Chapter 3: The Medical Staff

Team Member ---Dr. Katherine Oliva

Dr. Kathy is a medical doctor who has done extensive work in cryogenic sleep. She had discovered how to put a patient into such a deep sleep that this patient could be operated on! No need for anesthesia! She also developed how to electrically stimulate the muscles so that there is no muscle atrophy from long periods of sleep! Dr. Kathy would be the oldest of the team members at 50 years old.

I made an appointment and met her in her office in Houston. She is a tall, thin woman, I guess her to be almost 6 feet tall and weighs 120 pounds at most. She wears her black hair short, almost like a man. I suspected she was a lesbian as I shook hands and sat down.

“I read your e-mail and accepted a meeting with you because I am very curious about your idea of colonizing Mars. Would you please elaborate on your plan.”

“As you know colonizing Mars presents some unique challenges.

First there is the voyage itself. Even if the new nuclear technology cuts the trip to less than three months that is still a very long time to travel. Let’s say you have 500 colonists on board. How much food and water would be required for that amount of people? Way more than the ship could carry. My idea is to put everyone in cryogenic sleep for the trip and the first few months after they arrive. We will use the space that would normally be used for food and water to pack in 500 robots. Robots will pilot the ship to a landing spot near one of the lava tunnels. There we will activate the worker bots. They would get busy sealing up a lava tunnel. While this would be going on another group of robots would start drilling wells to supply water to the colonists and for the aquaponic farm that others would be developing at the far end of the tunnel. Huge Moxie machines will start purifying the air when the tunnel is sealed. After all the vegetables are planted and ready to harvest the AI robot in charge will wake up the humans. The five hundred worker bots have worked 24/7 building everything from apartments to laboratories out of lava blocks cut from nearby tunnels. I envision a state-of-the-art hospital which you will oversee. I am thinking you will have two assistants. Which brings me to this point, do you have a partner or significant other that would make the trip with you and if so is she a medical professional?”