions, destroyed vehicles and abandoned sites.

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Interplanetary Transport System - Wikipedia