Hello, SFIA audio listeners. In this month's Nebula exclusive, big alien theory,

we're asking the reason alien civilizations might be rare is because most aliens are huge.

To hear it and every episode early and add free, plus hours of bonus content,

check out go.nebola.tv slash Isaac Arthur and use my code, Isaac Arthur.

This episode is sponsored by Brilliant.

Exploration and colonization for good and ill have often driven human progress through the ages,

from the known world to the new world and one day to a new planet, a red planet, Mars.

Yeah. a red planet, Mars. So today we are continuing our look at becoming an interplanetary species by looking at how we will get our first man mission to Mars, and why that probably should be a permanent base.

Mars would be the first planet we colonize, and unlike our previous colonization efforts with often tragic results, Mars appears to be entirely uninhabited, except by alien robots we sent

there to begin the job of scouting the red planet for when we arrive, first with a base,

and eventually a colony.

In parts 1, 2, and 3 of this series, we looked at getting our basic space infrastructure

in place and setting up resource extraction on the moon for raw materials and fuel, and

now in part 4, we'll look at establishing our first major base and way station for our

continuing journey farther outward, and if you haven't already seen those you might

want to give them a watch before proceeding today.

As before, we'll be loosely following the National Space Society's Roadmap to Space

Settlement as a guide, and I have linked the complete document in the episode description.

Milestones 22 through 25 out of 31 are focused on Mars.

It is worth noting that unlike our explorations

of the Moon, or even placed on Earth like Antarctica, no serious contemplation is given to simply

sending astronauts to Mars for a few days and bringing them home with some rock samples.

...