I wrote a fake history essay about the politics of setting up a Mars colony (part 2/2)

Read Part 1 here

Opening a New Frontier

Within the next year, Congress passed a detailed plan for America’s involvement terraforming the red dot Romulus worshipped as his God of war. The international strategy was three-pronged: Bacteria, giant mirrors, and the Martian soil. First, tens of thousands of pounds of ammonia and methane-producing cyanobacteria would be dropped at calculated points across Mars to cover the planet’s surface. The US’s commitment to this part of the project was 15% of the budget.

The bacteria alone would be sufficient to warm the planet and thicken the atmosphere. Nitrogen and oxygen levels, however, would remain low, and the planet would remain relatively dry until the hydrosphere was activated. Activating the hydrosphere would make the atmosphere breathable for advanced plants and primitive animals, and the temperature would increase further. Using orbiting mirrors would rapidly activate the hydrosphere.
Giant mirrors would be stationed at an intentional distance and angle from the planet’s poles. In order to free the solid carbon dioxide and water as gas. The Congressional plan called for America to provide 15% of the funds for the mirrors and to offer three military engineering facilities to the international coalition for construction. After placing the mirrors, the positive feedback generated by the Martian carbon dioxide greenhouse system would greatly reduce the amount of engineering effort that would otherwise be required.

Next, the UN plan called for all signatory countries to turn their attention to the regolith, the Martian soil, in order to free trapped carbon. Digging up the alien soil released trapped carbon dioxide and fed into greenhouse system. When reviewing this part of the plan to determine the level of US commitment, someone on the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Space, Aeronautics, and Related Sciences noticed two options for participant countries to contribute. Option 1: They could cooperate in digging giant holes, and leave massive piles of soil wasted, unused. Or, option 2: Their estimated contribution could be calculated using only their involvement with the mirrors and bacteria, and they could dig holes on their future colony site and use the soil for construction. The regolith released just as much carbon dioxide per hole if the soil was used as if it sat in a pointless pile. Liana Drexner, a thirty-four year old junior Senator from Pennsylvania advocated for option 2, saying that although they might receive less total land, the advantage of early construction could not be understated. After review, the subcommittee joined only four other countries in choosing option 2. Senator Drexner suggested the reason option 2 wasn’t more popular was because of the complicated logistics involved in organizing a large-scale unmanned construction project, or else all other countries strongly believed in their ability to dig pointless holes and opted for a potential land grab because of their greater contribution. The cooperative work done, the subcommittee began to plan America’s singular destiny. The general idea was to find a 3-D printing company that was capable of building a city on another world. Chairman Robert Zubrin of Colorado tasked subcommittee members with soliciting design bids from home state firms.

One reason Senator Drexner advocated for option 2 was because she was familiar with 3-D printing’s progress – her brother Luke was on the board of a Philadelphia-based 3-D printing company, Apis Cor, that specialized in 3-D printing homes. With slight modification, the printer could surely make a whole set of houses, buildings, all in a row. And another row, and so on, and then it could make a city. She had a head start and took advantage. She called Luke that night.

“The printer – could it use red soil?” 

He responded that it needed concrete, not soil, but the color of the soil component of the concrete didn’t matter.

“What about gravity – could it work in lower gravity?”

He was excited about the prospect and told her the solar-powered prototype worked just fine. But what about the concrete? The solution they developed was to make concrete with Martian soil and water, plus a small amount of Portland cement that could be transported and mixed, or else maybe substituted with an analogue made using materials found there. As for the water, hydrogen alone could form water when it reacted with carbon dioxide. Or else, the water from the melted ice caps. Details still needed to be figured out, but it could work. It would work.
Senator Drexner presented her brother’s bid first (she disclosed the potential conflict of interest). Luke Drexner’s Apis Cor won a spot in the Mojave Desert Trial, along with two other companies.

If he outperformed Utah’s 3-D Apexica and Wisconsin’s Printsmith, he’d win the contract. The arrangements were made, and they’d each make a city block as quickly and cost effectively as possible, in conditions designed to mimic the Martian environment. 3-D Apexica’s printer worked the fastest, and for awhile it seemed the clear frontrunner. It made a house every three days, and its block even included a rudimentary sidewalk. But on closer examination, 3-D Apexica’s recipe for concrete included ingredients that would be hard to manufacture on Mars and difficult (and costly) to transport.

Printsmith’s buildings were the most beautiful, with intricate exterior designs that included Ionic columns and aesthetic carvings. However, the cost for beauty may have been too high – each house took nearly two weeks to complete, and some buildings shuddered and cracked during the government’s load-bearing tests.

Apis Cor’s printer worked at a medium pace – a house every week, and its design was functional and simple, a honeycomb shape for the base. Apis Cor’s houses also easily withstood the government’s tests.
The contract was Luke’s.

When preparing the subcommittee press release about the colony, Chairman Zubrin noticed the colony didn’t yet have a name. Senator Drexner was a humble woman whose plan was coming into fruition, and Chairman Zubrin offered her the chance to name it after herself, to reward her for her crucial involvement. Because she was humble, Senator Drexner didn’t think less of herself, she thought of herself less. So her accomplishment, and it was a huge accomplishment, did not register to her as something she and she alone could have achieved. Instead, Senator Drexner realized that anybody in her position could have done what she had, so she took pride in the result rather than her involvement and chose a name that highlighted the colony itself, not its designer: Roanoke. The first outpost, waiting empty on a new world. The first British colony in America, left empty for two years between the first expedition and the Shakers’ arrival.

This colony should meet a better fate than its namesake, a second Titanic whose every successful voyage laughed at history’s past mistakes.

European, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, South African, Egyptian, Argentinian, and Brazilian scientists arrive at US military facilities in Monterey Bay, California; Houston, Texas; and Newburgh, New York. Vats of primordial ooze produce trillions of bacteria colonies, thousand gallon drums full to the brim with life’s most primitive form. Senator Drexner drafts a bill with her staff to commit America to colonizing Roanoke when Mars is ready, in six to eight decades. Mirrors with a kilometer-long diameter are constructed. Senator Drexner reads a speech to the Senate. Rockets ready for launch in Florida, England, Korea, and Argentina. The Senate votes against committing to colonize Roanoke. Apis Cor readies several printers for a big project. Specially-designed rockets are built to carry cargo with a kilometer-long diameter.

Hundreds of drums filled with bacteria, with diverse lettering systems on the face, are loaded into rockets. Senator Drexner writes a new version of the same bill promising to populate the colony, this time with a more flexible time frame and funding plan. Apis Cor’s printers are stabilized, tied and secured to the floor and walls, and readied for launch. The bacteria drums are opened and released at a low altitude over Mars; the automated systems effectively coordinate to cover 65% of the planet’s surface. Senator Drexner presents her new bill on the Senate floor. The printers arrive at the US colony site.

The Senate votes against her bill. Holes are dug, concrete is mixed, and printers print. Mirrors are moved into position. The bacteria produce ammonia and methane. The ice caps melt. Carbon is freed from the regolith. Popular opinion has moved against the Mars colony, and Senator Drexner knows it. Buildings, with honeycomb bases, are erected; the printers move slowly, but there is time. The Martian temperature increases by several degrees, and the Martian atmospheric pressure increases by 100 millibar. The fence separating the Senate from the people has lowered with direct election; Senator Drexner bows to the people’s will and drafts one more bill for Roanoke, a bill that is a huge step down from her original.

The permafrost melts. Water flows freely on the surface of Mars for the first time in millions of years. Several signatory countries organize an extra pro bono action and deliver tens of thousands of ferns, mosses, and weeds to further speed up the process. Splashes of green pop up on the otherwise rusted canvas.
Senator Drexner presents her bill, to place a bell on capitol hill as a monument to the colony, to be rung only when the terraforming is complete and Roanoke is habitable.  The bill passes.

City blocks sprout slowly, and observatories on Earth watch the sprouts grow and spread like vines, or else like ferns and mosses on a distant marble. Shadows move across the red central square as the sun crosses the sky in 24 hour, 39 minute cycles.

When all of the programmed buildings have been constructed, a printer enters Roanoke’s central square to add one final piece. A nearly flat rectangle, held upright by a narrow cylinder on one side. The rectangle’s face is decorated with a corner box and horizontal bars. The American flag casts a shadow that moves across the square, tracking the sun’s movements over many sols. This American flag constructed, not planted, laying claim to an empty far away place, a desert with few (but increasing) oases. The flag claiming the place, but no one claiming the flag, no one there to claim the flag; no people, nothing.

The new frontier is open, the flag seems to say to no one. Come and get your free land, and forge your destiny.