Mars is hard. Even the most hostile environments on Earth—Antarctic scientific outposts among them—pale in comparison. Mars combines low gravity, low air pressure, minimal oxygen, and soil loaded with perchlorates and superoxides that make it difficult to grow plants. The soil itself is devoid of organic material, and the atmosphere and biosphere offer nothing to support life as we know it on Earth.

And then there is distance—roughly 200 million miles from Earth, with more than twenty minutes of one-way communication lag at best. Current spacecraft technology would require a six- to nine-month journey each way.

Mars isn’t hostile. It’s worse.

It’s indifferent.

Mars is uncaring. Survival there will take sustained dedication, discipline, and energy from the humans who go.

…and yet, Mars seems to be the gold standard for both fiction and nonfiction forecasts of the first planet upon which to plant a permanent human colony. As an author, I’m no different. I grew up reading of colonies on Mars; of canals and mysterious faces, to the reality broadcast by autonomous vehicles exploring the Martian surface.

* * *

The Sands of Mars is the second in a novel and short-story universe Baen Books publisher Toni Weisskopf and I have chosen to label Bionic Frontier. The universe currently stands at two novels (The Moon and the Desert, 2023, and The Sands of Mars, 2026) two short stories (“Bionic Frontier,” Baen Free Fiction, 2024, and “Gut Check,” Analog, 2025), and a science essay in addition to this one (“Whatever Happened To The Bionic Man?” Baen Free Nonfiction, 2023).

The series follows the life of Glenn Armstrong Shepard, a man born on the fortieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing, a dedicated doctor, astronaut, and Space Force Officer. Shepard effectively gave his life to save another astronaut during a training accident. The incident was on the Moon, which made the risks and injuries worse, and the context is that they were training for the first mission intended to establish a permanent base on Mars. He was so severely injured he was barely alive, but in the words of the 1970s television show The Six Million Dollar Man (which inspired both my career and these novels): “We can rebuild him. We have the technology.”

In the first book, The Moon and the Desert, we meet Shepard—Shep to his friends—and follow his struggle to resume a normal life after receiving bionic augmentation. His mangled legs and severely damaged arm are replaced with advanced prosthetics; neural implants restore vision and hearing. The book is, at its core, a medical thriller: the accident, the rehabilitation, and, ultimately, Shepard becoming the only person capable of executing a rescue when a Mars mission—one that departed without him—returns stricken by a mysterious illness.

For that book, my accompanying essay focused on the science of bionics. For this one, we look at Mars. In The Sands of Mars, Shepard finally realizes his dream of reaching Mars, and we see the nascent Marsbase through his eyes, along with exploration and rescue operations across the Martian surface.

In this essay, we look at the choices behind the story. We’ll explore the science of building a colony on Mars, and in keeping with the bionic theme, we’ll look into the rationale for using bionically augmented individuals as a vanguard for space and planetary exploration.

* * *

Mars is the Problem

Schiaparelli’s canali seeded the idea of a once-fertile Mars, now dying of desiccation, leading to the concept of Mars as the other (older) living world in our solar system. Thus, Mars has been a favorite of science fiction and fantasy stories, novels, and movies—even TV shows. Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars introduced us to the fictional world of Barsoom. H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds had aliens from Mars invading Earth and falling victim to Earth viruses. Robinson Crusoe on Mars—one of my favorite old movies—shows an astronaut stranded on the Martian surface and having to survive the lack of oxygen, air, and pressure. Total Recall (1990 film) gives us a glimpse of dystopian Mars where the denizens of the undercities suffer mutation not from radiation but from oxygen shortages. The TV show The Expanse introduced the idea of Mars colonies under domes, with a centuries-long campaign to create an atmosphere and biosphere.

The stories are as much fantasy as science fiction, and very much not “hard” science fiction. Carter reaches Barsoom via what can only be considered a portal embedded deep in an Earth-side cave. Robinson Crusoe luckily finds oxygen-producing rocks, encounters signs of life, and avoids hostile aliens—it still captures the central struggle of surviving in an alien environment. Total Recall’s Quaid finds a mysterious alien installation designed to produce a viable atmosphere in minutes.

Biasing a bit more toward the science side is The War of the Worlds. Discounting the science of the 19th century, Wells accurately describes the clash between Earth biology and an alien biology, a conflict which continues to concern both storytellers and scientists. The Expanse is credited with a lot of plausible science, although it has its own imaginative element in the form of the protomolecule—but who’s to say that such a proto life-form doesn’t exist? Perhaps it’s just science that we haven’t encountered?

But back to Mars.

More recently, The Martian, based on the book by Andy Weir, gives us Mark Watney, an astronaut left behind during an emergency evacuation of a Mars station. A dust storm threatens both the habitat and the surface-to-orbit shuttle meant to return the crew safely to the Ares spacecraft. It is a fun book and an enjoyable movie, but the science leaves a little to be desired.

We see the very real lack of oxygen, low atmospheric pressure, low gravity, and Martian dust storms, but also a level of wind pressure that would not realistically exist in such a thin atmosphere—enough to threaten habitat domes and tip a return vehicle. We also see Watney growing potatoes in Martian soil with the addition of human waste as an organic substrate. The Martian is a compelling and enjoyable story, but it bends a few physics and biology principles to get there. It sits at the edge of hard science fiction and space opera—one man defying odds, bending rules, and just plain surviving.

Mars, because of these and many more features, including the obsession of rich men and explorers, remains a popular setting not just for hard science fiction but for fantasy as well.

* * *

I chose Mars for the challenge, but also the timing. The setting for The Moon in the Desert is 2039, roughly twenty years out from when I first conceived the story and about fifteen years from publication. That book includes the first establishment of a permanent base on Mars, allowing Shepard to expand that base when he arrives in 2049. However, the Bionic Frontier timeline really starts with the short story “Gut Check” with Glenn Shepard at thirty years old, accompanying the return-to-the-Moon mission.

Although I didn’t choose the dates explicitly for this reason, when I wrote The Moon and the Desert, NASA was targeting their own return to the Moon for 2029–2030; the recent Artemis II mission was part of that planned timeline. Moreover, the technology planned to get humans back to the Moon should allow a first manned Mars mission in about another decade, barring serious setbacks.

This is a work of science fiction, so some allowances can be made, thus, the timeline was selected to also allow the science of bionics to advance to a point where Shepard’s augmentations could plausibly exist. That pushed the story naturally into the era of early human Mars exploration.

Much of the technology behind Marsbase comes from concepts discussed through the Interstellar Research Group (IRG), formerly the Tennessee Valley Interstellar Workshop. At my first meeting in Huntsville in 2013, one of the earliest presentations—by my friend (and the co-editor of The Ross 248 Project in which I have a short story) Ken Roy—proposed that a Mars colony should be underground.

It’s humorous to me that Schiaparelli’s original map of Martian canali proposes land at locations we now know to be lowlands, and water where we see elevated terrain. If there was free-flowing water, it would be just the opposite of the “canals” of Mars. Yet we also see evidence of caves, canyons, and subsurface voids suitable for burying Marsbase. Where these do not exist, they can certainly be created. Building underground provides protection from dust, micrometeorites, and, most critically, the solar wind and cosmic radiation that—on Earth—are blocked by atmosphere and magnetosphere, features sadly lacking on Mars.

In The Sands of Mars, the underground Marsbase reflects an idea which became foundational to the story. On Mars, you are always one failure away from death. When it comes to siting a base or colony, it is not enough to go where things are interesting…

…you go where you can survive.

* * *

Why Marsbase is Where it is

There are story reasons for the location of Marsbase in The Sands of Mars, but more importantly, the Eumenides Dorsum location is a compromise between several competing hard science factors.

Marsbase had to be sited near places of interest to support exploration—once the base was established and functioning well enough to afford the investment in resources required. During the Apollo 17 mission, the lunar rover travelled just over thirty-five kilometers, at a top speed of fifteen kilometers-per-hour. By contrast, the Mars rover Opportunity has covered forty-five kilometers—in fifteen years. On Mars, the distances to points of interest will be measured in thousands of kilometers, and the time allocated by human life support will be days, not years.

At the start, Marsbase will likely not be placed anywhere scenic or particularly interesting. It will placed where it is survivable. Exploration will come later.

The next consideration for the “worldbuilding” of The Sands of Mars is how Shepard and the Marsbase residents move between orbit and the surface. Vertical descent and ascent are the logical choice. Mars’s atmosphere is thin enough that there is very little resistance or wind to complicate a vertical approach, but that same thin atmosphere makes ascent and descent fuel-intensive, especially if any hovering is required. At the same time, it will not possible to simply fly from point to point through an atmosphere the way one would on Earth.

There are still some advantages to atmospheric flight on Mars. Escape velocity is lower, and the thinner atmosphere reduces friction heating. However, it also provides very little lift or drag. Flight is possible, but it requires speed and wingspan—and both come at the cost of weight in materials and fuel, limiting payload capacity.

Thus, for the story, we have the dragonfly—a Wright Flyer on steroids, with very long wings and a lightweight frame capable of carrying one or at most two people—and the hoverfly, a coaxial helicopter design with counter-rotating blades that can carry little more than its own weight.

Note that the hoverfly concept actually exists and has flown on Mars. Ingenuity operated as an aerial scout for the Mars rover Perseverance. The 1.8 kilogram helicopter performed 72 flights over 4 years, proving that is it indeed possible to “fly” on Mars.

Ground-to-orbit shuttles, configured much like the American space shuttle, are also possible, but the thin atmosphere makes horizontal takeoff and landing difficult. Reduced lift means higher speeds and longer runways. Any aircraftlike vehicle will likely require runways of ten kilometers or more (Earth runways generally only exceed four kilometers at high elevation and high surface temperatures which reduce lift).

From Mars probe data, we know that finding a ten-kilometer stretch of flat terrain in geologically interesting regions is difficult. The exception is the lowlands. The planum regions—specifically Amazonis Planitia—offer long, level terrain suitable for landing operations, while still providing access to areas of interest over time.

* * *

Another consideration for site selection is environmental protection. With a thin atmosphere, frequent dust, and constant exposure to solar and cosmic radiation in the absence of a magnetosphere, any habitat must either be heavily shielded or placed underground. Mars provides candidates for this in the dorsa—mesalike ridges extending from the plains and highlands—where caves and subsurface voids are likely or can be created.

For these reasons, I chose to site Marsbase at the southern edge of Amazonis Planitia, which built underground facilities inside the Eumenides Dorsum to the west. The site is proximal to flat lowlands for landing operations, near elevated terrain for excavation and shelter, and gradual slopes up to the interesting paces toward the Sinai Planum and Daedalia Planum, leading ultimately to the Tharsis Mountains and Olympus Mons. Amazonis Planitia also offers the possibility—based on imaging and scans—of subsurface water ice.

* * *

In the early years, Marsbase is not about exploration. It is about survival. Exploration and science are secondary to establishing a place where humans can live. Reaching areas of interest will take time, and vehicle limitations will force reliance on lighter, shorter-range transportation. Safety constraints remain strict. Even as the population grows to fifty, sixty, or eighty people, there are limits: no lone explorers, small teams, and no committing all available transport away from the base at once.

The initial considerations for siting Marsbase are therefore practical: terrain, resources, and access.

Location, location, location.

* * *

Logistics: The Real Colony

Marsbase is not just a location. It is a system—of logistics. Where does the water come from? How do we provide food? How do we grow our own? How do we make fuel for transportation? And more than that, how do we power it all?

Earth sits eight light-minutes from the Sun. Solar radiation warms us on a summer day, and we feel its absence when we’re cold, yet we can deploy solar panels capable of generating enough power for towns and even small cities. Mars, at roughly 1.65 astronomical units, receives significantly less sunlight. Combined with its thin atmosphere and reduced heat retention, this translates to a three- to five-fold increase in solar collection area to generate the same amount of power.

In The Martian, Mark Watney makes use of a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) left behind with the original mission hardware. In the story, the RTG is treated primarily as a heat source, with only limited use of its electrical output. It serves the narrative well, but overlooks the practical reality that such a device could have addressed many of the power constraints depicted—particularly those involving solar dependence and battery cycling.

For the 2040s–2050s Marsbase of The Sands of Mars, a more realistic solution was proposed: a compact fission reactor. Just months ago, the first compact reactor packaged into the footprint of a standard shipping container was installed at a U.S. military base in the Pacific. Such a device would be quite practical for transport and deployment on Mars and would provide stable, continuous power for an underground base, independent of environmental variability.

It will, of course, require some degree of public acceptance to launch nuclear material from Earth, but that is a solvable problem.

Fuel is another logistical challenge that can be addressed locally. Modern launch systems have largely converged on liquid methane and liquid oxygen as propellants. Both can be derived from Martian resources. Oxygen exists in the atmosphere in small quantities and can also be extracted from soil chemistry; methane is present and can be produced through known reactions.

Even the abundant perchlorates in Martian soil resemble components of solid rocket fuel. Through mining, processing, and compression, Marsbase can produce propellants for shuttles, rockets, and ground vehicles.

Still, despite local fuel production, range remains a limiting factor.

For The Sands of Mars, I adopted a working assumption of a one-day journey of roughly 500 kilometers. This may be optimistic. On Earth, that distance corresponds to five hours of highway driving at an average of 100 kph. However, the lack of roads, rough terrain, and no rest areas will likely limit the Marsbuggies to a top speed of 50 kph, causing that distance to require more than ten hours. The unprepared terrain and environmental constraints will likely make the actual travel slower, but it provides a useful framework for balancing vehicle mass, fuel load, and operational reach.

Range is not just a function of fuel. It is constrained by air, water, and life support—everything required to keep the crew alive. And more importantly, it is constrained by the ability to return.

Range is everything. Every mission is defined not by how far you can go, but by how far you can go and still come back alive.

* * *

The Human Limit

When it comes to human presence on Mars, it is the humans themselves that are the major bottleneck. Temperature swings can be handled with insulation and heat sources—anything that generates power can generate heat. Level runways can be achieved through careful site selection combined with fusing the surface via rocket exhaust from ground-to-orbit and orbit-to-ground transportation. Fuel can be made on site. The limitations of the thin atmosphere can be addressed with pressure domes and increased surface area for aerodynamics. Even water and oxygen can be extracted from the soil and atmosphere, although doing so requires extracting and compressing hydrogen from atmospheric methane, oxygen from superoxides and perchlorates, and combining the hydrogen and oxygen to produce water.

These are accommodations for the human element. The necessary mechanics to survive in a world that cannot, on its own, support earthly life.

Humans are fragile, easily injured, and operating 200 million miles from the support systems of Earth. Communication delays of up to twenty minutes each way mean that no one is simply calling home for help. Transit times mean missions are measured in years—three to five years for a round trip (if any meaningful amount of time is spent on the surface). That’s before considering extended habitation (a true colony) or enabling exploration beyond the aforementioned thousand-kilometer radius.

And yet, there are also logistical advantages to having humans on Mars: Local presence and shorter transmission distance allows higher bandwidth and faster response for operating robotic systems and drones. These automated systems will be essential for early exploration.

On the other hand, electronics can be designed to tolerate temperature swings, gravity changes, and radiation exposure. Humans cannot. Most of the accommodations discussed for Marsbase exist primarily to protect the people living there.

Food is another constraint. Prepackaged supplies are sufficient for short missions but not for a sustained or open-ended presence. A permanent colony requires local production. Beyond that are the psychological challenges: extended isolation, separation from family, and the stress of operating in a high-risk environment.

Early in the development of Marsbase, medical oversight would almost certainly prohibit vulnerable populations—pregnant individuals, infants—from exposure to the risks of Mars or even the transfer vehicles. Crews would be separated from their families for years, with rotation plans only becoming viable once the base reached sufficient population and infrastructure.

The Sands of Mars emphasizes this through Shepard’s experience, particularly with respect to the strain of leaving his family behind. Other models, such as the Sino Alliance mission, suggest one-way commitments, leaving all family and companions behind…

…permanently.

I chose to write Marsbase as offering extended tenures for those willing to remain, while still allowing the denizens of Marsbase to return home.

* * *

Human spaceflight has already demonstrated both remarkable capability and inherent vulnerability. From the recent revelation that the first man in space—Yuri Gagarin—actually had to eject from his capsule and parachute to his landing, to the losses of Apollo 1, Challenger, Columbia, and the near-disaster of Apollo 13. Even lesser-known incidents—like Apollo 13 astronaut Fred Haise’s kidney infection during his mission, and Apollo 15 astronaut Jim Irwin’s heartbeat irregularity—we are reminded that even near Earth, spaceflight is unforgiving. Modern programs continue to reveal limitations, from life-support systems to onboard technology.

Humans are fragile. Space and Mars are indifferent.

We can continue to design environments that accommodate human physiology. But there is another possibility: adapting human physiology to the environment.

That is where Glenn Shepard, Jakob Novikoff, Victoria Horst, and Austin Stieversen—and their bionic augmentations—enter the picture.

* * *

Enter the Bionic Astronaut

Given the context of The Sands of Mars, in which “bionic” refers to advanced prosthetics—what some might call cyborgs or cybernetic organisms—it is worth noting that the term, coined by Jack Steele, was originally intended as a portmanteau of biological and electronic—not prosthetics or cybernetics. Steele’s focus was on mimicking biological systems with electromechanical ones—taking inspiration from nature, such as the way flower petals unfold, and applying it to engineering problems like solar panel deployment. The concept of the cyborg originated not with Steele but with his colleagues at the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in 1960.

That group was interested in what it would take for humans not just to survive but to function effectively in space. One of their conclusions was that it might be necessary to modify humans themselves—creating cybernetic organisms that combined biological and electromechanical systems. Such augmentation could provide increased strength, improved resilience, and the ability to operate in reduced gravity, vacuum, radiation, and other hostile environments. A 1960 report and conference from Wright-Patterson explored exactly this possibility: that augmented individuals might be better suited for space exploration than unmodified humans.

Those ideas carry directly into the “design” of Shepard and the other augmented characters. Shepard’s bionics provide endurance, speed, and distance through his legs; strength through his arm; and enhanced perception and communication through his eye and ear implants. He’s optimized for earthlike gravity. On the other hand, Jakob Novikoff’s interchangeable limbs, shifting from standard legs in a gravity well to a second pair of “arms and hands” makes him suitable for freefall. [Note: Jakob’s limbs are intentionally modeled after the quaddies of Lois McMaster Bujold’s Falling Free.]

On the gripping hand, as Vicki Horst might say, her bionics—heavy-lift capability on one side, fine manipulation on the other—are a nod to the combined gravity and freefall engineering capabilities of Niven and Pournelle’s moties in The Mote in God’s Eye. Sharon Delong’s myoelectric prosthetic reflects real-world pioneers adapting to limb loss, while the character of Austin Stieversen represents refinement of present-day prosthetics, with a simpler build than Shepard (and is a direct nod to The Six Million Dollar Man’s Steve Austin).

* * *

There is also a direct connection to real-world research, particularly DARPA’s Revolutionizing Prosthetics program, which has driven much of the modern progress in advanced limb systems. Each of these augmentations serves a purpose. Each addresses a specific challenge—strength, endurance, dexterity, adaptability—that an unaugmented human would struggle to meet in the Martian environment.

At the same time, the early engineering discussions around bionics did not see augmented humans as the final solution. The long-term goal was always the expansion of humanity itself—unaugmented, baseline human beings—beyond Earth. In that sense, bionics are not the endpoint, but a workaround: a means of extending human capability long enough to establish a foothold in environments that would otherwise be inaccessible.

That perspective carries into the operational decisions at Marsbase. By the time the exploration missions in The Sands of Mars are underway, the base has spent nearly a decade simply establishing the ability to survive. Only then does it begin to push outward. When that happens, the question becomes not just who goes, but how those missions are structured.

The debate is not trivial. Scientific teams argue for full control of mission personnel, assuming that technical expertise can cover all contingencies. The counterargument is that each mission requires dedicated roles: a driver, an operations and maintenance specialist, a security presence, and a scientist. The compromise—the workaround—is to combine roles where possible, and this is where augmentation becomes critical.

A bionically augmented individual can fulfill multiple functions.

Vicki Horst can serve as both maintenance and security. Austin Stieversen can operate as both driver and mechanic. In each case, augmentation frees up an additional slot for scientific personnel, shifting the balance of each mission toward both safety and research. The result is a structure that is not universally loved, but is effective—particularly as Marsbase begins to extend its reach toward the Tharsis region and beyond.

* * *

Bionic Case Studies

Vicki, Jakob, and, to a lesser extent, Austin serve as case studies in how bionically augmented individuals can enhance a mission both in space and on the ground. Shepard’s claim in The Moon in the Desert that he is the only person who could survive the six-gee acceleration of BAT is based on the fact that his circulatory system does not include two legs and one arm, giving it greater reserve and concentrating circulatory functions in his core. It does, however, overlook one of the primary dangers of sustained high-gee maneuvering: reduced blood flow to the brain.

In The Moon in the Desert, this is partially mitigated in the same way it is handled in current-day launches—by positioning astronauts on their backs, head level with the heart, knees and feet elevated to assist with circulatory return. In Shepard’s case, this is further supplemented by a ventricular assist device—a spiral pump that continuously moves blood and lymph through the body, augmenting the action of the heart.

We see Shepard’s capabilities again in the field: jumping from the back of a shuttle, gripping a safety line so tightly with his bionic arm that the coating begins to melt, and using the strength of his legs to tow a loaded rescue sled carrying both supplies and survivors. For Vicki Horst, we see the ability to hang suspended by one arm twenty meters above a cavern floor when a catwalk collapses, perform fine motor manipulations while dissecting a faulty regulator chip, and, in a quieter moment, reinforce her role in security with the line, “I am never unarmed.”

Jakob Novikoff appears less frequently in direct action, but his design highlights adaptability. His ability to replace bionic legs with a second set of limblike manipulators becomes invaluable in freefall construction, allowing him to anchor himself while still working with multiple points of contact. There is also a nod to operational safety when Jakob elects to remove and shield his limbs during a coronal mass ejection, recognizing the vulnerability of electronic systems in that environment.

Austin Stieversen does not take a central role in this installment, although that is something I intend to address in the continuing story of Bionic Frontier. Even so, his bionic arm carries the same implications of strength and utility that define the others.

There is also a more subtle case in The Sands of Mars: Douglas, the “blind spy.” His vision is restored through two forms of augmentation—a retinal prosthetic, already present in current medical technology (with reduced resolution and acuity), and a direct visual cortical implant that replaces a nonfunctional eye entirely. These systems rely on cameras to capture visual information and transmit it to the appropriate neural interfaces. In Douglas’s case, those cameras are embedded not only in his glasses, but in the fingertips of his bionic hand, allowing for observation and surveillance even when conventional visual channels are unavailable.

This is not an obvious example of a bionically augmented astronaut, but it highlights a different class of advantage. A scientist could adjust visual acuity and magnification without the need for a microscope. A surgeon could perform microscale work without external magnification. An engineer could detect minute flaws in critical systems. The benefit is not raw strength, but precision and perception.

Taken together, these examples illustrate how bionics function as a practical response—or at least a workaround—to the challenges of a Mars colony. Each augmentation addresses a specific problem: strength, endurance, flexibility, fine manipulation, or sensory enhancement.

And in the end, that is the real advantage. Not that these individuals are stronger in a general sense, but that they are better adapted to the tasks required. In an environment as unforgiving as Mars, that adaptability makes it harder for space to kill them.

* * *

But there are limits to augmentation and what it buys the individual. One of the recurring themes in the two Bionic Frontier novels is that Shep is constantly damaging his bionic arm—using it as a pry bar, a battering ram, a tool for anything that needs brute force. A bionic arm is not something easily replaced on a ship in transit between planets or even in the early days of Marsbase.

This highlights a major logistical problem for bionic astronauts: supply and maintenance. Spare parts must be available, and there must be a means of maintaining these systems at a high level of reliability. That implies specialized expertise. A character like Doc Phillipson—the chief medical officer and head of sciences for Marsbase—would need direct experience with bionics or access to trained specialists capable of maintaining and repairing them. In the story, the expertise is implied, but not emphasized, largely because the focus remains on Shepard’s interactions and personal struggles. Still some assumptions of logistical support must form an underlying reality if we are ever to implement bionics in our astronauts and explorers.

* * *

There is also a logistical issue that I have largely avoided, both here and in The Moon in the Desert: how the bionics are powered. It was somewhat amusing to revisit Martin Caidin’s novel Cyborg (the inspiration for The Six Million Dollar Man) and see that he proposed power generation based on levers, pulleys, and flywheels generating energy from the user’s own motion. The television adaptation, like much science fiction of the 1970s, shifted to an atomic battery or compact nuclear source. Other stories propose high-capacity batteries or capacitors as a workaround for the size, weight, and shielding requirements of nuclear power.

The long-term goal—both in science fiction and in real biomedical engineering—would be to draw power from biological systems themselves, but that remains far beyond current capability. In The Moon in the Desert and The Sands of Mars, the quiet assumption is that Shepard’s bionics are powered by some form of long-duration battery or capacitor. Recharge time is never addressed, but in practical terms it cannot be ignored. Whether that means detaching a limb for charging, relying on inductive systems, or building recharge time into daily operations, the need for power becomes a constant constraint.

We do not yet know what the optimal solution will be. It becomes a question not just of capacity, but of configuration, supply, and infrastructure—where that energy comes from and how it is delivered reliably in a remote environment.

* * *

But beyond the engineering challenges, the human challenge remains.

Shepard did not stop being human when he received artificial limbs. Psychologically, sociologically, biologically, bionic astronauts will still be human.

On Mars, Shepard is lonely. He struggles with depression. He has anger management issues. These are not side effects of the technology; they are part of the human condition, carried forward into an inhuman environment.

That, in turn, creates social tension. We see prejudice in Santiago’s attitude toward Vicki, Sharon, and Shepard, and a broader uncertainty about the role of the augmented. Questions arise about whether fictional—and real—missions should be mixed with augmented and unaugmented personnel operating side by side, or whether they should be separated.

Those are not technical questions.

They are questions for society, and for the future.

* * *

Rescue in Deep Space

In The Moon in the Desert, Shep becomes the only person capable of surviving the trip out and back to reach Percheron, but that survivability is only part of the reason he goes. He is also a doctor, studying the medical files and able to arrive unaffected by whatever has incapacitated the crew. He is bionic—augmented, yes—but he is also mentally and intellectually qualified to diagnose and treat.

A space rescue team, particularly one assembled by the fictional Space Force in the Bionic Frontier novels, must be capable not only of reaching a distressed vessel, but of operating both their own ship and the one they are rescuing. On land, they must be able to get there, get back, perform evacuations, and do so knowing there may be no return.

The Asimov Incident, referenced in both The Sands of Mars and The Moon in the Desert, began as a throwaway line until Toni Weisskopf pointed out that it needed to carry weight in the story so that readers better understood the stakes and dangers of space travel in the context of a bionic astronaut. In story, it became a cautionary tale of a space station in which professional hospitality and medical staff lacked the specialized training to respond effectively to a disaster. That failure became part of Shepard’s history—and part of the justification for the role of Space Force as guardians of space travel.

Which brings us back to bionic astronauts.

In any situation where a ship between planets is disabled, or a crew is stranded on a planetary surface, human lives are at risk. As is often the case in disasters on Earth, there are moments that require strength, endurance, and capability at the peak of human performance.

One of the goals in writing The Moon in the Desert was to bring the idea of a bionic human back within biological plausibility. Shepard is not lifting cars or running at highway speeds. His augmentations place him incrementally above peak human performance—on the order of ten to fifteen percent—keeping him within the limits of bone, muscle, and skin, as well as the constraints of the prosthetics themselves.

But those increments matter.

They allow him to dig through rubble, force open jammed hatches, maintain grip in adverse conditions, hang from a cliff face, or jump from a hovering shuttle. In a rescue, that margin can mean the difference between life and death—not just for the rescuer, but for those being rescued.

Space rescue is hard. The number one problem is distance, and distance takes its toll in time and supplies.

In The Moon in the Desert, Shep faces a journey that would take six months with conventional propulsion. But in a rescue, time is measured in lives. The crew of Percheron does not have six months to wait.

In The Sands of Mars, the Sino Alliance ship Qilin is 100 million miles from Earth when it encounters trouble. A faster ship might intercept it, but depending on the failure mode, the situation could become what naval tradition calls a stern chase—one ship pursuing another, closing the distance only gradually. A ten-to-twenty-five-percent speed advantage will eventually win out, but if the initial separation is large enough, it may take too long for a rescue ship to catch up. And time is exactly what the crew of Qilin does not have.

On Mars, the problem changed form, but not nature.

The crash on the Martian surface introduces constraints of distance, time, supplies, and terrain. Crossing Mars is not like crossing Earth. There are no superhighways, no prepared roads, no infrastructure to support high-speed transit. The atmosphere is too thin for conventional aircraft. Vehicles capable of flight are either too fragile to carry significant payloads or rely on rocket propulsion, consuming fuel continuously while hovering (or simply while airborne in any fashion). There is negligible “loitering time” or opportunity for reconnaissance flight.

Which leaves overland travel.

Orbital imagery suggests a surface that is heavily cratered and uneven, but rover data shows that some regions are traversable. Even so, large portions of Mars remain rough, broken, or chaotic. The approaches to Valles Marineris, for example, pass through terrain described as “chaos”: jumbled, fractured landscapes of valleys, ridges, and escarpments.

Even reaching the uplands is a challenge. From Amazonis Planitia to Daedalia Planum involves elevation gains of two to three thousand meters, with another three to four thousand meters to reach the Tharsis plains. Olympus Mons, often cited as a desirable exploration target, is surrounded by the Olympus Rupes—a cliff more than a kilometer high. From there, the solar system’s tallest mountain climbs at a nearly 1 percent grade at its shallowest. Exploration will require a near-vertical ascent just to reach the base, and the slope will require vehicles much more robust than will be easily shipped to Mars.

Within the framework established in The Sands of Mars, the rescue involves distances of more than 2,000 kilometers and elevation changes of seven to eight thousand meters. Yet the operational range of the Marsbuggies is limited—approximately 500 kilometers one way, 1,000 kilometers round trip.

Distance, once again, defines the mission.

To extend that reach requires infrastructure. Outposts established at roughly 500-kilometer intervals, providing fuel, supplies, and safe return points.

With a total population of approximately seventy people—most of them scientists—staffing the outposts becomes both difficult and dangerous. Stretching personnel across that distance may require relaxing safety constraints simply to make the mission possible.

And here, again, we see the advantage of the bionic astronaut.

Shepard’s interface with the MILES system allows him to deploy from a hovering shuttle, using his strength, endurance, knowledge, and authority to operate in environments that would challenge an unaugmented human. And yet, as others point out, it does not have to be him. His supposed singular advantage—the MILES—turns out not to be exclusive. There is at least one other MILES at Mars, and Vicky, Jakob and Austin have trained with it.

I chose to build the story around what I see as a primary risk of augmentation—the inclination, personal or by Command, to send the bionic individual whenever conditions become difficult. Shepard himself is accused of having a hero complex, echoing earlier fiction portrayals of augmented operatives such as The Six Million Dollar Man’s Steve Austin, where missions often escalated to require bionic intervention.

Not every situation requires augmentation, although many would benefit from it.

That’s not the same thing, though. Deploying bionic personnel in exploration and rescue roles requires structure—rules of engagement that define when and how those capabilities are used. Without that, decisions become reactive rather than deliberate.

Such a structure will require not just bionic workers (and heroes), but bionic leaders: individuals capable of taking the risk, and choosing not to. Leaders capable of making difficult decisions about risk, capability, and necessity in an environment where the margin for error is already vanishingly small.

* * *

What Changes with Better Tech?

What changes with better technology—better drives, improved habitats, greater maneuverability in and around Mars’s atmosphere and orbit, and even better human augmentation or protection for unaugmented humans? As a science fiction author, I reserve the right to speculate about technology improving over time.

The experimental “Helicity” high-specific-impulse drive (as named in The Moon in the Desert and renamed “Vorticity” in The Sands of Mars to avoid conflict with a real-world concept) was based on a presentation I saw at an IRG meeting in 2019. While I may be blending elements from more than one talk, the core idea was a hybrid system—an ion drive paired with a fusion afterburner—allowing continuous acceleration. The afterburner, confined by magnetic fields rather than material structures, offers a path toward sustained high thrust without extreme material constraints.

For story purposes, I imposed limits to reflect incremental development. Vorticity-2 could achieve one- to two-gee thrust, but only for about thirty-six hours before failure. Vorticity-3 reduced sustained thrust to one-quarter gee for longer operational periods, while still allowing short-duration full output. Even at these reduced levels, transit times between Earth and Mars dropped dramatically while remaining within safe operational limits.

It is not until Vorticity-4, introduced with Dawn’s Embrace in The Sands of Mars, that sustained one-gee acceleration and deceleration become possible, reducing Earth–Mars transit from six to nine months with current chemical and/or ion propulsion, to six weeks, and eventually to as little as six days.

That kind of improvement changes everything.

A six-day trip to Mars places Venus four days away, Jupiter and its moons within three weeks, and Pluto and the near edge of the Oort Cloud in just over a month. The entire Solar System becomes accessible—not just for exploration, but for transport of equipment, supplies, and people.

If that rate of progress continues, by the end of the twenty-first century humanity could complete a full survey of the Solar System, including missions to the heliopause, where the solar wind meets interstellar space.

But propulsion is only part of the picture.

Transportation in and around Mars remains a problem unless we solve ground-to-orbit access. Concepts such as orbital skyhooks—rotating structures that dip into the upper atmosphere and transfer cargo to orbit. Even a full surface-to-orbit “beanstalk” or space tethers might be practical in Mars gravity, and reduce or eliminate the need for propellant-heavy launches. Such systems would fundamentally change how materials and personnel move between surface and orbit.

Even then, surface transportation remains a challenge. Mars’s low gravity and thin atmosphere make high-speed travel possible, but also complicate conventional vehicle design. Magnetic levitation systems become attractive in this environment—reduced atmospheric drag would allow higher vehicle speeds with lower energy loss, potentially enabling continent-scale transport networks that rival Earth air transport.

Improvements in excavation, mining, and resource processing will further expand what is possible. As habitats become larger and more efficient, and as recycling systems improve, populations can grow. What begins as a survival outpost becomes a settlement, then a network of settlements, and eventually something closer to a civilization.

We see the beginnings of that transition at the end of The Sands of Mars, where Mars is no longer just a colony, but something with the potential to stand on its own.

* * *

Which raises the question: What happens to bionics?

In the Bionic Frontier stories, bionic systems are largely discrete—limbs, sensory replacements, external augmentations. But that may not be the endpoint. What if, instead of replacing parts, we begin to repair them? Rebuild blood vessels, restore heart tissue, repair neural structures?

One of my favorite “comfort reads”—the Armageddon Inheritance omnibus by David Weber—introduces the concept of augmentation at the organ level: reinforced cardiovascular system, bioelectric assistance for muscles and nerves, improved immune system and various internal organs, as well as brain-computer interfaces fully integrated with the brain. While it may not be what we think of now as bionics, it’s possible that the future of bioelectronic and biomechanical augmentation may be less about replacing the human body and more about integrating with it—enhancing biological function rather than substituting for it.

Thus, bionic augmentation could become as routine as cataract surgery or dental work, applied not only in response to injury but as elective enhancement. The shift would expand who can contribute. Individuals who would otherwise be limited by injury or age could remain active participants in building and sustaining off-world communities.

* * *

The Next 25–100 Years

As we extrapolate more “routine” applications of bionics, improved spaceflight capability, and the ability to not just survive, but thrive in space, the next logical question is:

What happens next?

I’ll address this in stages, beginning with the next twenty-five years—the timeframe encompassed by The Sands of Mars, then fifty, then one hundred years out (and more). I’ll also address the technology first, then the bionics.

* * *

The action in the novel spans just under four years, from early 2048 to late 2050. Some of the developments I projected—most notably the Vorticity-4 drive that powers the Earth–Mars transfer ships—are optimistic. However, the rapid progress in prosthetics over the past decade suggests that Shepard’s bionics are at least plausible, provided we can solve the compact power problem.

One of my goals in writing The Moon in the Desert was to extrapolate from real science to real human capability, and I do think that within fifteen to twenty years we will begin to see individuals with advanced prosthetics approaching what Shepard represents. At the same time, the rapid development of space launch systems—NASA, United Launch Alliance, Blue Origin, SpaceX, and others still emerging—could realistically place us in a position to build stations in near-Earth orbit and on the Moon within that same timeframe.

Whether we establish a base on Mars within twenty-five years will depend heavily on what we learn from those efforts—particularly operations in cislunar space and at the Lagrange points. A Mars colony on that timeline may be optimistic, but not impractical…a fertile ground for hard science fiction.

* * *

Looking further ahead—fifty to one hundred years—the picture changes significantly. If we assume a functioning Mars colony by mid-twenty-first century, then the enabling technology is not simply access, but transit time. A journey that can be reduced from six months to under a month fundamentally changes the equation.

A month to Mars implies three weeks to Venus. If an orbital station can be placed in orbit of Mars, the same should be possible at Earth’s nearest planetary neighbor. Even now, an orbital platform around Venus would be an extraordinary scientific asset. Its dense, reducing atmosphere may preserve clues to a proto-Earth environment—conditions that existed before the collision thought to have formed the Moon and stripped away much of Earth’s early atmosphere.

Within fifty years, I would expect to see an orbital station at Mars, along with fully functional habitats at the Earth–Moon and Earth–Sun Lagrange points. These distributed settlements address the longstanding concern of concentrating all human presence on a single planet. Closed-cycle habitats developed in these environments would also provide the foundation for long-duration interplanetary—and eventually interstellar—missions, while offering lessons in ecological balance and stewardship that apply directly to Earth.

Fifty years also opens the door to asteroid bases and resource extraction in environments free of existing biospheres. It may still be early for permanent stations around Jupiter or its moons, but the scientific incentives are immense: the subsurface oceans of Europa, the volcanic activity of Io, and the dynamic atmosphere of Jupiter itself.

* * *

At the hundred-year mark, the scale expands again. Particularly if we can scale the transit capabilities over that same interval. Missions to the outer Solar System take weeks to months and become routine. We see orbital stations—crewed or autonomous—around Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and even Pluto. Mars itself begins to transition from colony to civilization, with early terraforming efforts or large-scale resource relocation—captured comets, hollowed asteroids—used to expand habitats throughout the system.

And beyond that, the logical next step: interstellar probes, and eventually crewed missions, built on everything learned in the previous century.

* * *

And so we come back to bionics: Where does augmentation go over the next fifty to one hundred years?

Five years ago, I would have pointed to brain-computer interfaces as the next major breakthrough—neural implants addressing neurological disease, restoring function, and perhaps even enabling memory transfer. Those developments are still underway, and they remain promising.

But in the past few years, my own perspective has shifted. Working in a tissue engineering environment, I’ve seen firsthand how quickly regenerative approaches are advancing. Bionics, as we currently imagine them—external or mechanical replacements—may prove to be only a temporary measure.

We are already seeing early-stage work on tissue-engineered organs: heart, liver, kidneys, pancreas, even skin. Stem-cell-based therapies are targeting conditions like diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, and arthritis. These approaches aim not to replace the body with machinery, but to repair and restore it with normal human tissue.

I expect many of these techniques to reach clinical maturity within twenty-five years. As Sharon Delong notes in The Sands of Mars, her diabetes was resolved through a bioprinted pancreas. That kind of intervention moves us away from substitution and toward regeneration, and the type of augmentation that works with the human body, instead of supplanting it.

Fifty to one hundred years beyond that, the focus may shift almost entirely to rebuilding damaged tissue rather than replacing it. Full regeneration—limbs, spinal cord, complex sensory organs—remains uncertain and technically challenging, but no longer unthinkable.

* * *

In 1960 when Jack Steele and his colleagues at AFRL proposed bionic astronauts, the kind of prosthetics depicted in these stories were, in fact, science fiction. Martin Caidin’s 1972 book, Cyborg, captured the concepts well for its time, even though society still considered it a near-impossibility for hundreds of years. Even twenty years ago, the type of advanced prosthetics described in Bionic Frontier were highly speculative—until DARPA-supported programs produced fully articulated, brain-controlled limbs. Today, cochlear implants have entered standard medical practice, and retinal implants are being considered for Medicare and insurance reimbursement.

Extrapolating forward another century suggests a future in which the distinction between repair, augmentation, and enhancement becomes increasingly blurred. For the bionic astronaut, that may mean something unexpected: their augmentations becoming more biological than mechanical.

One hundred years from now, humanity should not, must not, remain confined to Earth. As we move outward—to Mars, to the outer planets, and eventually beyond the Solar System—we will adapt, whether through technology, biology, or some combination of both.

It may well be that the explorers leaving our system in the twenty-second century are not entirely human as we define it today—but are instead something shaped by the environments they must survive.

* * *

In Closing

The bionic Martian, Glenn Armstrong Shepard, isn’t just a character. Shep is a prototype. He is an example. He is a hero we would all wish to be—tempered by the reality that he is not everything he believes he should be. He is flawed, subject to anger, depression, and loneliness. And yet, when the situation calls for a hero, Shep steps into circumstances where an unaugmented human might simply walk away.

At the same time, in The Sands of Mars, Mars itself is not just a location or a setting. It is a character—unforgiving, inhospitable, and yet fundamentally indifferent. And somehow, in that collision between flawed human and indifferent world, there is hope. Hope that survival is possible. Hope that prejudice, limitation, and the forces working against us can be set aside in the name of something greater.

Shep is not just a man. He is a glimpse of a future in which disease and disability can be overcome.

Mars is not just a red point of light in the sky. It is a potential second home for Humanity.

If we follow that path—outward to Mars, to the wider reaches of space, and eventually to distant stars—those places will shape us as surely as we shape them.

I have been told that I write characters people would like to know, and settings they would like to inhabit. That is very much the intent: to present a vision of the future that is grounded in reality, but ultimately optimistic. A future in which humanity—augmented or not—finds a way forward.

Whether that future is lived on Earth, in orbit, on Mars, or beyond, it may well belong to something like a bionic Martian.

* * *

Copyright © 2026 by Robert E. Hampson, Ph.D.

Robert E. “Dr. Rob” Hampson still hasn’t quite decided what he wants to be when he grows up—and that’s working out just fine.

By day, he’s a neuroscientist at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine specializing in biomedical and tissue engineering. His career has been focused on how the brain encodes, stores, and recalls memory, while his research has spanned drug-induced memory modulation, the effects of space radiation on the brain, brain–computer interfaces, and the development of what he cheerfully calls “replacement parts for the brain”—implantable neurotechnology and engineered neural tissue.

By night (and at conventions), Dr. Hampson is deeply embedded in the science fiction and fantasy community as both a working author and a frequent science consultant. He regularly works with writers to help translate real science into believable world-building. If it involves human physiology, memory, or the unintended consequences of clever technology, he’s probably been asked about it. In fact, his recent nonfiction book, The LabRats’ Guide to the Brain, compiles the answers to many of those questions he’s been asked over the years.

As a fiction writer, Hampson’s work ranges from hard science fiction to post-apocalyptic adventure, with increasing forays into LitRPG and hybrid genres. He has co-edited two anthologies, published more than forty short stories, and written three solo novels and four collaborative novels. In 2026–2027, he has four new novels scheduled for release, including The Sands of Mars, the second appearance of his own version of the “bionic man”—The Moon and the Desert’s Glenn A. “Shep” Shepard.

Dr. Rob enjoys conversations that sit at the intersection of science, storytelling, and play—whether that means dissecting power systems, realism in progression mechanics, post-collapse worlds, or how far you can push a skill tree before neuroscience politely objects.