There are about 5,000 asteroids known today, of which about 98% are in the “Main Belt” lying between Mars and Jupiter, with an average distance from the Sun of about 2.7 astronomical units, or AU. Would colonizing Mars serve the greater good? The only sensible use of the 4th planet is turning its two moons into skyhooks …. To create a vibrant civilization you need a richer power base, and this Mars has both in the short and medium term in the form of its geothermal power resources, which offer potential for large numbers of locally created electricity generating stations in the 10 MW (10,000 kilowatt) class. On Mars, in contrast, the strong greenhouse effect created by such domes would be precisely what is necessary to produce a temperate climate inside. Therefore, thin-walled inflatable plastic greenhouses protected by unpressurized UV-resistant hard-plastic shield domes can be used to rapidly create cropland on the surface. If concentrated supplies of metals of equal or greater value than silver (such as germanium, hafnium, lanthanum, cerium, rhenium, samarium, gallium, gadolinium, gold, palladium, iridium, rubidium, platinum, rhodium, europium, and a host of others) were available on Mars, they could potentially be transported back to Earth for a substantial profit. Zahaan Bharmal unpicks the arguments against the idea. The Martians shall do well. Church and State highlights the importance of secular government. The true value of America was as the future home for a new branch of human civilization, one that as a combined result of its humanistic antecedents and its frontier conditions was able to develop into the most powerful engine for human progress and economic growth the world had ever seen. But on Mars there is an atmosphere thick enough to protect crops grown on the surface from solar flare. Legally speaking, settling space isn’t as easy as Trump and Musk suggest. Mars is a place where humans can live and multiply to large numbers, supporting themselves with products of every description made out of indigenous materials. Mars has an overwhelming positional advantage as a location from which to conduct such trade. Carbon, nitrogen, and hydrogen are only present on the Moon in parts per million quantities, much like gold in seawater. Other destinations, such as the Main Belt asteroids, may be rich in potential future exports to Earth but lack the preconditions for the creation of a fully developed indigenous society; these compare to the West Indies. Obviously with a case this old, we are all inevitably going to run out of new things to say. Nevertheless, colonizing Mars will help in leveraging this problem by distributing the Earth’s population to planet Mars and even improve the chances of humankind’s survival in case Earth becomes no longer sustainable. The Significance of the Martian Frontier. 4 May 2016. This is in today’s pre-fusion economy. On Mars, in contrast, the strong greenhouse effect created by such domes would be precisely what is necessary to produce a temperate climate inside. And we can harvest the clouds there using molecular nanotech + fusion energy to build just about any kind of tools and vittles we could possibly need … including more cloud cities …, Meanwhile on the Martian surface we've got hard radiation, microgravity, toxic dust, and temperatures colder than any place on Earth. Ideas may be another possible export for Martian colonists. August 1996. Mars has every required element in abundance. This contrasts strongly with the Moon, which is so dry that if concrete were found there, Lunar colonists would mine it to get the water out. Mars has no known helium-3 resources. Life on Mars? Simply staying alive will be a daily challenge. The wealth of America was in fact that she could support people, and that the right kind of people chose to go to her. Moreover, on Mars, as on Earth, hydrologic and volcanic processes have occurred that are likely to have consolidated various elements into local concentrations of high-grade mineral ore. Because all the resources to make plastics exist on Mars, networks of such 50- to 100-meter domes couldbe rapidly manufactured and deployed, opening up large areas of the surface to both shirtsleeve human habitation and agriculture. Even without the problems of solar flares and month-long diurnal cycle, such simple greenhouses would be impractical on the Moon as they would create unbearably high temperatures. Among extraterrestrial bodies in our solar system, Mars is singular in that it possesses all the raw materials required to support not only life, but a new branch of human civilization. 7496571) registered in England. Deep-space travel, colonization may rely on genetically engineered life forms, Six Reasons Why Humans Should Return to the Moon, SpaceX will go to Mars in two years, then humans in four, Elon Musk says, Making the First Martians: Building an Economy on Mars, How to make the food and water Mars-bound astronauts will need for their mission, One of the Terms of Service for Starlink Is that You “Recognize Mars as a Free Planet”, The Physical Effects of Living in Space Could Create a New Human Species, Christian TV Host Rick Wiles: “We Are Going to Impose Christian Rule in this Country”, Retired priest: ‘Hell’ was invented by the church to control people with fear, St. Louis Archbishop Says He Didn’t Know It Was Illegal For Priests To Have Sex With Kids, Scientists Establish A Link Between Brain Damage And Religious Fundamentalism, It’s Time to Start Calling Evangelicals What They Are: The American Taliban, Pat Robertson: Non-Religious Children Should Be Beaten Until They Respect Christian Beliefs. Directions: Choose now fewer than three of the sources listed below for your research. The foundational piece of space legislation is the Outer Space Treaty, which was ratified by the U.S., U.S.S.R., and dozens of other nations in 1967.Per the treaty, nations aren’t allowed to place “nuclear weapons” or “weapons of mass destruction” in outer space, period. Because all the resources to make plastics exist on Mars, networks of such 50- to 100-meter domes could be rapidly manufactured and deployed, opening up large areas of the surface to both shirtsleeve human habitation and agriculture. He is also a best-selling author, with eight books to his credit. We cover church-state separation, Christian Right, population, futurism, atheism, free speech and other issues. A single acre of plants on Earth requires four megawatts of sunlight power, a square kilometer needs 1,000 MW. When it was first published in 1996, The Case for Mars became an instant classic, lauded widely for its game-changing perspective by those who would see the American space program rise to the challenge of Mars; Carl Sagan called Zubrin the man who, “nearly alone, changed our thinking on this issue.” Now, fifteen years later, Zubrin brings readers up to date in this revised and updated anniversary edition … Mars is thus a place where an actual civilization, not just a mining or scientific outpost, can be developed. Will we find it? (The Earth is 1.0 AU from the Sun.) https://t.co/D1bgXpojBs, — HumanProgress.org (@HumanProgress) June 14, 2020. Carbon, nitrogen, and hydrogen are only present on the Moon in parts per million quantities, much like gold in seawater. In this episode, we introduce the idea of colonizing Mars. Oxygen is abundant on the Moon, but only in tightly bound oxides such as silicon dioxide (SiO2), ferrous oxide (Fe2O3), magnesium oxide (MgO), and aluminum oxide (Al2O3), which require very high energy processes to reduce. Once fusion reactors go into widespread use deuterium prices will increase. But both solar and wind offer relatively modest power potential — tens or at most hundreds of kilowatts here or there. Thus, if plants could be grown in greenhouses on the Moon (an unlikely proposition, as we’ve seen) most of their biomass material would have to be imported. The Case for Colonizing Mars, The Case for Colonizing Mars, by Robert Zubrin. The Red Planet is a freezing, faraway, uninhabitable desert. People create wealth. It takes a while to travel to Mars Even though Mars is one of the planets that are closest to our Earth, it still takes a few months to get there. Registered Office: Suite 101, 254 Pentonville Road, London N1 9JY. Elon Musk, president of Tesla Motors, speaks about Space X project in a conference during the 67th International Astronautical Congress in … As a by product of these operations, millions, perhaps billions, of dollars worth of deuterium will be produced. Once that has been accomplished, the habitation domes could be virtually any size, as they would not have to sustain a pressure differential between their interior and exterior. Mars is actually, in a lot of ways, a lot safer than Earth." Cons of Colonizing Mars And a thousand of those beats just one of those …, But the harshest deserts on Earth pale in comparison with the inhospitability of Mars. This post by Dr. Robert Zubrin originally appeared at National Space Society. Robert Zubrin, The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must, Simon & Schuster/Touchstone, 1996, ISBN 0-684-83550-9; Frank Crossman and Robert Zubrin, editors, On to Mars: Colonizing a New World. Growing crops with electrically generated light is just economically hopeless. Reprinted with permission from the author. Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX, during a … Even with cheap power, deuterium is very expensive; its current market value on Earth is about $10,000 per kilogram, roughly fifty times as valuable as silver or 70% as valuable as gold. Collectively, these asteroids represent an enormous stockpile of mineral wealth in the form of platinum group and other valuable metals. But despite the shortsighted calculations of eighteenth-century European statesmen and financiers, the true value of America never was as a logistical support base for West Indies sugar and spice trade, inland fur trade, or as a potential market for manufactured goods. Other destinations, such as the Main Belt asteroids, may be rich in potential future exports to Earth but lack the preconditions for the creation of a fully developed indigenous society; these compare to the West Indies. 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