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Valparaiso Cycler
Mars Colonist Transfer Vessel | |
 Image from Steve Bowers | |
| The Valparaiso passes close to Phobos as it prepares to drop another load of colonists | |
The Mars Cycler Valparaiso was launched from Earth in 195 AT by the Brazilian Space Agency, and carried two hundred colonists to the new Martian colony. Following an Aldrin cyclic orbit the ship returned to the vicinity of Earth 2.135 years later. This vessel continued to follow this cycle for the next two hundred and fifty years, and additional segments were added each time the craft passed Earth orbit.
Eventually the ship was large enough to carry seven thousand colonists at a time; this was only one of several hundred cyclers of diverse kinds and sizes that followed similar cyclic orbits in the Interplanetary Age, contributing to the rapid growth of the Martian population.
The Valparaiso retired to become a hotel in Mars orbit in 451 AT, and was still in use when the Martian evacuation occured in 610. This old cycler, with its famous dodecahedral microgravity observation station, then became home to more than twenty thousand refugees.
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Development Notes
Text by Steve Bowers
Initially published on 30 April 2013.
Initially published on 30 April 2013.
