American colonization of Mars

American colonization of Mars began in 2023, when a public-private expedition headed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Mars Corporation launched for Mars in 2024 to deliver tools and equitment for a permanent settlement that would be launched in 2026. The Expedition 1 mission took astronauts and their Ares spacecraft to the Martian surface on April 26, 2026, after a long flight from Earth. Five SpaceX first generation Starships were used in this first mission, carrying a crew of 100 engineers, scientists, and technicians. Five subsequent NASA-led missions also landed astronauts on Mars, the last in December 2032 before transitioning to a MarsCorp-led program.

The Frontier program succeeded in achieving its goal of manned Mars landing before transitioning to MarsCorp leadership. First proposed as a sustained series of exploration missions to Mars, the program eventually expanded to become a fifty year architecture to explore, terraform, and colonize Mars for human civilization. NASA partnered with several private companies looking to establish a commercial presence on Mars to help finance the Frontier program, forming the Mars Corporation, who would go on to organize and lead the bulk of Frontier program missions, while NASA would have access to scientific stations.

Background

The Frontier program was conceived in the private sector, largely through Elon Musk and SpaceX, with the goal of human colonization of Mars. Efforts began in earnest with the development of the first generation of Starship super heavy space transport systems. Possible missions included ferrying crews to a Phobos station, Martian flyby, and eventual manned Mars landings. Meanwhile, NASA's funding for a super-heavy lifter stalled while scientific and astrodynamic data for a Mars mission far outweighed the work done in the private sector. Public-private partnerships had been reached for space station resupply, but as political pressure built, the alliance between NASA and the private sector became more formalized for a Mars mission.

Private sector projects

In January 2016, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced the SpaceX Mars Colony project to industry representatives at a series of space advocacy and industry conferences. Preliminary specifications were laid out for a spacecraft capable of carrying upwards of 100 individuals to Mars, and a reusable new super-heavy lifter. By August, over two dozen corporations had been formed to organize mining and infrastructure projects on Mars, and RedWorks had produced its first prototype regolith printer for habitat construction. Meanwhile, NASA performed its own in-house spacecraft design studies to determine the viability of the private sector missions.

Political pressure builds

In November 2020, Joe Biden was elected president after a campaign that promised American superiority over the Russian Federation in the fields of space exploration and missile defense. Privately, Biden was deeply concerned about the buildup in inexpensive anti-satellite weapons in Russia and China, and wanted to build up US military assets in space. The administration subsequently hosted the Conference for a New American Space Age to gain feedback from the aerospace industry on how to proceed with the space program for defense and exploration. During the conference, industry and NASA representatives submitted the idea of forming a public/private corporation to oversee long term development on Mars, investing in space propulsion and habitation research, and building up US launch capacity through NASA and the Space Force.

Starship

SpaceX Interplanetary Transport System

In 2020 SpaceX began building and testing the first generation of Starships. It was the first combined launch vehicle and spacecraft designed to carry up to 100 colonists and astronauts from launch, to landing and return with minimal crew. It was the first spacecraft in history to be completely reusable, thus making it cheap enough for individuals to book passage to Mars. The success of SpaceX's Starship would drive rival companies to develop their own starships, all based around the fully reusable super heavy lifter and a spacecraft.

During the first two biennial launch windows, only a dozen Starships launched for Mars, with only one carrying an crew. By the third launch window 208 Starships were bound for Mars carrying over 5000 colonists. By the fourth window over 500 Starships were making regular flights to Mars. Growth in the number of Starship launches would continue, peaking in the late 2030s.

By the end of the 21st century, these entirely rocket propelled two-stage launch systems had largely been outmoded, however the term "Starship" is still used in common parlance to describe modern air-breathing single-stage launch vehicles.

Douglas Adams-Class

The Douglas Adams-Class starship entered service in 2022 as an uncrewed cargo starship before a crewed variant was debuted in 2023. SpaceX had planned for the Douglas Adams-Class to remain in service for up to 20 years but had already begun designing next-generation Starships by the first uncrewed flight to Mars.

Despite the vehicle's early replacement, Adams-Class starships remained in service among a number of independent operators well into the 2050s.

Ares-Class

Built by Boeing in 2026, the Ares-class was superficially a copy of the Adams-class. Nearly the same height and width, an with very few changes to the standard design. However, Ares employed RL-70 rocket engines, which were essentially just copies of the Soviet RD-270. The spacecraft was a technical success, but production shortfalls with the first generation Ares made it difficult for the spacecraft to keep up with the Adams class in the marketplace.

Robert H. Goddard-Class

The Goddard-Class Starship was the immediate successor to the Adams-Class. With an 18 meter wide fairing, it was considered at the time to be the largest possible space transport system that could launch from Earth. Like its predecessor, it was propelled by chemical rockets fueled by cryo-methane and LOX. Initially hailed by SpaceX as the workhorse of Mars colonization the Goddard class was plagued by problems from the moment of its debut in 2033. Engine flameouts were far more common than on the Adams-class, and service times between flights were nearly twice as long. In 2036 a Goddard-Class starship failed to relight enough of its engines to safely land and crashed into the Gulf of Mexico, killing all 11 crewmembers. The loss resulted in the Federal Aerospace Administration placing a moratorium on all Goddard-class starship flights pending an investigation, which would last 11 months, and would directly result in the creation of the Von Braun-class.

Werner Von Braun-Class

The Von Braun-Class starships were built in direct response to the Goddard Commission's report. The Raptor II engines were abandoned in favor of new Super Raptor nuclear fusion thermals engines, the first of their kind. In truth, SpaceX had planned to upgrade the Goddard-class with these engines, and while superficially the Von Braun-class starships were identical to the Goddard-class, significant upgrades were made to virtually every system beyond the propulsion stage. Heat shield tiles were now a quarter the size of those used on the Goddard and affixed on huge sheets, reducing gaps in the tiles and improving aerodynamic performance; windows were reduced in size and number to limit failure points; and the RCS system was given an overall upgrade to improve control during landing.

Founding MarsCorp

Early O'Neil Ships

In the 2040s the first O'Neil ships for dedicated passenger flights entered service. While comparatively small by modern ships, these early spacecraft represented an order magnitude increase in traffic to Mars, and were a critical component in the planet's early population boom prior to full colonization.

The first O'Neil ships were the first civilian interplanetary spacecraft built entirely at the Tycho Shipyards. At 500 m long, 50.2 m in diameter (at the propulsion stage), and a dry mass of 6000 tonnes, the were the largest vehicles ever built at the time of their launch, and were capable of transporting 2000 individuals to Mars per flight, on a 18 day trip.

Program History

Expedition 1

In February 2026, the Mars Corporation's three ships, containing 100 men and women, lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida. After record setting voyage of 27 days, they made landfall on April 26, 2026 in the heart of the Uzboi Basin, which they named Meridian Base. Upon landing they deployed Conestoga robots to craft their first habitat. In addition to survival, the early colonists were contracted or employed to conduct research for NASA, the largest partner in MarsCorp at the time. Of the first hundred, 65 were NASA mission specialists, the remaining 35 were private citizens with the National Science Foundation and the US Geological Survey.

Initially, the colonists were governed by a station commander and seven-member council selected by NASA. Leadership problems quickly erupted. Meridian's first two leaders coped with varying degrees of success with sickness, dust-storms, poor food and water supplies, and general discontent. Many colonists were ill-prepared to carve out a new settlement on a frontier. When Lionel Halvidar established the first settlement in Bradbury, he proved the strong leadership that the colony needed, and his example was later emulated at Meridian.

Tier-1 Colonization

After the first NASA-led mission, MarsCorp began opening seats for purchase for private citizens and sending out commercial flights for individual settlers and associate-company programs. As colonization became the dominant aspect of flights to Mars, NASA's role in MarsCorp diminished.

Terraforming

While the initial development of Mars proved to be very successful, the long term goal of the Frontier Program was ultimately to establish a second home for humanity. Initially, this was a very esoteric goal, with no clear path outlined to practically achieve it beyond continually establishing commercial bases. It wasn't until the Bradbury working group began pushing for geo-engineering efforts that terraforming was seriously considered.

The terraforming effort was being planned throughout the course of the Frontier Program's early days by factions within the Mars Corporation, but never seriously advocated. The new Luddite movement that arose in response to The Flood, blamed human meddling for the loss of the Ice Caps and opposed directed efforts on Mars, and in turn drove NASA to bury any public support for Terraforming. Pressure from the Bradbury colonies pushed the other members of MarsCorp to more strongly advocate for an aggressive terraforming campaign in 2029. Over the course of the next five years, MarsCorp in concert with its assoicate members of the space mining industry, launched a series of missions to the Asteroid belt and constructed a battery of facilities on the surface of Mars for terraforming purposes. The first of these facilities was the Green Magnetoshield, a 2 Tesla magnetic field generator stationed at Mars-Sol L1, shielding the planet from solar winds and radiation. The magnetoshield program was initially put forth not as a terraforming program, but as a solution to long term safety for astronauts on surface operations, but within the first year of its operation surface pressures and temperatures began to steadily rise as CO2 from the poles was no longer being swept away by solar winds.

Genetically modified terraforming agents were dispersed across the planet to begin bio-leeching CFC and other atmosphere buffers, as well as consolidating salts and building up a soil-base. In 2033 Lunar Energy Ltd. deployed the first Mars Solar Mirrors, massive reflective spacecraft that would reflect the sun's radiation across the planet's surface. These ships, the Apollo, the Freyr, the Garuda, the Lugh, the Helios, the Amaterasu, and the Ra were constructed out of next generation nanoprinters on Luna, and would later support the Refreeze project on Earth. With the mirrors and the terraforming agents working in harmony, Mars's atmosphere began to build up and the temperature of the planet began to rise.

Bio-seeding

While the geo-engineering projects were still underway, humanity began the decades long process of giving Mars a sustainable biosphere. While most of the primordial Martian life was cloned to return to the new seas, most of the life was brought in from Earth and genetically engineered to most effectively balance the biosphere. Mars was the first planet where the ecology was largely artificial, and tailored not just for the terrain, but to best suit the humans who would come to inhabit the planet in mass.

Bacteria test chambers across the planet were opened to improve the soil base when the first mirrors constructed by Lunar Energy Ltd. were permitted to begin surfacing heating. By 2030 the icy and carbon rich asteroids were deorbited on long re-entry paths into the atmosphere releasing huge amounts of heat energy or blanketing the poles with a black soot. Disposable drones were automatically produced and dispersed GM bacteria and lichens across the surface to take advantage and further spur these conditions. These organisms, spread across the planet's surface processing the toxic dust into a usable soil base and extracting greenhouse gasses from the soil. When a given condition of these organisms would be met (O3 levels rising to a certain point, the selenium content of the soil, etc.) a fail-safe in their genome would trigger their demise, depositing more vitamins into the new soil base.

Once the planet became warm enough to support liquid water on the surface, genetically modified strains of lichens, and algae were introduced into and around the newly formed oceans, rivers, and seas. These tough creatures had very short life spans, but spread and reproduced rather quickly. Both organisms were engineered to increase oxygen production, but specific strains were engineered to process the perchlorate salts in and around these bodies into either useful soil additives like Magnesium and Calcium, or into sodium salts and sources of Ozone. Once CO2 levels dropped sufficiently in an area the basic oraganisms would no longer reproduce as vigorously and more advanced life could be seeded. Once temperatures reached high enough levels, moss, small brush and ferns, and corals were seeded, ramping up oxygen production. The whole process only took about a decade due to human intervention and the genetically modified nature of the flora.