TO THE MOON, MARS, AND BEYOND

Many folks would like to see us back on the Moon and developing its resources.

Wednesday, January 01, 2014

Mars trilogy and a New Year begins - where do we want to go?

As of New Years Eve I am now another year older and even though I am still left hand finger poking at typing, I would like to be a more consistent at posting to the lunar-update list.  The topic of going to Mars, one way or another, continues to come up every so often and if I am awake you might get a post about them.. 

I thought that perhaps I would re-read Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy, "Red Mars", "Green Mars", and "Blue Mars" with the idea of seeing how they compare today with what we see coming up.  What we don't see mentioned in the news might also be a something to consider and discuss.

With this in mind I might suggest that any of you who have topic ideas or concerns, drop me note at (larry.kellogg AT gmail.com) and we shall see what the New Year has to offer.

We have mentioned the Mars trilogy before but let me copy a few links to bring us up to speed and I will pull the books down for a read as well.
- LRK -

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Mars trilogy
The Mars trilogy is a series of award-winning science fiction novels by Kim Stanley Robinson that chronicles the settlement and terraforming of the planet Mars through the intensely personal and detailed viewpoints of a wide variety of characters spanning almost two centuries. Ultimately more utopian than dystopian, the story focuses on egalitarian, sociological, and scientific advances made on Mars, while Earth suffers from overpopulation and ecological disaster.
The three novels are Red Mars (1993), Green Mars (1994), and Blue Mars (1996). The Martians (1999) is a collection of short stories set in the same fictional universe. The main trilogy won a number of prestigious awards. Icehenge (1984), Robinson's first novel about Mars, is not set in this universe but deals with similar themes and plot elements. The trilogy shares some similarites with Robinson's more recent novel 2312 (2012), for instance, the terraforming of Mars and the extreme longevity of the characters in both novels.
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Some may wonder why go to Mars and what would you do there when you manage to make the trip.
Are you concerned about where we are heading here on Earth and think Mars would be a place to escape to.
Or are you just on a science trip?
It may help to know some about the author and see why he took us on this possible new history trip.
- LRK -

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Kim Stanley Robinson (born March 23, 1952) is an American science fiction writer, best known for his award-winning Mars trilogy. Robinson's work has been labeled by reviewers as literary science fiction.[1]
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The Mars trilogy

This trilogy is Robinson's best-known work. It is an extended work of science fiction that deals with the first settlement of the planet Mars by a group of scientists and engineers. Its three volumes are Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars, the titles of which mark the changes that the planet undergoes over the course of the saga. The tale begins with the first colonists leaving Earth for Mars in 2027 and covers the next 200 years of future history. By the conclusion of the story, Mars is heavily populated and terraformed, with a flourishing and complex political and social dimension.
Many threads of different characters' lives are woven together in the Mars Trilogy. Science, sociology, and politics are all covered in great detail, evolving over the course of the narrative. Robinson's fascination with science and technology is clear, although he balances this with a strong streak of humanity. Robinson's personal interests, including ecological sustainability, sexual dimorphism, and the scientific method, come through strongly.
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Science fiction is often set in exciting plots to catch your attention. Good guy, bad guy, shoot out at the OK corral at high noon. 
Would this be enough reason to go to Mars?
- LRK -

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Dystopia

A dystopia is a community or society that is in some important way undesirable or frightening. It is the opposite of a utopia. Such societies appear in many artistic works, particularly in stories set in a future. Dystopias are often characterized by dehumanization,[1] totalitarian governments, environmental disaster,[2] or other characteristics associated with a cataclysmic decline in society. Dystopian societies appear in many sub-genres of fiction and are often used to draw attention to real-world issues regarding society, environment, politics, economics,religion, psychology, ethics, science, and/or technology, which if unaddressed could potentially lead to such a dystopia-like condition.
Famous depictions of dystopian societies include R.U.R., which introduces the term Robot and the modern Robot concept along with the first Androids due to being organic, and is the first elaborate depiction of a machine take-over.[3]; Nineteen Eighty-Four, which takes place in a totalitarian invasive super state; Brave New World, where the human population is placed under a caste of psychological allocation; Fahrenheit 451, where the state burns books out of fear of what they may incite; Blade Runner in which genetically engineered replicants infiltrate society and must be hunted down before they injure humans, and The Hunger Games, in which the government controls its people by maintaining a constant state of fear through forcing randomly selected children to participate in an annual fight to the death. The Iron Heel was described by Erich Fromm as "the earliest of the modern Dystopian".[4]
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On the other hand maybe you want to set up a more ideal society. You need to evaluate where your funding will come from.
- LRK -

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Utopia

A utopia /juːˈtoʊpiə/ is a community or society possessing highly desirable or perfect qualities. The word was coined in Greek by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island society in the Atlantic Ocean. The term has been used to describe both intentional communities that attempt to create an ideal society, and imagined societies portrayed in fiction. It has spawned other concepts, most prominently dystopia.
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A peak at some of the plot at the Wikipedia link.
- LRK -

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Plot

Red Mars — Colonization[edit]

Red Mars starts in 2026 with the first colonial voyage to Mars aboard the Ares, the largest interplanetary spacecraft ever built (interestingly, from clustered space shuttle external fuel tanks which, instead of incinerating in the atmosphere, have been boosted into orbit until enough had been amassed to build a ship and also used as landing craft) and home to a crew who are to be the first hundred Martian colonists. The mission is a joint Russian-American undertaking, and seventy of the First Hundred are drawn from these countries (except, for example, Michel Duval, a French psychologist assigned to observe their behavior). The book details the trip out, construction of the first settlement on Mars (eventually called Underhill) by Nadia Chernyshevski, as well as establishing colonies on Mars' hollowed out asteroid-moon Phobos, the ever-changing relationships between the colonists, debates among the colonists regarding both the terraforming of the planet and its future relationship to Earth. The two extreme views on terraforming are personified by Saxifrage "Sax" Russell, who believes their very presence on the planet means some level of terraforming has already begun and that it is humanity's obligation to spread life as it is the most scarce thing in the known universe, and Ann Clayborne, who stakes out the position that humankind does not have the right to change entire planets at their will.
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Hope you read the rest of the Red Mars plot and continued to Green Mars.
- LRK -

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Green Mars — Terraforming

Green Mars takes its title from the stage of terraforming that has allowed plants to grow. It picks up the story 50 years after the events ofRed Mars in the dawn of the 22nd century, following the lives of the remaining First Hundred and their children and grandchildren. Hiroko Ai's base under the south pole is attacked by UN Transitional Authority (UNTA) forces, and the survivors are forced to escape into a (less literal) underground organization known as the Demimonde. Among the expanded group are the First Hundred's children, the Nisei, a number of whom live in Hiroko's second secret base, Zygote.
As unrest in the multinational control over Mars' affairs grow, various groups start to form with different aims and methods. Watching these groups evolve from Earth, the CEO of the Praxis Corporation sends a representative, Arthur Randolph, to organize the resistance movements. This culminates into the Dorsa Brevia agreement, in which nearly all the underground factions take part. Preparations are made for a second revolution beginning in the 2120s, from converting moholes to missiles silos or hidden bases, sabotaging orbital mirrors, to propelling Deimos out of Mars' gravity well and out into deep space so it could never be used as a weapons platform as Phobos was.
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And the Blue Mars plot. It would take some time to terraform Mars and get an atmosphere you could breath. Whether we ever get this far on Mars remains to be seen and I would certainly not be here. Now melting of Earth's Antarctic ice cap could happen with an under sea volcano causing a large ice sheet to slide off whether we ever go to Mars or not. Hard to time future historical events.
- LRK -

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Blue Mars — Long-term results

Blue Mars takes its title from the stage of terraforming that has allowed atmospheric pressure and temperature to increase so that liquidwater can exist on the planet's surface, forming rivers and seas. It follows from the end of Green Mars and has a much wider scope than the previous two books, covering an entire century after the second revolution. As Earth is heavily flooded by the sudden melting of the Antarctic ice cap, the once mighty metanats are brought to their knees; as the Praxis Corporation paves a new way of "democratic businesses". Mars becomes the "Head" of the system, giving universal healthcare, free education, and an abundance of food. However, this sparks illegal immigration from Earth, so to ease the population strain on the Blue Planet, Martian scientists and engineers are soon put to the task of creating asteroid cities; where small planetoids of the Belt are hollowed out, given a spin to produce gravity, and a mini-sun is created to produce light and heat.
With a vast increase in sciences, technologies, and spacecraft manufacturing, this begins the "Accelerando"; where humankind spreads its civilization throughout the Solar System, and eventually beyond. As Venus, the Jovian moons, the Saturnian moons, and eventually Triton are colonized and terraformed in some way, Jackie Boone (the granddaughter of John Boone, the first man to walk on Mars from the first book) takes an interstellar vessel (made out of an asteroid) to another star system twenty light-years away, where they will start to terraform the planets and moons found there.
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I shall take a closer look at this information and get "Red Mars" down off the book shelf and let the imagery unfold.
We can look at other books and movies too. Be careful what robots you chose to take with you. 
Remember the movie Red Planet - Official Movie Trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1o-LAANg3s0 
- LRK -

Thanks for looking up with me. 
- LRK -
 
Antarctica (1997) is a novel written by Kim Stanley Robinson. It deals with a variety of characters living at or visiting an Antarctic research station. It incorporates many of Robinson's common themes, including scientific process and the importance of environmental protection.[1]

Plot
Most of the story is centered around McMurdo Station, the largest settlement in Antarctica, which is run as a scientific research station by the United States. Robinson's characteristic multiple-protagonist style is employed here to show many aspects of polar life; among the viewpoints presented are those of X, an idealistic young man working as a General Field Assistant at McMurdo; Val, an increasingly embittered trek guide; and Wade Norton, who works for the Californian Senator Phil Chase (Wade and Phil also appear in the "Science in the Capital" trilogy). As well as McMurdo, the story involves the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, the Shackleton Glacier, the McMurdo Dry Valleys and a South American drilling platform near Roberts Massif.
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Icehenge is a science fiction novel by American author Kim Stanley Robinson, published in 1984.
Though it was published almost ten years before Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy and takes place in a different version of the future,Icehenge contains elements which appears also in the Mars series: extreme human longevity, Martian political revolution, historical revisionism, and shifts between primary characters are all present.
Plot
Icehenge is set in three distinct time periods. The story shifts from a failed Martian political revolution of 2248, to an expedition to explore a mysterious monument on the north pole of Pluto three centuries later, and ultimately to a space station orbiting Saturn, home to a reclusive and wealthy woman who may hold the key to solving a mystery spanning centuries.
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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK -

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