Mars and the New Era of Space Travel

For thousands of years humanity has looked to the stars, it is part of our history, heritage, culture, and destiny. Every child has looked up into the night sky wondering what lies beyond our planet. NASA thought we would have had colonies on Mars and the Moon by now but it has been more difficult than we once thought. Now our dream to reach the stars is finally feasible. Becoming a multi-planetary civilization throughout the solar system has its advantages for the future – scientific advancement, new technologies, a booming solar system wide economy, space mining to prevent resource depletion, faster space travel, human survival in case of a global event, meteorite defense system, and more.

The space race to the Moon, Mars, Jupitor moons, etc., to mine all those trillions of dollars worth of rare elements and minerals, has been a plan for almost every country on the planet. Some are all in on this race to space, some are just learning to build rockets. Let us explore the players in the race for humanity and rights to mine the worlds and moons in our solar system. Someday the Ice Belt where all those asteroids encircle our solar system. But first how about our Moon and Mars.

The United States, China, Russia, Japan, UK, France, Spain, Germany, Canada, Australia, and South Korea are all major players in the space arena with varying degrees of collaboration. India, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Israel, and others have invested a lot of money as well and are developing science and technology towards a goal of space exploration. Many have had successful tests with their new rockets that are more advanced than previous rockets in the past.

Major corporations working with NASA involved in space colonization include Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, SpaceX (Elon Musk), Blue, Origin (Jeff Bezos), Planetary Resources (Google), Virgin Galactic (Richard Branson), Moon Express (Naveen Jain), Bigelow Aerospace, Leidos, Moonprint, Pratt Miller Defense, Special Aerospace Services, Intuitive Machines, MDA Space, Sierra Space and others.

China is rapidly advancing its space program aiming to become a global leader with a focus on manned missions, lunar exploration, and developing an independent space station. Named Tiangong Space Station, it will be built to conduct scientific research and support future manned missions. China is one of the three nations to have achieved human space flight.

China’s Chang’e Program has achieved multiple milestones in lunar exploration, including soft landings on the dark side of the Moon. China has partnered with international organizations, like the European Space Agency and countries like France, Germany, and Italy for scientific research and technological development. While Russia is seeking to modernize its space capabilities and partnering with China in some key areas.

Russia has been a key partner in the International Space Station (ISS) but it is planning to withdraw its share and development to build a new space station for its own future. Russia is planning with China to build a nuclear power plant on the surface of the Moon to establish a lunar base.

Europe, while having a strong space program, faces challenges in competing with the technological advancement. ESA has led numerous scientific missions, including those who study the Earth, the solar system, and the universe. Europe is a major player in satellite technology with systems for navigation, earth observation, and communication. ESA collaborates with international partners including the United States, Russia, China, and other countries, depending on the various space projects.

In the U.S., NASA, the fifth branch of the military Space Force, and many corporations listed above. SpaceX just recently rescued astronauts from the Internarial Space Station. It was an amazing day, the day they returned from space.

Jeff Bezos and his Blue Origin space company is working with NASA on colonization of the Moon and building large space stations throughout the solar system. Google is also working with NASA on space oriented AI and quantum computer projects.

The Mars colony project is one of SpaceX and Elon Musk’s main objectives. They aim to establish a self-sustaining, large scale, human settlement on Mars with one million people. They envision a multi-planetary future for humanity and to ensure long-term survival of our civilization.

SpaceX is developing reusable rockets and heavy launch vehicles. They call the rockets Starship which they plan on using to colonize Mars. The plan envisions a colony that can produce its own food, water, air, energy, materials, and equipment reducing the dependency of earth. Mars colonization would also necessitate extensive scientific research and potentially uncovering evidence of past or present day life of any kind, including microscopic life that could still exist today.

SpaceX plans on using the Starship rockets to transport supplies and materials to Mars. Tests with the new Optimus Robots will be sent first before humans are transported. The plan relies on resources like ice and minerals to be mined.

SpaceX Mission to Mars in 2026

SpaceX will start launching Starships to Mars in 2026. “These will be uncrewed to test the reliability of landing intact on Mars. If those landings go well, then the first crewed flights to Mars will be in four years,” SpaceX founder CEO Elon Musk said. On September 7, 2024, SpaceX announced the bold new target timelines. Earth and Mars align properly for interplanetary missions once every 26 months.

“Flight rate will grow exponentially from there, with the goal of building a self-sustaining city in about 20 years,” said Elon Musk. “Being multi-planetary will vastly increase the probable lifespan of consciousness, as we will no longer have all our eggs, literally and metabolically, on one planet,” Musk continued.

The stainless-steel Starship consists of two elements, a first stage booster called Super Heavy and a 185-foot-tall upper stage spacecraft known as Starship. A stacked Starship is the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built. It stands about 400 feet tall and generates 16.7 million pounds of thrust at liftoff, nearly twice that of the Space Launch System SLS the rocket for NASA’s Artemis Moon program.

SLS is expendable but Starship is designed to be fully reuseable. SpaceX plans to land Super Heavy back on the launch mount after each lift off, enabling quick inspection, refurbishment, and relaunch. SpaceX believes that Starship’s combination of brawn and efficiency will finally bring a Mars settlement, a long-held dream of Musk’s.

SpaceX’s early mission to Mars will involve small fleets of Starship spacecraft to send equipment and supplies before humans can be sent. Equipment needed in the early missions would include machines to produce fertilizer, methane, and oxygen from Mars’s atmospheric nitrogen and carbon dioxide and the planet’s subsurface water ice. Construction materials to build domes for growing crops will also be needed.

“You want to wake up in the morning and think the future is going to be great, and that’s what being a spacefaring civilization is all about. It’s about believing in the future and thinking that the future will be better than the past. And I can’t think of anything more exciting than going out there and being among the stars,” says Musk.

The Plan to Colonize Mars

Elon Musk says SpaceX will set humans on Mars in just four years and he says there is nothing more important than this. “The important thing is that we build a self-sustaining city on Mars as quickly as possible” says Elon Musk. He continued by noting that he believes it will only take another 15 years after that to make the planet sustainable for one million people to live there.

“The key threshold is when that city can continue to prosper, even when the supply ships from Earth stop coming at that point. So, you obviously need Mars to become self–sustaining and be able to grow by itself before the resupply ships from Earth stop coming. That is the critical civilizational threshold beyond which the probable lifespan of civilization is much greater, “ says Musk

“We’re here at the top of a massive pyramid of industry on Earth. That starts with mining a vast array of materials going through hundreds of steps of refinement. We grow food obviously, we grow trees, you’ve got to build all of that on Mars. And Mars is a hostile environment, it sometimes gets above zero on a warm summer day near the equator on Mars, it’s really quit cold,” Musk continued.

Steppingstones to Solving Mars Colonization

Surviving on Mars is much harder than what was portrayed in the popular movie The Martian. Colonizing the Moon, Mars, and other moons and planets presents very big challenges in terms of human survival and sustainability.

Hazardous planet – there are several problems with the hazardous Martian environment.

Radiation –Mars has a weak magnetosphere and a thin atmosphere resulting in high levels of ionizing radiation and ultraviolet light.
Atmosphere – is toxic, carbon dioxide 95%, nitrogen 3%, argon 1.6%, other.
Surface Temperature – between negative 94 F to positive 32 F.
Soil is toxic to humans, animals, and plants.
Gravity is just 38% of that on Earth which poses health issues.

Travel – As described above, SpaceX has a workable plan. In addition NASA and corporations are developing numerous advanced rocket propulsion systems to shorten the time to Mars and beyond. Large vessels can also be built in space to transport large volumes of supplies and people.

Superfast space travel models include:

Antimatter propulsion – conversion of matter/ antimatter into energy, higher thrust to weight ratio.
Fusion propulsion – fusion energy long-term acceleration without a large fuel supply.
Ion propulsion – ion thruster, form of an electric propulsion, it creates thrust by accelerating ions.
Photon propulsion – thrust from emitted photons, fuel is converted to photons.

Water – Mars has underground and polar ice availability.

Soil and Agriculture – the Mars soil and dust covering the planet is toxic to humans, animals and plants with high concentrations of perchlorate compounds, making it unusable for agriculture. NASA and others are working on the use of bacteria to break down the soil into harmless chloride and oxygen. Alternate forms of green house agriculture will be used such as hydroponics and vertical gardens. Synthetic proteins will be an option. Scientists are working on conversion of Martian soil and synthetic soils to be able to grow plant crops on Mars. Fertilizer production will be necessary.

Shelters – to protect against radiation, surface temperatures, toxic low pressure atmosphere we could build underground bunkers for living and industries. Mars has numerous large caves and lava tubes that can be utilized.

Steppingstones – expanding in space will need an interval of port waystations. This will include space stations above Earth and Mars, settlements on the Moon, and settlements on Mars and its moons. Beyond Mars will be the moons of Jupitor.

NASA is planning on building a new space station, a circular one that spins, creating gravity. This new space station will fit 10 times the people we now have. A whole city of scientists and engineers, and equipment, supplies, food, and building materials used to colonize Mars and the moons.

Energy – Solar Energy and Nuclear Energy will be major sources in powering most of the planet, until Fusion Energy can be easily manufactured for public use. Geothermal energy has been proven to be successful and it should be considered as a viable option. Producing hydrogen and methane fuels are options as well. The most readily available energy source is the most logical solution.

Harvest the Atmosphere – with available water and high levels of carbon dioxide, atmosphere can be harvested to provide breathable air and carbon-hydrogen fuels. NASA and others are looking at cyanobacteria that can thrive in the Martian environment. These micro-organisms can be used to produce food, fuel, and oxygen. Cyanobacteria use photosynthesis to convert carbon dioxide-CO2 and water-H2O into oxygen and sugar.

What AI Holds for Space Exploration

AI will play a major role in the construction, maintenance, testing of equipment, and the setup of the first colonies on the Moon and Mars. NASA, together with SpaceX, Google, and others, will use $10 billion of funds in 2025 to fuel AI based space development and initiate machine assisted space exploration.

The primary objective is to have, completely evolved robotic missions before we send humans to Mars. So development of these robots will be necessary to perfect before doing long term missions. As we speak, Tesla the electric car company is working on manufacturing the Optimus robot for this purpose. Other robots will be available for the public in just a few short years.

Machines that think, not just execute. Deep space exploration requires automated systems to decide, autonomously, without human oversite. With AI in control of a spacecraft, the need to perform failure recognition, followed by reoriented navigation, while also change mission goals, and then finally they can return to Earth.

The need exists to develop highly accurate AI systems capable of making intuitive decisions since these traits are vital for deep space survival. Modern construction on the Moon and Mars is now done with AI driven robotics that use 3D printing to build the base and infrastructure, NASA aims to send autonomous robots to build space habitats beyond human supervision starting in 2028.

But sustainability remains a challenge. The future habitation of space needs AI to manage the way resources are used, as well as how energy is stored, and structures survive through time, while avoiding Earth based supply delivery needs. Here once again we have the question what happens when the colony is self-sufficient?

Mars long-term settlements will need to be free of depending on Earths resources as little as possible. Every moon base and city could mine all the metal and resources to build a fleet of rockets and cities, to produce metal, fuel and building resources. This alone will help relieve the dependency of Earth’s resources and cost to resupply the settlements once built.

NASA has developed asteroid mining for the practical rare mineral industry. Asteroids and moons hold trillions of dollars in rare minerals that could save the overuse of Earth’s resources and fund the space program. There is a lot of interest in making the space industry a profitable business in the upcoming years. This brings us to the rise of AI playing the most influential force in technology in this century.

It looks as though we will be depending on our scientists and engineers to make sure robots and AI are up for the task for deep space travel. I look forward to the future of these projects.

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