would be transformed
into surface habitat and supply depots began
centuries earlier when Planet Pluto was barely past
aphelion but within economical range of deep space
transports. The cadre's vessels carried and towed
communications gear, specialized construction rigs,
platforms and infrastructure kits which had been
fabricated or assembled in the industrial tank
towns above Luna, Venus and Mars, and by
cooperating governments of satellites in the
outer region.

The Cadre's primary mission was to establish a
base of operations on Pluto. The program called
for the planet to support a colony of fifty thousand
specialists and construction workers -- and their
families -- for the assembly, construction and
testing phases, plus ten thousand transients and
temporary residents. The latter would comprise
'rest and relaxation' visitors, liaison and special
missions staff from a nearby logistics depot and
the construction sites, and agricultural and food
processing workers from Planet Pluto's moon
Charon. Also expected were cargo handlers and ship's
personnel from transports entering and departing
Pluto from-and-to points throughout the system.

About eighty percent of Pluto's permanent adult
population would work on the two terminals.
The specialized professions for the initial phase
ranged from scientists and engineers to artisans,
skilled and semi-skilled workers in all of the
disciplines and industrial skills required to
construct and operate a complex station in space
and service and maintain a permanent habitat and
population on Pluto's surface.

Children would be born on Pluto, natural or cloned.
They, as well as the general population, would
be cared for and supported by a host of
administrative, health care, educational,
recreational, life support and community services.

The Cadre's mission was in phases. The first
task of the initial phase was to land on Pluto's
surface, seek out stable surfaces or create them
by fusing subsurface strata to sufficient depth
for support of massive structures.

Gravity enhancement surface panels and their
energy sources would be installed wherever enclosed
communities or special purpose structures were to
be constructed. A detachment of the Cadre would
land on Charon, Planet Pluto's moonlet, and fuse
and seal sections of the moonlet's surface and
subsurface same as on Pluto.

On the solidified, stabilized surfaces of Pluto and
Charon the Cadre would erect a tank to