Linkage

I have include a number of relevant links in the sidebar of this blog. The Mars One website gives the most information about specific plans for a Mars colony. The Space X site is useful for rocket and spacecraft development but Elon Musk's Mars plans are not yet included. It appears that some proposals for a Mars Colonial Transporter will be announced later this year. The announcement may be limited in scope or a more exciting exposition of timetabling and development intentions. Both Bigelow Aerospace and Inspiration Mars websites contain useful information about space habitat development and the fly-by Mars mission proposals. The great visionary work on Mars settlement by Robert Zubrin, 'The Case For Mars', published first in 1996 and updated in 2011 is described in a Wikipedia link. Zubrin has long been the foremost proponent of human exploration of Mars and his ideas are carefully researched and highly developed. For Zubrin, large scale settlement follows scientific exploration. As you will have seen, I am more interested in reversing the order and beginning with settlement. But there are a range of possibilities lying between the two extremes. For those who have not read much about the Zubrin proposals, I will be returning to consideration of his work in future posts.

Golden Spike's plans for lunar tourism and scientific research opportunities are covered in one link. I want to keep this blog focused on Mars development but lunar possibilities are likely to prove relevant since they may employ some common habitat, rocketry and spacecraft elements. There may be developmental synergies for Mars planning inherent in The Golden Spike work. Finally, I have included some useful spaceflight news links. No doubt these will be familiar to many but some may be new to others., I will expand the links offered as I add to this blog over time.