Amana: The First City on Mars

Amana is the name we give to the first city on Mars. We say ‘on Mars’ but it will really be a sub-ground city that will have its biggest extent underground. Mars is very different atmospherically from the earth and that’s why we think it will go underground for the most part.

A Sub-Ground City on Mars

Amana will have most of its parts underground. Most of the buildings will have their largest extents underground and only a floor or two will extend above ground.

Temperature and Oxygen Regulation

The ground-level parts of the building will mostly entail glass roofs or sunroofs that will allow in the sunlight. ☀️ These levels will also be exchange levels for oxygen and carbon dioxide and will entail the air control levels of each building.

Food Production

Due to this function, the ground-level floors of the building will also be used as plant centers for Mars or indoor farms. They will include the latest tech in hydroponics and in some cases, even large aquariums that will harbor marine life and be a source of seafood. Mind you, not all the aquariums that will feature marine life will be used as a source of food and some of the ground levels will feature huge aquariums for beautification and marine life conservation purposes.

A Self-Sustaining City

Amana will be self-sustaining as will be the entire Mars. The only time resources will be dedicated to ferrying food to the planet is during construction and as the city comes to life. Each of the buildings in the city will play a particular role in food production and the food will be produced and ferried as per an agreed-upon system of collective responsibility and sharing.

Socialistically Capitalist

Knowing capitalism as it is, there will also be room for some exchange of value for food but inherently, food will be made available to all residents regardless of their ability to pay. The reason for this is that for Amana and Mars as a whole to be successful, there’ll be the need for a kind of enlightened socialism that will borrow the best of socialism and mix it with capitalism to ensure the city remains sustainable and prosperous.

A Healthy, Working Population on Mars

Another reason is that Amana will need all its residents to contribute to its ongoing development and construction and therefore, will have no room for freeloading as it will take constant work to see that it pulls through, survives, and even prospers. For instance, all residents will be required to be healthy, able-working individuals who’ll contribute in one way or another. This will be essential at the onset as the city gets on its feet, and before more and more diverse sets of people are ferried to Mars and the city.

New Age Transportation

Transportation will be a key consideration as the city is constructed and our vision for Amana is that it will not use any legacy or traditional means of transportation as we have here on earth. There will be no fossil fuels of any kind in use in any part or function on Mars and all our energy needs will be sorted via sustainable and renewable sources, chief among them solar energy and regenerative electricity. ⚡️ This is energy such as that produced by electric Mars Pods and hyperloops when they break.

Mars Pods and Hyperloops

The replacement for vehicles on Mars will be pods that will run in underground tunnels on the sub-ground level of Amana. These will largely be electric and will be largely complemented by hyperloops that will bridge macro-level transportation and logistical needs to complement the micro-level serviced by the pods. The system will run on an interconnection of tunnels that will link all buildings and social, commercial, and industrial parts of the city. Transportation between cities will be done via hyperloops and also Mars ships or mini-rocket propelled planes that will ferry people and goods between the several cities on Mars.

A Dual Atmosphere

Mars and Amana will run on a dual atmosphere. First, the natural atmosphere of Mars that will be the first level. Second, another man-made level that will employ numerous interconnected weather systems that will ensure that the key areas such as cities will have a second layer of atmospheric controls to ensure suitable climatic conditions. The second level will be retractable to ensure that it’s only used when needed and also that it does not interfere with air transportation.

Echoing Earth’s Atmosphere on Mars

One of the key roles of the artificial second level will also be to stimulate rain and snow ❄️ as a way to echo the earth’s atmosphere and give a feeling of home to the residents. It will also feature gravitationally adjusted parts that will ensure it remains steady and can also be tilted and moved up and down as needed.

Waste Management and Recycling

All waste will be recycled in Amana and Mars as a whole. Human waste will be treated and where needed, used for crop production or to produce other components that will be useful in other industries. Food waste, for instance, will be disposed of very intentionally and carefully from the onset, to ensure it can be used to feed livestock or plants where possible. It will also be processed to make animal feed, marine life sustenance, and the like.

Water Management and Recycling on Mars

All water will be jealously managed to ensure that it is recycled and reused in other aspects of life on Mars. Needless to say, there will be no consumer-grade plastic on Mars, and waste disposal will avoid burning anything as a way to get rid of it. We will not need any earth-like climate problems on Mars.

Entertainment

Being underground, the city of Amana will have to rely on a lot of simulated experiences to avoid claustrophobia and give the sense of being outdoors. Artificial Intelligence and Virtual + Augmented Reality will play a huge role in this and homes will have walls that mirror the views and sounds of a beach or forest house on earth. There’ll also be social venues and large theaters, auditoriums, and what have you, so that communities can come together and celebrate.

Controlling Gravity

All indoor space will be gravity-controlled to avoid weightlessness and reinforce Mars’ weakened gravity. All indoor spaces will also be temperature-controlled and air-tight. This will be done to ensure that all spaces in the city retain Oxygen for sustaining life and recycle ♻️ carbon-dioxide and other gases. To ensure this, they will be heavy use of air doors or airtight doors in-between spaces and overall between the edge of the city and the Mars outdoors.

Safety

All levels of the city and all homes will have easy access to escape pods or mini-planes in case something catastrophic hits. There will also be safety measures such as Oxygen reserves and astronaut suits ‍ all over the city and in all buildings in case they are needed. All spaces will also have leashes that will be used to hold people to the space in case there’s an issue with gravity and breakout weightlessness.

Health

To ensure the health of its people, Amana will use human and semi-autonomous robots as doctors. They will work together to treat illnesses and any specialized care needs will be referred back to earth. The human-robot medical collaboration will also be geared toward developing fully autonomous robotic systems for the health sector.

Law Enforcement

Any crime will be punishable by expulsion and those who are found to be in the wrong will have to be sent back to earth to serve time as laborers. This will necessitate the creation of apocalypse-ready sections on the earth to harbor life still, and produce goods and services for Mars, regardless of whether the period will be post-apocalyptic or not.

Margin for Error

Amana will be the first city on Mars and as such, will be constructed in a way that leaves a huge margin for error. For instance, there will be multiple urban planning simulations done to see whether the building models for earth such as having skyscrapers are possible or whether everything will need to go underground. There will also be tests to see whether the ground level of Mars could be used for some form of transportation such as climate-controlled hyper trains and so on. Mini systems of numerous kinds will also be developed to test their feasibility and how amicably they adapt to Mars.

Relocation to Amana

Amana will first welcome its commencing residents at the very onset who will include engineers, planners, experts, and working-age specialists in numerous fields. They will be responsible for building the city and will be supported heavily by shipments of food, water, oxygen, and all they’ll need from the earth before Mars transitions to becoming self-sufficient. They will then take however long they need to create a livable and sustainable part of the city before another group relocates to Amana from Earth to serve the next additional layer of needs and so on. These may include administrators, business people, academics, health and fitness experts, etc.

Relocating the General Population to Amana

The general population will only have a chance to relocate to Amana when it is fully self-sufficient and sustainable and can support a certain number of inhabitants. As such, relocating there will be phased and qualification will mostly be due to expertise, knowledge, and skill and later via a sweepstake kind of random vote that will be done programmatically.

Mars Timeline: Preparation for and the Creation of Amana

It will take approximately 20-25 years before Amana can be fully inhabited. Construction will be ongoing for centuries but the setting up and activation of critical systems, to the point that the majority of life can be supported, will take about a quarter-century according to our estimation. This time will be after all the materials needed are shipped to Mars and some are even manufactured there. The preparation process will take even longer and I believe we are just on the tip of the iceberg with that as we try to figure out how to even land on Mars in the first place.

Internet, Communication, and Technology

All internet and communication services will be wireless and will employ intelligent satellite technologies far beyond what we have now. The internet of Mars will be far different from what we have here on earth and will be a virtual system of interconnected satellites that will each be assigned specific roles.

We’ll rarely use devices on Mars and all the informational and entertainment systems will be embedded in the facilities and spaces. As such, instead of carrying a phone with you all the time, your phone/tv/video communication device will be attached to several parts of your home, Mars Pods, hyperloops, mini-rocket planes, etc.

On-Body Human Interfacing Technology

Any technology that will need to interface with the human body such as headphones or smart glasses and VR will come in a headset or gear that will be worn, resembling a face-only helmet, that will be smart and intuitive. Any other needed devices will only be as big as the size of a thumb drive and be interfaced with the body such as a wrist indicator for checking your vitals etc.

The Concept of Time on Mars

We’ll still be bound by time on Mars and Amana as we’ll still experience the different phases of the sun and whatnot. However, time there will be considered non-linear with the help of quantum technologies that will add several spectrums to time as we envisage it. Most systems will not be time-based and for instance, Mars Tech (not computers) will use occurrences to execute commands. A good way to do this would be to estimate cycles such as a full revolution of a satellite to indicate a unit after which a command should execute and so on.

Work and Education

People on Amana and Mars will also have the freedom and liberty to choose when to go to work and their work will not be assessed in terms of hours of work but will be task-based. All tasks will have several deliverables after which a task will be marked as completed, with the worker having the freedom to undertake the task whenever and however suits them. All individuals will also be allowed to choose their roles and the industries they wish to work in. Education, on its part, will be done in a role-oriented way without people having to learn what they will not use and so on.

Social Life and Spirituality

There will be no traditional religions on Mars. People will instead be spiritual and not affiliate themselves with specific religions that will distinguish certain groups from others. All people will engage in spirituality as they like and with no demarcations or differentiation into groupings, sects and what have you. Social life will also entail no traditional institutions like marriage.

People will be allowed to live with and love who they want and for however long they want. On reaching maturity, individuals will have the authority to lead their lives as they wish, provided that they do not harm, discriminated, or inconvenience others. Amana and Mars will be a land of universal love with everyone equal to and familial with others.

No Tribes or Ethnicities on Amana

There will be no tribes or ethnicities on Mars and all people will be just that, one people. There will be no race or religion and all people will only self-identify as part of the human family, albeit each with their own choice of style, preference, dressing, activities, roles, partner, etc. Groupings and clubs will be allowed but not based on any traditional social conflict points such as religion, race, ethnicity, etc.

Governance and Business

The ruling body of Amana will be comprised of autonomous robots. These robots will be virtually unhackable and only brought to life by a collective group of all people. The rules guiding them and their development will be voted on virtually and the robots will self-construct over time as per the collective needs of the people.

Corporations will also not be headed by anyone and will be autonomous service and product providers. There will be no human recruitment to roles and positions and most of the managerial roles will be undertaken by autonomous systems and robots that will again self-construct and be guided by the will of all the people associated with the corporation and most importantly, its customers and clients.

Control

No human being will have control over other human beings on Amana. There will be no presidents or kings or leaders there. All leadership and administration will be carried out via autonomous systems that’ll use the collective input of all people. All people will be truly equal and resources will be provided to everyone with similar regard and consideration.

No Social Classes on Amana

The wealthy will also live similarly to the poor and everyone will have access to everything. There won’t be class differentiation as anything will only be available if it can be provided to all. This will ensure that everyone does their best to ensure everything is its best so that it can be enjoyed by all. This is the dream of Amana: the First City on Mars.