The first wave of permanent settlers to Mars has been sent. For various scientific and political reasons, NASA decided that it would be best if the first crew to settle Mars consisted entirely of women. This was done both to prevent unwanted pregnancy and relationships during the journey and set up period. And save face from the PR disaster that was the Venus colony mission consisting entirely of men years ago.
Still despite some push back, the women proved themselves all very capable, their months of training payed off and the first phase of humanities first colony on the red planet was complete. They had finished setting up permanent shelter and gardens. Kept in shape. Began the first steps of terraforming (though it would still be many generations before the air was even breathable). And completed the first few test on the affects of long term living on Mars without any major health complications they couldn’t deal with.
Now after all that work it was finally time for phase two of setting up a permanent settlement on another world. The next generation.
Thankfully NASA had again learned from the mistakes of the Venus colony disaster and accounted for this as well. Providing there astronauts with special scientific pills to help them for this event to be only opened once everything else has been established. All the women has signed up for this and knew what was being asked of them and had agreed to it…