Challenge Is To Establish A Self-Sustaining Colony Of 25,000

What would it take to establish a self-sustaining colony of 25,000 people on Mars? That is the question posed by a new multi-player interactive simulation game that is raising money on Kickstarter, though no firm launch date has been established.

Initiative Red Dawn puts the player in control of a multi-billion-dollar company that will design and launch its own spacecraft to the Red Planet. According to the game's developers, players will assemble a team by hiring talents needed for the company, and develop a strategy for colonizing Mars. Each match will be unique given the players and team members that will work towards the goal.

Initiative features a deep technology tree organized into four different branches:

• Propulsion and Avionics: Covers rocket engines and electronics, among other important stuff
• Propellants and Energy: Mostly involves fuel tanks, propellants, energy generation and storage
• Structures and Support: Covers spacecraft, satellites and modules for your interplanetary bases
• Strategy and Management: A key category which will allow you to manage your business more efficiently, as well as make you stronger among other players to defend from attacks

Technology decisions are deeply tied to your strategy. Do you want to speed up with expendable (and expensive) boosters? Or do you want to achieve full reusability?

One The key ingredient is the involvement of many aerospace industry specialists providing technical advice and consulting. All of these supporters will be star Talents within the game (with no endorsement whatsoever from their respective companies). Plus many others who also joined to be present in the game.

Development of the game has so far been self-funded by the development team, who say they started for their own entertainment, but the project grew organically into something larger. They say they intend to finish the game "no matter what", but are looking to other entrepreneurs and space geeks who might want to try their hand at establishing a colony on Mars.

And who knows, some of the ideas and techniques developed on the sim platform might one day actually make it into space. Future Mars colonists might one day remember you as one of the people who made it all possible.

(Image from Kickstarter page)

FMI: www.kickstarter.com/projects/indelve/initiative-aerospace-business-and-mars-colonizatio?utm_source=presem