APM (Association Planète Mars) is the French branch of the Mars Society. While so far its website content has exclusively been written in French, we also intend to develop a dedicated English section. This is where you are, with our first articles below. Enjoy!
HI-SEAS 4: visit Cyprien Verseux’s blog (APM member) about the 1-year NASA sponsored simulation beginning Aug. 28, 2015.
Alert in Mars City
Richard Heidmann, Mars Society French Chapter founder and present vice president, has worked a lot on the Mars Colonization themes. See for example: Martian Habitats Molehills or Glass Houses An Economic Model for a Martian Colony of a Thousand People Now a hard SF novel, written by Richard Heidlmann, invites the reader in the life and adventures of Martian Colony. We are in 2143… Some excerpts of the book are [...]
A Mars cave exploration simulation
Exploration of the Martian caves will be interesting to look for traces of organic molecules preserved from the ultraviolet and cosmic rays that destroy them in surface up to 1 m deep. And we cannot totally rule out the idea of finding extremophile organisms still alive especially in or near ice. Lava tubes and chasms of volcanic origin of a respectable size (300 m in diameter and 160 m in depth) were detected [...]
Curiosity crosses the last dune cordon
Original French article « Curiosity traverse le dernier cordon de dunes » by Alain Souchier, English translation by Patrick Sibon. After stopping for a long time in the last line of dunes which separates it from the « hematite country », in particular to study the surroundings of the Ireson hill and to study the dune itself, Curiosity is progressing now in a passage with a not too loose ground which will allow [...]
Martian habitats: molehills or glass houses?
Article by Richard Heidmann, Association Planète Mars vice president – English translation by Etienne Martinache. After having analyzed the targets assigned by SpaceX to its project of an Earth-Mars transportation system which is supposed to set up and serve a Martian settlement (see “l’étude MCT” on the site www.planete-mars.com), we decided to address the issue of an essential aspect of the feasibility [...]
An economic model for a martian colony of a thousand people
La version française est ici. Richard Heidmann, vice-president Association Planète Mars Pierre Brisson, financial advisor and English translation 1 Introduction 1.1 The economic nature of a Martian colony Will we see one day a real colony be set up on the Red Planet? Mars provides exceptional assets for this project but it also set constraints that test our expertise and our innovative [...]
Mars Colonization Transport : latest speculations before revelations
Richard Heidmann translation: Etienne Martinache In our analysis issued at the end of 2015 (see also its summary in English) we tried to make out what the SpaceX project called Mars Colonization Transport (MCT) would look like. Let us bear in mind that Elon Musk should disclose the details of this project on 27th September 2016 at the occasion of the next International Congress of Astronautics. This guesswork [...]
