About 10 years ago I started to plan what colonization of Mars would look like and how best to achieve it. That plan is in this blog in many articles. At the end I list all the other articles you can read.

I haven’t finished it entirely but in the 10 years since I first started this some things have changed. This article is the start of rewriting and finishing the plan.

Background and Assumptions about Mars and Colonization

In my mind colonization should be one of our most important goals for space exploration. The reason is simply that making humans a 2-planet species is an achievement humanity must at some point aspire to and accomplish in order to follow our natural evolutionary path to go beyond our single ball. I describe the goals in other posts which has not changed.

Some may question the need to ever go beyond our single ball. It is a good ball and is beautiful. Mars won’t have the same wonder as Earth. However, to me, staying only on Earth is rather like people saying they never want to leave home.

So, I assume we will do this and the only way to do this in my opinion is to do it with a plan to gaining maximum independence from the Earth as soon as possible. This is incredibly hard.

The analogy one could make is to the establishment of “civilization” which was the ability to create an agrarian society on Earth about 5,000 years ago. We knew hardly anything about agriculture and so we had to learn to live off plants even though we knew nothing about farming. So, the original plants had to be very robust and contain lots of calories without modification.

I call this bootstrapping which means putting in the pieces needed to eventually be able to send humans.

Colonization means living off Mars. We can assume there will be regular deliveries from Earth but the less of these deliveries we need the more likely Earth will continue to supply the colony and the more we can grow the colony.

Therefore, we must learn to make food, essentials like air and water must be made or found and we must be able to build and construct things from raw materials on mars.

The journey to Mars is 6-9 months but can be done most efficiently only in 2 year intervals when the planets are aligned. This is because Mars is over 200 million miles from Earth at it’s closest point. When we are positioned opposite each other the journey is 400 million miles. Since we can’t go directly it is even farther than this.

If there is any need for something on Mars it will take on average 2 years for a mission to get there to supply what is needed. Colonists can’t be expected to twiddle their thumbs for 2 years or go into “survival mode” every time something breaks down or something critical is needed so there will have to be many years of redundant supplies available before the first colonists arrive.

It is a harsh environment where colonists will be able to be exposed to outside or working at most 8 hours per day. This is because of radiation exposure. The rest of the time will have to be in highly protected environments. Also, they will face the same problems working in a space environment because of the lack of air on the Martian planet. So cumbersome suits make doing anything 10 times harder.

Therefore, it will be necessary for colonists to use autonomous robots as much as possible to do actual work. It simply is impractical for human beings to do much physical work in this environment. So, it is assumed everything is done via robots.

There are many preliminary things we need to do before deciding on where to build our colony and what size or how it would work. We need to learn how to grow food BEFORE we get there. We need to learn if 1/3 gravity is good enough for people to live well. We need to learn how to process the minerals and materials on Mars into the things colonists will need.

Some things the colonists will not be able to make and will have to come from the Earth on regular basis but in order to operate on Mars in a significant way is something we’ve never done. We have never in our space exploration had robots that dig, process materials, store materials that are created in-situ and to preserve those for decades if needed.

This means we have to build a lot of stuff that we have never done in space before like construction, mining, materials processing in scale, reliably for materials from Mars. We have not built this equipment and I believe it will take years to design and build these things. We have not started to my knowledge on any of these pieces which are crucial to building a colony.

Even Elon Musk who espouses colonization doesn’t seem to have looked at the need to develop robotic craft to do things that humans can’t in this harsh environment. This is something we have to design, deploy, test, re-design, deploy test. We have not started even the first design of much of the equipment needed to do day to day tasks on Mars that the colonists will eventually be expected to manage.

Fortunately, Mars has everything the Earth has except for the biological assets of carbon based life forms. It has carbon. It has air, it has water and every chemical on Earth. We have to find it but studies have already shown a remarkable similarity in chemical composition of Mars and Earth. So, we can do everything eventually we can do on Earth.

The question is what is the path to getting to a largely self-sustained colony as soon as possible. This is what my plan envisioned. It is unlike the other plans to go to Mars in that it assumes our goal is long term occupation not to go for a trip like one would go to Hawaii, bring all your things and come back.

NASA did the moon like it never intended to stay. Their current plans for Mars resemble the moon missions in that they take everything the astronauts will need and assume they come back soon. This plan is different because it is assumed our colony is permanent. We can’t take everything we will need. We want to make stuff on Mars so the colony can eventually be almost 100% independent of Earth.

That’s a much different plan and entails thinking about how to do this much wider array of things before we even send the first human being.

So, my plan involves tremendous dependency on robots. I am thinking of all the things needed so that by the time any human sets foot on Mars we already know how to make food, how to process materials and we have the 2nd or 3rd generation of equipment for doing things.

We always learn from experience. The only way to figure out how to live on Mars is to actually produce the things the colonists will be expected to do. We can’t send the colonists before because if the food source isn’t viable or doesn’t make enough the astronauts will be compromised and possibly in danger. So, we need to be doing these things before we send humans.

If it takes 2 years to supply the colonists need a minimum of 4 years or 6 years of supplies before they arrive. Some of this can be shipped there for storage in warehouses but they will have to have the ability to make it and since that process involves making equipment which has a multi-year cycle of design and delivery it means this equipment must be sent before and tested before colonists arrive.

If your goal is simply to set foot on Mars as some sort of publicity stunt then of course you could send them sooner but that’s not good because almost everything you do for that publicity stunt is wasted. A huge amount of cost is involved in sending humans that robots and equipment don’t need. So, this is a huge investment doing this publicity stunt and will not further colonization.

Doing a publicity stunt will necessarily in my mind have negative reprecussions because it costs a huge amount and produces so little value. People will quickly tire of the idea and we will stop all investment. That’s what happened on the moon. The approach NASA took and some other people are taking that tries to get a short term publicity type event of showing man on Mars is stupid in my opinion. I would not waste a nickel on such ideas.

We need to get to business and look at this as a business that needs to become as close to profitable as possible as soon as possible so that it is sustainable.

MY PLAN and Modifications

10 years ago when I first envisioned this plan I put together a manifest of supplies needed. It came out to about 15-20 million pounds of stuff. I have not found great reason to modify this manifest or change the ultimate amount of material needed.

Since our spacecraft can deliver close to 200K pounds of stuff in one mission that means 100 missions to supply the colony with everything it needs eventually.

Since the last 10 years things have changed some. Our batteries have gotten better. Elon Musk has developed the “starship” spaceship which is capable of reuse and can go to Mars in one shot.

I originally envisioned a combination of launch craft from the Earth to orbit and then reusable ion propelled tugs that would continuously go to Mars and back. I also envisioned a plan for how to use the ISS (space station) to assemble the missions.

The new rockets NASA and Elon plan may make those things unnecessary but I am not dependent on those ideas. How we achieve cost effective delivery is not that important or if we lift the mass in 1000 rockets or 100 rockets. The main points of my plan are around the infrastructure we build on mars to support a colony eventually and what is needed.

Elon and others have said that since we want to do many many missions we need to reduce cost by making as much reusable as possible. It takes a lot more energy and a bigger craft to take humans to Mars than it does simply delivering equipment. If we look at this problem as simply that we need to deliver 20 million pounds of stuff eventually then we should build a system that is most economical to deliver this much but I am not dead set on how that is done.

For me there is no doubt that the reusable ion propelled craft that would constantly go back and forth between Earth and Mars would be the best way. Ion propulsion is by far the least expensive, most weight efficient way to deliver delta-V and we have a lot of experience already with ion propelled craft. You may not know but numerous spaceships and satellites already have used ion propellant.

We are on the 3rd or 4rth generation of this ion propulsion technology. It is slow, but, when delivering cargo, speed is less important. Just as we use ships to carry cargo ion propellant is potentially cheaper and potentially will allow more missions consistently to Mars at lower cost to deliver more mass which makes the success much more likely.

I still think Elon or NASA should be looking at Ion propulsion for going to Mars but none of the current plans call for this. They all assume a chemical rocket usually methane propelled.

Methane is a good alternative because it has high specific thrust needed to escape planetary gravity and it can be manufactured trivially on the Moon, Mars or Earth. I have detailed several ideas where we use the moon to manufacture and deliver Methane to whatever crafts we have that go and come back from Mars that could reduce costs. But this is not a sticking point.

So, Starship and the SLS (planned by NASA) both use large ships capable of carrying 150,000 lbs of cargo from the earth surface to Mars. My missions to Mars assumed 10 years ago this was the “Payload” we could expect to be able to deliver. So, this is still the “unit” of delivery. Therefore the mission plan has not changed substantially.

I organized the first 10 missions to Mars around this assumption of 150,000 pounds of stuff on each trip. My missions detail what this 150,000 pounds consist of for these first 10 missions.

I also have a spreadsheet which details the 15,000,000 pounds of stuff needed eventually and what the 100 missions would need to take. Everything from topsoil to medical equipment, like scanners, DNA processing equipment, medical supplies, animals, you name it.

For the first 10 missions we have to be very specific and clear what our goals are and what materials and stuff we will do. This is the critical time and critical missions that set everything up.

I don’t have people being sent to Mars for the next 15-20 years. Unlike NASA and Elon I do not plan for rapid occupation. In my plans we could delay indefinitely when we send humans or even decide it’s unworkable or too costly or dangerous. We could eventually decide against creating a colony and use the Mars stations as “landing stations” for deeper space missions or resupply.

This flexibility is key I think. Our goal is not to get humans there no matter the cost. Our goal is to build the infrastructure that could eventually be self-sustaining. That could support life and eventually a colony.

The basics of building a self-sustaining colony – step 1 – infrastructure

I outline 10 areas on Mars we would build sites. We would explore these to figure out where to build the first colonies. We would have equipment in all these sites and the ability of rovers to transfer between the sites. We would map mars, build roads and map the paths on Mars so that we could land and drive on Mars as simply as on Earth.

One of the most important things to do which I do in the first 3 missions is to deliver 9 rovers which do a lot of discovery and groundwork. These rovers are essentially upgraded versions of the rover that has arrived on mars this year (2021). These rovers I plan are 2-4X the rovers we have just sent. It has redundant bigger power supply and faster, plus some cool additions.

• Better life detection
• Faster operation (10mph not 3mph)
• More powerful (double or more power)
• Microwave scanner to find what’s below the surface
• 4K VR cameras for sending virtual reality 4K video to earth
• GPS (built-in using GPS and communication satellites) to map mars to the inch.
• More powerful drill
• Onboard c-4 explosives to dig

These rovers are a big part of what would be the public image of the Mars effort. They would be responsible for figuring out these essential things:

• Find where the resources are
• Map Mars and the obstacles and paths to get around
• Determine if there is life or not
• Create a compelling VR experience for every person to go to Mars not just colonists and be there virtually
• Explore below the surface using both conventional drilling and explosives

Explosives have been used on Earth forever to mine and explore. It is the fastest easiest way to see what’s there. It also makes cool video.

Since I don’t put humans on Mars for a long time the rovers provide a virtual experience that in my opinion is better than simply having “humans” there.

To make this happen the 10 satellites I propose delivering in the first mission are critical. These satellites provide high-speed continuous communication to Earth to deliver huge amounts of high resolution video to earth as well as the massive data the 9 rovers collect. They also provide down to the inch or foot level GPS coordinates that can be used to locate anything in the future and to design paths and roads for rapid traversal on Mars as well as safe landing in more problematic parts of Mars than we have landed in before.

These missions also deliver the basics of building the rest of the colony and answer some basic questions needed to send the next missions.

Building a reliable central grid power system that can supply power to both the base and to all the remote working devices that will be doing things. Battery technology is critical to this because we can’t expect every device to have its own power source like the rovers or machines on Earth. We can’t burn hydrocarbons on Mars without oxygen atmosphere so we need to use electric.

Everything will have batteries and will need to recharge those batteries constantly without having the power generating source on the device. Therefore I envision a fleet of robots that resupply batteries from a central power grid that are recharged and delivered automatically to devices that use power. This is a very flexible approach that allows us to build many devices with far less complexity.

I have envisioned solar but NASA has also developed a small portable low maintenance nuclear generator and we can manufacture methane on Mars which can be burned to produce power but requires oxygen. Nonetheless there could be many ways to produce power but this will all be stored in large batteries that centrally provide reliable energy for periods in case the power generation is a problem.

These first 3 missions lay down this kind of infrastructure that is critical to then layering on the additional things as we grow these sites. Power, transportation, communications, storage.

Storage is a critical technology too. We will have to store lots of things for day to day operation and sometimes keep these things in different environments and hold vast quantities. I therefore include a “warehouse” technology that is flexible and can deliver things automatically via robot or conveyers to where they are needed or to be stored indefinitely. These first missions put down the first automated warehouses.

We need to start as soon as possible on digging and processing chemicals not only to establish these processes work but because some things like methane production may be needed for the ships that come periodically. We need to see how these processing things work and to improve them as we learn what fails. So we need a 2nd generation of this stuff soon so we need to use the first generation to learn what to improve.

Step 2 – start basic colonization tasks

Once the infrastructure is laid in during the first 3 missions then the second 3 missions focus on building the basics any colony will need to do. This is important to get going fast because we assume we will learn a lot that has to be improved.

So mission 4 focuses on manufacturing and mining. Learning how to extract raw materials, store them and process them into usable material. This includes material needed for building structures, materials needed for making stuff needed for farming or large scale water and air supplies, etc.

Mission 5 focuses on agriculture and showing we can grow plants on mars, what is required, can we use Martian soil? How efficient can biological supplies be built and can we maintain the environments needed.

Mission 6 focuses specifically on polar exploration, water and habitat construction. Water is a critical resource for virtually everything related to life. There is plenty of water on Mars but it may not be immediately available. A lot is available at the poles. We have not explored these regions and they are problematic but we know there is vast resources there. If there is life it likely to live near the poles or underground where water is hidden.

How do we build habitats? Do we use Martian soil as walls? Do we bring pre-fabricated materials? Some combination? How do we supply all the resources to these habitats and make them livable in the most basic sense meaning safe and sustainable.

I have written extensively in the blogs on space about these problems. There are many alternatives for habitats and how to make them safe. The infrastructure must provide these basic conditions before we ever send humans.

Missions 7-10 Expand, Redesign, Choose

In these last 4 missions we may redesign some of the basic things we did in missions 1-6. We may discover problems and need to rethink things.

We need to do the research to know where to place the first colony and what it will use for habitats and how everything will work.

Missions 7-10 expand the power, the storage, the processing and everything from 1-6 possibly with the same equipment or better redesigned equipment. In some cases we may need version 3 of things. We must be prepared that we don’t know everything and will learn a lot from the first 6 missions. We must be prepared to replace and start over.

The goal is by mission 10 we are so good that we can really start storing the basics to enable life to come to mars. We can bring Animals and then humans sometime after this. I project not sending humans until mission 50 but we could send them after mission 15 or so in small quantities.

Colonization can begin sometime after these missions

It will take a minimum of 10-20 years to design, build deploy missions 1-10. That means no earlier than 2036 for human life to go to Mars probably closer to 2042. I assume after we are satisfied with missions 1-10 and that we can scale the current sites for development we will decide where the colony will be sent and we will need to send massive supplies or manufacture using indigenous supplies to give the colony a 10 year supply of basics including food, water, air, power, protection from radiation, sufficient habitats and an ability to produce sustainably the food and supplies of basic existence.

This will require tremendous focus to get there

The current way we are approaching Mars exploration is tragically stupid. There is hardly anyone thinking about 99% of the issues I bring up above. The evidence is the lack of any evidence NASA is working on the robotics and other systems a mars colony would need.

So, to make this plan work we need NASA to focus on starting to design and build these things above that are crucial otherwise any plan to go to Mars is likely to be a dead end like the moon missions.

Fortunately this plan above by relying largely on robotics and because SpaceX has already developed the reusable super cost-efficient spacecraft it has means that doing missions 1-15 and launching the first humans is not going to be incredibly expensive.

By doing things like this we can do the first stages for less than NASA’s current budget if they focused on doing this. I believe that. A lot of current monies are wasted on the ISS. I propose NASA either terminate the ISS or give it to SpaceX with a stipend to maintain it. Let Elon find a way to monetize and make it useful and cost effective to maintain.

NASA needs to get going on putting out contracts to build new rovers, new robotic equipment. Forget launch vehicles. SpaceX is building those. Focus on the technology to produce things on Mars and do stuff not on how to get there.

I have become a big fan of Starship. It is an incredible vision. NASA needs to get behind it 100% and forget SLS. Now we need NASA to focus on how to build a sustainable colony on Mars and not on robots that move around at 1mph and do little. They need to think a lot bigger.

Think of building infrastructure on Mars to enable this next great step for mankind. There is nothing wrong with the 2020 rover but NASA needs to think bigger.

We need 9 super rovers to do the exploration to really catalog and map mars and its resources and find life. We need super robotics and ultra reliable systems for doing stuff on mars at scale.

My articles on Mars colonization are still 100% accurate and in my opinion and still the best way to colonize mars.

After 10 years some things have changed like we might use Starship instead of ion propelled ships to do the missions. We might have slightly different power sources or technology or materials to use but the missions are essentially almost identical in what they would carry and accomplish.

That’s because colonization still has these basic things we need to do and figure out to get to sustainability.

Having such a grand vision of colonizing Mars would be incredibly energizing to the world and to many people who want a future that sees humans as more than surviving on this ball fighting amongst ourselves about stupid issues. We need a bigger vision for us.

One of the central things astronauts say when they get back is that seeing the earth from space we see the problems of the earth look picayune. We squabble over irrelevancies and stupid things like who is more of a victim.

A colonization effort would naturally be international and would unite the world. Not everyone but many people would see a common human future that would transcend our national and international squabbles and give many people who feel depressed a hope.

Star Trek postulated that space and exploring would eventually unite humanity. I hope we unite before we travel to the stars but that vision isn’t totally stupid.

This means