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Dear potential mars colonists, concerning your ambitious project, please consider my following suggestions.

(1) Humans always relate to society. We started as small groups 100.000 years ago, but with the neolithic revolution we began to turn into larger communities. Colonists on Mars will only feel well if they are allowed to stay a part of this larger community. Telecommunication as you foresee it in your project will not be sufficient. Every participant must be sure that he/she has a realistic chance to return within a few years to mother earth.

(2) Experimenting with possible habitats directly on mars is risky (to say the least); it is not surely known if the necessary resources can really be found on the martian surface. Instead of depending heavily on such insecure prerequisites, it would be better to invest first in earth-grounded projects as Biosphere 2 (Arizona University) to create a closed system of plants and humans and other organisms.

(3) The only economic way to exchange on a regular basis sufficiently large cargos between earth and mars is via a stationary space station on a Hohmann orbit. Such a station would pass by mars roughly every second year and reach without further need of propulsion energy the earth in a similar rythm.

(4) A first model for a functioning biosphere could be installed on such a space station. Smaller space crafts would be needed to board it or leave it near both planets. The large, heavy station would remain on its interplanetary orbit without wasting energy to switch into orbits around one of them.

(5) A first step towards the development of an appropriate biosphere should be experiments (conducted on earth) with photosynthetic microorganisms capable of surviving under simulated martian pressure and temperature. These organisms would convert CO2 exhaled by humans back to O2.

(6) If they survive a martian pressure of only 6 mbar, a modular system of vegetation bubbles could be constructed, as equipment for both, the space station and the mars colonies.

(7) Basic research to develop such facilities will take at least decades, but future generations may indeed colonize mars as envisioned in your bold proposal.

Kind regards,