Mission to Mars 1

We hear that the astronauts have just emerged from 105 days locked into a simulated space module - and they did not kill each other! Whoopie doo. There is something very wrong with our entire attitude to the conquest of space. We seem to be determined that space exploration will result in near zero loss of life. Sorry but that is unrealistic. So is our attitude to exploration - sending people millions of miles to spend a few days somewhere then yanking them back.

Can you imagine if this were the attitude of explorers of the new world in the 15th century? We land a galleon (which can only sail during 6 months of the year) put ashore 5 people for a week, then sail back again. Sorry but we would still be exploring the swamps around what is now New York, the silver lining is that the Native American Indian and the Aztecs would still be around....

Folks, exploring new frontiers is a perilous business. Was America settled by scientists, Doctors and Air Force Pilots? Can you imagine what would happen if we tried that? Hmmm.

What is needed is PIONEERS not scientists. COLONISTS not visitors. Yes lives will be lost. When America was colonised lives were lost in their tens of thousands... we need not go that far but we are going about this the wrong way.

Here is what we need to do.

Firstly we need to consolidate our position on the moon.

Advertise for strong young colonists, male and female, minimum IQ of 120 and reasonable (not outstanding) physical fitness should be the only qualifications. Train these people in the use of the simplest space-suits we can design.

While this is going on we send payload after payload into earth orbit using dumb re-usable rockets. These payloads are picked up by space shuttle and have a small computer and booster rocket pack bolted to them, then they are sent on a lunar landing trajectory, coasting most of the way. They contain food and water, equipment to produce oxygen from lunar soil, solar panels, building and farming equipment, seeds, and so on. We aim to put down maybe 1-200 of these packages hard landed using similar inflatable ball technology to the Mars rover within a 12 mile radius of the most suitable apollo site.

The colonists are sent using a similar method but with a 'soft landing', a long slow ride that uses little fuel and lands maybe 40 people at a time, with some 'heavy' equipment and an inflateable shelter. THERE ARE NO PLANS TO RETURN.

The colonists make a permanent shelter by digging a tunnel into the side of a hill (something the moon is not short of) sealing the rock using a sprayed on polymer (like araldite) and erecting a prefabricated airlock and front door assembly. Gap filling foam can seal it to the rock around the edges. This process with the proper tools would take 30 people a month. The remaining ten are gathering the packages that were hard landed and ferrying them to the shelter.

Meanwhile of course more packages are being hard landed every week. When the shelter is finished the solar farm is set up and the air manufacturing plant started.
The inflateable shelter is now to be used for farming. 20 people work on growing plants, chickens and maybe sheep (pretty hardy) for food. 10 people work on extending the tunnel system and 10 people work on water extraction.

Any piece of space junk already in orbit that could be canibalised or used we bundle up, strap a booster pack on and aim it at the moon to land in a designated area.

After 3 months the process is repeated again, but this time less up front hardware is needed because the new arrivals will have the extended tunnel system to use as a shelter, so they will bring mostly farming and building equipment.

After another three months 40 more people arrive and now a second tunnel is started, for low Gee laboratories and factories..... I could continue.

Now once we have a viable colony on the moon that is self supporting (or very nearly) we can look at Mars. In some ways Mars will be easier than the Moon, it is more hospitable. In other ways more difficult (its a lot further).

Probably the best thing to do would be to build a really big spacecraft on the Moon in the 1/6th gravity. Haul pretty much a duplicate of everything that was required to set up the lunar colony plus any items that experience shows us should have been included. Launch from the moon, with its really low escape velocity.

This is the way to explore and conquer new worlds and I think there would be no lack of volunteers.