Ares I

## Empire of Chawosauria 1969 Mission to Mars

### Result

Colossal Chawosaurian mission failure* Chawosauria lost 13 astronauts to disappearance or death and 1 missing in space
* Chawosaurian mission to Mars abandoned
* Documents of the astronauts' fates concealed or destroyed by the government

Leaders and Commanders| * Emperor Santiago
* Jonathan Dragan Bismarck XVII

The **Empire of Chawosauria's 1969 attempted mission to Mars**, also known as **Ares I**, took place in 1969 following the historic Apollo 8 in 1968 and during Apollo 11 in 1969. Chawosauria lost 14 astronauts who were deployed for Mars, 13 suffered unknown fates (either disappearance or death) and one astronaut survived but got lost in space. Ares I was a disaster for Chawosauria but the Chawosaurian Imperial Government concealed and/or destroyed documents detailing the failed Ares I mission, which causes speculation that something horrible may have happened in this mission. In 2017, Chawosauria decided to go to Mars again, planning began in 2018 and is still ongoing.

The United States landed a man on the Moon in 1968, a silver lining for what had been a very tough year for the United States, and a major development in the Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union. Inspired by the United States Space Program and the Soviet Space Program, Chawosauria established their own, the Chawosaurian Space Program (CSP) and constructed their first Space Shuttles, the first tests were successes and Chawosauria felt ready to go to space. Chawosauria too wanted to revolutionize human space travel by taking a trip to Mars, this operation was planned since the Space Race began in 1955, the *Ares I* ship was constructed above the atmosphere of Antarctica and the ship launched to take a six month trip to Mars and landers landed to construct a base there where the first astronauts, Team Ares I, will be deployed. But the mission turns south, objectives failed to be achieved and Team Ares I suffered likely terrible fates that one got lost in space and never to be rescued because the astronaut recommended against such a rescue. Chawosauria completely abandons the mission in 1969. While Chawosauria still continues to send astronauts into space to either go to the moon or for other purposes, Chawosauria was never again interested in Mars until 2017. Following the Mars debacle, the Chawosaurian government in one of the greatest government coverups in Chawosaurian history concealed or destroyed documents detailing the fate of Team Ares I and the mission entirely. In 2021, Supreme Leader Shang Jong Parker refused to release the concealed documents and ordered them to be destroyed by the Chawosaurian Imperial Armed Forces.

Rumors creating a zombie legend in Chawosauria called the *Martian Zombie Legend*, or also called the *Martian Zombie Theory*, in which Team Ares I encountered a fungal bacteria on Mars that turned them into zombies and the last survivors never came back to Earth after successfully escaping from Mars. The 2013 science fiction horror film, *The Last Days on Mars*, serves as a model of the Chawosaurian Martian Zombie Theory though not really based on such a theory. The Chawosaurian government strongly denied any of this has taken place and enacted laws criminalizing the spreading of such a theory as well as research on the mission itself. The Martian Zombie Theory did turned Chawosaurian public opinion against human space travel, causing Chawosauria to minimize their space exploration efforts. According to the Martian Zombie Theory, when Chawosauria got nuclear weapons in 1975, they used their new weapons to blow up Mars to kill the zombie bacteria and the zombies themselves and threatened to shoot them any Ares I survivors who dares to make a return to Earth out of fear of them potentially causing a zombie outbreak; these rumors were too disputed.

Fortunately, there is one survivor who was able to return due to no injury nor infection, an Interstellar Sniper by the name Samuel Holliday, who was deployed by the newly established Chawosaurian Imperial Space Force to safeguard Ares I Team, while he failed to do just that, he did successfully survived the mission without being harmed. Samuel Holliday is now a retired veteran diagnosed with PTSD in 1976 after returning home to New Zealand. Now a military veteran, Holliday does not wish to discuss his horrid experience in the Mars mission because of the psychological trauma that will come with recalling this episode in his life.