New Mars Forums

There are three parts to my “politics on Mars” response. First, what should the government on Mars look like. Second, why that model is the only workable solution. Third, why this entire exercise is important, and how it directly relates to the goal of getting humans to Mars in the first place.

1) What should the government on Mars look like?

I’m in favor of self-government, for any future Mars colony. It might be necessary to use a military-type command structure (the way NASA does) on the first few Mars missions, but after the arrival of maybe 20-50 colonists, self-governance needs to begin ASAP.

Beyond self-governance, we have to keep it simple. Most of the nitty-gritty details would have to be ironed out by the colonists themselves. It isn’t up to us. If we try to get everyone involved in humans-to-Mars mission to agree on the specifics of governance for a future Mars colony, we’ll never get off the ground. To those idealists who envision some type of utopia, I would invite you to think about what you’re asking. This isn’t going to a Right-wing colony, or Left-wing. It isn’t going to be a communist colony or a libertarian colony. There are going to be individual colonists from every corner of the political landscape. They have to be able to form a government and ultimately work together.

What I can say is that any Mars government should be formed along the lines of current republican democracies here on Earth. We have a pretty good idea what works and what doesn’t. Proportional Representation is generally more successful than First-Past-the-Post (if you don’t know what those things are, please Google them yourself please). Separation of church and state is a good idea. Freedom of religion and non-religion is a good idea. Freedom of speech is a good idea. Basically, look at any constitution of any modern, republican democracy on Earth and you’ll find similar provisions. Assuming the people chosen as the first Mars colonists are reasonably sane, we can expect them to figure out how to govern themselves appropriately.

2) Why is self-government in the style of a republican democracy the only workable solution?

The only real options for a future Mars government are as follows….

1) semi-independence; limited self-government on behalf of an Earth-based government.
2) full independence and self-government
3) corporate oversight
4) direct government oversight.

I submit that option 1 and 2 are really
the only possible choices (I tend to favor option 2, because I think getting to Mars will require international cooperation. More on that later) Further, any self-government on Mars ought to be democratic for obvious reasons (I doubt any member of the Mars Society envisions a brutal dictatorship as the type of government they’d like to see on a future Mars colony).

Why is some form of self-government the only viable option? To understand why, we must first examine what the Mars Society stands for. In the course of examining the mission of the Mars Society, I’ll explain the reasons why corporate oversight and direct government oversight would spell disaster for any future Mars colony.

The Mars Society doesn’t exist solely to send humans to Mars by any possible means, on anyold mission. The Mars Society exists because Dr. Robert Zubrin and people like him have a vision of a certain type of humans-to-Mars mission. Dr. Zubrin has repeatedly criticized NASA’s so-called flags-and-footsteps missions (e.g., the moon landings). Simply getting humans to Mars is no guarantee that humans will actually stay on Mars. If it were, humans would be living on Luna (the moon) right now.

The vision of the Mars Society is for humans to go to Mars, stay on Mars, and colonize Mars. We wouldn’t want to simply go to Mars, put up a flag, take some pictures and come home, never to return again. I think Dr. Zubrin has done an amazing job over the years of driving home his objections to a flags-and-footsteps type mission. However, there’s a hypothetical scenario that I think the Mars Society has yet to properly consider.

The scenario: instead of a flags-and-footsteps type mission, let’s imagine that a government agency (NASA, the Russian Space Agency, etc.) or a private corporation (SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, etc.) succeeds in setting up a permanent human outpost on Mars. The question the Mars Society needs to be asking is, “Would a government-run and/or corporate-run outpost on Mars eventually lead to full-scale human colonization of the red planet?”. The answer to this question is unfortunately, “Probably not.”

Why? That’s simple. Look at contemporary and historical examples.

First, look at the International Space Station (ISS). Here we have a space station, in low Earth orbit, which is opeerated jointly by multiple nations. The nations involved operate the ISS via government agencies like NASA, the European Space Agency, the Russian Space Agency, etc.

Right now, the nations in charge of the ISS have the technology to give average humans access to low-Earth orbit. The ISS could’ve been designed with tourists in mind. It could’ve been built larger, with a kind of hotel or something similar. Previous space stations, operated by single nations, could have been designed that way too. There are plenty of private companies who, if given access to space via American and Russian launch facilities, would be more than happy to design tourist attractions in low-Earth orbit, and maybe even permanent housing. But has NASA or any other national space agency done anything like that? No. Absolutely not.

Contrary to all logic, space agencies continue to refuse to allow private individuals access to space (this is contrary to logic since many wealthy individuals have offered substantial sums to budget-strapped space agencies. They could be making money hand over fist). The Russians have occasionally indicated that they’re willing to do that, but they’ve never actually followed through with those plans (just ask former Backstreet Boy Lance Bass. Mr. Bass paid the Russian Space Agency millions of dollars, only to have them take his money and renege on their agreement to send him to the ISS). If this is any indication of how space agencies will behave on Mars, Luna (the moon), etc., then we can rest assured that they’ll completely restrict access to their research stations. A human outpost on Mars operated by NASA would likely be nothing more than a glorified version of the ISS; accessible only to astronauts and scientists. That type of Mars base is NOT in line with the vision of the Mars Society.

Second, let’s look at the example of the US Antarctic Program. What does Antarctica have to do with Mars? The recent National Geographic series "Mars" alludes to the USAP quite frequently. The series used US Antarctic stations like McMurdo as positive example of how a research station on Mars might function. This portrayal is quite accurate. The US government views its operations in Antarctica partially as a test run for future space stations. So it’s entirely possible that NASA might choose to run a Mars base the way the USAP runs Antarctic research stations. Admittedly, that would be a vast improvement over the ISS model. Unfortunately, the Antarctic model isn’t in line with the vision of the Mars Society either.

At first glance, the USAP is indeed a positive example of what a Mars research station might look like. Today, thousands of women and men are able to live and work in Antarctica. You don't have to be a scientist either. The USAP hires everyone from dishwashers, to mechanics, to grabagemen/women, etc. Most of the people who live and work in Antarctica are support staff as opposed to scientists. Virtually any American can apply to work in Antarctica. Personal wealth and degrees in higher education are not requirements for employment. Thus, it would appear that the USAP seems to function pretty well.

However, don't judge a book by its cover. For anyone interested in the truth about the USAP, I highly recommend that you read, "Big Dead Place" by: Nicholas Johnson (obviously, I wouldn’t base my opinions of the USAP solely on one man’s personal account of his experiences. But having done a lot of additional research, I’m convinced that “Big Dead Place” is incredibly accurate) Now, this isn't to say that the USAP is a total failure. Lots of people enjoy their time in Antarctica. But the reality is, the USAP is a bureaucratic nightmare. Essentially, the USAP is run by the NSF (the National Science Foundation). The NSF appoints bureaucrats to go down to Antarctica and run the place on behalf of Washington D.C. The people down there report to their bosses who are stateside. Further, the NSF subcontracts a lot of the day to day operations of the Antarctic research stations to giant defense industry corporations (previously Raytheon. Currently Lockheed-Martin).

Most of the people who go down to Antarctica to work are on 5 month contracts. They live in dorm-style housing, they work for a private corporation, and they have absolutely no say-so in the day to day operations of McMurdo, Palmer, Pole, etc. My understanding is that other countries run their respective stations in a similar manner.

If the Antarctic model was applied to a Mars research station, it would stagnate. In the fifty plus years that the USAP has been operating, the US to move past the McMurdo-style model of governance. While some science certainly takes place in Antarctica, the USAP has realized the fate of oh so many government bureaucracies: its primary mission is to justify its own existence. The people in charge of the NSF want to keep their jobs. The corporations want to keep their contracts. Thus, the USAP does just enough science to make itself appear useful to congress. There's absolutely no incentive for USAP to create any kind of actual settlement in Antarctica. If American colonists were sent to Antarctica to found a permanent settlement and govern themselves, where would that leave the NSF and corporations like Lockheed-Martin? My point being, if we want to create a true human colony on Mars, the US Antarctic Program is a pretty bad example of how to run things on Mars.

By examining the ISS and USAP models, one can clearly see how both corporate and direct government oversight of a Mars research station would fail. The very best the US government has done so far is the Antarctic model. There’s no reason to believe that they’d operate a Mars base any better. Direct government oversight is bound to fail.

As for corporate examples, the Antarctic model also serves. There are numerous accounts of abuses perpetrated by the corporations, contracted to run the USAP research stations. Additionally, look at the example of virtually every company town ever run by a major corporation. In every cases, they were Hellholes. Do some research on company coal towns in West Virginia and you’ll see why. Better yet, read about the misery experienced by the residents of Pullman Illinois. Conditions became so deplorable that the Illinois Supreme Court declared company towns to be illegal in Illinois (thus, they forced George Pullman to sell the state his town). Corporations operate solely to make a profit. That’s their singular goal. Unless we want a Mars base to turn into some type of corporate gulag, where workers mine minerals all day in brutal conditions, I think we can safely discount the idea of corporate oversight.

Conclusion: self-government is the way to go for any future Mars colony.

3) Why this entire exercise is important, and how it directly relates to the goal of getting humans to Mars in the first place.

Perhaps this section will go a bit beyond the topic of this forum, but I think that’s necessary. What type of government a future Mars colony has is intimately connected to getting humans to Mars in the first place, and realizing the vision of the Mars Society.

It's not lack of technology that's keeping us from getting to Mars. It's the lack of political will to cough up the necessary funds to make it happen. Given proper funding, we could overcome the technological hurdles in a relatively short period of time.

The $30 billion dollar question is, "How the heck do we get $30 billion dollars to go Mars?" ($30 billion is the low end estimate for the cost of Mars Direct) That question remains unanswered. To date, Dr. Zubrin has focused a lot on lobbying the US government to revitalize NASA, and get it to focus its attention on a humans-to-Mars mission. Now while I have infinite respect for Dr. Robert Zubrin, I personally believe he puts too much faith in NASA. The strategy isn't really working. NASA is even worse off today than it was twenty years ago. And even if we space advocates succeed in convincing one US president and one US congress to fund a humans-to-Mars mission, there's always the risk that the next administration (and the next congress) will simply scrap those plans. That's exactly what happened with the Orion Program.

I'm not convinced that things are going to change. There's that old adage that states, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." I think that's what we're doing by betting on NASA.

Granted, NASA may very well send humans to Mars someday, but not in any of our lifetimes. Further, if they do send humans to Mars, the type of research station they set up there will do almost nothing to realize the vision of the Mars society. A NASA Mars base would be no more than a tiny little half-baked research station, not accessible to anyone except astronauts and scientists. And, even if NASA decided to go a step further, and build a Mars base along the lines of a US Antarctic research station, that still wouldn’t come anywhere close to realizing the dream and vision of the Mars Society.

Just as corporate greed, bureaucratic red tape, and a miasmic web of UN treaties and national laws keeps humans from building permanent colonies in Antarctica, the same forces will coalesce to do the same thing on Mars. I don’t know about anyone else here, but I want to see Mars become a beacon of freedom, liberty, hope, and human progress. I want to see a real human colony flourishing on the red planet.

But this begs the question, “If not NASA, who’s going to send humans to Mars? Who’s going to start a colony there?” I think the answer is via international cooperation. I envision a organization like the Mars Society leading the charge. How? Some type of organization like the Mars Society could establish an umbrella organization to oversee a humans-to-Mars mission. Such an organization would be similar to the fictional International Mars Science Foundation (IMSF) from the “Mars” TV series, by National Geographic. This would be an organization where any government, private corporation, private organization, or individual could donate funds towards a humans-to-Mars mission.

The appeal of such an organization would be…

1) No single entity would have to foot the bill for the humans-to-Mars mission alone.
2) As the Mars colony (or multiple colonies) would be self-governing, there wouldn’t be any jurisdiction issues.
3) If this umbrella organization was set up right legally, it would be a safe place for everyone wishing to donate money towards the Mars mission to do so (i.e., the money couldn’t be abused. It could only be used for the humans-to-Mars mission).
4) Whether a nation donates billions of dollars or an impoverished individual donates a single dollar, everyone would be able to contribute. Every donor would be able to say they helped humans colonize Mars. Unlike the Apollo missions, this would be a human achievement, not a national or individual one.

The concept of an IMSF-type organization obviously seems a bit outlandish. As some of might recall, an organization called Mars One has been trying to fill this role for several years now. Unfortunately, Mars One has turned into a joke. Many people believe it’s a scam (Personally, I’m not sure whether it’s an outright scam or not. If it’s a scam, it isn’t a particularly good one. I think it’s more likely that the guy who founded Mars One, Bas Lansdorp, is borderline insane and semi-delusional). But that’s because Mars One consists solely of a half-baked website with a half-baked scheme for a humans-to-Mars mission. There’s no real science behind it, no specifications, no organization, etc.

Things would quite different if the Mars Society decided to spearhead a similar campaign. Unlike Mars One, the Mars Society has a detailed, workable, specific, science-based plan for getting humans to Mars (i.e., Mars Direct). The only thing the Mars Society lacks is the money to put Mars Direct into action. That’s where creating an IMSF-type umbrella organization would come in.

Although Mars One is a flop, there are valuable lessons to be learned from its example. Amazingly, as half-baked and silly as Mars One is, it’s generated an enormous amount of publicity. If you read the news stories, a good number of professional scientists and astronauts became cautiously optimistic about Mars One. Many applied to Mars One’s astronaut training program.

My point being, if a crackpot organization like Mars One can drum up the kind of publicity that it ultimately did, imagine what a serious organization like the Mars Society could do in its place? Mars One failed because…..

1) It didn’t have a serious, specific, science-based outline for a humans-to-Mars mission.
2) It put the horse before the cart. For example, it’s gimmicky astronaut training program. It’s nonsense idea about funding a humans-to-Mars mission via a reality TV show. You can’t train astronauts with online questionnaires. You can’t recruit astronauts until you have all of the necessary components in place for humans-to-Mars mission. You also can’t expect people to just hand money over to a sketchy, potentially disreputable organization; much less billions of dollars.
3) It made no effort to work with governments. Further, it's private donation scheme was about as professional as a gofundme account (i.e., it wasn't professional at all).

Unlike Mars One, the Mars Society has a blueprint for a workable humans-to-Mars mission. The problem the Mars Society has is that despite its plan, it hasn’t generated anywhere near the kind of publicity that Mars One has recently. Why? The Mars Society has relied almost exclusively on the strategy of lobbying the US government and NASA to adopt the Mars Direct blueprint, fund it, and make it happen. The Mars Society has also relied on NASA to sort of fill in the gaps, so to speak. Mars Direct is a mission plan for sending astronauts to Mars, then returning them safely to Earth. What Mars Direct doesn’t do is lay out a concrete blueprint for setting up a permanent Mars colony (although to be fair, Dr. Zubrin does go into detail about building permanent settlenents in "The Case For Mars". However, to my knowledge, all of the math and science-type blueprints that exist for Mars Direct are about the mission specifically. They don't include setting up a permanent colony immediately. If I'm wrong about this point, please feel free to correct me.) I think the Mars Direct blueprint needs to be expanded to include a plan to immediately set up a permanent human colony on Mars.

Why expand the Mars Direct blueprint? Simple: Mars Direct needs to appeal to the international community. It needs to appeal to everyone, not just NASA. To do that, it needs to be complete. It has to contain all of the necessary plans for setting up a permanent colony. At that point, nobody has room to criticize the plan for lack of feasibility. Whenever I mention colonizing Mars to someone outside of the space advocacy community, they always question the feasibility. If Mars Direct were more complete from A-Z, the doubts of the average lay person could be ameliorated. All anyone who wishes to set up a permanent human colony on Mars has to do is follow the step by step instructions. Unlike the half-baked Mars One plan, everyone donating the money to fund Mars Direct could be confident that the plan would work, and that it was scientifically sound.

Once the feasibility of the expanded Mars Direct is beyond dispute, then we have to give the average human being a reason to support such a bold mission. We need better PR. When the average human hears about colonizing Mars, he or she thinks….

1) “Wow, that sounds like science fiction. Is that even possible?”

With a more complete version of Mars Direct, we can answer question one by stating, “Believe it, colonizing Mars is NOT science fiction. It’s absolutely possible. If you’d like to read the specifications and the science behind those specs, go to (insert web address here) and read them for yourself. It’s laid out as neatly as a cookie recipe.”

The second question to cross the mind of the average human is….

2)  “Ok, so assuming it’s possible to colonize Mars, why should we do that? How does that benefit humanity?”

Everyone asks that question. For space advocates like us, space exploration and colonization is a no-brainer. The simple answer, “It advances scientific knowledge and it ensures humanity’s survival.” is enough for a space-lover like me. But for many people, that answer isn’t enough. Even Bill Gates said in a 2013 interview….

“Everybody's got their own priorities. In terms of improving the state of humanity, I don't see the direct connection. I guess it's fun, because you shoot rockets up in the air. But it's not an area that I'll be putting money into.”

The frustrating part of that answer is, Bill Gates has enough money to personally fund a Mars Direct mission himself. We need to convince people like that. And if we can’t convince someone like Bill Gates to spare even a single dollar
for a humans-to-Mars mission, when he clearly has money to give, how can we convince the average human, who lives on less than a dollar a day to support us?

I think the answer is to make this about every nation, and every human being. We want people to make the connection to themselves on a personal level. Why do people care about taking care of the Earth? Why are people willing to risk their lives to fight for their country (and many, sadly, make the ultimate sacrafice)? Why do people choose to have children? Why do people do charity work? In most cases, it’s because they care about humanity, and they care about the future of our species. Obviously, not every human thinks that abstractly about life. But when you start to dig deeper into the reasons behind human actions, that’s what it comes down to.

The point being, colonizing Mars is about ensuring the survival of our species. It’s about making sure that we don’t get wiped out by some type of monumental catastrophe. It’s about ensuring that our children, grandchildren, etc. have a future. Think of it as a type of life insurance for the human race. Life insurance makes sense to billions of people all over the Earth, right? So why doesn’t colonizing Mars make sense to these people? It doesn’t make sense to them because they’ve never thought of it that way before. If we can make this point to the average human, we can sell him or her on colonizing Mars.

One way we convince average people to support colonizing Mars is by making it an international mission. If every nation that donates was guaranteed the ability to eventually send two of their citizens to the Mars colony (one male, one female), that would become a major incentive. Whose citizens had the right to go to the Mars colony first could be determined by how much money each nation gave (obviously, wealthy nations would have an advantage here. To remedy that, we might stipulate that if a poor nation gave more percentage wise, based on what they could afford to give, than wealthier nations, they would receive a spot closer to the front of the line).

Further, every nation that donated money to the Mars mission would have its flag flown on Mars (the flags could be left on Mars attached to flagpoles, left on display somewhere in the Mars colony, or they could even be sent back to Earth eventually if the nation wanted it that way). The names of every nation would be inscribed in monuments both on Earth and Mars. Every organization, corporation, and even individual person who donated even the smallest amount to the Mars mission would also have their names inscribed on monuments.

Other incentives could be given. For example, any corporation that donated significantly to the Mars mission would be guaranteed a lucrative future contract. For example, if a paper company donated a significant amount of money upfront, they would be guaranteed a future contract for all of the Mars colony’s paper needs. That’s just one example.

In Conclusion:

A) I think that any future Mars colony should be a self-governing, democratic republic. Its constitution should embody the very best of democratic traditions here on Earth.

B) The only way to ensure that the vision of the Mars Society comes to be realized is through an international Mars mission. Otherwise, government bureaucracy and corporate mismanagement would prevent a true Mars colony from being established.

C) If it were up to me, I’d revise Mars Direct. It’s a brilliant plan, but its plan is for a mission where astronauts go to Mars, then return to Earth. The problem with this is that it gives whoever sponsors the Mars Direct mission the ability to back out of any future missions. Political support is a fickle thing. Once we have the funds and equipment to send humans to Mars, we want to do so quickly before political support has a chance to wane. Basically, we want to get our foot in the door so it can’t be closed. How do we do that? We do that by immediately setting up the beginnings of a permanent Mars colony on the first mission. Obviously, we want to give the first colonists the ability to return to Earth again if they want to, but not before more colonists arrive to take their place. We want our Mars colony to be occupied and growing 100% of the time. In fact, we might even want to start two separate Mars colonies simultaneously, so that if one fails, we still have our foot in the door, and the people sponsoring the Mars colonies on Earth are unable to pull the plug.

D) I think the only way we’re going to see the Mars Society vision realized is by spearheading an international umbrella organization (similar to the fictional IMSF). We also have to do A LOT of PR work to drum up support. We want the average human to see the logic in setting up a human colony on Mars. We want to refute the, “Let’s solve our problems here on Earth before we go colonize space” crowd. We want to get every nation contributing at least something to the cause (once one or two nations donates money to the umbrella organization, others will feel pressured into contributing. If the US contributes, so will the EU, Russia, China, India, etc. And if one if those nations contributes before the US, the US will feel pressured into donating). Every nation, and every human, should feel that this is “their” mission.

Also, the importance of contributions by individual donors and private corporations can’t be overstated. There are over 500 billionaires on Earth. If even 30-40 of them donated $1 billion to the cause, we’d have our funding. Corporations also have enormous resources. Just as corporations love to sponsor sporting events, the Olympics, etc. in order to get better PR, they would do the same for an international Mars mission. Further, even people who are poor, from third-world countries can and should donate anything they can spare. It would behoove this international umbrella organization to recognize the proportional contributions of private donors. Thus, if someone who only makes $1 per-day donated $1, that contribution would be recognized as greater than that of a wealthier person who gave less proportionally. Therefore, EVERY donor would feel empowered. Establishing a human colony on Mars would be an achievement every single human could take pride in.

The End

****Sorry this is so long. I really did try to trim it down. But sometimes it takes this many words to say what needed to be said. I think this was one of those situations. Thanks for reading. Please reply and share your thoughts****