1971 \u2013 First humans driving a car on the moon [ref<\/a>]<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\nThe level of innovation in this 20-year period of time is astounding. Nearly every single innovation required to reach the moon was invented and perfected in a period of 20 years:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
- Spacecraft [ref<\/a>]<\/li>
- Life support systems<\/li>
- Gigantic rockets [ref<\/a>], [ref<\/a>], [ref<\/a>]<\/li>
- Gigantic rocket engines [ref<\/a>], [ref<\/a>], [ref<\/a>], [ref<\/a>]<\/li>
- Orbital mechanics [ref<\/a>]<\/li>
- In-orbit and trans-lunar maneuvering [ref<\/a>]<\/li>
- Heat shields [ref<\/a>]<\/li>
- Docking [ref<\/a>]<\/li>
- Zero-G and low-G operations<\/li>
- Lunar landers [ref<\/a>]<\/li>
- Spacesuits [ref<\/a>], [ref<\/a>], [ref<\/a>]<\/li>
- Spacewalks<\/li>
- Power systems<\/li>
- Lunar rovers [ref<\/a>]<\/li>
- Computer control systems [ref<\/a>], [ref<\/a>], [ref<\/a>], [ref<\/a>]<\/li>
- Orbital and lunar communications<\/li>
- Alignment telescopes [ref<\/a>], [ref<\/a>]<\/li>
- Mission control [ref<\/a>]<\/li>
- Launch pads<\/li>
- And so on…<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
All of these technologies also had to operate perfectly together, down to the tiniest details. This became especially evident in Apollo 13, when a single little electronic component caused a chain of events that caused a catastrophe [ref<\/a>]. On the Apollo 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17 missions, millions of components (or their redundant backups) all worked perfectly. The whole program is stunning in this respect.<\/p>\n\n\n\nOnly about 400,000 people worked on the Apollo missions [ref<\/a>], and yet they were able to accomplish all of this innovation (plus launch and support all of the missions) in an amazingly short time period. If that team of people, with that kind of momentum, purpose and drive, had been given the funding, there is no question that Americans would be living on both the moon and Mars today.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThis same level of innovation and progress seen in the Apollo program will be wired into the Mars colony. Technology on Mars can advance on the medical front, the electronics front, the space travel front, the consumer product front, the housing front, and so on, simply by giving scientists and engineers the time and space to do their thing, and pointing them in the right directions. The Apollo mission had a specific goal \u2013 put men on the moon \u2013 but a million sub-goals under that umbrella had to mesh together perfectly. The same kind of coordination can occur among the tens of thousands of scientists and engineers working on Mars. On the medical front, the overarching goal is to cure all human diseases. Underneath that umbrella there can be thousands of sub-goals. If we look back at Chapter 10<\/a>, we set aside millions of hours per year for research and development. Perhaps we should increase the number of people in the colony and set aside more.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThere is an amazing graph that is relevant to the conversation here. It shows that we could have fusuion power working today, if we had funded the research:
Fusion power research in the United States was given very little funding, and as we would expect, progress has been slow. [ref<\/a>]<\/p>\n\n\n\nIn the Mars colony, the colony will pick a set of things that are important to the colony, and “fund them” sufficiently \u2013 dedicate human time to them \u2013 in the same way the Apollo missions were funded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Will there be monster trucks on Mars?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nWill there be monster trucks on Mars? It seems like a strange question, but have you ever thought about where the monster truck craze came from in America? It turns out that there are many different ways that innovation occurs on Earth, and these techniques will work just as well on Mars. As an example, consider Monster Trucks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Where did monster trucks come from? One day there ws no such thing as monster trucks, or monster truck shows in sports arenas. Then these monster trucks, starting with a truck called “Big Foot”, appeared seemingly out of nowhere. The whole craze started with a person named Bob Chandler:<\/p>\n\n\n\n