Mars to Stay missions propose that astronauts sent to Mars for the first time should intend to remain there. Unused emergency return vehicles would be recycled into settlement construction as soon as the habitability of Mars becomes evident to the initial pioneers. Mars to Stay missions are advocated both to reduce cost and to ensure permanent settlement of Mars. Among many notable Mars to Stay advocates, former Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin has been particularly outspoken, suggesting in numerous forums "Forget the Moon, Let’s Head to Mars!" and, in June 2013, Aldrin promoted a crewed mission "to homestead Mars and become a two-planet species". In August 2015, Aldrin, in association with the Florida Institute of Technology, presented a "master plan", for NASA consideration, for astronauts, with a "tour of duty of ten years", to colonize Mars before the year 2040. The Mars Underground, Mars Homestead Project / Mars Foundation, Mars One (defunct in 2019), and Mars Artists Community advocacy groups and business organizations have also adopted Mars to Stay policy initiatives. The earliest formal outline of a Mars to Stay mission architecture was given at the Case for Mars VI Workshop in 1996, during a presentation by George Herbert titled "One Way to Mars".
Proposals
Arguments for settlement missions Since returning the astronauts from the surface of Mars is one of the most difficult parts of a Mars mission, the idea of a one-way trip to Mars has been proposed several times. Space activist Bruce Mackenzie, for example, proposed a one-way trip to Mars in a presentation "One Way to Mars – a Permanent Settlement on the First Mission" at the 1998 International Space Development Conference, arguing that since the mission could be done with less difficulty and expense if the astronauts were not required to return to Earth, the first mission to Mars should be a settlement, not a visit. Paul Davies, writing in The New York Times in 2004, made similar arguments. Under Davies' plan, an initial colony of four astronauts equipped with a small nuclear reactor and a couple of rover vehicles would make their own oxygen, grow food, and even initiate building projects using local raw materials. Supplemented by food shipments, medical supplies, and replacement gadgets from Earth, the colony would be indefinitely sustained.
Original Aldrin plan Under Mars to Stay mission architectures, the first humans to travel to Mars would typically be in six-member teams. After this initial landing, subsequent missions would raise the number of persons on Mars to 30, thereby beginning a Martian settlement. Since the Martian surface offers some of the natural resources and elements necessary to sustain a robust, mature, industrialized human settlement—unlike, for example the Moon—a permanent Martian settlement is thought to be the most effective way to ensure that humanity becomes a space-faring, multi-planet species. A Mars to Stay mission following Aldrin's proposal would enlist astronauts in the following timeline:
Age 30: an offer to help settle Mars is extended to select pioneers Age 30–35: training and social conditioning for long-duration isolation and time-delay communications Age 35–65: development of sheltered underground living spaces Age 65: an offer to return to Earth or retire on Mars is given to first-generation settlers As Aldrin has said, "who knows what advances will have taken place. The first generation can retire there, or maybe we can bring them back."
"To Boldly Go: A One-Way Human Mission to Mars" An article by Dirk Schulze-Makuch (Washington State University) and Paul Davies (Arizona State University) from the 2010 article The Human Mission to Mars: Colonizing the Red Planet highlights their mission plans as:
No base on the Moon is needed. Given the broad variety of resources available on Mars, the long-term survival of Martian settlers is much more feasible than Lunar settlers. Since Mars affords neither an ozone shield nor magnetospheric protection, robots would prepare a basic modular base inside near-surface lava tubes and ice caves for the human settlers. A volunteer signing up for a one-way mission to Mars would do so with the full understanding that they will not return to Earth; Mars exploration would proceed for a long time on the basis of outbound journeys only. The first human contingent would consist of a crew of four, ideally (if budget permits) distributed between two two-man spacecraft for mission redundancy. Over time humans on Mars will increase with follow-up missions. Several subsurface biospheres would be created until there were 150+ individuals in a viable gene pool. Genetic engineering would further contribute to the health and longevity of settlers. The astronauts would be sent supplies from Earth regularly. This proposal was picked up for discussion in a number of public sources.
Mars One
A proposal for a one-way human settlement mission to Mars was put forward in 2012 by the Mars One, a private spaceflight project led by Dutch entrepreneur Bas Lansdorp to establish a permanent human colony on Mars. Mars One was a Dutch not-for-profit foundation, a Stichting. The proposal was to send a communication satellite and pathfinder lander to the planet by 2018 and, after several stages, land four humans on Mars for permanent settlement in 2027. A new set of four astronauts would then arrive every two years. 200,000 applications were started; about 2,500 were complete enough for consideration, from which one hundred applicants were chosen. Further selections were planned to narrow this down to six groups of four before training began in 2016. It was hoped that a reality television show, participant fees, and donations would generate the funding for the project. The project was criticized by experts as a 'scam' and as 'delusional'. On January 15, 2019, a court decision was settled to liquidate the organization, sending it into bankruptcy administration.
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