The engine is theorized to be a high end version of Orion combined with ion thrust using anti-matter.  Such a ship would be the combined efforts of the military and big private companies.

 

Mars can't support life and would take generations to terraform.  If such a mission was in the works, a habital planet or moon has already been identified.  The likely candidates would be soldiers but could also include prisoners who are otherwise facing life behind bars.  Life in the new world would be brutal and full of unexpected dangers.

 

 Supplies are sent and the mandate may not be to setup a colony but a second home should Earth experience climate change that threatens much of the human race.

 

Puritans did make a great dispsable beach head, the rightwinger men could be labor while the women provide breeding stock.   Make sure you and Yellichink are on the roster.

Anti matter propelled by dark energy...to avoid the black hole at the Big Bang's event horizon.

Coolest - religion - ever.

 

I love this stuff...If you ever had an interest in backyard astronomy, and you haven't played with a telescope in a few decades, there are great deals out there today on toys that are better than most scopes you may have grown up on.

 

 

I'm convinced that almost anything you can imagine is out there somewhere.

Somewhere there is a real-life, interplanetary star wars raging.

Somewhere life has to migrate to the other side of the planet every x years or die.

Somewhere intelligent life lives in the strobe light of a pulsar, but receives the  proper energy it needs.

Somewhere life is looking to the sky and it knows the end is near for every microbe on the planet.

 

Although I'm generally resigned to the notion that some solar, or other cosmic event, will puff us out like a cheap birthday candle before we can reach anywhere we could thrive...I'd love to watch us try.