The three Ps are the human factors required for a successful plan to succeed.

Plan – A successful plan looks to history for clues how successful missions to unexplored inhospitable places are most likely to succeed.  History is full of successful examples of explorers and settlers who travelled light but lived off the land and also the failures of those tried to bring it all at massive expense and loss. This method of “living off the land” allowed explorers like Roald Amundsen to successfully navigate the Northwest Passage in the artic in 1903 on a tiny budget with a small crew. His team thrived living like the Eskimos and travelling on dog sleds where others failed despite bringing every potential supply and modern amenity.  This approach was first proposed by NASA in the 1986 “The Case For Mars” proposal and more recently the “Mars Direct” Plan proposed by Dr. Robert Zubrin and the Mars Society.  

People – Any mission to a previously unexplored world, whether the Americas in the 1500s or the Poles in the 1900s, required special people who were technically savvy and willing to give their blood, sweat, tears… and even their life, to explore the unknown and overcome the impossible.  Mars is the ultimate frontier world that offers the explorers and visionaries of today the opportunity of a lifetime.  Exploring and settling mars will require a breed of individual that seeks to build a new life in a place no one thought possible, overcome challenges never faced before, and daily employ a mix of skill and creativity that would make MacGyver proud.  

Politics – Two distinct discussions need to be had involving the politics of the Mars Blueprint. 
First, unlike any century before now, a mission to Mars is technically possible. The only reason why previous plans in the late 1900’s fell apart is that the political will power and the support of the people dissolved.  To succeed, a Mars mission must have at least marginal sustained political support by key politicians, their constituents, and the industries involved in building the technologies required.

Second, there must be a deep discourse on what the nature of a future Mars government should look like.  If Elon Musk’s plan succeeds, by 2050 there will be a million people on Mars representing every race, political belief and nationality imaginable.  Arguably the early days of exploration will be by Governments and corporations, but once the population rises, a form of local government will be required to ensure future success. Undeniably the forces of capitalism and socialism will shape the early days as it will be funded by deep pockets to get it off the drawing board, and manned by those who will have to embrace a deep social commitment because even the air and water will be made by someone living on Mars.  Never before has humanity had to depend on these two political ideals to intertwine so completely to simply survive from one day to the next.

Two types of transportation are required for a successful mission; Spacecraft and ground transportation for use on Mars surface.

Spacecraft – The 1986 NASA study identified that the system of space vehicles for a manned Mars mission must perform three main functions; heavy lift launch vehicle to get the spacecraft and astronauts off of Earth and headed to Mars, an Interplanetary spacecraft for the journey between planets, and an aerocapture vehicle for planetary landing on Mars/Earth.  The technology for these craft has existed since the Apollo program and the Saturn V heavy lift rocket. While the largest current heavy lift rocket only has about half of the payload capacity of the Saturn V; NASA and SpaceX both have programs in the works to match the Saturn V’s payload to low Earth orbit. While not a part of the original NASA criteria, reusability of the vehicles is also a critical enabler of a Mars mission because of the dramatic reduction in expenses that comes with not needing new vehicles for every launch.

Ground transportation – The Apollo program in the 1960’s pioneered the basic platform needed for ground transportation with the Apollo Lunar Roving Vehicle that was a very basic electric car.  Modern electric vehicles have advanced this technology exponentially and could easily be adapted to a ground transport that is either fully electric,  a methane powered vehicle as Dr. Zubrin proposes in “The Mars Direct” plan, or some form of a hybrid.

As Roald Amundsen proved, it is far more effective to “live off the land” than to try and bring everything as previous expeditions had tried and failed.  His success was in bringing the tools he needed to make, catch, or kill what he needed to survive.  While there are no Martian fish or Caribou to survive off of, Mars does have all the chemical and material building blocks an expedition needs to succeed.

CO2 – Mars atmosphere is primarily made up of Carbon dioxide which can be converted to Oxygen (O2), water (H2O) and fuel (Methane – CH4) using technology perfected in the 1900s.  Furthermore, with basic pressurization and simple greenhouse techniques plants can also thrive in CO2 rich environments enabling food to be grown.  If no ample supply of Hydrogen is found (Eg. Water) then the supplies from Earth would just need to include a stock of Hydrogen as feedstock for producing water and methane.

H2O – The European Space Agency’s Mars-orbiting spacecraft, Mars Express, found underground lakes on Mars using a ground penetrating radar. NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has found strong evidence that heavily salt saturated water brines may exist on the surface of Mars and NASA’s Curiosity Rover has found evidence that the soil may support brines.  Surface water, even in brine form would give initial explorers a readily available resource for water, hydrogen and oxygen.  Underground water would give long term settlements a large resource of these critical chemicals.

Building Materials – Researchers at University of California San Diego discovered that Mars soil when compacted turns into high strength brick material.  This opens up a major low cost and high strength building material which researchers have shown has the secondary, but highly important, benefit of also shielding against radiation.

Food production – NASA has shown that Mars soil has all of the required nutrients to support growing plants for food.  Studies have shown that Earth plants can thrive in Martian soils.

There are two primary options to power the spacecraft and the base: nuclear and solar. 

Nuclear power has been used as far back as the Voyager probes which used a nuclear battery called a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) which converted the heat from a nuclear reaction into power for the spacecraft. This power cell is optimal for missions where solar power may not be feasible but the biggest challenge is that the power output is in the 100’s of Watts range which only works for smaller craft. In recent years NASA has designed the Kilopower Reactor Using Stirling Technology (KRUSTY) which expands the power output to 10 Kilowatts which could power a large craft or a base. 

Solar power has advanced significantly over the past 50 years and combined with a battery system has proven reliable when solar power is available on a predictable basis. The biggest challenge with a solar system is that voltage only scales with the size of the array so designs for the spacecraft would have to limit power to the size of the array engineers could pack into the craft.  This is less of an issue for a base in terms of space available but the arrays would still have to be transported to Mars so initial base camps would have lower power available until more solar arrays arrive. 

A third option is possible once on Mars which couples a methane powered internal combustion engine (ICE) with an attached generator equivalent to a portable generator available at most hardware stores for around $1,000.  Even small systems put out 12+ Kilowatts and are already adapted to run on natural gas which is mostly comprised of methane.  While this is dependent on producing methane on Mars, if a large supply was produced, a standard ICE generator could compliment a solar array allowing for a smaller solar array being needed or using it at night to boost power surplus for mission needs.

Spacecraft: Any spacecraft that is designed to transport humans to Mars will be a mobile shelter for many months (3-9 depending on Mars/Earth orbits and spacecraft propulsion).  During this period, the astronauts will need air, water, heating, cooling, food and protection from radiation which must all be provided by the spacecraft.  The complexity and scope of these systems will each vary dramatically based on the size of the craft and number of passengers.  Proposed shielding for the craft range from passive systems designed to block or absorb radiation to more ambitious active systems designed to deflect the radiation around the spaceship like Earth’s magnetosphere does.  Currently, the SpaceX Starship is the only spacecraft under development specifically to transport people to Mars.

Mars:  Any shelter used on the surface of Mars must provide at a minimum a pressurized heated interior and basic protection from dust storms and the elements.  Mars atmospheric pressure is only a fraction of earth’s (0.095 psi as compared to the Earth’s sea level atmospheric pressure of 14.7 psi.) and the equatorial temperature range is 70 degrees F during the day to minus 100 F at night.  For any long duration mission, some sort of radiation shielding must also be added to that list to ensure the long-term health of the team because Mars Magnetosphere is much less extensive than Earth’s and provides very little protection.  There are currently a range of concepts and protypes that run the gambit from basic tents to complex facilities.

Inflatable tent – On the most simplistic end of the spectrum is a basic inflatable structure made out of fabric and aluminum ribs for strength.  A 1990 NASA study proposed two variations on this idea with one utilizing pressurized interlocking tubes situated in an empty lava tube to provide radiation shielding and the second design utilized semi-buried prefabricated spheres. The key to this design is the ability to build a large interior volume with very little mass required to be shipped from Earth to Mars. The biggest challenge with the first plan is finding and installing the habitat in a Lava tube. The challenge in the second is excavating/moving enough Mars soil with limited tools to make the habitat functional.

Inflatable Ice Igloo – Taking the inflatable dome a step further, NASA has proposed that an inflatable dome could be coated with a thick coat of ice taking advantage of the sub-zero Mars surface temperatures to provide radiation shielding and a stronger habitat exterior while essentially still using the low mass inflatable design. 

3D Printed – In 2019 NASA held a design challenge for 3D printed shelters on Mars and proved the viability of the concept.  New York-based design agency AI SpaceFactory took the top prize and demonstrated that a structure could be printed using on-site materials that would provide protection to Astronauts on the surface.  This concept takes advantage of local materials and limited equipment by building a habitat one layer at a time that can be tailored to the needs of the building and roomy enough to be useful.

Tunnel habitat – In 2018 Elon Musk proposed that his tunnel digging company the Boring Company may someday provide the technology needed to dig tunnel based shelters on Mars that provide shelter and the ability to regulate temperature and pressure.  Tunnels may form a large part of an underground infrastructure of a Mars settlement that provide large open areas suitable for humans that can be expanded and connected.

Communications for a Mars mission/settlement fall into two categories.  Interplanetary communication between Earth and Mars, and ground communication on Mars for the ground based crews. 

Interplanetary Communication – The current method for communicating with a spacecraft on its way to Mars, a satellite in Mars orbit, or a rover on the surface utilize a system like NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN) which uses large ground based radio antenna facilities placed around the Earth approximately 120 degrees apart to ensure continuous contact as the earth rotates around its axis.  Future systems may use advanced satellites that employ laser communication to transmit high data rates with low mass antennas increasing the bandwidth available between Earth and Mars.  NASA first tested this type of system in 2013 with the Laser Communication System Demonstration and expanded it in 2020 with the Laser Communications Relay Demonstration Mission.  SpaceX also began testing inter-satellite laser communication in 2020 with their Starlink system as a way to pass hundreds of gigabytes of data between their satellites as a way to improve data transfer speeds around the world.

Mars ground communication –  While terrestrial radio equipment that has been used on earth will work just as effectively on Mars, the biggest challenge will be creating communication and navigation satellite constellations.  SpaceX currently has the most likely candidate for Mars with their Starlink system.  One Falcon 9 rocket can launch 60 Starlink Satellites in a single launch which means a single payload could create a viable networked high-data rate communication network on Mars that can be connected to Earth by a laser relay.