Gusev Crater Photo - Mars Rover Landing Site
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Our Plan for Establishing a Colony on Mars
Updated Nov. 18, 2001
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Goal and Financing
Updated January 28, 2004
The goal of the FMAR is to establish a human settlement on Mars and to lay the foundations for a free Martian nation by establishing this settlement without the sponsorship or control of Terran nation states or Terran supranational organizations (like the U.N., the European Union, or the C.I.S.). Instead, we plan to raise money, by asking for voluntary contributions from individuals. By contributing to our organization these individuals prove themselves to be invested in the colonization of Mars and the Asteroids, and they will form the first electors of twelve Martian and one Asteroidal republic.
Our first goal is to send a probe to the moons of Mars to look for water in the form of subterranean ice. We want to finance this first mission by raising about $50 million dollars through voluntary contributions from members of our organization. Once we land a successful probe on Phobos and/or Deimos we will then make an official claim to the moons of Mars and begin raising further funds by selling mineral rights to those moons. If we find water, we then hope to raise about $50 billion dollars to send a manned mission to the moons of Mars. Once we land people on the Martian moons we will make a claim to Mars itself and start selling land on Mars and minieral right to the Asteroids in order to raise money to establish a permanent base on the Moons of Mars, and, later a permanent settlement on the surface of Mars itself.
The first probe will carry a plaque of all those who contributed to the mission. This plaque will claim the moons of Mars on their behalf. They will recieve a portion of the money raised by selling mineral rights to the moons of Mars. Those who contribute in 2005 will recieve three times the amount they contributed, and those who contributed the year the probe was launched will receive two times what they contributed. Those who contributed in the years in between will get an amount gradually decreasing from 3 to 2 times what they contributed.
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Step 1 -- The First Unmanned Mission
Updated January 28,2004
The first mission to the Martian system will be a robotic lander to one of the moons of Mars, Phobos or Deimos. Based on the low calculated density for these objects, it is possible that these moons are captured asteroids with a composition high in volatiles such as water ice and dry ice (frozen carbon dioxide). Finding water on Phobos or Deimos would provide a huge boost to Martian colonization and would create a tremendous economic incentive for establishing the first base in the Martian system on one of those moons. Such a base could be established much more cheaply than one on Mars itself. This station would serve as an outpost for further exploration of both Mars and the Asteroids.
One of the most significant technological challenges of a manned mission to Mars is the return trip. It takes a significant amount of fuel to escape from the surface of Mars into Mars orbit. This fuel must either be brought from Earth or manufactured on Mars. Manufacturing this fuel on Mars involves the use of powerplants for producing energy, and chemical equipment for producing fuel from carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, all of which must be brought from Earth. Furthermore, some raw materials, such as hydrogen, the launch vehicle and equipment for servicing the launch vehicle must also be brought from Earth. On Earth a huge infrastructure has been set up to create the fuel and maintain the vehicles necessary to launch humans into orbit. Even though it is much easier to escape from the surface of Mars into Mars orbit than to escape from the surface of Earth into Earth orbit, all the infrastructure necessary to launch people back into orbit from the surface of Mars would have to be sent from Earth at significant expense. If, instead, fuel for the return trip was brought from Earth, it would be even more expensive, making a trip to Mars financially virtually impossible. However, being able to produce fuel in Mars orbit would mean that fuel to return from Mars could be brought down to the surface of Mars from orbit. Furthermore, fuel created from water on the moons of Mars can be turned into fuel for the trip from Mars orbit to Earth orbit and back. This would be fuel which does not need to be lifted from either planet, making the return trip much simpler and creating significant savings in cost.
Even without the saving afforded by finding water on the moons of Mars, it would be cheaper to land people on the moons of Mars than to land people our own Moon, Luna (Earth's moon, the one we see in the sky at night). The reason for this is that, because of their low gravity, landing and taking off from the moons of Mars takes less energy than landing and taking off from Luna. If a structure similar to the international space station were located on the moons of Mars, it would have access to raw material which could be used to grow food, to recycle essential chemicals, and to create building material to expand the settelement. The lack of accesses to raw materials in space is one of the biggest obstacles facing the currently orbiting International Space Station.
Therefore, the first step to establishing a colony on Mars is to send one or more probes to the moons of Mars to see if they contain water in the form of subterranean ice. This probe would carry a camera, a laser altimeter, and a spectrograph. It would go into low orbit around Deimos or Phobos, take pictures, and use the altimeter to calculate the variations in the gravitational field by measuring dips in the orbit. This information would allow the density and the inner structure of the moons to be determined. This may reveal the presence of ice or metallic ores. The spectograph would be used to look for the existence of tenuous vapors around the moons which might be subliming off of deposits of volatiles deep inside the moons. These vapors would be excited by ultraviolet radiation from the sun and would give off light in a spectrum characteristic of the that type of vapor and would be used by the spectrometer to determine the vapor's composition.
The probe would then land on one of the moons after spending some time taking photographs and measurements from orbit. Depending on the amount of funding which we are able to raise we might attempt to drill into the regolith (soil) to look for signs of water. Otherwise, the lander would test the chemical properties of the surface soil and possibly return samples back to Earth. Other unmanned missions would be planned to answer questions raised by the first unmanned mission.
In order to plan and execute this first robotic mission we need funding and volunteers. We need people to help designing the probe and the experiments. We are looking for suggestions for experiments to include on the lander. We also are looking for suggestions for the name of the probe. We will publish feedback on this mission on a Mars Lunar Mission section of the website.
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Step 1b -- Preparing for the first Manned Mission
Updated Jan. 9, 2002
Before the first crew is sent to the moons of Mars, drilling equipment, equipment for
oxygen production, earth moving equipment, habitat modules, and self contained
greenhouses will be landed on the most suitable site on the Martian moons for building a manned base. Next, an interplanetary suttle will also be launched from Earth orbit to Mars,
landed on that moon and launched back to low Earth obit. This will serve as a test
flight of the interplanetary shuttle. After this is done, a second unmanned interplanetry
shuttle will be launched toward Mars. Several weeks later, if the first shuttle is
successfully on its way towards Mars, the first shuttle will be refuled, refurbished,
resupplied, manned with a crew and launched towards Mars.
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Step 2 -- The First Manned Mission to the Moons of Mars
Updated Jan. 9, 2002
The first manned interplanetary shuttle will be launched only after the first backup shuttle
is already on its way toward Mars. This unmanned shuttle will precede the manned shuttle to
Mars orbit. It will then be landed on Deimos, and if the landing is successful, the manned
shuttle will then also land. If the first shuttle does not land safely a decision must be
made to either abort the mission and return to Earth without landing, or to proceed with the
landing. A third shuttle, unmanned, might also be launched with supplies a be due to land a
few weeks after the first shuttle. This would afford the crew added security.
The first crew will have several tasks. First of all, they will secure the habitat modules
and possibly connect them together. These will then be covered with about a meter of
regolith (soil) to shield the crew from cosmic rays and solar flares. The first greenhouse
will also be positioned, filled with soil, watered, and planted with crops which grow in low
gravity. During this time the crew will also be engaged in oxygen production by liberating
oxygen from magnetic iron ores. This ore will be mined from the regolith by using mobile
machines with large magnets, in an operation similar to extracting iron filing from the backyard
sandbox using a hand held magnet. After the first part of the base is finished, drilling will
begin with the goal of looking for volatiles.
Finding volatiles, such as water ice, would simplify the task of producing fuel
because it is relatively easy to break water into hydrogen and oxygen using electrolysis.
Otherwise, hydrogen will have to be brought from Earth. Nevertheless, hydrogen comprises only
11% of the weight of water and of fuel (hydrogen oxygen mixture). The other 81% is oxygen.
Therefore, producing oxygen will greatly reduce transporation costs and base operations. Oxygen
also comprises about 50% of dry food weight. Hydrogen could be stored in the
form of methane, which is easier to store then liquid hydrogen which needs to be
stored at extremely low temperatures near absolute zero. Oxygen, or water if found,
could be exported to Earth orbit and sold to organizations involved in operating space
stations or large satellites. In fact, it might even be economically feasible to purchase
waste products from space stations in Earth orbit, recycle these waste products into food in
the greenhouses on Deimos, transport the food back to Earth orbit and sell it at a profit. The
reason for this is that it is much much cheaper to go from Earth orbit to Mars orbit and back than
it is to go from the surface of the Earth to Earth orbit.
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Step 3 -- The Colony on the Surface Mars
Updated January 28, 2004
The shuttles will transport crews from earth orbit to the moons of Mars and will be completely reusable. Supplies will be lifted from Earth to low orbit using a vehicle similar to an upgraded Saturn V, and crews will be sent into orbit using either the same vehicle as supplies or a vehicle similar to the Space Shuttle but modified to make it more financially effective. The subsequent crews will begin the manufacture of glass and steel. This will be used to build more habitats and to build solar collectors to generate electricity. These will use thermal power to run steam engines or turbines which will in turn run electric generators.
At this point the venture would begin working on two different projects. One of these would be to send a team to the Martian surface using fuel generated on Diemos. The Mars lander would be fully fueled for a return trip back to Deimos. This team would stay a few weeks and start setting up a permanent Martian base using supplies previously deposited near the landing site. The principal goal of the first few missions would be to set up a large microwave antenna collector. In the meantime, people at the base on Deimos would start building a solar power satellite which would be placed in the Martian equivalent of geosynchronous orbit. It will beam down energy to the Martian surface in the form of a microwave beam where it will be received by the large antenna on the surface and converted into electricity. This electricity would be used to produce fuel on Mars for the return trip to Deimos. Once fuel production begins on Mars a transportation route will have been established which uses mostly native resources for fuel and energy. The only part of the fuel for a trip from Earth orbit to the surface of Mars and back which would have to be brought from Earth would be the hydrogen portion, which comprises only 11% of the total fuel mass. If water is found on Deimos or in permafrost near the Martian base, then all the fuel would be produced extraterrestrially. This would make passage to Mars nearly as cheap as passage to Earth orbit.
At some point, hopefully early on, it will become necessary to decrease the cost of reaching Earth orbit. The most economical way to do so with existing technology, is to build nuclear powered rockets. Such rockets use nuclear energy to heat hydrogen to high temperature and then eject it through an exhaust nossle. Since hydrogen is lighter than the water vapor and carbon dioxide produced by chemical rockets, less of it is needed to reach orbit. This savings in weight makes such rockets much more efficient. Furthermore, in orbit, the nuclear reactor can be used to create electricity to energize an ion rocket in order to reach Mars orbit. Ion rockets are extremely efficient rockets, and would make the trip from Earth orbit to Mars orbit much faster and much cheaper. Furthemore, nuclear rockets could land on Mars and use carbon dioxide straight from the atmosphere as a propellant for returning to orbit without the need to turn the carbon dioxide into fuel. This is because nuclear rockets can use carbon dioxide in the same way they use hydrogen on Earth. Using carbon dioxide as propellant is not nearly as efficient as using hydrogen, but since Mars gravity is less than Earth gravity, it is possible to escape from Mars using a less efficient, but much cheaper, propellant.
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Step 4 -- Base Expansion and Permanent Settlement
Updated Jan. 22, 2002
Growth of the Mars and Deimos bases would follow the establishment of a transportation route to Mars based on native resources. On Deimos, a structure similar to a torus shaped rotating space station would be built on a depression on the surface of that moon and covered with soil. The rotation would permit the creation of artificial gravity similar in strength to that on Earth. The soil would provide shielding from cosmic rays and solar flares. This would allow crews to remain indefinitely at the base without incurring any negative medical consequences.
On Mars, the base would be expanded initially using components manufactured on Deimos and Earth. A plastics industry would be quickly set up on Mars to turn carbon dioxide into useful products. The first task of the base crew after the establishment on fuel production would be to establish a supply of water. Water is known to exist on Mars at the north pole. However, a source of water closer to the equator would be much more accessible to the base. Recent photos from Mars have shown that such water exists as ice at some depth below the surface in the mid latitudes. Therfore, the crew would look for potential sites and establish drilling operations to reach the ice. Once water is found the base would begin to become self sufficient and persons might begin to chose to stay on Mars permanently.
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