Chapter 13

January 24, 2026 just over a year had past since the merger of the century, as the press had labeled it. LDC and The Whitten Companies were now officially known as Whitten/LDC. With the combined resources of the worlds largest company Sean figured now it was time to announce his boldest plan yet, the building of a colony on Mars.

Sean had studied various other close planets as candidates. However two things kept him coming back to Mars. The first was time; it took two and a half years at the closest orbits to reach mars and return. Everything after that went up exponentially from there. The second reason was Mars could be easier adapted to human life. There was water on the planet, thermal images showed that, there was increasing evidence of life in the past had lived there. And he wanted an achievable goal to introduce to the public and his shareholders. He needed to hurry this plan through because the meteor that threatened to hit was just slightly under seven years away. He would need to build and launch this expedition before the meteor made it impossible.

His plan was to build the colonization ship in space he was going to have to build shipyards in space orbiting the moon colony, using the colony as a base of operations, and a source of labor. Which he would import more if needed. He had the research team studying propulsion systems and everything else that would be needed to build a massive spaceship. He had recruited heavily from NASA and JPL.

He also stole the brightest from MIT and Cal Tech and other institutes of higher learning with emphasis on Math and Science as applied to space. He got engineers to study the feasibility of fusion powered power plants instead of jet rockets. Fusion would conserve weight which would be incredible and possibly be the difference between success and failure. This project had consumed all of Sean’s time and energy. He worked late hours, he was in constant meetings and he was telling anyone who would listen that this was the future of the earth not just the Future of Whitten/LDC that was at stake.

He had as many detractors as he had believers. Thomas Hardy and Hardy Industries were receiving the lion’s share of the supply contracts, for the most part because Sean knew that Mr. Hardy Senior, and his best friend Tom Hardy Jr. were both on board, and that they had invested just as heavily into the project. They decided to call the colony ship “Jebediah’s Hope”. After that the press started to ask openly if maybe Sean wasn’t just a touch insane. The newspapers and television personalities started digging up how much the project was going to cost and the length of time it would take to see a profit. They were predicting 20-30 years before any viable profits would be seen and then only if the colony ship could be re-used as a transport ship of some sort. After all it was the largest space-going vessel ever conceived. The interior volume of the ship was nearly 120,000 cubic meters at least that’s what was being advertised by Whitten/LDC in its promotional infomercials. Sean had already started to take applications for the first wave of would be colonists. The fortunate 5000 colonists would have to pay 250,000 dollars each, or 415,000 for a couple, if a family of 4 or more wanted emigrate then the price dropped to 125,000 per individual, with children under the age of 5 would be charged at the rate of 25,000 dollars. The ones who could not afford to pay this price would be able to receive a loan from the company at an attractive interest rate and pay it back over 50 years.

This was portrayed as a scam to keep the emigrants under the thumb of Whitten/LDC for as long as possible. However that was not the case it was simply a matter of having to pay for passage for 2 ½ years on a starship which was much different than a cruise ship. No one paid for air or water on a cruise ship no one had to worry about a hundred other small details that went into the extended living in an enclosed environment for the length of time that was being contemplated too reach Mars. These things weren’t cheap and the company couldn’t be expected to take any further losses then it would already be incurring, so reluctantly Sean had to pass some of them onto those who wanted to leave with the ship. It did provide short term influx of cash, but with levels that the company was paying out it was not significant in any case. Taking an average family of four with 1 child over the age of five and one under the age limit and two adults, which is what Sean was really looking for as a typical colony family, the cost to emigrate was 400,000 dollars. A large fee too be sure but not onerous, an educated, or skilled individual with some enterprise and luck could either raise that amount fairly easily, or pay it off with out too much difficultly. When you multiplied that by 1250 families the amount was only 500 million dollars.

Sean really wasn’t interested in making a profit on the voyage itself, he was more interested in making a long term investment in mankind, LDC had taken the first step, with the moon colony, now he was taking the next. Profits would come from the sale of land and the discoveries found, and the technologies created to meet the demands of space exploration. This would then be licensed, with very exclusive royalties being paid to Whitten/LDC and of course the company actually was the sponsor for the colony, so it owned all of the mineral rights. The colonists would lease a portion of them from the company, but the majority of them would be used by Whitten/LDC to use and try to recoup the costs of the project. Hardy Industries also held joint rights in many of the rights on mars in lieu of payment for many of its services.

Building the ship in space shaved time off its construction but not much, the biggest cost savings was with the introduction of fusion generators to power the engines, Plastisteel and Steelglass. The scientists from NASA, JPL, MIT and Cal-Tech worked on a program to conceive, design, and build a fusion generator, along with a usable engine to propel the ship forward. Really the theory was simple in space the tiniest movement would be exaggerated by many times over in forward momentum. Thus a very small amount of energy would be required to “push” the ship forward. But of course they wanted some measurable speed to achieve the goal of a two year trip. The Fusion generator, along with the propulsion system took up about 1/5 of the overall length of the ship which was 600 meters long and 200 meters in diameter. This allowed for a continuous renewable fuel source. So no propellant, and no clumsy rockets were needed to lift them off into space, they did use a kind of reverse thruster rocket system to brake and enter the orbit of the planet they would be going to but that would be a different story those rockets would not be overly bulky or use excessive amount of fuel.

Plastisteel came from a process of trying to find a higher strength plastic. The scientists that were working on this were looking at different resin combinations in the production of plastic. What happened was that by coincidence while mixing an acrylic hardener and a high tensile plastic, while both were in the liquid state these two compounds combined in such a way as too create a plastic that was as strong as stainless steel and weighs 10 times less than an a comparable sheet of steel. They tested this new Plastisteel for strength and durability and found it to be able withstand a rocket propelled grenade at close range. So they decided to use this as the exterior and interior decking of the ship, plus they were able to find many military and civilian uses for this new development. They even considered using it for the main building materials for the Martian colony.

After perfecting this compound the next logical step was to try to combine it with glass, while the glass was in a molten stage, and they were able to come up with Steelglass, a perfectly lightweight high strength glass that could withstand the vacuum of space, and provide protection from the hazards of space travel such as small asteroids. They again were able to apply this to many civilian and military uses. The armored car industry was changed nearly overnight.

These measures allowed Whitten/LDC too bring the construction of the colony ship well under budget and was able to save time as well. This is how they were able to save on weight and devote more space to the living quarters and the cargo hold. In fact it meant that they would be able to allow an additional 50 people or about 10 extra families. It however could not save them from needing shuttle craft to ferry the colonists and cargo down to the planets surface, and in fact they would use them to bring them to the launch site as well. But these they had plenty of LDC had their own transport company and simply transferred the shuttles to the exploration and colony ship operations.

One other cost saving measure was to have a skeleton crew, one that was very expert in space flight and navigation, operate the daily routine of flight in space, but would train and co-ordinate with the colonists a rotation for all non-essential shipboard operations, such as the galley, and maintenance as well as housekeeping and the such, plus there would be required education, for both the children and adults on proper farming and mining and simple survival. These would be taught be experts within the colony ranks. It was part of the plan to make a self reliable colony as soon as possible. That would bring products to market quicker with a potential for long term profits sooner then what was being estimated.