What Type Of Government Should Mars Have?? - Mars Government

Grypd · 2007-06-20 04:30:37

If we use the British Empire as an example it was often the case that buisness interests got to an area first and then Goverment followed. In certain cases the buisness interests and the Goverment where almost the same.

The East India company
The Hudson Bay company

Both where primarily buisness interests but of a national kind though the East India company was more Goverment orientated unlike the Hudson bay company. The effect was the same the company found resources, started to run an area and then the Goverment moved in.

This will probabily happen on Mars as well as elsewhere.

Ancalagon · 2007-06-20 18:59:47

Sigh.. It's irritating when nobody listens. I'll say it again, one more time.

There is nothing of value on Mars!

Colonization of the Americas occurred because America had resources that could be shipped back to Europe. Mars has exactly no usable resources. It's only value is research for the pure sake of research. Private businesses only fund research if they think they can get something in return. It's the same reason corporations never went to the moon. There's nothing there that's worth anything.

Grypd · 2007-06-22 17:18:56

Ancalgon, sorry to say I agree and also disagree with you.

Let me explain. Mars in itself is worthless, unless it is the home of some element which can only be garnered there, It has great advantages to be sure to anyone who wants to set up a civilisation but in itself it has no element which cannot be gained elsewhere, usually easier and in greater and purer quantities.

But this ease of liveability will mean that people can set up and prosper and these people will need things made for them that are hard to be made in-situ. How will these people pay for these items or what can they trade.

One thing about Mars is that a beanpole elevator attached to one of the Shield volcanoes can be done with our science knowledge now. Bulk goods can go up and settlers and hi-tech items down. Im not sure if we will ever have this for the Earth and so we will end up using either a TSTO or SSTO space plane for our planet and though they can take up people we do not try to send bulk goods in planes.

So this means we can get people into space and probabily make things too either on the Moon or other low G enviroment. Buisness will be looking to sell things back to the main payer that of the Earth and this will be in the form of needed resources. resources will be the one issue that the buisness world will be looking for in the future solar system and since this will be mining it comes as no surprise that we will begin to have increasing populations in the asteroid belts and further afield. These populations will need to be fed. Water they can gain from C class asteroids and ice but food has to be grown and the building of habitats in space to grow food will make this an expensive buisness. Supply from the Earth will be expensive. Even the Moon will struggle to grow food in its long day and the necassary items to grow food is just not present in high concentrations. So that leaves Mars, Mars with a bit more than 24 hour cycle and all that plants need to grow and thrive and very low building costs and maintenance bills could easily become the garden of the solar system.

The gravity well of Earth will unless we make some major scientific advance will never be able to provide the bulk food needed. Mars can and probabily will. A Beanpole will allow bulk items to be flung to anywhere needed and that is enough of an economy to get Mars going. What is the dream of buisness but to get a monopoly on something everybody wants.

And we all need to eat.

dryson · 2007-06-22 17:30:39

Sigh.. It's irritating when nobody listens. I'll say it again, one more time.
There is nothing of value on Mars!
Colonization of the Americas occurred because America had resources that could be shipped back to Europe. Mars has exactly no usable resources. It's only value is research for the pure sake of research. Private businesses only fund research if they think they can get something in return. It's the same reason corporations never went to the moon. There's nothing there that's worth anything.

First off America did not colonize America. How America came about was local business men grew tired and weary of a taxing king ( I think it was King George IV) who taxed everything from tea to stamps without the locals having any say in it, thus under George Washington he started a revolution better known as the Revolutionary War that those here in the states that were tired of British rule sided with Washington and broke free of British rule, after that America became America.

Mars is not the moon, Mars has polar ice caps on it. It's not some barren planet that has never had any possibility of life like Mars does, also Mars is different then Earth. We may not even know what is under the surface of Mars. There could be ore or minerals that we could mine and make new materials from that would bring about new types of technology and other applications that make life easier here on Earth. That's what going to Mars is about, advancing through discover and expansion, not staying complacent until humanity becames a swamp and then a cracked and dry lake bed.

And yes Ad astra per aspera

Ancalagon · 2007-06-22 20:20:28

Oh yes! it's so obvious! Mars is in space, right? So it obviously has magic space dust to power our warp drives. Then we fly to planet Vulcan and have Spok teach us how to terraform the Sun. It's so simple!

This isn't the Sci-fi Channel, the laws of physics aren't re-written in a half-hour.

Grypd, I understand your argument. But you're still assuming that things are more simple than they actually are. Sure, we have the technology to build a space-elevator. But it's not worth it. There's no return on a project like that. It's a money-pit. The risk far outweighs the benefits. No company in the world would want to do anything like that.

dryson · 2007-06-23 20:11:56

Oh yes! it's so obvious! Mars is in space, right? So it obviously has magic space dust to power our warp drives. Then we fly to planet Vulcan and have Spok teach us how to terraform the Sun. It's so simple!
This isn't the Sci-fi Channel, the laws of physics aren't re-written in a half-hour.
Grypd, I understand your argument. But you're still assuming that things are more simple than they actually are. Sure, we have the technology to build a space-elevator. But it's not worth it. There's no return on a project like that. It's a money-pit. The risk far outweighs the benefits. No company in the world would want to do anything like that.

Sounds to me like you are the type that likes to argue just for the sake of arguing, with out any worthwhile input of a benefitial nature being presented just negativety at what some one presents as more then a possibility.

The first order of business is to launch this guy out of the airlock. There's Martian politics for you.

Ancalagon has the personality of a person that if we were on Mars right now and everyone had their own corporation he would be engaged in espionage activities trying to bring to ruin all the projects that the other corporations had set up to make use of what Mars has to offer, instead of linking up with the other corporations to provide a stronger information and project development network Ancalagon would rather have a dictorial rule where he is supreme. This stems from his Napoleanic complex.

Grypd · 2007-06-24 12:52:08

Dryson as much as it may pain you the fact this is that the question posed by Ancalagon is legitimate.

Grypd, I understand your argument. But you're still assuming that things are more simple than they actually are. Sure, we have the technology to build a space-elevator. But it's not worth it. There's no return on a project like that. It's a money-pit. The risk far outweighs the benefits. No company in the world would want to do anything like that.

The best way to describe the space elevator is to compare it to other heavy construction Transport developments that have been done here on Earth. These have in the main been completed by or on the behalf of goverments and even to the point of more than one goverment getting involved and therefore having ownership. As an example the Suez canal or Panama canal.

A space elevator will not be done by any commercial interest but in an a well thought out Goverment decision to have in there control the means to improve the economic capability of and increase there control of Mars. The elevator will probabily make a profit but it is its ability to be allow financial increase that will make a Goverment spend funds to create it.

Ancalagon · 2007-06-24 15:23:37

I can tolerate a well-founded and legitimate argument (such as the one posed by Grypd,) but what I simply cannot tolerate is someone substituting reason for wishful thinking. Dryson, you are taking your own personal political ideas and coming up outlandish and unrealistic ways of supporting them.

You want Mars to have an independent, free-market, government-free, society so you come up with the notion of the "magic space resource" to prove to yourself that it could happen. You're not using scientific reasoning, you're using science-fiction reasoning. This thread is about reality. Sure, an independent Mars would be interesting (hell, I'm making a comic book about it,) but it's fantasy.

Furthermore, your arguments about progress and scientific advancement could only come from a lifetime of watching bad Sci-fi shows. According to television, space is a wondrous place where new elements are constantly discovered. But in reality, space is boring. Everything is made out of the same stuff. Read a book about it. A real book. There is absolutely no scientific reason to think that Mars (or any other planet in our solar system) will have any sort of new "ore."

*catches breath* There, with that out of the way...

The best way to describe the space elevator is to compare it to other heavy construction Transport developments that have been done here on Earth. These have in the main been completed by or on the behalf of goverments and even to the point of more than one goverment getting involved and therefore having ownership. As an example the Suez canal or Panama canal.
A space elevator will not be done by any commercial interest but in an a well thought out Goverment decision to have in there control the means to improve the economic capability of and increase there control of Mars. The elevator will probabily make a profit but it is its ability to be allow financial increase that will make a Goverment spend funds to create it.

That is a good way to describe it. But you're still talking about bases in the asteroid belt, a fully terraformed Mars, and an Earth that is completely out of food. These feats would take hundreds (if not thousands) of years. I'm talking about the immediate future. Several decades or so (as was the ISA post which started this thread.) Assuming that we land on Mars when President Bush claims we will and we decide to have a continued research-based presence there, Mars would still not have enough material value to justify an extremely dangerous, unpredictable, and costly project like a space-elevator. The risk far outweighs the reward.

Grypd · 2007-06-28 08:17:10

I agree that it will take quite a few years to happen but then the very principle of the idea of a goverment for Mars is a long term view. Certainly as far as I can see there just is not the need for any form of goverment beyond a base director and possibly a citizens council for a long long time.

Goverment will only become a pressing concern as the population on Mars increases and that is definitly a long term view of the planet.

RyanUK · 2007-07-02 02:05:59

Unless the 'private' spacer community get some funding sorted out and actually start building stuff rather than just researching (or even talking about researching) - then the first 'colony' on Mars will be a military base disguised as a research station.

and - in a building full of techies - military dictat is enforced by one man with a gun. Freedom RIP

happy trails

noosfractal · 2007-07-02 02:43:14

Hi RyanUK, welcome to New Mars!

Your unguarded optimism renews hope for the future in all of us.

Excelsior!

RyanUK · 2007-07-03 01:11:02

Well I hesitate to use the term 'unguarded' but thanks anyway.

The point I would make, in relation to governance issues, is that the first generation of mars settlers will not be 'independent' in the true sense - so they will NOT be forming their own government etc.

If they are part of a corporate mission then they will govern themselves accordingly (with orders from HQ), if they are a religious group they wil govern themselves accordingly - if military then ditto ... they aren't suddenly going to sit round the breakfast table and say 'hey! let's form the Mars Council and declare independence.'

On the other hand ... i would prefer NOT to be ruled by some planetary government ... I want the space and freedom to choose to be 'different' within the acceptable parameters of whichever group I'm in (that airlock is uncomfortably close). The whole point of space is that it's pretty big .. there is room up there for every kind of political/social persuasion. If I WANT to find a place in the cosmos where I can wear a full set of medieval plate armor and/or marry several of my first cousins then I should be able to do so ... and not immediately run into some hierarchy telling me that it is illegal/immoral and/or antisocial.

'People' head for new frontiers looking to get away from the status quo - new challenges, new opportunities ... not just to experience an identical paradigm but with a different climate

Let people form their own colonies dependent upon their own dominant world view - and let them trade with each other where they want - talk to and/or cooperate with each other when they want - and ignore each other when they want.

Hi RyanUK, welcome to New Mars!
Your unguarded optimism renews hope for the future in all of us.
Excelsior!

noosfractal · 2007-07-03 02:23:27

I have libertarian leanings myself, but agree that early settlements will be tightly regulated, absent significant technological advance, for reasons outlined in another thread ...

http://www.newmars.com/forums/viewtopic … 3388#83388

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"You shall truly model the phenomena, and the consequent technologies shall set you free." - John 8:32 (roughly translated)

dryson · 2007-07-05 17:24:01

I have libertarian leanings myself, but agree that early settlements will be tightly regulated, absent significant technological advance, for reasons outlined in another thread ...

This notion is correct. We have no idea what is under the surface of mars.

It is a totally different planet then what Earth is, as far as we know there could be a new type of mineral that we don't have here on Earth, this means that new materials could be made, from new materials come new designs for buildings, ships, ect. From these new buildings, ships ect comes even newer types of buildings, new elemental compounds. This can be shone to be true just by looking back through humanities history, from the first time the first mineral of iron was wrought into a spear tip to hunt to materials that have gotten us to the Moon and beyond is why we need to goto Mars.

Along with the fact that new stories of advanture would be written, new heroes and villians along with the other fabrics that make up humanity will be made new on the loom of exploration.

Those that say there is no reason to goto Mars are those that wish to stay complacent. Why because they have a complex about people being above them. These people are the ones that would try with all they might to bring down a Mars mission, they are the naysayers of humanities future and need to be avoided at all costs.

noosfractal · 2007-07-05 19:30:43

there could be a new type of mineral that we don't have here on Earth

There is zero chance of this. It is possible that particular mineral structures will be more/less abundant, but that isn't going to revolutionize our tech. Mars' biggest advantage is that it is easier to leave than Earth.

m1omg · 2007-07-06 06:07:40

It will probably claim indepedence after max. 200 years like every other colony in the history of humanity.

m1omg · 2007-07-06 06:08:08

there could be a new type of mineral that we don't have here on Earth
There is zero chance of this. It is possible that particular mineral structures will be more/less abundant, but that isn't going to revolutionize our tech. Mars' biggest advantage is that it is easier to leave than Earth.

Never claim "zero chance".

noosfractal · 2007-07-06 06:21:02

there could be a new type of mineral that we don't have here on Earth
There is zero chance of this. It is possible that particular mineral structures will be more/less abundant, but that isn't going to revolutionize our tech. Mars' biggest advantage is that it is easier to leave than Earth.
Never claim "zero chance".

I stand corrected. The chance is merely vanishingly small.

Ancalagon · 2007-07-20 17:29:24

It is a totally different planet then what Earth is, as far as we know there could be a new type of mineral that we don't have here on Earth, this means that new materials could be made, from new materials come new designs for buildings, ships, ect.

Plenty of scientists have theorized about Martian geography (I believe the technical term is: Areography since "Geo-" refers to Earth.) All of these theories involve Mars having the exact same, naturally occurring, minerals as Earth (just in different proportions, obviously. Iron is everywhere on Mars.) The idea that a strange and new mineral could form naturally on Mars, but not on Earth is preposterous.

I'm not trying to be a "naysayer," dryson. But you should read and pay attention to more of noosfractal's posts (more specifically, the one he linked earlier.) It's erroneous to think that a Mars colony will be anything like the historical colonies of Earth.

JoshNH4H · 2007-07-24 16:17:27

Read Red, Green, and Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson. It has a lot of ideas for a martian system (that hopefully would work on earth too), and has some good ideas for terraforming.

noosfractal · 2007-07-24 17:16:21

It's erroneous to think that a Mars colony will be anything like the historical colonies of Earth.

It's very difficult to construct a plausible scenario that relies on physical exports from Mars for bootstrap funds.

Once there is demand from offworld industry, I think Zubrin's argument is the best I've seen ...

The Economic Viability of Mars Colonization
http://www.cbqc.net/mars/docs/m_econom.pdf

... but demand has to be substantial to justify Mars infrastructure.

It is possible that religious or ethnic intolerance could reach the point where a persecuted group would fund a Mars colony. This was the motivation for a lot of historical colonies.

It's possible that a powerful world government occurs on Earth, and they ban particular technologies as too dangerous, but that the technologies are so beneficial that entrepreneurs decide to establish production facilities on Mars. Maybe some biotech or nanotech.

In a similar vein, it's possible that Mars could bootstrap using unrestricted fission for cheap energy to undercut energy-intensive industries on Earth. Anti-matter production might be one industry (I know it sounds like science fiction, but anti-matter is the ultimate energy-storage mechanism).

The only problem with these last two is that Mars is competing against Luna, so there has to be a reason that Luna is unsuitable. Eventually, Mars' resources probably win out, but at first, Luna infrastructure is cheaper.

Virtual exports may be possible, for example if a research culture arises, but again, it is hard to see it paying for bootstrap.

BTW, Red Oasis is lookin' good - feel free to start a shameless promotion thread.

Tom Kalbfus · 2007-10-02 22:55:42

Read Red, Green, and Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson. It has a lot of ideas for a martian system (that hopefully would work on earth too), and has some good ideas for terraforming.

Has plenty of good ideas for terraforming. Physical scientists are often naive about economics though, they figure they can just engineer the economy and that everyone would just pitch in.

Of course his ideas on economics would work in his own work of fiction, and of course he portrayed the transnats as a bunch of greedy pseudonations that wage war on each other rather than producing products and selling them. I do believe Kim Stanley Robinson has lost sight of what a corporation really is, it's purpose isn't to provide jobs, but to produce goods and services and sell them at a profit that can be returned to shareholders. The Greedy Megacorporation is a cliche of many a science fiction book, its been used too many times, and Kim Stanley Robinson has basically cooked up a cure for a plot device designed to create tension in his Novel.

The reason the Transnats in the Novel are Greedy, Evil, and up to no good, is because the Novels need some bad guys to generate tension and create suspense for his Novels. Now just because the Cliche of the "Megacorporation" works well for writing stories and selling books, doesn't really mean their is a problem of evil megacorporations taking over the World. Kim S Robinson, could have used the French, or the Germans, or the Russians or the Chinese as the "heavies" instead, but that would offend some nationalities and consequently he wouldn't sell his books very well in those countries he's offended. Thus the Transnats or Megacorporations get to be the badguys instead and they are a fictional enemy.

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