Ownership of mars

The ownership of Mars Or The real Martians This little article is inspired by an article I read on

BBC. It is a fascinating little piece about when (not if) we as humans will settle Mars. Who will be the ‘owners’ of Mars? What will happen after some years and a few generations having been born there?

The article references that Mars colonisation will in all likelihood happen anytime between 2027 and 2060. Some of the players are NASA, Elon Musk (Yes the one of Tesla fame and born in Pretoria), ESA and China. Probably others like Bigelow will also put in a trot.

The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 says that no nation state can claim ownership of outer space or planets. But is not clear on private companies. What about Bigelows hotel chain Budget Suites?

Let us just look at these business people for a moment. According to Wikipedia: “Elon Reeve Musk; born June 28, 1971 is a South African-born Canadian-American business magnate, engineer, inventor and investor. He is the CEO and CTO of SpaceX, CEO and product architect of Tesla Motors, and chairman of SolarCity as well as co-chairman of OpenAI. He is the founder of SpaceX and a co-founder of Zip2, PayPal, and Tesla Motors. He has also envisioned a conceptual high-speed transportation system known as the Hyperloop and has proposed a VTOL supersonic jet aircraft with electric fan propulsion. He is the wealthiest person in Los Angeles” What about Mr. Robert Bigelow: “Robert T. Bigelow (born 1945) is an American hotel and aerospace entrepreneur. He owns the hotel chain

Budget Suites of America and is the founder of Bigelow Aerospace. Bigelow has indicated that he plans to spend up to US$500 million to develop the first commercial space station, the amount that NASA expends on a single space shuttle mission” Do we see where this can lead? What if Mr. Trump wants to build casinos on Mars? What if Bill Gates gets in on it? The all have a reputation of getting things done and they have the money to back it.

Let us turn back to the BBC article.

Jacob Haqq-Misra, researcher at Blue Marble Space Institute of Science is quoted by BBC. In essence, his claim is that Mars should be independent from the start; the people on Mars will be Martians, not Earthlings anymore.

The colonies can trade with each other or Earth, but on their own terms.

The claim is also that it will change a lot with people having been born on Mars and never having been to Earth.

Let us look at reality. It is difficult to see that a colony funded by say the US or China will not somehow be accountable to the nation state. Never mind all the treaties in this world.

Is there a precedence? Oh yes: Antarctica. Antarctica is declared not to be long to any nation state, but that has not prevented animosity among the science stations scattered there. Russia even planted a flag on the bottom of the Arctic sea (no difference really) and that got all up in arms. But the claim was made anyway.

OK, so let us look at another example: Musk or Bigelow get their Mars colony going. Bigelow is building a range of hotels (Budget Suites Mars)

across Mars. Tours are arranged around the landscape and the usual trimmings, like Kruger Park, just different.

Mars will be owned by the companies (big Business) as they can run it more efficiently and with a profit (sic!). Each colony will account to the Earth company and the shareholders.

So who owns the land where the hotels are?

Can we see a precedence here? Oh yes. India was governed or colonised or whatever term we will use by the East India Company from London.

Whichever way it starts the Martians will revolt at some time when they see that they are just exploited. We will then see that all colonies will unite and we have the United Colonies of Mars (UCM).

It started small but they did build up an army, a government, municipalities, judicial system and things. In the running also interfering heavily, but that is another story. So yes, a private company ‘owned’ a country far bigger than Britain and with some 400 million people.

Terraforming of Mars In a previous article we did a lot on the terraforming of Mars. Mars can become another ‘green and blue’ planet in some 300-400 years. The same time frame as van Riebeck (1652) until now (2016). So there is the precedence after all. Long term? Actually not, if we are honest about it.

Where will Mars then go?

Impossible to say, really. But the entire concept is having some built-in tension and unless that somehow gets sorted before we take off to Mars, it can only get worse.

We have three different scenarios really.

Mars will be partitioned into pieces as Africa was carved up among the ‘Powers’ at the Berlin conference in 1884. The nation states will win and there is no space for either companies or ‘smaller’ entries.

Let us just look at the revolt at Mars. Precedence?

USA getting formed from a revolt against the (mis) rule of Britain. That was easy.

Let us look at the colony scenario: We might see colonies springing up on Mars with anything from 2,000 to 10,000 in the first years. Let us be generous: Let us call it 50,000 people from all nations and companies by 2050 and 500,000 by 2080.

Of these we should see 100,000 as being born on Mars and the 400,000 coming from Earth.

A population on Mars of 500,000 is like a small country on Earth. Let us then assume a normal birth rate (4 kids per family) and we will have one generation later 1,000,000 – that is a million – on Mars, not counting additional emigration by 2110.

Let us just be generous again and add another 500,000 emigrants.

Mars by 2110 having a population of 1,5 million?

That is in-between Swaziland and Botswana. Fascinating thought, really.

into a cow to let it turn into meat is rather un-economical. Rather eat the veg’s ourselves.

Ok, next one. You are 16 today. We blast you off to Mars in 2027. You are 27 years then. In 2087 you are sitting and telling the grandkids about your childhood on Earth. The grand-kids could be 25-28 years old. It could even be the great-grand kids. What are you going to tell them? Will they even understand?

“Are you telling me that in your childhood you could be outside without the oxygen mask? And that you did not need heavy clothes? And it was warm outside?”

“Are you telling me that you could swim in the ocean? Our ocean is acid but it will change, isn’t it?”

“Are you telling me that you had trees as high as a house? Our trees are not there yet, but it will also change, isn’t it?”

What will you tell them? Will they even understand? “””” Contributions: "Eso1509a - Mars planet" by ESO/M. Kornmesser - Artist’s impression of Mars four billion years ago.

Licensed under CC BY 4.0 via Commons "Mars atmosphere 2" by NASA - http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/multimedia/gallery/Mars__atmosphere.jpg. Licensed under Public Domain via Commons - https://commons.

What type of government will emerge on Mars? If United Colonies of Mars can be a reality (I like the UCM acronym) we start an entire planet as one nation. Racism ought not to be a part of it. India, China, US, Europe, Russia and maybe Brazil will all have a stake in it. The gene pool will be rather integrated in just a few generations, so everybody will be of the same skin colour and hair texture.

Just imagine: we will all look like Brazilians.

Will a separate class of leaders emerge? An elite?

Or will democracy be so close to the people that ‘kings’ cannot grab power?

What will a school look like? What will be taught?

What will a history class be all about?

Will there be animals for food or will we be vegetarians? Remember, that putting good vegetables

"Sol454 Marte spirit" by NASA/JPL - http:// marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/press/ spirit/20050420a.html. Licensed under Public Domain via Commons - https://commons.

"PIA16068 - Mars Curiosity Rover - Aeolis Mons 20120817" by NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS - http:// photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA16068.jpg.

Licensed under Public Domain via Commons -