Callisto Production Field Note: 09/06/2011Image Updated. New render. Crew Vehicle Model Re-design. This work follows Prospecting Callisto. Here we see the results of that initial exploration drilling. Foreground: The Production Drill-Rig Lander with its four spherical processing tanks and integral filtration plant, and pivot-arm-mounted drill-system. On board plant filters impurities, distills and separates ammonia and water, separating the terraforming project payload materials from hydrogen and oxygen for fuel-cells, for crew-life support, and for re-fueling the Re-Usable Payload Lander/Launcher (which can be seen in the middle distance beyond the crew mission vehicle). Terraforming payload materials are pumped into the process-truck (foreground right) where they are packaged for return-shipment to Mars. The Production Drill-Rig Lander and Re-Usable Payload Lander/Launcher are un-crewed autonomous/remote-piloted vehicles which arrive at Callisto upon individual Orion power-packs. They are remotely piloted to touch-down points, directed by personnel from the command & control deck of the crewed mission vehicle. Both vehicles are powered during terminal descent by five gas-core (nuclear light-bulb style) nuclear thermal rockets – the Drill Rig contains an integral nuclear power-pack for surface operations. The mission purpose is to set up and operate a terraforming materials recovery operation on Jupiter’s moon Callisto. This requires a surface EVA crew to set up, manage, and maintain a nuclear powered high-pressure-high-temperature steam-fracking drilling and recovery rig and purification plant. The objective goal is to launch payloads of at least two thousand tons (per launch) to orbit from the surface of Callisto, load the material onto a pre-positioned, unmanned, Orion Power Pack for a Mars return flight which will haul at least ten thousand ton payloads. On final arrival the material payload will be de-orbited to the Martian surface via a heavy lander (and eventually (in liquid form)via bean-stalk) where it is to be used as an atmospheric green-house gas for the Martian Terraforming project. Mission times per crewed vehicle, are up to three years in duration. Terraforming Mars Terraforming Mars would require a three to five hundred year effort – and acquiring the resources involves resource recovery operations at Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune’s moon Triton – the result of the program, in my future history is the spread of industrial civilization through-out the solar system. I’ve included a post detailing the necessary steps here: Mars Colony: The Expanding Frontier For me, personally, the point of this set of vehicle diagrams and images is to place in clear focus what I am writing about in my future history. Human beings build civilization; we drive back the darkness of night, and the cold of winter, using technologies we’ve crafted to the purpose. In these projects I am exploring the look and feel of the engine which re-makes the wilderness of the solar system. It is one thing to say that terraforming Mars spreads industrial civilization to the far reaches of the solar system – here I am defining what that might look like. As always thank you for your interest, thoughtful comments, and encouragement.