Scivillage.com Casual Discussion Science Forum

Who Owns Mars? Elon Musk and the governance of space.
https://arcdigital.media/who-owns-mars-1b03190048fd

EXCERPT: . . . While the first wave of travelers will be focused on securing the most basic conditions for sustenance — air, water, food, shelter — the next wave will utilize expertise and ingenuity to enhance those conditions. [...] But as the colonial population increases, the colony will presumably start to resemble our planet’s major cities. While colonizers won’t expect the types of amenities of a New York or a Tokyo, they will begin to expect more services than an Antarctic outpost. Soon, mandatory personnel will give way to — in likely succession — wealthy tourists, entrepreneurs, economic migrants, opportunists, and…criminals. [...]

Assuming SpaceX, the United States, China, the E.U., Russia, and India are all potential players, there could also be a few other corporations in the mix. SpaceX may be the first pioneer, but other landing outfits will likely follow. Will they coordinate the logistics of this human colony back on Earth? Will they cluster around the same zones and pool their resources and talents? Will they focus on staking out territory akin to 19th century European colonists? Will they vie for technological, military, and economic dominance? Which model of colonization will each entity promote?

If you ask [Elon] Musk:

Most likely the form of government on Mars would be a direct democracy, not representative. So it would be people voting directly on issues. And I think that’s probably better, because the potential for corruption is substantially diminished in a direct versus a representative democracy.

But how much thought has he really given this issue of governance in space? He certainly implies he’s thought about it a lot. While we terrestrially-minded humans are warring over the existentially meaningless definition of our individual and group identities, or “one sad problem after another,” Musk seems preoccupied with what he characterizes as the inspirational goals of greater humanity....

MORE: https://arcdigital.media/who-owns-mars-1b03190048fd

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Here’s What We’ll Do in Space by 2118
http://nautil.us/blog/heres-what-well-do...ce-by-2118

EXCERPT: In a mere 60 years, we of Earth have gone from launching our first spacecraft, to exploring every planet and major moon in our solar system, to establishing an international, long-lived fleet of robotic spacecraft at the Moon and Mars. What will we do in the next 100 years? With such rapid expansion of capability, it may seem difficult to tell what the next 60 years will bring, much less the next century. But we never do anything in space without first imagining what we could do, so in that spirit, here is an attempt to predict—and nudge us into—the future....

MORE: http://nautil.us/blog/heres-what-well-do...ce-by-2118

Mars would be corrupted from the get go.

After all those that go would be loyalists to someone (a person, or company) or something (an ideology). If there intentions were to usurp as a colony, the outcome would be they would be flagged as a potential threat to such a project and be forced to remain here on earth as a resident dissenter.

Governance and even Money's could be floated far before anyone ever gets there. (For instance a Martian council could make plans from earth without ever stepping foot on the planet as long as their plans didn't attempt to undermine the status quo.)

50 billion (estimated) stars in Milky Way, enough for each person on Earth to be given 7. Should each star average 5 planets then each of us get 35 planets plus all the moons orbiting them. That's just our galaxy, so now the deep field Hubble photographs seem to indicate there are trillions of galaxies and countless planets, all for us to divvy up equally. Sounds like enough to keep everyone happy but we'll probably fight over the choice cuts. Just MHO.

(May 12, 2018 10:01 AM)stryder Wrote: [ -> ]Mars would be corrupted from the get go. After all those that go would be loyalists to someone (a person, or company) or something (an ideology). [...]

The initial limited resources and lack of retail goods competition will almost certainly engender the Martian equivalent of a "Company Store" and its manner of debt entrapment.

Company Store
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_store

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I don't see a whole lot of legal difference between establishing a Moon or Mars base or settlement, and establishing research stations in Antarctica. There are dozens of those, some of them quite large, and all of them seem to operate under the flag of the country that established them.

https://www.ats.aq/e/ats.htm

It remains to be seen whether Elon Musk's Mars settlement will fly the US flag or acknowledge the authority of the US government. It certainly doesn't seem to be an attempt to claim all of Mars on behalf of Washington DC.

If the Chinese or somebody established a base somewhere else on Mars, I doubt very much whether Musk's people would launch an attack on them in hopes of driving them off the planet. What would happen is probably what happens in Antarctica routinely, and the newcomers would be welcomed and arrangements would be made to cooperate.

(May 12, 2018 06:06 PM)C C Wrote: [ -> ]

(May 12, 2018 10:01 AM)stryder Wrote: [ -> ]Mars would be corrupted from the get go. After all those that go would be loyalists to someone (a person, or company) or something (an ideology). [...]

The initial limited resources and lack of retail goods competition will almost certainly engender the Martian equivalent of a "Company Store" and its manner of debt entrapment.

Company Store
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_store

We might compare a remote Mars settlement with Antarctica. This is what Elon Musk's Mars settlement is apt to look like and what life there might be like. (Pretty spartan.)  

Here's part of the main US settlement at McMurdo.



McMurdo has a single general store with all kinds of antarctic t-shirts, a surprisingly large liquor section and plenty of junk food... (hey, these are Americans, liquor and junk food are two of our three essential food groups along with coffee) and a free "thrift store" in a shack, filled with stuff that residents don't want to take back with them and leave for new arrivals to take. There's another smaller store at Scott Base, the New Zealand antarctic facility adjacent to and contiguous with McMurdo.

McMurdo has a surprisingly homey little library with about 8,000 volumes and a staff of volunteers. They say that there's a separate science library in the science lab building.



Since they are Americans, there's a mall-style food court that they still call "the Galley" (from the Navy days) which looks like sort of a social center (you can't socialize properly without food). There are also two bars in McMurdo and a third at Scott base. The Kiwis have "American night" every thursday and apparently it's become a thing, with shuttle buses and everything. It's packed.  

Pretty much all the Americans in Antarctica work for the National Science Foundation in one way or another, so it's very much a company town with sorta-military overtones. But it doesn't seem all that bad, lots of esprit-de-corps.

McMurdo is the main supply and transport center for outposts all over the continent.

Here's some cosmic microwave background radiation experiments at the geographic South Pole (many hundreds of miles from McMurdo) that McMurdo serves. The South Pole has turned into a hotbed of astronomical research, since the high Antarctic plateau has some of the best "seeing" conditions on Earth. The huge 'ice cube' neutrino detector is located there too. On Mars there will probably be scientific outposts scattered all over the planet as well, at interesting geological and (hopefully) biological features.



The USAF supplies air transport for Americans in Antarctica (economy class, crammed in cargo planes alongside pallets of supplies) and anyone flying from point to point in the continent has to be stylishly outfitted with the latest fashions and has to have had survival training.



Just think about what people traveling from point to point on Mars will have to carry (spacesuits!) and the kind of training they will need.

(May 13, 2018 05:13 AM)Yazata Wrote: [ -> ]We might compare a remote Mars settlement with Antarctica. This is what Elon Musk's Mars settlement is apt to look like and what life there might be like. (Pretty spartan.)  Here's part of the main US settlement at McMurdo. [...] The USAF supplies air transport for Americans in Antarctica (economy class, crammed in cargo planes alongside pallets of supplies) and anyone flying from point to point in the continent has to be stylishly outfitted with the latest fashions and has to have had survival training. Just think about what people traveling from point to point on Mars will have to carry (spacesuits!) and the kind of training they will need.

Yep, the comparison leaps to a whole other level at the Red Planet. The air can be breathed at Antarctica and there is water available. The threat of hypothermia is ever present but it doesn't require a bulky spacesuit ("avoid punctures") and oxygen tank to do something outside. Despite the ozone hole at the bottom of the world there's not the amount of ultraviolet and other radiation (cosmic rays) that afflicts the surface of Mars.

No supplies may come in during its winter months, but travel to Antarctica doesn't involve an outrageous amount of distance to deliver them during the summer. Terrestrial ships and aircraft can devote vastly more storage area to goods and generator fuel than typical spaceships carrying the same. Plus the former aren't as technically challenging to navigate and land at an airstrip or dock at a seaport as the latter. ("Routine" transport or such without an extraordinarily excessive amount of worry is actually achievable on the frozen continent during the milder season.)

Maintaining greenhouses could be more difficult on the Red Planet than those existing at Antarctica. A research station that tried to mimic Martian conditions in the American desert struggled just to produce unappetizing greens that still lacked the quantity to support a colony. The bottom line is that a Martian station or settlement will have to largely support itself as it grows in population, which would usually mean commodities and resources hovering at the border of scarcity rather than being surplus and cheap. With luxuries being very rare. Workers have to be disciplined and balanced in what they consume and recreationally purchase at Antarctica, too, but in modern times there's not remotely the sense of dancing dangerously at the edge there as there would be on Mars. The rest of the human race and its capacities are still feasibly available and sharing the same planet with regards to the residents of South Pole country.

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