Reaching for Mars

Credit: NASA/Pat Rawlings, SAIC

Below I've listed a few of the resources and ideas that I've found so far concerning the colonisation of Mars. Elsewhere, if you look hard, you'll find better lists (with prettier pictures too) but this is my handful of data and perspective on the subject.

Here are some organisations actively involved in research or with the stated aim of establishing a colony on Mars. (It's easy enough to search Facebook for Mars groups for yourself, and some of them are fairly sane too.)

The Mars Society.

Its founders include Robert Zubrin, an innovative rocket scientist formerly at Martin Marietta, a visionary speaker and writer. His practical ideas ended up being too far ahead of the establishment, so he resigned and founded his own company. Now NASA and virtually the whole space exploration movement acknowledges that his 'Mars Direct' plan is basically where it's at. 

The Mars Society has established two simulated Mars bases, one in Utah, one in the Canadian Arctic. Volunteer scientists go and stay there to do real research relating to Mars.

Their mission statement includes the following:

 The purpose of the Mars Society is to further the exploration and settlement of the Red Planet.

SpaceX: Space Exploration company with sights set on colonising Mars.

SpaceX's visionary owner, Elon Musk, is a daring billionaire. It's said that big money hates taking risks - thus, nearly 50 years after the first Apollo moon landing, humans-in-space still consists of a few people hanging out in low Earth orbit. And the rockets and hardware in use now are based on '60s designs. Really.

Enter Elon Musk and his 3000+ employees. They've gone through the design of rocket launchers with a magnifying glass to find out how to make it cheaper to build and fly rockets to orbit. And they're well on the way to making the world's first fully-reusable rocket launch system. (No, the Space Shuttle wasn't fully reusable. Only the winged beast was; the boosters and external tank weren't truly reusable).

What does this have to do with a Mars colony? Obviously to get there you need to launch a great deal of equipment - and some people - from Earth to orbit. That's actually the most expensive part. SpaceX is lowering the cost per kilo of launching to Earth orbit by innovating, testing and flying new things. Right now their engineers are developing the Raptor rocket motor which will be powered by methane and oxygen. So far, most heavy-lift motors use hydrogen and oxygen. But hydrogen's very hard to store long-term, and methane can be manufactured fairly easily on Mars (or it can even be found and used on many asteroids).

What is more, Elon Musk has strongly expressed his vision to 'make humanity a multi-planetary species' by building a large and lasting colony on the Red Planet. He plays his cards close to his chest, so there aren't many details available and there's plenty of speculation, such as this 'fan art' concept of SpaceX's Mars colony Ship:

Mars One

I expect you've heard of this one so many times already. Bas Lansdorp, founder of Mars One, wanted to go to Mars as a boy after watching an early Mars probe on TV. Now he's an entrepeneur, recruiting thousands of potential Mars colonists for a one-way trip to begin a colony there. He admits he doesn't have the team-building personality to make a good crew member, so he won't be going himself, at least not at first.

Here is their own list of web links related to their grand scheme:

http://www.mars-one.com/news/resources

....to be continued!

Progress on Mars Writing

Told you I'd be gone for a while. It's a long way to Mars and back!

So far I have a mass of notes (or should that be a mess? Yes, it should.)  Topics include:

·         Private space corporations

·         Asteroid mining

·         Mars remote sensing research

·         Astrobiology

·         Which universities do postgraduate research in astronautics?

·         Mars One

·         The large body of Mars fiction, from 1880 to the present

Almost nothing of the story is written beyond note form. Here's a snippet of what could be an interlude in the form of Facebook-type messages:

 

RichK31  3hrs . Richmond, Virginia

great day!! at last broadband to my door again! it been long time. now I can play WoW. 12 months offline whew!

doktahoo 3hrs . Cape Town

Had it last week. still slow tho

Mleonor 2hrs . New York

Anybody heard news from MarsOne yet?

Mick Major 2hrs .

They say a webcast or tweets 1pm EST but even on broadcast TV no news for months

Mleonor 2hrs . New York

No news good news? Mars One management has gone pretty quiet the last year or two of the crisis

Mleonor 55mins . New York

Everybody – what were you doing when M1 first landed? Memories?

Abdul Basit 48mins . Dar Assalaam

missed it in hospital sick just my bad luck

RickK31 33mins . Richmond, Viriginia

I watched it on my ol' iPhone I was trekking across Colorado terrible signal out there just me an the coyotes was that really 5years ago

Mleonor 31mins . New York

5 yrs 4months 13days 17hours. We threw a big party that day. The apartment was crazy packed. Ran out of pizza. Totally awesome when they stepped onto the surface. We screamed ourselves hoarse and didn't hear their historic words. The day Paulo died the next year I cried solid 48 hours.

Mleonor 13mins . New York

If M1 didnt make it if theres no signal or theyre gone I dont know what ill do

In Another Land

My other news is that I'm finding myself drawn to explore the planet Mars.



Ever since Mars One's co-founder Bas Lansdorp, M.Sc, went public with his plan to send colonists on a one-way trip to the Red Planet, I've been ever more fascinated with the whole project. A decade or more ago I read Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy. It felt like I was really there, half the time. Great stories, but Kim sends 100 colonists all at once. Mars One plans to send them about 4 at a time.

So my next writing project, after publishing Called To Battle, will be a novel about colonising Mars. The more I look into it, the more detail I find. There's a whole new world to learn about. This will be a story for adults, so the science needs to be well-researched and believable.

Wish me bon voyage. I may be gone some time.

Meet the Man From The Moon

Imagine meeting a lunar astronaut. What would you ask him? Science fiction author and astrophysicist Gregory Benford met Buzz Aldrin in the 1980s.

I read this and felt the historic weight of frustration that Apollo astronauts, among many others, have felt since the moon landings.

Gregory Benford's writing, by the way, is top-notch science fiction. He knows the science and he writes good fiction.

Zac Manchester Blasts Off!

Here's a guy who had a great idea and wouldn't give up until he had got the thing working. Zac is a graduate student at Cornell University in New York. His vision: Design and fly a spacecraft that anyone can afford.

Intrigued? Disbelieving? Have a look. It's called KickSat.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/zacinaction/kicksat-your-personal-spacecraft-in-space/posts

With thanks to the BBC News for the pic

The BBC News page where I saw KickSat first is here.

For my blog posting about other home-made space projects and commercial space, see this link. And this one.

Called To Battle: Draft Version

It's not far off now!

For news of the sequel to The Calling, my SF novel for mid-grade children to young adults, follow this link.

The Man Who Works On Mars

Seriously! This man's job involves driving cars on the surface of the planet Mars. He was born in Italy, his father was a school teacher who loved carpentry. Take a look! He says the reasons that most of the other drivers have left the job is that:
1) Google pays more
2) Driving cars on Mars can get boring!

Here's some advice from this driver, Paolo Bellutta :
"What advice would you give to someone who wants to take the same career path as you?
You never know what can help you, so learn everything you can! I often used knowledge I gathered while pursuing my hobbies, or talking to friends or reading non-work-related books."

David Brin, Thinker.

Robert Sawyer mentioned his friend David Brin, the SF author.

 I'm right now listening to one of David's 4 videos on the future of space exploration. And this guy's got the knowledge - Wikipedia says about him:

In 1973, he graduated from the California Institute of Technology with a Bachelor of Science in astrophysics.^[8] He followed this with a Master of Science in applied physics in 1978 and a Doctor of Philosophy in space science in 1981, both from the University of California, San Diego.
Brin is a 2010 fellow of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies.^[9] He helped establish the Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination (UCSD). He serves on the advisory board of NASA's Innovative and Advanced Concepts group and frequently does futurist consulting for corporations and government agencies.

On the subject of Mars, he's thinking of the 'expedition' profile of mission, not the 'one-way-ticket' espoused by Mars One and others. Still lots of common sense - cache supplies, use resources out there, formulate a wise overall goal for space exploration that will work economically. Warning: you need time and spare brain power to listen to this guy.

Is There Hope In Science Fiction?

So I went to the event and it was great to hear the authors Dr. Vincent Lam, Robert J Sawyer (or Rob, as he prefers) and Ania Szado talk about their books and read from it. The Airlanes Hotel ballroom was packed. Thunder Bay's literary community was out in force tonight. The Northern Women's Bookstore was represented on the back tables, selling the authors' books and some local writers' works too - yes, mine was there as well. I gave the store three copies some 10 months ago and they are still faithfully tending all three of them! Maybe the northern women customers don't like kids' sci-fi much.

Anyway, perhaps you're wondering if I asked any or all of my dazzling questions. I managed to squeeze one in right under the wire, when I thought all three writers must be exhausted from talking so much. It came to me in the car, fizzing along the expressway at 7:01 pm. I once read an interview of Kim Stanley Robinson (Stan to his friends, of whom Rob is one) in which he said that the backdrops of SF writing tend to be dystopian, dark, and in response he tries to write in such a way as to inspire hope, to awaken a vision in scientists and others that points to ways in which people could use science and technology to solve some of the big issues facing the human race today. I think he's certainly done that, to the extent to which I've read his stuff. His Mars trilogy points to one way in which all sorts of people might make Mars their home against all the odds and carve out a new kind of community for themselves.

So I asked something like this to all 3 writers - How can writers inspire hope through their writings, or is it even their function? Should we really write about the world 'as it really is'? And the answers were very thoughtful. Rob counts himself as one of fairly few SF writers who write hopefully of the future; Vincent and Ania said in different ways (as I dimly remember) that they write about life as they see it, be it sad, funny, hopeful or whatever. I think Vincent said that if someone tells a writer how they should write, usually a writer will react by writing the opposite!


Rob Sawyer sees our present age as much, much better than those that precede it, and expects the future to be even better in many ways. I'm sure his thoughts are more complex than that; forgive me Rob if I over-simplified there. Looking at today's news in horror and comparing it to past centuries may be like telling my dog his breath only smells from close-up. The horrors of history were undoubtably awful to live through; perhaps today 'we've never had it so good.' Yes... and no. Mankind today has, I think, much more potential for good and evil than ever before. I think the stakes are being raised every day. Are we becoming a race of TV- and web-educated fools, led by the blind? Hmm. I'll have to think about that.


Comments gratefully received below.