Why CERES May Be Better Than MARS or The MOON to Colonize

Between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter lies the Solar System’s Main Asteroid Belt. Within this region, it is estimated that there are over 150 million objects that measure 100 meters (330 ft) or more in diameter. The largest of these is the dwarf planet Ceres (aka. 1 Ceres), the only body in the Main Belt that is large enough – 940 km (585 mi) in diameter – to have undergone hydrostatic equilibrium (become spherical).

Because of its important location and the amenities this dwarf planet itself possesses, there are those who have proposed that we establish a colony on Ceres (and even some who’ve explored the idea of terraforming it). This could serve as a base for asteroid mining ventures as well as an outpost of human civilization, one which could facilitate the expansion of humanity farther out into the Solar System.

But could a colony really exist on Ceres’ icy surface, and what would it take to create and maintain such a settlement?

For almost a century, Ceres has often been portrayed as a port of call or a base site in science fiction. The earliest example is perhaps the 1898 novel by Garret P. Serviss titled Edison’s Conquest of Mars, where the Martians from H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds (released in 1897) are at war with giant beings from Ceres. Ceres is also mentioned in some of Isaac Asimov’s early works as the site of a colony and an observatory.

In The Stars My Destination (1956) by Alfred Bester, the main character claims to be from Ceres. Ceres is also a recurring location in the works of Robert A. Heinlein, receiving passing mentions in Red Planet (1949), Time for the Stars (1950), The Rolling Stones (1952), Podkayne of Mars (1963), and The Cat Who Walks Through Walls (1985).

In Joe Haldeman’s novel Buying Time (1989), Ceres is the home of a society of anarchists and where the wealthy go to seek rejuvenation treatments to cheat death. Larry Niven also has Ceres as the seat of a government that rules the Asteroid Belt in novels and short stories that take place in his Known Space universe (1964 to the present).

In L. Neil Smith’s novel The Venus Belt (1981), Ceres contains a large underground city that is interconnected by several smaller settlements and stations. It is also the focal point of his 2009 novel, Ceres.

Bruce Sterling’s novel Schismatrix (1985) also features an Asteroid Belt colonized by cybernetically-enhanced humans, whose communications are handled by a corporate-national entity based on Ceres. In Marooned in Realtime (1986) by Vernor Vinge, one of the characters earned a doctorate in Mayan archaeology from the “Universidad Polytecnica de Ceres.”

Colonizing Ceres would involve many of the same methods used to establish colonies on the Moon, Mercury, and the satellites of Jupiter and Saturn. Basically, it comes down to establishing settlements that are optimized for bodies that have little to no atmosphere and are subject to extreme temperatures – i.e. pressurized, air-tight, and heavily insulated.

These could be established within impact craters that could then be sealed with the attachment of a dome. Regolith mined from the asteroid belt could then be used to 3D print a base layer next to the ice, and then print out structures. Ice and organic molecules could be harvested locally to provide water and nutrients which, when combined with regolith, would provide the necessary soil for growing food.

Alternately, a colony could be established within the planet’s icy crust. This would be most beneficial if engineers were to attempt to speed up Ceres’ rotation (though this represents a major challenge in its own right). With the colonies’ vertical axis aimed towards the center of Ceres, this rotation would generate centrifugal force that would provide artificial gravity.

With the local availability of water ice, minerals, silica, and other raw materials, a degree of self-sufficiency could be achieved with time.

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