We live in very exciting times. The future has changed with the development of Starship and New Glenn at SpaceX and Blue Origin. No longer do we have to talk about Mars missions that resemble camping trips. Full scale industrialization of the planet is a near and almost certain future.

One day while considering such a colony I started doing my normal hobby of math calculations. I realized that the results were fascinating.

The first calculation that caught my attention was the one from the beginning of the story that involves using LEDs to grow food on Mars. I had always assumed LED efficiency was in the high 80 percent. Doing a simple first principals calculation involving the wavelength of the photons, number of photons, and watts required brought me to the jarring realization that their efficiency was generally below 20%. Convinced I had made a mistake in my math, I started searching the internet and quickly found the website I should have started with. According to the Wikipedia article on "Luminous efficacy", LEDs have maximum theoretical efficiency well under 50%.

I, like many other people, had been dreaming of great vertical farms on Mars. Physics, it turns out, is greatly prejudiced against that idea. Though it does suggest several highly effective alternatives.

And that is why I wrote this book. It is a short novel that is part mystery and part adventure. But at its heart, it is an argument that Mars can be colonized in a short time with far fewer Starship loads than most people believe. I hope you enjoy reading my ideas as much as I enjoyed writing them.