Monday, January 14, 2019

How To Build a Green Mars


 How Would A Settlement Be Built on Mars?

My novel – my very first published one! – is “The Bride From Dairapaska.” It is set on my vision of a terraformed Mars and incorporates a lot of what I’ve learned about soil building, resource management, colonization, infrastructure needs, and how to work without access to fossil fuels.
  
There is a story, I promise. But before I could write the first word, I had to build a green Mars, and that meant thinking about how it could be terraformed.
  
There was one problem: After a lot of reading and thinking, I concluded that it can’t work. It would be easier to turn the Gobi Desert into a green and pleasant land, well-watered, fertile, and rich in agricultural products of all kinds, than it would to grow a blade of grass on Mars.
  
For one thing, terraforming the Gobi Desert does not require 140-million-mile-long supply lines on average for your equipment. Earth has fossil fuels. There is soil. There are plenty of people to do the work. There are no problems with a breathable atmosphere. It has the gravity that the human body and every other critter evolved with. Earth has a magnetosphere which both holds in the atmosphere and repels the deadly, radiation-laden solar wind. Mars does not. There are difficulties in traveling through space, starting with outer space damaging the human body starting from the very first day.

So how do you build a green Mars? First, obtain a lot of Handwavium. This important element was discovered by the first science-fiction writers to explain faster-than-light travel, bug-eyed monsters, time travel, or any other concept that science couldn’t explain.
  
Next, work out the terraforming process. The number one issue in terraforming the planet is building soil so the colonists can feed themselves. I decided that Mars could be seeded with genetically-modified molds, algae, lichens, mosses, and fungi. Give them 100 million years to work, and you’ll have soil. For my purpose, I made them fast-growing to cut down the time!
  
Then I broke out the Handwavium to give Mars a magnetosphere — by creating machines to make the core of the planet spin — and give it a heat-trapping atmosphere.
  
The next problem was fossil fuels. It’s hard to imagine life without coal or oil, yet people managed. However, a high-tech civilization depends on coal and oil. Solar panels and wind turbines cannot be built without fossil fuels. Solar panels are made from plastics derived from oil. The metal needed for steel can be dug out by men with picks and shovels. It cannot be smelted without charcoal (made from trees), peat (compressed plant material that hasn’t turned into coal), coal, or oil. You can’t run a blast furnace on electricity even if you can generate the electricity with your nuclear power plant.
  
So, the colonists will make do with what they brought with them, and get real good at fixing broken equipment and clever at coming up with substitutes.
  
Once that was settled, it was time to figure out how the colonists would organize to settle the planet. I developed a feudal, agrarian culture built on the labor of peasants. I use men as draft animals, something many cultures have done. What is a coolie but a draft animal? You’re going to have people, you need people, they have to eat and so that muscle gets put to work.
  
But not all of Mars will be settled. After a couple hundred years, there’ll be enough people to cover less than half the surface, which leaves lots of space for people to form horse-riding tribes similar to Native Americans or Mongols. They’ll develop their own belief systems, customs, and family traditions.
  
Next, I considered the distribution of wealth. In many traditional empires, the closer you are to the capital, the more technology you have available. The richer you are, the more technology you can use. A Roman emperor could have ices in the summer; his lowliest subjects did not. Life in the capital of Barsoom on the equator will feel very different from life with the horse-riding barbarians in the northern and southern latitudes.
  
Relations with Earth also play a role in the stories. Immense amounts of wealth had to be poured into terraforming Mars. The investors expect a substantial return on their investment. All empires expect their colonies to generate wealth that is returned to the empire’s elite. This is called a “wealth pump.” The colonies of an empire are mined for their assets, and that wealth pours back into the center of the empire, leaving the colony increasingly stripped bare.

 The Spaniards did this to South America. The British did this to India. The Chinese are doing this right now in Africa.

 Do the residents of those colonies appreciate this? They do not, unless they personally benefit.

 When these questions were settled, I could begin “The BrideFrom Dairapaska.

 How would these elements play out with real people trapped in a world not of their own design? You can see this play out in the cover art, which demonstrates these contradictions so well. Who is the bride? That woman carrying a baby with two other kids? What is “Dairapaska”? Why is she green? Why are there two moons? Why are they in the middle of nowhere? What are they running from?
  
“The Bride From Dairapaska” gives you the answers, and introduces you to a Mars you’ve never seen before. I’m looking forward to exploring it in future books, and I hope you’ll come along for the journey.
  
For Writers

Writing is a business. If you aren’t getting paid, it’s a hobby. The IRS says so and they’re right. As a functioning business, it should provide you, the writer, with not just a current income (even if it’s only walking-around money), but a future income as well.

For Everyone

If you want to see something sad, ask a room full of freelance writers about their tax strategies. It’s like asking a pack of baby kittens about space travel.

 The Bride from Dairapaska  On Amazon

In a rural village on a terraformed Mars, a lonely young wife takes her children and dog and flees into the vast open steppes. Debbie only wanted to escape her abusive husband, but her encounter with the Steppes Riders, and especially Yannick of Kenyatta, unwittingly ignites changes that attract the attention of Mars’ ruling families. Left to her own resources, Debbie must adapt to her new life and figure out how to defend her adopted people.
  
“The Steppes of Mars” series imagines a transformed world where a disaster on Earth decades ago cut off all contact with its wealth and resources. Experience a Mars where its genetically modified inhabitants have developed their own cultures, beliefs, and religions. A semi-feudal world where ruling families control vast demesnes under a central government at Barsoom. A world of limited resources where train travel is possible but cars and planes are not. A world of free-cities — open and domed — villages, vast fields and steppes, and people banding together to survive and thrive in this harsh new world.
  

 About Odessa Moon

Odessa Moon has, at various times, painted, sewed, served in the Navy, worked as a sales clerk and cashier, taken care of her family, and gardened with enthusiasm. She reads extensively, especially about medieval history, the class struggle, colonization, and resource depletion. She read piles of science-fiction and fantasy in her youth and often wondered what the authors hand-waved away about how difficult it really would be to terraform another planet at the end of a 140-million-mile supply line. Her “The Steppes of Mars” series combines all those interests.

When Ms. Moon is not writing, she is working on improving the soil in her own garden and planting trees in Hershey, Pa., where the air really does smell of chocolate.

Visit her website at OdessaMoon

Do you think we'll ever build a settlement on Mars? Would you go? Do you think mankind would take all the social problems of Earth with them to Mars? Have you ever been to Hershey, PA and smelled the chocolate in the air?



23 comments:

Hilary Melton-Butcher said...

Hi Susan - well you've certainly given lots of thought to a green Mars ... amazingly interesting; my question would be do you remember what is real and what belongs to Mars?! Would I go to Mars - no thank you ... I'll stick around here - there's enough to do and plenty of food for thought and to eat - well for now anyway.

Fascinating post ... keep me here please! Good luck with the book - cheers Hilary

nashvillecats2 said...

I knew that Mars is known as The Red Planet but your story of a Green Mars sounds great to read.

Enjoy this new week.
Yvonne.

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

When you break it all down, it would be an undertaking larger than man has ever attempted.

Natalie Aguirre said...

Sounds like you gave your world building a lot of thought. Sounds like a fascinating world.

L. Diane Wolfe said...

DLP is publishing a book set on Mars, but the colonists didn't do a lot of terraforming to actual Mars soil.

Ann Bennett said...

Handwavium, what a useful action. I remember a character I liked that died in a SF story. My boyfriend at the time said, "Don't worry, it's SF. They could bring him back from the dead later in the story." lol

You did your homework on what would be needed to colonize Mars, especially the part about motivation.

Christine Rains said...

Lots of food for thought! Have you seen that TV show Mars (National Geographic channel, I believe)? It was fantastic. They did not have Handwavium, though. :)

Teresa from Hershey said...

Hi Hilary,

Here is better! Air, gravity, a magnetosphere, soil; yep, I don't plan to move to Mars. It would be easier to colonize Antarctica. The weather is better.

And yes, I do keep track of 'real' and 'Mars'.

Teresa from Hershey
aka Odessa Moon

Teresa from Hershey said...

Hi Yvonne,

Thank you! Mars has to be greened up since humans can't live without soil.

Enjoy your week as well.

Teresa from Hershey
aka Odessa Moon

Teresa from Hershey said...

Hi Alex,

Yes, absolutely it would be. The death toll would be just flabbergasting as well. Think of the early explorers; they never once had to worry about air or gravity (although water, food, and hostile natives were always an issue) and they still died like flies.

Deep space is completely hostile to virtually every kind of life other than dormant spores. It won't be any different with us.

Teresa from Hershey
aka Odessa Moon

Teresa from Hershey said...

Hi Natalie,

Yes, I think about Mars all the time. My characters talk to me and ask what the heck is taking me so long. It will take me years to explore my Mars.

I hope you can come along for the ride!

Teresa from Hershey
aka Odessa Moon

Teresa from Hershey said...

Hi L. Diane,

Who is DLP? I'm not familiar with the initials.
How does this author address feeding everyone? You've got to eat at least once a day. Unless you can eat algae, food doesn't grow itself.
One of the bigger issues every military has is feeding all their personnel. Any supply officer or general will tell you that armies march on their stomachs.

Thanks for commenting.

Teresa from Hershey
aka Odessa Moon

Teresa from Hershey said...

Hi Ann,

I love handwavium and I use it a lot. Even so, there are things I just couldn't ignore and eating was at the top of the list. I tried serious food gardening and let me tell you, my family would have starved.

Thank God for farmers is all I can say.

You have to have plenty of compelling reasons to spend the money, energy, effort, and time on turning a world of dead sand into something people can walk around on.

Teresa from Hershey
aka Odessa Moon

Teresa from Hershey said...

Hi Christine,

Thank you. I have NOT seen the Mars program via National Geographic. For philosophical reasons, my household is a one-percenter. That is, we belong to the class of people in the US (about 1%) who do NOT have a television hooked up to the world. We do have a single secondhand TV that plays DVD's. I shall have to see if the library has that series.

Thanks for pointing it out to me and thanks for commenting.

Teresa from Hershey
aka Odessa Moon

Pat Hatt said...

Better off with the desert by the sounds of it for real life, but fiction sure makes it possible and fun to think about.

messymimi said...

It's going to be my grandchildren who may go to Mars, not me, but it's amazing to think about. Maybe someday there will be technolgies that will make a good portion of what you imagine possible, only time will tell.

Teresa from Hershey said...

Hi Pat,

Yes, it sure does. It would be easier by far to terraform the Sahara desert. There's water less than a thousand miles away.

Teresa from Hershey
aka Odessa Moon

Teresa from Hershey said...

Hi Messymimi,

It's possible!

Teresa from Hershey
aka Odessa Moon

Patricia Stoltey said...

No matter how much magic Handwavium an author performs, world building is still a monumental task. I admire sci fi and fantasy writers for their creativity and persistence, but these are genres I don't try to write. Odessa Moon sounds like a fascinating read.

Patricia Stoltey said...

Sorry, typing is out of control this morning. I meant Odessa Moon's novel sounds like a fascinating read. :D

Teresa from Hershey said...

Hi Patricia,

I have the same problem with my typing. I can't always get my fingers to write the words my mind wants to say.

I hope you enjoy my novel. I really enjoyed writing it!

Teresa from Hershey
aka Odessa Moon

Juneta key said...

Wow, that was well thought out. Loved reading your deeper thoughts about it.

Teresa from Hershey said...

Hi Juneta,

Thanks for your kind thoughts!

I hope you enjoy the novel as well.

Teresa from Hershey
aka Odessa Moon