Mars: A Future Home for Humanity chapter one

                                      (c) Robert Zubrin & Chris McKay

         Many  people view the human exploration of Mars as a task for
         the next generation, and  the  settling  of  the  red  planet
         merely as a hazy vision for the distant future.  We disagree.
         On the contrary all the key technologies required to enable a
         human   mission   to  Mars  within  a  decade  are  at  hand.
         Furthermore, a conceptual framework has been  developed  that
         indicates  large-scale  human  settlement  on  Mars and large
         scale  modification  of  Mars  toward   a   more   Earth-like
         condition,  can  be undertaken within the lifetime of many of
         those now reading this.

         GOING NATIVE: THE FAST TRACK TO MARS

         Down through history, it has generally  been  the  case  that
         those  explorers  and  settlers who took the trouble to study
         the methods  of  survival  and  travel  of  the  wilderness's
         natives  surpassed  the  efforts  of  those  who did not. The
         reason is simple: indigenous peoples frequently possessed the
         best knowledge of how  to  recognize  and  utilize  resources
         present on the wilderness environment.

         For example, to the eye of urban dweller, an Arctic landscape
         is  desolate.  resourceless and impassable; yet to the Eskimo
         it is rich.  Thus during the 19th Century, the  British  Navy
         sent  flotillas  of steam powered warships, at great expense,
         to explore the Canadian arctic  for  the  Northwest  passage.
         Loaded with coal and supplies, these expeditions would battle
         forward  against  the  ice packs for several years at a time,
         until shortages would force an about-face or cause the entire
         mission to perish.

         In contrast, Roald Amundsen, the first westerner  to  succeed
         in  forcing  the  passage  was  not  afraid to learn from the
         locals.  Operating with an old  sealing  boat  and  minuscule
         budget,  Amundsen  had  no choice but to adopt a live-off-the
         land strategy.  So he learned the Eskimo way of Arctic travel
         -  dogsled-  which  gave  him  the   mobility   required   to
         effectively  hunt  caribou.  He learned about the anti-scurvy
         qualities of caribou entrails and uncooked  blubber,  and  he
         learned  about  the  Eskimo way of building shelters - out of
         ice.  By making intelligent use of local  resources  Amundsen
         not  only  survived  and  forced  the  Northwest Passage on a
         shoestring, he was even able to explore widely enough to make
         some important scientific discoveries, among  them  the  fact
         that the Earth's magnetic poles move.

         Is  there  a lesson in all of this for space exploration?  We
         think there is.  Now, there are no Martians -  at  least  not
         yet.  But  if  there  are  to  be,  let us ask ourselves some
         questions. How will they travel?  How will they survive? Will
         they import their rocket fuel from  Earth?  How  about  their
         oxygen?

         When on Mars do as the Martians will do.



         TO MARS VIA DOGSLED

         There  has been a large number of concepts advanced for human
         Mars missions that are analogous to the ponderous Royal  Navy
         approach  to Arctic exploration cited above.  Grand ships are
         required hauling out to Mars all the supplies and  propellant
         that  will  be  needed  for the entire mission.  Because such
         ships are too large to be launched in one piece, construction
         on orbit is required, as is  long  term  orbital  storage  of
         cryogenic  propellant. Large orbiting facilities are required
         to enable both these operations,  driving  the  cost  of  the
         project out of sight.

         However,  as  in  the  case of Arctic exploration, there is a
         different way a Mars mission can be approached,  a  "dogsled"
         way  if  you will. By making intelligent use of the resources
         available in the environment to be explored,  it  allows  the
         logistical  requirements  for  launching  the  mission  to be
         reduced to a point where the endeavor becomes practical.

         This is the spirit of the "Mars Direct" plan.  In  this  plan
         no  large  interplanetary  spaceships  are  used, and thus no
         orbiting space bases are  needed  to  construct  and  service
         them.  Instead,  the  astronauts  in  their  habitat are sent
         direct to Mars by the upper stage of the same booster  rocket
         that  lifted  them  to  Earth orbit, in just the same way the
         Apollo  missions  and  all  robotic   interplanetary   probes
         launched to date have flown.  While conventional wisdom might
         deem  this  scheme  attractive  because of its simplicity, it
         would also deem it infeasible - the mass  of  propellant  and
         supplies  needed for a human Mars mission is much to large to
         be launched directly from Earth to Mars.  Conventional wisdom
         would be right except for on thing; where is it written  that
         the  required  propellant  and supplies must come from Earth?
         They don't. They can be found on Mars.