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Should a Mars Colony Be Independent? (bbc.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The BBC has an article about a recent essay (PDF) from researcher Jacob Haqq-Misra, who argues that any future colonies established on Mars should be independent from nations or corporations on Earth. He suggests that such colonists be entirely disentangled from Earth, to the point of revoking their Earthbound citizenship. Haqq-Misra also thinks we should establish laws on Earth to prevent governments, companies, and individuals from interfering with the politics or economics of Mars. That might be harder to do; clearly, even innocent communications between family members can have an effect, and surely there will be a continuous flow of supplies to help support a colony. Where would we draw the line? It may be hard to secure investments for a Mars colony if it is guaranteed to cut ties with those spending the resources to build it. At the same time, enforcing a relationship seems impossible at interplanetary distances. Still, we're starting to ramp up our Mars exploration plans, and it's a good idea to start debating these issues now.
We haven't been doing anything other than the space equivalent of NASCAR since the 1970s as far as human spaceflight goes.
Get back to me when we can actually put a man back on the Moon again, let alone Mars.
Mars looks pretty barren and especially devoid of water and food. The colonies would be heavily reliant on shipments from earth for quite awhile.
And no religion too.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
They'll have no exports. that means no source of cash to buy the things that Mars can't provide -- like modern medical supples, updated electronics, and other manufactured goods.
They'll also have no ability to pay for the rocket fuel to get to Mars in the first place, much less for additional trips to bring in new colonists when the PhD aquaculture guy who was running the potatoes gets himself run over by a rover.
Geeks really like to dream big about space, and the hate the bullshit conventional human institutions provide; but the problem is that the only sources of big-level funding for space have to be large-scale human institutions. Which means dealing with bullshit.
No: No, we aren't. A few dozen enthusiasts on the internet talking about how they would like to go to Mars does not equal a "ramp up". Fantasy stories wherein earth's technologies can be replicated without the base materials and manufacturing that earth provides does not equal a "ramp up".
You mean no one on Earth would have any responsibility to assist, rescue, or supply the Mars colony? Why would a country want to assist foreign citizens living elsewhere for free?
They'll have no exports. that means no source of cash to buy the things that Mars can't provide -- like modern medical supples, updated electronics, and other manufactured goods.
This may not be a problem.
GDP per capita has skyrocketed in recent decades, and would appear to be on an exponential curve. We're just about at the point where don't need as many workers as we have, to supply everyone with what they want.
The take-away is that automation and efficiency will continue to rise, so that less will be needed to make a self-sufficient colony. Machines which could mine raw materials and build more machines, for instance.
A breakthrough in AI would be enough to put us over the top.
Honestly I think history shows that not cutting national ties when entering a new territory is ideal. There is going to be a far greater need for supplies for those starting out on a new planet than those starting out on a new continent. If you were to go to the extreme of cutting citizenship, funding or any help you can basically say we are not going to colonize any new territory in the future. The reason independence is important is when a people do not have a say in policies that are implemented concerning them. An example of this is the 13 colonies in America when they were still loyal to the British Crown; they did not have representation in parliament, and they had to abide by what parliament handed down. This led to a very unfavorable situation for the colonists prompting the American Revolutionary War. The ideal solution is to either give these new colonists representation in their own governments here on earth, or to allow them to become independent when they decide to do so much like what was done with other colonies throughout the 20th century.
tl;dr Independence should not be enforced by the governments or people here but chosen by the colonists there.
Unless a government or some trillionaire donates the money with no strings attached, whoever pays for a Mars colony will probably determine whether it's independent or not. It's a nice thought that it would be independent, but unless the person saying that is donating the money, it's only a nice thought.
I think Mars ain't the kind of place to raise your kids. In fact, it's cold as Hell.
How will an independent Mars colony earn the kind of money it will take to pay the freight for sending things they need to survive from Earth to Mars? It will be the classic coal mining operation just relocated to Mars- people will work all day on Mars doing whatever it is they do and they will earn less than enough to pay their debt to the shipping company that sends them their food, clothing, etc. They will be slaves. Maybe we should send prisoners there...
The whole thing sounds silly when we don't even have a lunar colony yet. If either becomes self-sufficient it will be based on exporting mineral resources, and of course it'll be easier to set up lunar colonies - and easier to transport materials from there to Earth. So let's talk about independence for lunar colonists first.
They'll have to drop thousands of ice asteroids first, to get a little ocean where they can throw some tea in before becoming independent.
Eventually a Mars colony will become independent, when it is economically self-sufficient. But only Martians can do that. Just look at the British colonies as an example. America declared it's independence when it was able to and was forced to. If we had waited for the Brits to "give" us independence, we would still be waiting. And in the case of Mars, it will take a long time because self-sufficiency will be difficult.
"He took a duck in the face at 250 knots." -- William Gibson, Pattern Recognition
TFA opens its abstract with the observation that
Humanity has the knowledge to solve its problems but lacks the moral insight to implement these ideas on a global scale.
This, in and by itself, is the most thoughtful remark by an American in 2015 I've read. From there, the author develops his stance that Mars should be liberated before any human lands on it. His train of thought and chained arguments avoid any extremism, be it political or philosophical and cite such successful devices as the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea ( to which, BTW, the USA is not a party, alas ). In brief: the author makes an excellent point, parting from a single philosophical argument. We need a couple more like him.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
If we had waited for the Brits to "give" us independence, we would still be waiting.
Why? They've 'given' independence to other former colonies e.g. Canada, Australia. They've even offered it to Scotland which is part of mainland Britain (Scots turned it down in the referendum but they weren't required to wage war to get it). Seizing independence in the circumstances that existed at the time was perfectly reasonable (as was waiting by those countries who were happy to) but I don't think it's reasonable to conclude that we'd still be waiting now.
Canada and Australia are not independent. They still swear allegiance to the Royal House of Britain.
Canada is fully independent. It is no less correct to say that Britain swears allegiance to the Royal House of Canada. The queen has two, independent titles: Queen of the UK and Queen of Canada. I expect Australia has a similar deal.
The advantage with Canada's independence is that we got it by asking nicely and without anyone having to die, we got to keep a parliamentary democracy which had the benefits of centuries of adjustments to make it function well and we got a constitution with a wonderful clause that stops those with wealth using it to block laws they don't like.
You may disagree but I would argue that Canada's path to independence worked out far better than that chosen by her neighbour and, if anything, that neighbour slowed the path to independence down since for a considerable time Canada wanted and needed British protection against her young, violent neighbour's territorial desires.
You just need to go at night