Red Colony

Red Colony (often abbreviated RC) is an international Mars colonization and terraformation advocacy group, founded on July 4, 2000 by Alex Moore, while a high school freshman in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania. The group centers its operation around the contributions of scientific articles and fiction from visitors to its website. The goal of the group is to collect enough ideas about varying topics in the fields of Mars colonization and terraforming so as to, ideally, exhaustively understand every element in those areas and submit that knowledge to the public domain. James Keener and Brian Rudo, who worked on Red Colony throughout high school along with Moore, form the core administrative team which survives today.

The following description can be found on the front page of Red Colony's website, as of March 27, 2006:

We are an international symposium, spanning students and professionals, scientists and laymen alike, all with a desire to colonize and terraform Mars. Our visitors have the opportunity to submit ideas in these evolving fields, knowing they are literally writing the books on Mars. Their articles are discussed by the scientific community until the most comprehensive, efficient and realistic Plan is developed and enacted.

Much of this discussion is conducted on the website's message board, and it remains central to the hoped realization of the group's goals. Red Colony's mission statement, from the website, is twofold:

1. To educate and to inform - To educate the general public about the advantages and possibilities of terraforming and colonizing Mars and our solar system. To remove the science fiction connotation of the concepts of terraformation and colonization and to advocate these ideas. To inform the private sector as to the benefits that investment in Mars colonization offers, and to initiate a popular Mars colonization movement.

2. To develop and to debate - To act as a forum for the greatest minds in Mars colonization and terraforming. To offer colonization and terraforming enthusiasts, novices and experts, the opportunity to share their ideas and theories online and in small groups. To develop and advocate new theories about colonization and terraforming. To see that all developed theories regarding terraforming and colonization are considered. To publish these theories online and in scientific literature.

The Red Colony website contains the largest online database of Mars colonization and terraformation articles, as well as boasting a large collection of original fiction, including some novels. Red Colony has several Red Colony chapters, "student-run groups which seek to educate people from different high schools and colleges across the world, while pulling their minds together to develop new mission architectures and colonization and terraforming techniques."

A Mars Pic of the Day feature, hosted by Red Colony offers webmasters a daily new picture of Mars which they can exhibit on their website via a small JavaScript code. This feature is found popularly on many Mars websites.

Throughout the duration of Red Colony's existence, questions as to its relation to the Mars Society have been frequent. Founded in 1998 by Robert Zubrin, the Mars Society is dedicated to raising awareness for Mars exploration, while lobbying the governments of the world for the political support required for a Mars landing. Red Colony differs in a couple of ways:

* by steering clear of government lobbying

* by remaining officially a non-organization

In 2005, MarsDrive was established as a public relations project, raising awareness for Red Colony and its goals. Its founder, Frank Stratford, remains a major contributor to Red Colony.

Red Colony in Fiction
The novel, Shadows of Medusa by Brian Enke, published in 2004, is dedicated to the "millions of active volunteers" in Red Colony, the Mars Society and other space advocacy groups. In the story, the secretive Space Exploration Alliance (SEA) develops a mission to colonize Mars. The SEA is an evolved coalition of space advocacy groups, whose origins include Red Colony. (ISBN 1-4137-3582-7)

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