Destination Mars (29 page)

And that's the truth, as seen by a visionary. We would be wise to listen.

SHACKLETON BASE, CHRYSE PLANITIA, MARS
REPORT FSC-17785.88

(Personal entry)
SOL 2344

Dr. J Carter, MSPI

It's Thursday the 17th of May Prime
^*
, 2029. What light comes through the window is dun-colored and dim, which matters little because the glass is so sand-abraded that you can't see much anyway.

We' re supposed to finish the installation of Module 6 this month, but this dust storm throws our schedule off a bit. It's a global sandstorm that has grounded all interbase flights, and the Japanese crew will be stuck in orbit for at least a week, so if the Hab Module is a bit late, they won't be here to notice.

It will be interesting having the Japanese here. The US missions first arrived in 2026, with the Chinese joining us on the surface six months later. Phobos base is now just a way station. The two colonies operated separately, until the US base was hit by a small meteorite and became unlivable
for a few months; we had to shelter at Guan-Yin Station until repairs were accomplished. Once we and the Taikonauts got better acquainted, it was (wisely) decided to join the two bases with a tunnel. The food got a lot better after that…

Too bad the Russians bugged out three months earlier. The Beijing duck could have gone well with a good vodka! Maybe when the economic situation back home improves, they will return.

So now we'll have Japanese nationals blending into the mix. There are already four nationalities represented on Mars, but this will be only the third official habitation built. No matter; I like hydroponic wasabi too.

We just received word that the windstorm is abating, which is good news after three weeks of howling noise! While high winds are not as nasty as they are on Earth (the low pressure and all), the sand still gets into everything, so we'll have a lot of work to do. We will also have to do a windblown-perchlorate scrub of the airlocks and service areas—that's a ton of work. Then perhaps next week I can take that hike out to Viking Park I've wanted to do, and get a look at the old spacecraft. Hard to imagine that it landed here, big dumb and blind, over fifty years ago!

Signed: Julia Carter
Sr. Atmospheric Scientist
US Mars Program

NOTE: As the Martian year is close to two Earth years, the months have been doubled for calendrical convenience. May Prime (May
^*
) is the second iteration of May in a Martian year.

T
his is science fiction for now, but not an unlikely scenario for the future. The path currently being traveled by the world's spacefaring powers may well lead to multiple settlements on the moon, and even Mars, within the next thirty years. And while the United States and Russia are likely to be first among them, Asia is catching up fast and moving ahead with great determination. The future of Mars exploration—by someone—seems assured.

A crewed mission to Mars is an enormous undertaking. Planners have been envisioning such a mission since the 1950s. Wernher von Braun, the father of the Saturn V moon rocket, famously laid out his plans for flights to Mars in both
Collier's Weekly
magazine in the 1950s and later on television courtesy of
The Wonderful World of Disney.
His vision, vast and optimistic, blazed in the minds of children and adults alike for years.

After the Apollo lunar missions in the 1970s, both US aerospace and NASA had conducted copious studies about the use of Apollo-era hardware for a manned Mars flight. Many thought that it could be accomplished by the early 1980s…and they may have been right, but as it so often does, fate had other plans.

The last of the Apollo hardware, scavenged from the final three (canceled) lunar landing missions of Apollo 18, 19, and 20, was used for Project Skylab in 1973 and the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project in 1975. After that, the bulk of NASA funding was transferred to building and operating the Space Shuttle. The remaining Saturn Vs became the world's most expensive museum exhibits. Mars waited…and waited.

Plans came and went, but none were granted the go-ahead for manned exploration. Private groups joined the discussion, but the best they could hope to accomplish was to build public sentiment. Unlike Earth orbit and, perhaps, the moon, Mars is beyond the reach of private enterprise for the foreseeable future.

Then, in 2004, President George Bush declared Mars a national
goal. Not soon, for a return to the moon would come first. But the mandate for future crewed space vehicles would include designs ultimately capable of the long voyage to Mars. Planned by NASA as a replacement for the Space Shuttle, this mission was canceled by the Obama administration in 2010, after an expenditure of about $8 billion. The revised program may look something like this:

2010-2015

ORION
(UNITED STATES): NASA's first post-shuttle program includes the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) and unspecified boosters; as of now, only the capsule is under active development. Tests of a new booster based on the shuttle's solid booster have been canceled, but others are still on the drawing boards. The most current is the Space Launch System, a Saturn V-class heavy booster that would be capable of hurling the Orion capsule and associated Mars-class hardware out of Earth's gravity well. This capability would be the first time since the mid-1970s that we would be able to leave Earth orbit.

SPACEX
(UNITED STATES, Private): Space Exploration Technologies, known as SpaceX, is the brainchild of Elon Musk of PayPal fame. This private enterprise is already completing work on the Dragon
^®
capsule, slated to provide resupply missions to the International Space Station and, eventually, manned access. Future plans for SpaceX include a heavy-lift booster, utilizing a cluster of engines for its tremendous lifting capability. Also in the general realm of the Saturn V, this rocket would most likely be ready far earlier than NASA's new booster and at a fraction of the cost. And SpaceX has specifically set Mars as its goal.

SOYUZ
(RUSSIA): While the Russian Soyuz capsule is seen today primarily as a shuttle vehicle between Earth and the International Space Station, it should be remembered that this very capable spacecraft was born of the space race and was designed to travel to the moon and back. In fact, it was successfully tested in unmanned flights around the moon. Its current configuration could be uprated for longer-duration travel, possibly even as a part of a Mars-bound complex.

2016-2020

NASA
(UNITED STATES): Little is certain at NASA beyond the development of the Orion capsule. With luck, there will be a crew-rated booster available to fly this capsule to lunar orbit and beyond. The Space Launch System, or SLS, is a large booster currently under development, but its ultimate fate is uncertain.

SHENZHOU/SOYUZ
(CHINA): The Chinese space agency has licensed the venerated Soyuz design from Russia and made vast improvements within. This more modern design has flown Chinese crews into Earth orbit three times (as of press time), and could also be augmented to travel to the moon and beyond. China has made clear its intention to land crews on the moon before 2020, and Mars may not be far behind.

2021-2030

NEAR-EARTH OBJECT (NEO) MISSION
(UNITED STATES): Current planning around this manned mission
is still in the planning stages, but a voyage out to a large asteroid is currently on the drawing boards. Useful both scientifically and strategically (NEOs represent a significant threat to Earth), this project could be accomplished far easier than a Mars landing, due primarily to the lack of a need to enter and escape the Martian gravity well.

CONSTELLATION/MARS
(UNITED STATES): By 2030, NASA may be heading off to Mars on crewed missions using either Orion- or Dragon-type capsules mated with habitation and propulsion units. Little is known at this point what form such a spacecraft might take, but it will likely be used as the basis of a transit vessel and a Mars-lander/ascent-vehicle design.

PHOBOS MISSION
(UNITED STATES and/or ESA/ RUSSIA): There is growing sentiment that before a crewed mission to Mars itself is attempted, a small station might be set up on the larger of the two Martian moons, Phobos. This would allow for close-in observation of Mars without the added complication (and launch mass) of a crew module capable of atmospheric entry, landing, and ascent. Operating on Phobos would be only slightly more difficult than landing on Earth's own moon, a feat we accomplished forty years ago. Such a mission would further serve as a demonstration of the ability to make the long voyage between Earth and Mars, which is bound to be quite taxing on both crew and spacecraft.

The prospects for missions to the Red Planet have never been great. Always, these long-term, big-vision programs are subject to delays, cancellations, and political wrangling. Indeed, since the days of the Kennedy moon challenge and the space race, there have been few space programs that flew as initially planned, and
fewer still that have reached fruition without massive cost cutting and mission shrinkage. Even the now-discontinued space shuttle was a mere shadow of NASA's original vision.

Mars beckons to all humanity. The United States hears the call, as do Russia, China, India, Japan, and Europe. Someone will go at some point. Who goes matters less than the fact that we do go, because without some kind of new goal, the spirit of exploration and “reaching out” may well leave our species.

As the nearest planet to ours, and the only likely candidate for colonization in our solar system, Mars is the next logical step. As Ernest Shackleton, the famed British polar explorer, once said: “Optimism is true moral courage…difficulties are just things to overcome, after all.”

Who among us, which nations among the ever-growing cadre headed for space, will summon the courage and fortitude to go?