Mars

Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun, after Terra. The first unmanned mission to successfully land on Mars was Viking 1 in 1976. The first manned mission landed in 2020 and the first Man to walk on Mars was John Boone; his first words were "Well, here we are".

Mars has a gravity of .38 g.

Satellites

Historically, Mars had two natural satellites, Phobos and Deimos. Phobos was destroyed and Deimos was driven away from Mars's orbit. An asteroid was thrust in Martian orbit to replace them, Pseudophobos.

Terraforming

Terraforming was approved by UNOMA in ca. 2030. Echus Overlook was built as the terraforming headquarters, under the directorship of Sax Russell. Some important contributors to the terraforming efforts were, apart from Russell, Spencer Jackson, Harry Whitebook and H. X. Borazjani.

The terraforming of Mars was sufficient enough for humans to breathe freely in the open air (with the help of gene modifications) at around the middle of the 22nd century.

Atmosphere

2027: 10 mbar (96% CO2)
ca.2046: 50 mbar
ca.2055: 100 mbar
ca.2057: 130 mbar
ca.2090: 170 mbar
ca.2130: 400 mbar, rising at 15 mbar per year
ca.2155: 500 mbar at sea level (40 mbar CO2, 260 mbar N2, 170 mbar O2)

Population

2027: 100
ca.2058: 1,000,000
2181: 18,000,000

Government

Mars was dependent on the Terran-controlled UNOMA and later on UNTA. The first capital city was the oldest Martian city, Underhill. The boomtown Burroughs became the second capital. Due to being the receiving end of the space elevator, Sheffield was the industrial and commercial capital for years.

After Mars acquired independence, a constitution was passed and the independent Martian government was created. A new city, Mangala, was built and became the administrative capital of Mars.

Culture

Prior to the First Martian Revolution, young Reds had a stone eyetooth as a sign of recognition.

Sabishii University was a renowned and popular destination for students in the late 21st century-early 22nd century.

In the late 22nd century, air pressure was sufficient enough to permit flight in individual birdsuits.

Mythology

Many Martian myths speak of a native sentient people, the Ka, who live on Mars undetected by humans. Humans can be aware of their existence only if the Ka choose to. Of all people, the Ka would only have contacted John Boone. The second human they contacted would have been Nirgal.

Another native inhabitant of Mars was Big Man.

It is believed that the lumberjack Paul Bunyan, with his blue ox Babe, was the first man to arrive on Mars, before John Boone.

See also

Timeline of events
List of Martian settlements and cities
Martian calendar
Martian government

External links

Mars trilogy landmarks add-on for World Wind (3D interactive world viewer developed by NASA, now open source)
GoogleMars, a GoogleMaps-like viewer