I often watch space videos on YouTube & wonder how Africa could unite to inhabit Mars. It costs a lot of money & research so I doubt it would happen any time soon but if it were to happen, I have an idea of how it could be done. We have Nigerian-based Space in Africa & another African Space Research Agency based in Addis Ababa so we won't be starting from nothing.
Africa is not new to extraterrestrial studies. The Dogon people are said to have discovered the stars Sirius A & Sirius B long before the Western world. Some African mythologies have always claimed that their nation originated from the skies & so it's not strange to me that Africa would one day explore space. So let me play Edward Makuka Nkoloso & plan Africa's mission to Mars.
• THE CREW: Afronauts would be a
1) 45 year old Nigerian man
2) 40 year old Nigerian man
3) 35 year old Nigerian woman
4) 30 year old Botswanan lady
5) 40 year old Kenyan man
6) 35 year old Tanzanian man
7) 30 year old Swazi lady
• Automated machines could be sent to an area in Mars to dig, analyse the ground & place self-sufficient ecosystems as well as chambers underground for human settlement.
• The plan would be two, self-sufficient ecosystems 4 metres by 4 metres each in length & breadth then 2 metres in height. Then a larger more distant (40 metres away) self-sufficient ecosystem that would attempt to grow on Martian soil. We'd have to consider radiation.
• Artificial gravity could be made by diamagnetism technology.
• Each mission would have a qualified doctor as one member of the crew & all members would need to be fluent in Swahili.
• Maybe the entire residence that the afronauts would be in could be surrounded by a self-sufficient ecosystem and/or a film of water that would have foolproof systems to not affect or "leak" into the base's equipment.
• I imagine the main craft that will be the residence of the afronauts would be divided into seven living compartments where the seven afronauts would sleep. There'd be a control room, an entertainment & physical health room, bathroom/sterilization room, two toilets, one enclosed urinal & a food room. Anyone could stream into Earth whenever they please from their living compartment. Thirteen rooms/compartments on the ship altogether excluding the three external ecosystems chambers.
• Entertainment & physical health room could have weights, treadmill, skipping rope, stress balls, medical equipment like first aid boxes, blood pressure monitor & x-ray machine.
• The diet the afronauts would eat would consist of dried foods & dried soluble drinking formulas e. g. dried sorghum meals, dried fruit & nuts, dried vegetables (spinach, pumpkin, garlic, ginger & tomatoes), dried chicken meat, canned fish & electrolyte replenishing formulas.
• Physical affection & sexual intercourse would obviously need to be banned.
This could be the pilot mission to creating an African presence on Mars. In six months, the afronauts could be replaced by a new crew & the old crew returned to earth. The second crew would spend two years on Mars after extensive seven day question & answer sessions from the original crew.
The next crew to inhabit the base could be a 40 year old South African male, 40 year old Congolese male, two 45 year old Kenyan males, a 35 year old Tanzanian male, two Cameroonian females (40 & 35 year old).
A second larger twin base could be set up 40 metres away consisting of males between 35 & 40 years old from Senegal, Congo, South Sudan, Tanzania, Nigeria, Zambia, Namibia & one Malagasy female between 30 & 35 years of age. This base would have no sleeping chambers & just curtains to shut the sleeping beds/sleeping pods, a food room, entertainment & physical health room, bathroom/sterilization room, two toilets & an enclosed urinal, an internal ecosystem controlled by the crew.
After these two bases, next would be a mini-town model that could do projects like mining & Martian farming. This "mini-town" would have fifteen to twenty crew members of both genders between the ages 25 & 40 from various sub-Saharan African countries who'd have extensive consulting with previous afronauts of the two previous Martian missions. This mini town would have seven pods that could be launched from Mars; two pods could be emergency escape pods that could come fitted with an emergency escape command for the afronauts & five pods would be for mined material & other Martian samples for Earth that could be launched without afronauts in them. The mini-town could be equipped with two externally placed Mars roving vehicles with communication capabilities, various sensors, external cameras & external mechanical arms. The mini-town could have two externally placed drones with cameras & sensors.
These bases would communicate via radio but would have independent digital systems to prevent corrupt digital systems spreading the bug to another base's digital equipment.
With scientific research, space travel technology could improve & perhaps the African Martian colony in future could work with other Martian colonies of other continents.
After this, Africa could attempt to be the first continent to send a mission to Proxima Centauri. The spacecraft could be nuclear powered. The ship's digital systems could send data to Earth & the Martian mini-town. The Proxima Centauri mission could have a self-sufficient ecosystem cube of the dimensions 1m height, length & breadth. The ship's system would be programmed to place the self-sufficient ecosystem on a habitable planet (Proxima b) on Proxima Centauri & gather information with it's sensors & cameras then return to Earth. A programmed system would ensure no human life is sacrificed in the mission in the case of failure. The Proxima Centauri spacecraft could be fitted with three micro drones with cameras & sensors themselves that could explore the habitable planet before the return to Earth. This mission could be done by analysing the positions of celestial bodies & setting a preprogrammed path on the spacecraft's systems to Proxima Centauri.
