note/preface:
This is the first draft of this particular essay/document.novella, whatever, so please do not be too critical as I literally wrote all of this in one sitting. Thank you in advance.
The discovery of a Human sustainable planet within, in comparison to the size of the Universe, reachable distance of Earth was the spark that kindled the fire.
Within twenty years of the discovery, an United Coalition had constructed a Space Station in orbit. This station was capable of assembling the ships needed to establish a permanent facility on the moon.
Once these ships had landed and had been converted into the buildings which constituted the first human colony on another planet, the United Coalition began to construct the vessels required to colonise Mars and the moons of Jupiter.
These bare-boned husks of metal would travel to the moon, be stationed in orbit, and over a period of months, were fitted with moon rock mined solar radiation shields, and long-term habitation modules. The crew and colonists for the month and year long journeys would spend the time on the Moonbase, practicing survival techniques, acclimatising themselves with equipment, and running through endless lessons in the event of a system failure during their odyssey to Earth's new interplanetary islands.
This took fifty Earth years.
There were three ships on that first journey into the heavens, two medium sized craft for Mars, and one wide and long craft to reach Jupiter. The medium craft would land on Mars, one used completely as an outpost, while the other was disassembled and used as two Ground to orbit shuttles that inspected the Jupiter vessel, enabling repairs to the ship, and providing enough food and water from the Mars colony (imaginatively named Mars 1) for the crew and passengers to survive the journey and first years of establishing a home so far from Earth.
The Jupiter ship reached its destination and succeeded in establishing a permanent colony on Ganymede of course, and within ten years, with the addition of new craft joining them every three years, began the task of constructing ships to reach the new Planet upon which humanity's survival was dependent.
These ships, however, were not what you would expect. Instead of giant metal machines of shining steel plunging into the unknown. The Jupiter colonists used a specifically constructed vessels to function as a construction centre of some kind. This ship would be in contact with the various teams working to excavate suitable asteroids in the belt between Jupiter and Mars. Hollowing out the rocks into tunnels, caverns, and habitable areas deep inside the Asteroids. Once this procedure was completed, and the asteroid outfitted with equipment and supplies, two teams implanted the giant engines, required to move the asteroids and send them on their way out of our Solar System into the great darkness beyond.
The theory was extremely simple; Use each of these modified asteroids as stepping stones on the long road to the haven called, so predictably, New Earth. The first asteroid or stone, was situated in the vicinity of Pluto, the second was situated 6 months journey time away, the third another 6 months away, and so on until they reached New Earth itself.
These stones would achieve this feat by firing massive rocket engines, enabling them to travel to their planned destinations, before firing oppositional engines in order to stop their momentum when reaching their planned, or slightly near, position. The crew inside would be protected from radiation by the thick rock crust of the asteroid itself.
This whole process from the discovery of New Earth, to the colonization of the planet, took a little over one hundred and eighty years - one hundred and eighty four years, five months, nineteen days, and an unknown number of hours and minutes to be precise, measured in Earth time naturally.
Now the serious matter of human survival and advancement could begin.
