“… My attention was quickly riveted by a large red star close to the distant horizon. As I gazed upon it I felt a spell of overpowering fascination—it was Mars, the god of war, and for me, a fighting man, it had always held the power of irresistible enchantment. As I gazed at it on that far-gone night it seemed to call across the unthinkable void, to lure me to it, to draw me as the lodestone attracts a particle of iron.”
A Princess of Mars
Edgar Rice Burroughs
1912
Mars—that reddish sparkle in the night sky. Mars—a planet empty (we think), cold, dry, and dusty. Mars—it beckons.
I’ve been reading about Mars for probably as long as I’ve been able to read. I’ve read Edgar Rice Burroughs’s John Carter Mars series more times than I care to admit. In fact, a paper on the series was one of the few A’s I received on an English paper in high school.
Expeditions to our neighbor and the amazing things we’ve learned have kept me just waiting for more: more missions, more progress, and more movies and more books. I even ventured to Southern Utah in 2024 to immerse myself in all things Mars. (You can read about that adventure at Mars Analog 2: An Expedition to the “Martian” Desert.)
And here we are. Robot landers and rovers are hard at work. Orbiting observatories are mapping and analyzing. And maybe, just maybe, we’ll see a human landing in the near future. (I keep my fingers crossed for every Starship launch and can’t wait for the next Artemis missions to the Moon as stepping stones to an expedition to Mars.)
At the risk of sounding obvious, the challenges are legion.
As we proceed through the year, I hope you’ll follow along and that my posts spark some thought on what it would take to get there and what we’ll do when we arrive.
Here are nine top level topics to get us started [with links to last year’s posts and this year’s schedule]:
Rocketry. Getting us off the planet Earth and on our way.
[Go for Launch 10,000 times – W. Steve Wilson]
Transit. Surviving and thriving during the extended trip to Mars.
[It’s A Long Way to Mars – Don’t Forget Scrabble – W. Steve Wilson]
Settlement. Living and working in a hostile environment.
[Life Under a Dome or Underground – W. Steve Wilson]
Resources. Supplying the settlement from Earth or locally.
[We Have a Place to Live. What Now? – W. Steve Wilson]
Agriculture. Feeding the settlers. [March]
Economics. Making the society self-sufficient. [April]
Population. Growing the human presence. [May]
Cultural. Developing a Martian identity. [June]
Politics. Governing the settlement. [July]
So, over the next several months, I’ll share my thoughts on these topics, provide some sources that reveal what’s being done or discussed in these areas, and, of course, make the occasional reference to science fiction movies and books.
Going to Mars is not a new thing. Humans have been studying Mars for almost four-thousand years, and the earliest fictional accounts of traveling there appeared in the late 1800s, including H. G. Wells’s War of the Worlds.
(Image: UK First Edition, File:The War of the Worlds first edition.jpg – Wikipedia)
There’s lots to cover and no shortage of fascinating stories.
I’ll do my best to be informative and entertaining. If you have a topic, you’d like to cover or have questions as we go, leave a comment, or send me a note using the Contact form.
Buckle up, we are go for launch.
Thanks for stopping by.