New Mars Forums

Forcing people into a belief or practice? I think some tried that way back, but I don't think people can be forced into real belief. I'm truly sorry if you've encountered such attempts. The best way, if you have something you are convinced is good and right, and that other people could benefit from, is to try to persuade people, and to live a life that commends your belief. Perhaps like those Hutterites.

That's relevant for settling Mars, I hope. Nobody can improve other peoples' behaviour much by passing laws and having police & judiciary - that's just to restrain criminality. Best way is to show that 'our way' works, and to explain why.

Interesting. I don't know about such things. My feeling is that if it comes to claiming land on Mars it will end in strife and hostility.
I'd prefer that Earth nations agree that Mars should be independent from the start. Establish a Mars secretariat or similar and register land claims there.

...along with any other groups who want to apply? Some guidelines on how to become eligible are required.

Sounds like a practical step forward. That will need a deal of agreement and publicity among Mars Society people.
Your 'moral communities' sounds like the church I go to! I don't expect you wanted to hear that and I don't think our church is going to Mars! But it is good to form communities where you know all the other members, can build trust, can agree on some common goals.

The  “Mars Society Chapters” would be on Earth, right? They are like small colonies in formation?

My concept of 'Nomads' on my sketch comes from the Red Mars novels, the small wandering communities with no fixed abode. Just to say that diversity is a big part of life wherever you go; not all settlers will fit into one or ten molds.

But sure,  “Mars Society Chapters” can be on the map. It's just that I think Mars is even bigger than the Mars Society - there will surely be non-members wanting to settle there too. So the Consortium may have a strong MSoc influence, but I myself wouldn't change the name to exclude non-members.

Is you 'first' the idea you mentioned about Andorra or Malta? I am not sure that would work (who are they to issue permits?), but if there's enough agreement in Mars Society, go for it.

Raising investment funding: that would have to demonstrate a strong business case first, right? How easy would that be before anyone's tried it? Or is this what we'd do in later stages when settlements are making money?

Building prototype settlement: great. Expand on the ideas in MRDS and FMars or whatever they're called in the Canadian Arctic & Utah desert. I think once (say) SpaceX's ITS system is closer to operational readiness people may start doing exactly that if they're serious.

You'll need to gather a lot of interested friends, start a movement, if you're going to get anywhere. Good luck!

Nobody's disputing that the US is the leader in space exploration and could do what it wanted. But I don't think even your own government would agree with snatching Mars, claiming sovereignty over it, without consulting rest-of-world.
The US stands to gain hugely anyway from its investments in space, just by going and building. You're welcome to plan your USA-Mars concepts but don't expect the rest of us to join in. Global cooperation looks like a saner option.

How do I add an image to a post?

You are joking, aren't you?

Look, we all know the USA is the current leader in space, and we were all inspired by Apollo and Voyager and Curiosity and a long list of others. But Mars belongs to humanity, if to anyone at all. Mars should be free and independent from the start, to prevent any of this squabbling. If Mars starts off American, how long will it be before they fight a War Of Independence?

This is a great paper on the subject - not that I agree 100% with all his ideas - https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1404/1404.2315.pdf

... or has this been tried already?
Either we compile one document by voting on each paragraph,  or make several according to beliefs and views.

Mars is about starting again. Take the best of Earth with you, leave the worst behind. So it looks like there will always be disagreement about what's the best and what's the worst. But - best to leave as much of the nation-building as possible to the Martians.

I would think when the population of Mars is less than a million, or there are less than a few hundred settlements, that the Mars Secretariat could still be a small, weak body and each individual will have opportunity to contribute to decision making. By that time they will be able to decide what to do - another layer of government, or something else, like direct democracy or whatever.

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I have another question entirely with all this great debate which I'm enjoying - what's actually the point of debating here, on this forum? How will these conversations contribute to anything meaningful? I'm still new in this forum so I don't know if anyone's involved who might be making 'real-world' decisions or influencing those who do, or many people who fully intend to settle on Mars.

Quite right. Someone was talking about finding materials for building space habs though, and some kind of steel would come in handy. And it proves my point that materials or products would have to have a very high value to make them exportable.

There may well be more NiFe and other ores on Mars, I believe that, but food for thought -
- how easy to extract them if most of them are underground?
- once they have been refined, they need boosting to orbit and to wherever a space colony is to be built. Given that Mars's escape velocity is lower than Earth's, it's also much higher than zero. Which is more economical: that, or mining asteroids (some of which wil have orbits close to Mars and closer to Earth) with effectively zero escape velocity?
- At least on Mars it would be easier to support a mining base. There are life support materials, some gravity and a little atmosphere.

Is anyone planning to build these space colonies yet in a practical way? I mean on the scale of readiness where asteroid mining & SpaceX's ITS are at? just interested. Obviously it would be a huge undertaking.

Want to revisit the dream of the Solar Federal Republic now that EM Drives are beginning to look like they might actually work? (as much as that offends all our scientific sensibilities) Sure, they might not be much use for heavy lifting out of Earth's gravity well, but from there on an EM fleet could push solar system colonisation.

Is this possible in the way Jacob H-M is proposing? To be independent economically and politically surely includes not building your colony on some other nation's land but being sovereign. Only way to do that on Earth might be ... maybe ... an ocean-going city. Tricky. True, you could set up a 'colony' on Earth based on experimental principles or ideologies and then transplant it. I wonder how workable or desirable that would be.