Mission planning

Jason, Chen, and Tiara were all chosen to be mission commander for the mission to Mars. The requirements were not hard, a bachelor's degree in management, accounting, engineering, or other science field and a pilot's license. Many people applied for this prodigious mission. The private consortium selected these three to show the way.

A three-month trip to Mars, an estimated 2 years to mine nearby carbon rich and metal rich asteroids, refine the materials, and build the space elevator from orbit to the surface, 6 months for the terraforming to create a suitable area for the colony, 1 year to build the colony, and a three-month trip back to Earth. Four years for the crew of 100,000 to establish the Near Earth Interstellar Forward Base (NEIFB) to support future missions beyond our solar system. For the sake of safety, it was decided to establish the base at Mars rather than the Moon. Any unexpected cataclysmic failure or event that occurred at the Moon would have an immediate potential cataclysmic impact of Earth. HG Wells' The Time Machine was a cautionary tale of what could happen if the Moon is developed prior to the full technological ability to contain any possible disaster.

As our technology of improving interstellar travel at faster than light (FTL), Mars would create a buffer to Earth to help facilitate a response time to outside incursions from alien powers. Furthermore, the statistical likelihood that having a future mission backtracked by a hostile alien power would necessitate a future defensive perimeter beyond Jupiter around our solar system to be developed on a future mission as we mine the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter for raw materials.

Jason, Chen, Tiara, and the other 100,000 workers are not physically going to Mars though. Through the development of lucent technology, we have created the digital process to separate a digital copy of a person's consciousness, abilities, and memories that can be stored electronically in a tripartition existence for an indefinite amount of time. The mission commanders get a down payment of $2 million cash when they sign the contract, have their digital consciousness prepared and stored, and submit a genetic sample. Every other crew member gets a down payment of $1 million cash when they sign the contract, have their digital prepared and stored, and submit a genetic sample. This money stays with the physical bodies of the crewmembers on Earth. The crewmembers can choose what they want to do with the money: spend it, continue to work on Earth, or they can choose to invest the money wisely, retire, and raise a family. After the successful completion of the mission, other mission complete bonuses and incentives will be allocated based on performance and mission success. For example, if the mission completes and a $50 trillion metal rich asteroid has been mined, refined, and returned to Earth beyond what is necessary to complete the Mars objective, the crew members would each get an incentive based on that value.

This mission will be completed by robots piloted by human operators. The tri partition existence is separated into a digital workspace that connects to the necessary robotic workhorse wirelessly. Picture a workspace situated like a home office, where you can sit in a traditional office chair, a recliner, or a forward leaning cockpit chair. Your keyboard is set at a comfortable distance. You can choose between a dual joystick design with buttons to control the functions of the robot, or you can use a game system style controller, or a combination keyboard mouse set up. Different robots and job functions can also determine which setup is preferred. You have a large digital screen in front of you to observe the environment through the ocular sensors of the robot. The mission commanders will most likely prefer an office set up around a recliner or office chair since their primary functions will be the monitoring of safety, security, and system operations of the entire vessel during the mission. Three commanders on 8 hour shifts on a 24-hour cycle for four years to protect the vessel and crew and put the ship where it needs to be for the rest of the crew to do their mission.

The second part of the existence is a private virtual rest area and sitting room. Mission commanders can choose to spend 5-16 hours per day in this existence depending on their desire for mental stimulation or social interaction. Vast libraries of digitized books are available in the virtual rest area. Community gaming is encouraged, and cooperative play/competitive play games are available in this partition. Other crew members will choose to spend the travel time to Mars either in this private virtual rest area or in the 3rd partition unless resources are discovered along the way that can be harvested.

The 3rd partition is a virtual leisure program. Customizable to individual preferences, it has drone footage of Earth's mountains, virtual beaches, vast virtual parks, etc. Mission commanders can choose to spend 1-8 hours per day in any of these virtual leisure programs. Other crew members can choose to spend their off-time or all their time between the virtual leisure program and the private virtual rest area when no work is available.

The ship should be designed modularly: Command and control, electrical generation and maintenance, robotic manufacturing, raw materials refinement, weapons, shields, digital information storage facilities, embryonic storage and cloning facilities, engines, and reactor. Most command-and-control functions will be handled through Artificial Intelligence built into the ship. Mission commanders can use virtual monitoring as a failsafe for the AI as well as use robotic workhorses to perform physical maintenance on ship systems when necessary. This way, a suitable atmosphere would only need to be maintained to protect the electronic and embryonic storage facilities. These two areas are the most important because they store individual consciousnesses and genetic samples of the crew members. The genetic samples of the crew members will come into play at the end of the mission prior to return to Earth. These two areas would be the most important to defend using a shield comprised of an ice sheet to prevent any foreign object impact.

Electrical generation and maintenance would be a mission critical aspect of the ship. The Artificial Intelligence processes, robotic processes and digital maintenance of the crew consciousnesses would require vast electrical reserves. The solar facing exterior of the ship would need to be outfitted with Gaultian generators: light mills that uses solar radiation and light waves to generate and amplify electrical energy that operate most efficiently in vacuum conditions. These Gaultian generators should be protected behind a transparent polymer sheet and accessible for maintenance through a hatch system from the interior of the ship. The stator of the generator is surrounded by the rotor. Each generator could be about 6 ft in length with the field winding of the magneto on the stator exposed to the spinning rotor with the interior of the rotor coated with an electron stimulating substance such as iron ferrite. The exterior of the rotor would look like a horizontal spiral with arms coated in light absorbent and light reflective material like mica to provide the mechanical energy to spin the rotors. This style of electrical generation would be superior to solar panels in terms of continual wattage produced, space requirements, and maintenance requirements.

Robotic manufacturing facilities on the ship would have to be extensive. Large, 3D printers or welding fabrication based on established designs ran by the AI to manufacture the components. Crew members could be assigned to this area as well to perform maintenance on the manufacturing processes. A components assembly area to assemble and test the robots' functionality before deployment to the crew. A reclamation area to dissemble worn out robots for usable materials to be reintroduced in the raw materials refinement process.

The raw materials refinement process area would comprise a giant smelter. Many different types of raw materials would need to be refined: carbon fiber for the 3d printers, steel fiber for the welders, copper, tungsten, gold, and other precious metals for electrical components. Water from comets would need to be processed to be used for terraforming. The goal would be to establish the base robotic and ship requirements for resources from Earth prior to departure and then mine replacement resources robotically on the way to Mars and while in Mars orbit.

Weapons systems on the ship would most likely be unnecessary because the possibility of encountering a hostile alien force within our own solar system is infinitesimally small. But, a working weapons system comprised of asteroid control cannons, torpedoes, trajectory modification of foreign objects, and/or a grapple system in combination with robotic assistance from crew members to acquire raw materials should be an important aspect of the ship.