Blueprint Note #2: The Critical Six factors to a successful Mars Mission/Settlement
The proverbial road to Mars is long, winding and filled with diversions, dangers and distractions. To succeed, we must plot the course, identify the best path and design the world we are building before we ever set foot on it. At The Mars Blueprint we believe there a “Critical Six” factors that allow us to break down every aspect of the journey we are about to take, allow debate and discussion on the best course, and eventually lay the foundations for The Mars Blueprint needed for success.
Visionaries like Elon Musk are taking the first vital steps forward building the foundational technology we will need… but that is only one part of the equation. The technology is absolutely what will get us there and allow us to stay, but it is not what will make the expedition or settlement succeed long term. A thousand ships without the people to fill them solves nothing. A thousand ships full of people with different goals will only destroy the new world from the inside out. The plan, The Mars Blueprint, must cover the full range of complexities of starting a new society.
We believe that breaking down the plan into a Critical Six factors allows a complex problem to be simplified, and encourages people of all beliefs and talents to tackle the specific problem that they alone are born to solve.
The Critical Six factors are:
- Human Factors – Plan, People and Politics. If the technology is the skeletal structure that we build our new world on, this factor is the brains, muscle and sinews that controls and connects it all. A successful presence on Mars will take need an intelligent plan, the right people to both design and build the systems we need and also to construct and maintain the settlement, and a fresh look at our own political and economic theories to design the best one to fit our new world.
- Transportation – Our journey is long and to get to our goal, we will need rovers, starships, landers and other modes of travel to cross the expanse and explore the valleys and plains of Mars.
- On-Site Resources – Most plans for human exploration of Mars died on the drawing board because of the massive expense and complexity of getting all the supplies and materials to Mars. We believe that history proves it is better to “live off the land” than to bring it all with them. Unlike the Moon, Mars has an atmosphere and all of the major elements we need to survive – just not currently in forms we rely on here on Earth. A successful expedition and settlement will have to pull air, fuel, and raw materials out of the Martian soil and environment. Technology and ingenuity can solve these problems and drop the expense and complexity a thousand-fold.
- Power – A starship or a settlement is only as good as the power it can generate. Modern advances in nuclear, solar and compact battery storage provide abundant options to generate and store the power any expedition or settlement would need. Because Mars has an atmosphere, we even have options like converting the Martian atmosphere (largely CO2) to Methane which would allow us to fuel our rockets (SpaceX Raptor engines burn Methane) AND to use nearly stock internal combustion engines with minor modifications to power vehicles or generators. The best part of that plan is that the byproducts of burning Methane are CO2 and water which makes it a very promising idea.
- Shelter – The shelter conversation covers both the habitation considerations on the transport spacecraft and on the ground. For both, radiation and environmental concerns will drive the design solutions. Since Mars has an atmosphere, albeit a very low pressure one, many of the designs for a shelter can be pulled from designs that work in harsh environments on earth.
- Communications – The ability to stay in touch with a Mars expedition or settlement is critical to their success. This factor looks at the two specific areas of interplanetary communication and ground communications. Space agencies around the world have proven through decades of Mars rover and satellite projects that continuous communications with Mars is possible. New advances in laser communication techniques are also being tested that will further improve interplanetary communications and improve data size and rates possible. Ground communications can be pulled nearly off the shelf from current Earth based systems using point to point radios until satellite or cellular-type systems can be installed.
The Mars Blueprint looks to pull from all that humanity has achieved to design the best plan for our new world. Because, as inventor and American founding father Benjamin Franklin once said “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail!”
Are you a political scientist or politics junky that would love to create the perfect fusion of political and economic theory? Are you an engineer who can’t wait to design a spacecraft, aircraft, electric rover, Martian shelter, power system that no one else has ever thought of? Are you the kind of person who can build anything and would love to build a new world from the ground up?
We are calling all visionaries, dreamers, engineers, tradesmen and women, and go-getters who want to build something from nothing. Join in on the conversation!
The Mars Blueprint is for all of you… Our social experiment begins now. Join us in the movement!