Phase 1: Setting Up Camp
Our group consist of three members, Eric Pena, Kendell Smith, and Anthony Ramirez. Eric Pena, who is a computer scientist, represents the scientific field. Kendell, a teacher, represents the civil services. Anthony, who is a mechanical engineer, represents the engineering field. This way we have a person in each basic field. Our goal is to have each other knowledgeable in each other job and know as much as possible about his particular field. By doing this we can integrate each other knowledge in the colonization process, and in developing and maintaining a community. Anthony’s mechanical engineering can be utilized in designing the community, designing the launch pads, maintaining the communication with Earth, bringing the people, and bringing the materials necessary for building the community. Eric’s scientific knowledge can be used to design the sewer system, to design the community, to calculate the launch opportunities, to design a system that can make Mars a hospitable environment, to see which is the best way to communicate with Earth, to select the landing site, and to made Mars breathable. Kendell, as a person representing the civil services, can select the people going to Mars, he can study the social development of the people, he can help in selecting the best landing site, and he also can decide the best political system for our community. As we can see, every field relates to each other.
We think that people from every
country should have the opportunity to go and live in Mars. Every person
should be healthy and free from any disease so that Mars can be free of
harmful diseases. "We cannot risk infecting the crew with such peril that
could easily kill them*" in an environment such as Mars. These
people should have knowledge in any of the three basic fields: science,
engineering, and/or civil services. By following the above criteria, our
community could become a utopian city. We chose to send 10,000 people to
Mars since we only have a 20 square mile plot of land. We think that 33
percent should be scientists, 33 percent should be engineers, and 33 percent
should be in civil services so that everybody can help on developing and
maintaining the community. The engineers would have the same responsibilities
that Anthony has. The scientist would have the same responsibilities that
Eric has, and the civil services people would have the responsibilities
that Kendell has.
We decided to land on a site called Argyre Plantia which longitude is 55.5 degrees South and its latitude is 42 degrees West. Its elevation is of 1 kilometer. This site is one of the largest and best-preserved ancient impact basins. Argyre is surrounded by rugged massifs. It is like a huge crater. This would help us to set our dome. It may have drained a lake within the basin. The site is surrounded by rugged massifs which could protect us from dust storms.
Our city is based on a cosmic,
a organic, and a practical
model. Our city will be a combination of the three models. We
chose a cosmic model so that all the streets lead to downtown where the
main buildings will be. These buildings include the City Hall, the court,
and the church, for example. We are also basing our city on a practical
model since it will be easy to use and easy to organize. Based on this
model our city will be divided on different zones, for example, there will
be an industrial zone, a zone for business, and a residential zone.
We chose Baltimore, MD, as the city in which we are basing our utopian city since Baltimore is a city that fit our needs. There is only one thing that we have to change, crime. Baltimore has an average of crime higher than the national average. On our community we will no tolerate crime. It think that every person that commits crime should be brought back to Earth.
The colonists would live in regular houses which will be in a big dome underground. The dome would be made of high-strength plastics such as Kevlar, a plastic twice as strong as steel. Kevlar fabric is unlikely to fail catastrophically. We could bury half of a spherical dome on a crater. We could live on the buried half, storing our food on the lower part. The upper half would be used for agriculture.
The people would communicate with each other as they would communicate on Earth. The best way for us to communicate with Earth would be by using a two-way coherent satellite systems since we could send and receive messages from Earth.
These are some ways that we are going to use to communicate within the community:
*Excerpt from The Case for Mars by Robert Zubrin. Page 132.
