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Sending people to Mars in an enormously hard task made all the more difficult by the fact that you have to bring the people back. Or do you? Mars to Stay is an organization that advocates for sending a mission to Mars that would land and make a small settlement on the planet, that would pave the way for future missions. Reading the short Wikipedia page on Mars to Stay, one of the plans(proposed by Buzz Aldrin) does raise the opportunity of putting a settlement on Mars. The downside of the proposal is obvious; the people sent to Mars would never return to Earth. This makes it difficult for the United States to ever undertake such a plan, even though Aldrin claims there would be plenty of scientist willing to make the trip despite this. The Soviet Union, however, would have had no such qualms. Putting a settlement on Mars, however small, would be an enormous prestige boost for the USSR in the Cold War. And in an ATL where the Soviet program was more successful, the mission could be technically feasible for the USSR. The lack of needing a return trip removes the main technical hurdles for the mission, and Soviet heavy-lift rockets could probably send the mission successfully on its way. Resupply could also be done periodically via heavy life rockets, although it wouldn't need a crazy amount of supplies if the base starts out small, with a four or six person team.

So how feasible is this? What would happen if the Soviet Union were to undertake such a plan? The United States would immediately feel the need to send their own mission to Mars, but how? Would the USA be willing to send their own Mars to Stay crew, and if not, could the USA actually build a spacecraft that can go to Mars and back?
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