Chapter 15: Establishing Mars Colonies

The smaller version of the Stanford Torus would be built first, in one of the high spaceports in GEO, to be used to go to Mars. It would be put in orbit there as base for permanent presence in the Mars system, enabling industrial and hospital full resources out there to ensure success of the Mars expedition, no mere adventure after all, there for real and to stay.

Although Boeing's earlier mandate to provide a Mars expedition in the 2024 time frame, using massive rocket launches from the Earth's surface, was obsoleted by KESTS to GEO, they were able to keep aerospace personnel employed until the high spaceports in GEO were built and operational, and then reaction engine technology resumed with gusto, no atmosphere to require compromise in nozzle design, only 9% of the Earth's gravitational well remained to climb from GEO; the Sun's field then becoming the primary energy sink for commerce to the planets beyond the Earth. The energy once needed to lift the Space Shuttle from the ground to only Low Earth Orbit, could now move a spacecraft the size of a battlecruiser off from GEO to the Moon and beyond. Although spacecraft designers still needed to sometimes create small robotic mission spacecraft, at other times the size restrictions had so vanished that other spacecraft design engineer creations rivaled those of WWII shipyards, vast new life into the field.

Mankind's visions turned away from squabbles with their international kindred for land and resources, and instead became fascinated with the spread of life throughout the Solar System.

The study of biodiverse living systems needed for long term sustainable life in the GEO habitat rings and forming harmonious living systems on the Moon and Mars and beyond, was able to guide the restoration of the wonderfully biodiverse balanced ecosystem of the Earth surface herself, as civilization accepted the responsibility for the well-being of the planet-wide living system upon which it had previously been merely Predator Supreme.