21 st March 2234.

Larson stepped across the barren surface of Mars in his self-contained suit. He carried a box full of samples that he’d collected that day. Approaching their shuttle he could see Ruby climbing aboard. It was a small ship, only ten metres long and able to carry just six passengers and limited cargo.

Mars was a research base. Humanity had reached the stars, but had done little to expand beyond the well-established Moon colony. Travelling times continued to prohibit further space colonisation, it taking twenty weeks to travel between Mars and Earth during the optimum time of alignment. Ninety-four people were stationed on the Mars research colony. For many years they had continued to develop the technology to develop the planet for further human usage. Ruby turned to see Larson moving towards their ship, she called to him through their intercom.

“All done?”

“Yeah, it never gets old does it?” asked Larson.

“Trust me, you spend a full year here, you’ll soon grow tired of it.”

Water had been discovered below the surface of Mars long ago, but the excitement of its discovery had soon died down. The research colony had existed for forty years. Terraforming was considered a vital research pursuit for those stationed there. While significant progress had been made in understanding how such a practice could be done, no developments had been made in implementing them.

With the established Moon colony, as well as the two successful space stations at LaGrange points L4 and L5, there had been little interest in budgeting immense amounts of government funds into developing a colony that would take several months to travel between. People accepted that Mars colonisation was an inevitable step for humanity. They just hadn’t quite reached its necessity nor found a way of making it practical.