LiftOff! - Mars Live!

"Nothing else in the world . . . not all the armies . . . is so powerful as an idea whose time has come. "

Victor Hugo

In this lesson you will design a permanent sustainable human colony on Mars. You will learn about life support systems that humans will need to survive on the planet including recycling systems. You will think about the kinds of things Martian colonists would do on the planet and the things they would need to survive. Humans have created new communities and built new settlements in inhospitable and foreign lands throughout history. How did they do it? What things did they bring with them? How did they structure their colonies? What facilities did they build? How did they organize their governments?

You will also learn about scientists' concerns about inhabiting a planet that may harbor life and plans for terraforming Mars or making it more like Earth so that it could one day be habitable by humans (without life support systems).

You will use a variety of 3-D and virtual models, interactive games and tutorials, videos, audios, and images to explore the red planet Mars. For your assignment you will design a Mars colony of 100 people or more and submit a one-page description of the settlement, along with a description of how each component functions and how the components are related.

In the Mission section is the activity that you need to turn in via the Comm Link.  Don't forget to do the Quick Quiz after you have done the reading.  The Extended Mission is a collection of links on the topic that you can use for further information, it is divided up into Activities and Research.  When deciding on a final project the extensions are a good way to begin.

Chapters in this lesson include:

• Human Exploration
• Life Support Systems
• Facilities
• Transportation
• Communication Systems
• Colony Location and Design
• Colony Organization
• Benefits to Earth
• Terraforming Mars

NOTE: Some of the links in these lessons require these:

• Adobe Acrobat Reader
• QuickTime
• Real Player 
• Windows Media Player
• IPIX 
• a VRML player (i.e., Cortona VRML Client) 

Click on any of the links to get these plug-ins for your browser installed for free if you do not already have them. If you are using America Online (AOL), you may experience some problems with this course. 

Next... Human Exploration (pg. 2 of 10)