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How would a future space colony be ruled?
Here's my take on the influences that will shape the operational characteristics of a Mars colony (the project).[1] The cultural framework, which will capture values and purpose (goals/objectives), and set expectations for behaviors across all members of the project.
Key questions are as follows.
[1.a] What human values are being expressed through the project.
[1.b] What are the specific goals/objectives of the project in the short, medium and long term.
[1.c] How will we know the goals have been achieved.
[1.d] What are the core methods and operational behaviors that will be required to express the values and meet the goals. What are we really expecting of the participants in the project.
[2] The financial framework, which will capture the funding processes and ownership of any financial costs and benefits associated to the project.
The key questions are as follows.
[2.a] Who will bear the financial costs?
[2.b] What are the financial cut off points? (or is the financial commitment open ended?)
[2.c] Who owns any Intellectual Property generated during the execution of the Project?
[3] The operational framework, including and governance frameworks to capture how decisions are made, authorized, and implemented. What is the organisation and who has responsibility and accountability at each point in the organisation.
The key questions are as follows.
[3.a] Who gets the work, which countries, organisations, technology companies, etc.
My expectation is that the answers to these questions will go along way to shaping the organisation and operational rules, 'on the ground,' in a Mars colony.
For some reason, a post of mine in response to Michel seems not to have made it.I doubt a colony can survive just on subsidies from Earth for more than a few years so if the settlers want things from Earth they will have to sell something. In my opinion, elements from mining are unlikely, and worse, the only places where some ores might have been produced, i.e. where there was geochemical processing, are the volcanic regions, and they are unlikely to have any water, and worse, they are thousands of km away from where settlers may prefer to be, for water, air and places to grow food.
The most likely place to find water will be where there were seas, and where the water has sunk into the ground and frozen. We know of areas where this has happened on a massive scale through measuring the permittivities of the subsurface by radar reflections.n Another reason for going there is that is the best place to find salts. If you want soap, and some other simple chemicals, salts are a good start. You can't expect Earth to supply soap for very long.
Graeme, if you want rare earths, go to the Moon, there are massive deposits of KREEP there :-)
My novel suggests another resource buried where there had been seas that would be useful.
If the objective is to colonize Mars as an escape from Earth when its resources are depleted or polluted, or when it can no longer support the population, then monetizing natural resources on Mars isn't going to figure into it. I don't get that whole idea. All we're going to be looking for is establishing a colony and figuring out how it can sustain itself, and financing won't be a problem because all countries will be looking for a solution. First, we'll send scientists and engineers. No one's going to be thinking about social constructs for a while. It will be all about survival. Will it even be possible for us to establish an independent colony on Mars? That's the primary goal.
Scout wrote: "If the objective is to colonize Mars as an escape from Earth when its resources are depleted or polluted, or when it can no longer support the population, then monetizing natural resources on Mars ..."Hi Scout, I think the risks of massive resource depletion, overpopulation and massive disruption from climate change - at least in the next 50 years are overstated.
The rationale that I believe will carry the day for a Mars Colony is pure exploration, and scientific advancement, with associated technical spin-offs generating economic growth within the broader world economy.
Also, having a major collaborative world project would provide a useful balance against conflict and hatred.
Graeme, you don't need "massive" depletion. For example, currently lithium ion batteries need so much cobalt in the cathode. (Other element will do, like Mn, but cobalt is the only one that does what out ha to and doesn't gradually degree the support, so the others simply don't last anywhere near as long.) Current cobalt production is 100,000 t/a. and there is no room for a massive increase. Up until a couple of years ago, they had trouble selling that, but if transport goes with EV, there simply won't be enough to go around. So cobalt batteries will shoot up in price, and others won't last, which means the users of such batteries will have to pay some multiple of their current price. It is not a massive depletion, but it is a problem that there is nowhere near enough for our ambitions. Currently, the world supply of easily accessible indium is more than half gone with these "wipe-screen" phones and tablets. There are about 10 elements with similar problems.Climate change is hard to pick - it is coming, but at what rate remains to be seen, although of course we could do something about that.
One of the things nobody has mentioned so far is what happens of there is more than one settlement. The problem then, with local government, is the two might start to do things trying to get one up on the other.
The thing about materials is that they get substituted, if something becomes too expensive, people stop using it.
The way I'm looking at Mars colonization, is that you would have a set of interlocking frameworks, cultural, financial, operational, technological* which would result in replicated colonies (typically upgraded where feasible) that would spread out as needed, reusing technology where they could and upgrading where they could.*Technology Framework missed above. The available technology, will impact the shape of the organisation.
I believe that competition between settlements on Mars won't happen, for the simple reason that, for a human colony to survive, all resources available will have to be tightly managed by a central administration. Also, instead of separate settlements, I expect a Mars colony, at least until declared self-sufficient (in 100-200 years maybe), to be composed of specialized installations that will complement each other: residential habitats, mining complexes, agricultural complexes, metallurgical complexes, chemicals complexes and on and on. None of those would be able to survive by itself, as they would need to work in concert to make living on Mars possible.
Nik wrote: "Matthew wrote: "....a "backup location" for humanity..."Once there is a backup, some minds may see less reason to care for the source"
Perhaps, but IMHO, none of the minds would be living on Earth. By the time colonizing Mars is a reality, we'll be facing a population crisis of up to 11 billion people while the resources needed to sustain them will be diminishing. And since it will take a long time before asteroids, the Moon and Mars can be tapped for resources, a Mars colony won't change anybody's mind.
Graeme wrote: "Matthew wrote: "Seriously. You're basing our hopes for establishing a colony on Mars on google searches? And people calling themselves the "Woodstock Generation" is hardly a measure of a culture's ..."Google searches don't tell you how important a moment was to a generation, they tell you how often people today look for information on something. I would argue that today's generation googles woodstock because they don't know about it nearly as much as they do the Moon Landing.
And yes, the Apollo program was cancelled because of diminishing funds and weining interest. But that's because six missions and 12 astronauts had been to the Moon in the space of four years. Woodstock happened once and isn't considered the defining moment of the generation nearly as much as Apollo 11 was.
As for the public appetite, consider the number of people who've signed up for MarsOne. When news of their plan was made public, over 100,000 people volunteered to make the one-way trip. |This is not a journey, mind you, it's signing on to stay on Mars permanently. By 2015, they were finally able to narrow the list down to one-hundred candidates.
https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2013...
http://www.mars-one.com/news/press-re...
Elon Musk has attracted no shortage of fame for creating a colony on Mars and people are lining up to volunteer for that too. And NASA's Journey to Mars has secured funding for the past 8 years because the American public wants to see a return to an Apollo-era level of accomplishment and for the US to take the lead in space again.
Why did people lose interest in Apollo? In my opinion, it ended up failing the "What now?" test. Everyone realized it was a huge technological success, but what then? Astronauts in sequence went to the moo, bounced around, and brought back rocks. The rocks produced a lot of very interesting results to a very few scientists, but to the general population it eventually became boring because it became apparent there was no follow-up plan. The objective had been to beat the Russians there - and that was successful. Objective achieved, no more clear objectives, move on.
Graeme, basically you cannot substitute for the properties of elements. You can find other things that do something similar, but never as well.
Michel wrote: "I believe that competition between settlements on Mars won't happen, for the simple reason that, for a human colony to survive, all resources available will have to be tightly managed by a central ..."Yeah, I guess a sort of communism, maybe even with deficits and lines for staples, however as long as morale will remain high, ppl might share the feeling of purpose and accomplishment
Michel seems to be leaning towards the Communist line of thinking in his Mars colony, with major decisions taken by a central administration. In my novel, I went the other way, with as much as possible left to the individuals, with the administration only really ruling on safety issues, and even here, that went to the individuals that had to deal with the consequences, such as search and rescue people. The point was, nobody really knows what will work, so consistent with nobody putting anyone else at risk, the settlers had to be free to try things. I also suggested that the settlement would have to be essentially self-sustaining at a basic level within five years, because if that was not achieved, there would be too many there to bring back if the system collapsed. Of course there would be a requirement for Earth to provide some subsidized things for a long time, like pharmaceuticals, but they had to be able to survive indefinitely after five years. It would be totally unethical to keep sending people there when it was possible they could all die through some oversight and it was impossible to do anything about it. As an aside, in the novel I suggested the biggest single threat to sustainability was the ability to continue to grow food. The soil contains a very limited amount of nitrate. What happens, after few years, when that runs out? It might even depend on my answer.
Mars settlements having to be self-sustaining at a basic level within five years? That is truly Mission Impossible. Just being self-sufficient in food will take longer than that, and that is conditioned on finding very large quantities of water on Mars. Then, you need to develop some industries that would allow you to build yourself more structures and habitats with materials made on Mars (metal parts, plastics, glass, ceramics, etc.), chemical industries to produce or synthesize the miriads of chemical products we use daily, plus other industries to allow you to make your own clothes (and spacesuits), vehicles and mining equipment, plus technical workshops that could maintain and repair everything. All that will take many decades (I foresee about 120+ years needed). After only five years, a human settlement on Mars will be little more than a most basic base barely able to provide (minimal) air and water, plus maybe part of the food needed by its crew, and a very limited ability to maintain and repair some of its systems (using stocks of spares brought from Earth).
Michel, your level is greater than basic. However, you have to be able to make metal, glass, etc to build your domes anyway. The area you will need to feed 200 settlers is quite big, and for various reasons you want it to be done by a number of domes. And if you are bringing more settlers, the area has to expand. You can't bring more than elementary dome material because of the volume. That is because you have to bring the heavy machinery to get everything started, including what I called transporters in my novel - heavy vehicles that can take a load and permit people to live in for a finite time. Remember, you can't get anything from Earth for a further two years after something arrives. I did some back of the envelope calculations, and each ship had a laden weight of 20 Mt. While nobody has criticised that, it may well be too light. That is why you need fusion-powered motorsIf you can't make metal parts, glass, ceramics and cement fairly quickly after getting there you should stay home until you know how to do it. This is why I say it is far too premature to go now. The technical workshops will come with the ships, because they have to be able to fix things anyway.
Given the domes, food production either works or it does not. If it does not, everyone has to come home. You cannot supply food from earth indefinitely, and two years food for 100 settlers occupies a lot of volume. Initially, the food would be pretty basic - in my novel I had the basic foodstuffs coming from genetically modified chlorella - because it is the fastest growing material, so you grew it as you the it. Again, water has to be found, although you can get it from the atmosphere by compressing it and cooling it - cooling is actually easy because it is very cold outside.
You will have to make very basic chemicals there, but things like pharmaceuticals will have to come from Earth, as would replacement batteries if you are going that way. This was the reason in my novel I had motive power supplied by fuel cells, specifically Al/Cl cells that at the time I wrote this were not known, but since then one has been made to work. (The reason for chlorine is it is a liquid at martian temperatures.)
Clothes and plastics are the interesting problem. There is no oil on Mars, and as far as we know, no reduced carbon, so they too will have to come from Earth, so they are not that self-sufficient, but unless a solution to that is known, the problem is indefinite. Anything carbon-based has to be grown, and again there are technical solutions, but there could be nothing other than the most rudimentary chemical industry in the first five years.
What I meant by basic survival/sustainability was that the people there must be able to process materials to make metals, etc, build their domes, grow food, and thus at least stay alive. Obviously it will take longer to do everything. In my novel, the key was the thermonuclear energy generation, the magnetohydrodynamic element separation (which meant that simple dust could be used as a raw material to make metals such as iron, magnesium and aluminium, together with lots of other elements in lesser volumes, while the silica, sodium, calcium and some zinc would make the dome material.) As it happens, I also predicted the settlers finding something that in principle will solve the nitrogen and the clothes problem, but of course I don't actually know it is there.
Ian, you wrote '...a laden weight of 20 Mt...' Did you mean 20 metric tons or 20 million tons? To me, 20 metric tons would be ridiculously low for such a ship (but about what the NASA's Orion craft weighs). On the other hand, twenty million tons does not sound exagerated, in view of all that would be asked from it.
Michel, sorry. In science, a capital M is the standard abbreviation for Mega - I meant a laden mass of 20 million tonne. Sorry, in should also have put mass because in space there is no weight! (I meant weight on Earth.)
Ian wrote: " Remember, you can't get anything from Earth for a further two years after something arrives...."You could run multiple supply missions at 3 month intervals bringing in basic stuff and expansion stuff. The flights would be "convoy," style.
So, multiple ships would be in space at the same time, just at different locations in the Mars-Earth pathway, but set up to arrive in order, at a defined interval.
Graeme, I am assuming using a Hohmann transfer orbit (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hohmann...)Basically this is an elliptical orbit around the sun where Earth is on the ellipse (perihelion) when you set off, and Mars is on it when you arrive (aphelion). It is the lowest energy transfer because it uses the sun as the only frame of reference. Choose any other path, and you are not fighting earth's gravity - you have to deal with the sun's as well, and that is a lot stronger. The point of the transfer orbit is that when you leave the Earth, you are already on the correct elliptical orbit as far as the sun is concerned - you merely have to fight earth's gravity. The reason for choosing this, even with powerful motors, is that if you want to settle Mars, you will take as much stuff as you possibly can, so you need the route with then lowest power requirement you can find.
Is it possible to do a convoy structure using the Hohmann or is it a case of everything has to leave at the same time?
More or less at the same time. the odd week difference won't matter and minor changes will only require minor additional power. When NASA sends missions, sometimes they are delayed for a week or so. You could certainly send a number of ships in sequence, but the rough 26 month schedule has to be followed.
Ian wrote: "You want important raw materials, such as salts...."I just had to smile at this, thinking of Mars in terms of the next stage in the spice trades. I can already see companies selling "Martian salt" on our supermarket shelves next to the Sea Salt.
J. J., as you might expect, an optimal settlement will have all sorts of things that might seem bizarre. You can't make soap without salts, and Earth is unlikely to send things as simple as soap indefinitely. But there is actually more to it. Provided you can manage the required spare heat (in my novel, I use space mirrors for one small settlement) one of the developments is to grow seaweed in a "sea" made by melting water in a crater with a dome over the top. The reason is that algae are the fastest growing plants on Earth, and so plant-eating fish and marine animals are the best source of carnivorous protein. Otherwise you may have to be vegetarian - infrastructure to keep land-based animals would be extraordinarily expensive.
I have limited understanding of the things you guys are discussing, so this is probably not applicable. But what about 3D printers in 25-50 years or so? Do you have to transport everything, or can you construct some things once you get there with printers?
You still need to have the raw material used to do the 3D printing. Also, 3D is worth zero when times come to manufacture electronic parts.
I think this discussion has definitely laid some interesting threads for a possible science fiction story (or series). Nobody say "patent pending"! There's still lot's to discuss ;)Speaking of which, how do you think a self-governing Mars would eventually fit into the Solar System? Would Earth try to strong-arm them, use them as a source of raw materials and cheap labor? Or could there be a mutually-beneficial relationship, one which could be extended to other worlds as well?
Fitting into the solar system? In a later novel I had the countries on Earth form a Federation, and Mars had a representative on the supreme Council, to ensure that nobody used Mars other than as a settlement. But to be honest, this was more for plot purposes than any deep insight.Was for Scout's suggestion, there is no doubt 3D printers will be very valuable, but I doubt they will be the entire solution.
Matthew wrote: "I think this discussion has definitely laid some interesting threads for a possible science fiction story (or series). Nobody say "patent pending"! There's still lot's to discuss ;)
Speaking of wh..."
Pssit! Already on it!
As for how a self-governing Mars would fit in the Solar System, I see all Human space colonies and settlements being parts with Earth of a grand Human Federation, like provinces in a country.
Speaking of wh..."
Pssit! Already on it!
As for how a self-governing Mars would fit in the Solar System, I see all Human space colonies and settlements being parts with Earth of a grand Human Federation, like provinces in a country.
Which will then rebel, as the American colonies did against England . . . ?
That is an eventual possibility, considering the history of Humanity.
Scout wrote: "Which will then rebel, as the American colonies did against England . . . ?"That's what I am wondering, and I would hope that future generations would learn the lessons of the past. When establishing colonies, do make sure to respect the people in said colonies and incorporate them into a political framework. You know, rather than trying to keep them down, then deal with the inevitable revolution and fallout.
Taxes to pay for the Earth Federation may become a bone if contention with the Martian colonists
Graeme wrote: "Taxes to pay for the Earth Federation may become a bone if contention with the Martian colonists"In my novel, there were no taxes paid by Mars. This is not an avoidance of the US history, but more an acknowledgement that the Federation wouldn't be doing anything for mars, other than supply stuff, which by that time, would be paid for. (That was about 150 yrs after settlement.) In fact, the way this Federation worked was the top Council did not raise taxes other than that necessary to have its meetings, and to support key administrative offices. The general taxes were till raised by countries, administered and spent in the same countries. All the Federation did was to set the rules and act as referees between countries, and between the corporations that controlled production, etc. Their role was not to do things, but to ensure that no country beggared another, so to speak, and of course, all countries had to provide the same rights to all their citizens. It was a bit complicated, but the idea was that all the different factions had to stay in balance, and the Federation Council ensured it did. That was the theory. The plot of the story, naturally, involved people trying to game that system.
With regards to how the colony is ruled. will the colonists have "private property?"
Graeme wrote: "With regards to how the colony is ruled. will the colonists have "private property?""Of course, although the first ones to get there will make some money by renting to the later ones to arrive. There should be some form of planning, and buildings, etc, would need to be of a certain standard to ensure there are no air leaks, etc. So there has tone an authority that checks on how things are being built.
There is one problem with complexes. People entering from the outside will have to go through a "dedusting" because the fine regolith could be very abrasive, and it has to be kept from airlock seals. Also, you don't want people wandering around outside in a dust storm, not because, as in "The Martian", they could get injured as the air pressure is so low the forces could never exceed a very gentle breeze here, but they could get lost, and if they had to change air bottles, there might be a danger with pressure seals.
Michel wrote: "I would compare the leadership and management of such an early Mars colony to what you find today in Antarctic scientific research bases...."I was out walking the dog this morning and naturally my mind turned to this thread.
With Michel's comment above, I think this model is a likely model to be used, but noting that the economics of the operation of an Antarctic base is wholly dependent upon an external sponsor (typically a country) providing all the economic needs of the base.
So a Martian base would initially be staffed by a select group of professionals who would be operating on a 'mission,' basis with the typical rules and formalities that are in place today.
To my mind, the shift from the "Antarctic Base," model to a colony occurs when the base becomes economically self sufficient and is able to grow and support future generations of colonists.
At that point, there is a local economy, and with it a local political economy, which is likely to explore all the options that humans have used in the past.
That is exactly how I envision it, Graeme. However, for such a base to become a self-sufficient colony will most probably take many decades (over a century in my opinion) of hard, persistent work and support from Earth. It is not the kind of project that you could treat on an on again off again basis or that you could play budget politics with it. You either go for the long haul or not at all.
I regard the "mission" model as not a settlement. The same in Antarctica - the missions there are there eon the basis that there will NOT be a civilian settlement. In the novel I referred to, the idea was to settle, and the mission stage had already been on Mars for some length of time.A Martian settlement would always need help from Earth for a very long time, for things like pharmaceuticals, and the very latest technology, but the beginning settlement will have to be basically self-sufficient because nothing more can come for two years, and when such ships do come, they will bring more settlers, assuming it is decided to continue. The problem is that everything you need people to do needs backup. A surgeon cannot really take out his own appendix. But I doubt settlers would want a military style oversight, at least after the very basics were in place. There would always be rules, of course, but the early settlers would fix them. No settler would want to have to go and rescue some incompetent recent arrival that got lost out in the wastes. Or have someone do something that would upset the equilibria in place in the domes, or whatever.
Why is it that "nothing more can come for two years"?
Scout wrote: "Why is it that "nothing more can come for two years"?"Because of orbital dynamics. You want the launch craft to get as much benefit fro the direction Earth is going in, and Mars has to be in the right position at the end. The Martian orbit is roughly two years long (slightly longer) and there is basically one convenient alignment every two years. You could try other time, but the energy requirements get horrendous.
Thanks for that. Shows how much I know :-) I was reading something about space travel the other day, and self-replicating robots were mentioned as the advance guard. How about that?
The mathematician John von Neuman regarded self-replicating robots as a complete disaster - they would eventually fill the Universe! Probably a bit of an exaggeration, but you have to control their replication or they will control yours. I have one futuristic novel devoted to that thought.
Ian wrote: "The mathematician John von Neuman regarded self-replicating robots as a complete disaster - they would eventually fill the Universe! Probably a bit of an exaggeration, but you have to control their..."There's a scifi show from earlier in the century call Lexx, it was basically the Canadian version of Farscape. In the second season, they had a villain who put his mind into a robotic body that controlled, self-replicating drone arms. He spent the season spreading out across the universe, consuming matter to replicate more drone arms. By the end of the season, he had consumed the entire universe - the only things in the universe were countless numbers of drone arms, and our main characters and their ship. As cheesy a show as it was, they actually did some cool things with the idea toward the end of the season.
Let's say that we send self-replicating robots to Mars. They're programmed to do specific tasks and don't have free will; instead, they construct habitats fit for humans. We arrive on a planet immediately habitable and populated by a programmable work force.J.J., those countless drone arms are going to give me bad dreams :-)
And at least now the US will have a space military to quell it. :D
Yeah, I read that today. Perhaps it deserves its own thread.
The view I expressed in my novel was yes, there was an initial scientific base, and it learned the basics that had to be done to stay alive, etc, but a settlement was something where, assuming it worked, everyone stayed.
There is no doubt there is plenty of water on Mars. There is plenty of water in the polar ice caps, but that would not be a popular place to stay. Radar (by measuring the permittivity at different depths) has shown that there is a major deposit in the Acidalia region, but there is most likely to be ice in many other places, only smaller deposits. The surface at Hellas has all the signs of there having been a sea there, so that is why I put my settlement there in my novel. Water will be found in larger deposits where it had sunk into the ground and frozen, and the most likely place would be where there had been seas, or lakes.
There may be mineralization well to the east - the land around the Tyrrhena and Hadriaca Pateras may have plutonic extrusions as well as the volcanic activity, but it is rather unlikely there would be water there because close examination of the land shows evidence of flowing water, which eventually seems to have ended up in the Hellas crater, as you can tell from what looks like the erosion debris that that would be deposited when a river ends up in a sea. But the mineralization would be a long way away from water. Also, it is not clear that the minerals would be anything of special interest to Earth. Many of the rarer elements tend to be concentrated by plate tectonic activity, and that does not occur on Mars.
As an aside Graeme, if you want rare earths, the Moon is the best option. There are large deposits of something called KREEP on the surface - which stands for potassium, rare earth and phosphorus.
The other reason for settling near where there had been seas. You want important raw materials, such as salts. In my opinion, there will be something more valuable for the settlement also, but we shall have to wait and see.