The Freedom - Bring Solar System To Life

Part 5 - The Blue Marvels

PART FIVE – THE BLUE MARVELS

BACK TO MARS

If you ask children and teens what the best planet is to be terraformed, they will all say Mars. If you ask them what planet they would like to live on, they will also answer: Mars. If you look at history, you can see that, during the old age of space exploration, Mars received more space probes, satellites and rovers then any other planet. Later, it was the first planet for humans to step foot on and the first to see a colony. It had the highest population until the Space War. So, why didn't Mars become the first terraformed planet?

Michelle Kim, president of Mars Free State.

March 12th, 2240. Passenger ships return the settlers to Mars. They return from Mercury, from Selena, from Himalia and from other places of the Solar System. They land on the rebuilt Mars Cosmodrome, get loaded in trains and shipped to their new colonies.

Their journey back home is different from all they have experienced. Aral Space has built new, highly advanced technologies. Now passengers don't need to stay awake for long journeys between planets. They are put in cryosleep and ferried in almost absolute zero. They are then reanimated at their destination. This is done with the help of microvibrations that make cellular membranes adapt to the effect of water freezing. Passengers wake-up with minor headaches or little pain in their soft tissues. Ships are also far more efficient, traveling much faster than before. New technologies have made space transport far more efficient.

They land in groups of 3000 to each of the three cosmodromes on the planet. There, they are loaded on trains and shipped to their assigned colonies. Everything happens fast. People are shipped as quick as possible. Trains come and go.

Down on the planet, they see a new world, completely different from what they were used to see. Mars has changed beyond recognition. The planet has now a strange blue sky. It is something between blue and violet. They can see clouds. As the trains travel through the Martian land, they see ponds of water, rivers and rain. The old Martian canyons and valleys are no longer dry. Rivers flow through them. They are muddy waters, carrying a lot of silt with them.

The air is clean. All the dust had been washed out by rain. The dust lies on the ground as red mud or in the rivers as red silt.

But there is one thing missing: life. There is almost no life on Mars yet. Carbon algae have been added to the planet and they are thriving in the ocean and inside lakes. In addition to them, other forms of life have been added: many types of algae, bacteria, lichens, protozoa and even a few more resistant plants.

Hope is everywhere. Now you can go out without a spacesuit. Air pressure is acceptable for humans and temperature is ok. Still, the air is not breathable, full of carbon dioxide and a few other unwanted gasses.

When trains come close to the ocean, settlers see for the first time in their lives the miracle. Water stretches all the way to the horizon. They see waves splashing on the coast. The water is green, full of carbon algae. Without animals to feed on them, the algae multiply until the cover the sea like some sort of slime. They multiply, absorb carbon dioxide and produce carbon powder, which they release in the water.

Another wonder for people to see is the huge rivers flowing to the ocean. The valleys existed on Mars long time ago. But, since there was water for such a long time, craters and landslides obstructed some parts of the valleys. When water started to flow again, it hit the new obstacles. The rivers are dotted with lakes and waterfalls because of this.

Finally, settlers arrive at their assigned colonies. This is the last point of their trip. They go and find the habitat modules which are going to be their new homes. All modules look the same and provide the same facilities. All colonies are designed in the same way. It is a square, modular design, with 400 flat-modules built on corners, four greenhouse garden areas, four separated recycling facilities for air and water, four compost recycling facilities and a central common area. Each colony has deuterium reactors to provide energy and a rail station. In addition, each colony has a nearby factory, designed to produce something that they need, to refine a certain ore or to build parts.