How will the settlement of Mars be viewed in a historical context? How will it be rated against the Apollo Moon landings, or against Yuri Gagarin's first spaceflight? I think it will be judged the true beginning of the space age, of far more significance than Armstrong's one small step. That sounds a large claim; how can anything eclipse mankind's 'giant leap' on the Moon?
I don't want in any way to denigrate Apollo, or NASA or America's achievement. Both those on the ground who built and managed Apollo and the astronauts themselves were true heroes in the story of the human race. But the Moon landings can already now be seen as short-termism writ large. The time spent on the Moon was very small. There was no follow-up. There was no development of our long-term capacity for human exploration.
A settlement on Mars could be different. First, it could be a permanent and expanding human presence on another world. Secondly, it could be a genuine proving ground for developing the means and experience to explore or settle the rest of the solar system.
But the historical judgement; why do I think the significance of Mars will eclipse our previous achievements? Just consider the European discovery of the Americas. That has long been considered a key milestone in the human story. But what is seen as the crucial date? 'In Fourteen Hundred And Ninety Two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue....' That is not just a useful mnemonic verse; it underlines the weight we give to the event. The European adventure in the New World, with all its massive impact on subsequent history, dates from Columbus. That is because the European settlement then proved permanent and irreversible. The fact that Leif Ericson found America half a millennium earlier, and that viking settlement gained a temporary toehold there, is now proven. It is not something we forget,: but it is a footnote in history because the achievement was not permanent.
So, I fear history will neglect to some extent all our achievements so far in space. The settlement of Mars I expect to be different. If we can cling on there and make something of our new world, then centuries from now we will rate our first footsteps on the red planet alongside that first voyage of Columbus. In that context, the name of Neil Armstrong may be seen more in the light of a Leif Ericson figure, heroic though his achievement will continue to be.
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
Credo 2
One of the main aims of this blog is to raise basic social, economic, legal and ethical issues associated with the colonisation of Mars. I feel these often get scant consideration in the mainstream media. Concentration on technical and logistical questions is important and I try to cover these too, but if we do not start considering the project at the fundamental human and philosophical levels as soon as possible then we will be building up a backlog of thinking which will become increasingly difficult to address adequately.
I hope some of the posts here are meeting this aim, at least to the extent of stimulating further thought. As I have said before, I would welcome comment and debate. Just one point before concluding, I am uncomfortable with part of the nomenclature of the topic. Although I have used them myself, the terms colony and colonisation leave me uneasy. Too many adverse connotations. I prefer the phrase 'settlement of Mars' to any other.
I hope some of the posts here are meeting this aim, at least to the extent of stimulating further thought. As I have said before, I would welcome comment and debate. Just one point before concluding, I am uncomfortable with part of the nomenclature of the topic. Although I have used them myself, the terms colony and colonisation leave me uneasy. Too many adverse connotations. I prefer the phrase 'settlement of Mars' to any other.
Monday, July 8, 2013
Returning To Finance
Finance is really the nub of the question of a Mars colony, so it is worth returning to. The Elon Musk colony proposal needs further consideration because it asks us to consider funding as if it were a single proposition. It is hard for outsiders to see it as such. There is the development of a transportation system and there is the establishment and development of a colony, The issue of transport is a natural one for what is essentially a spacecraft and rocketry business like Space X to address. But to make a case for carrying large numbers of people to Mars, as a commercial business you need to be able to forecast some means of eventually turning a profit. For this Elon Musk turns to his 80,000 tickets, but clearly you cannot sell tickets to a colony that does not exist. As I have said, Musk gets round this problem by treating the costs of developing a means of transport and constructing a colony as though they were simply a package deal. Again, that seems a little simplistic and , frankly, somewhat unhelpful. Given that spaceflight is becoming a competitive business, the idea that one party both develops a transport system and creates a captive market (captive in the most absolute sense possible) is a little unsettling. It is also not necessarily the best way of generating finance because the funding mechanisms available to the transport side and those possible for the colony itself may be different.
When I was involved in privatisation issues in the UK Treasury in the 1980s, one of the most crucial issues in creating frameworks for competition was to differentiate between delivery mechanism and product. Within the public sector these were often combined into a pure monopoly (and sometimes a monopsony as well). It can make economic sense to allow a single distribution provider but only when there is plurality in the supply of a product or service and careful regulation of the distributive function. In a sense what we are seeing with the competitive supply and crewing of the international space station that is underway in the US is the beginning of the privatisation of space. In this too we need to ensure that delivery mechanisms do not become monopolistic. And when we look at Mars we need to be quite clear that any colony is not solely a by- product of a delivery mechanism but a human entity and, crucially, a new and vulnerable market in itself.
This is not to be critical of what Elon Musk has in mind but just to suggest that the fundamentals need very careful thought. In particular, I think that organising the creation and development of a colony as an enterprise formally distinct from Space X's rocketry and spacecraft program could open up some important funding mechanisms for a colony.
The science fiction writer Robert Heinlein once wrote a novel about the first expeditions to the stars. He chose as the organiser of the flights a charitable foundation called, appropriately, 'The Long Range Foundation' (LRF). Amusingly the LRF had been set up to take forward research on projects which had no immediate prospect of profit but which might eventually prove beneficial to mankind in general. Embarrassingly for its charitable status, the LRF's research projects kept making money, so it opted for the star project as a means of getting rid of some of the loot! This is not just a sidetrack but a lead into the possibility of an additional means of funding the setting up of a Mars colony. I think a real LRF (or some such name) could attract finance from those seeking tax advantages and from genuine philanthropists for the development, design, and construction of life-support, radiological protection, hydroponics, soil farming, power supply, and habitat structures etc for a settlement. I cannot see that this charitable funding route would be available to Space X as the seller of tickets to Mars, though I see nothing to stop it from making donations to such a foundation itself.
On the funding of the transportation system, it has concerned me how much seems dependent on ticket sales, which can hardly be expected to roll in at a pace till the project is ready to start landing people on Mars. So I think it would be worth exploring the early sale of ticket options. The seat price quoted by Elon Musk is extra-ordinarily cheap, particularly when you consider the prices that wealthy tourists have already paid just to get into space (let alone the outrageous, highway robbery level, ticket prices Russia is now charging each NASA astronaut for a ride to the space station). There could be quite a market for early seat reservations for the trip to Mars, particularly if they could be on-sold. I think, say, $100,000 per reservation might generate considerable interest. The $100,000 would be part of the eventual cost of a seat, so no-one would pay more (except in opportunity costs). But some crucial up-front development costs might be met.
Enough for now. But more later I expect.....
When I was involved in privatisation issues in the UK Treasury in the 1980s, one of the most crucial issues in creating frameworks for competition was to differentiate between delivery mechanism and product. Within the public sector these were often combined into a pure monopoly (and sometimes a monopsony as well). It can make economic sense to allow a single distribution provider but only when there is plurality in the supply of a product or service and careful regulation of the distributive function. In a sense what we are seeing with the competitive supply and crewing of the international space station that is underway in the US is the beginning of the privatisation of space. In this too we need to ensure that delivery mechanisms do not become monopolistic. And when we look at Mars we need to be quite clear that any colony is not solely a by- product of a delivery mechanism but a human entity and, crucially, a new and vulnerable market in itself.
This is not to be critical of what Elon Musk has in mind but just to suggest that the fundamentals need very careful thought. In particular, I think that organising the creation and development of a colony as an enterprise formally distinct from Space X's rocketry and spacecraft program could open up some important funding mechanisms for a colony.
The science fiction writer Robert Heinlein once wrote a novel about the first expeditions to the stars. He chose as the organiser of the flights a charitable foundation called, appropriately, 'The Long Range Foundation' (LRF). Amusingly the LRF had been set up to take forward research on projects which had no immediate prospect of profit but which might eventually prove beneficial to mankind in general. Embarrassingly for its charitable status, the LRF's research projects kept making money, so it opted for the star project as a means of getting rid of some of the loot! This is not just a sidetrack but a lead into the possibility of an additional means of funding the setting up of a Mars colony. I think a real LRF (or some such name) could attract finance from those seeking tax advantages and from genuine philanthropists for the development, design, and construction of life-support, radiological protection, hydroponics, soil farming, power supply, and habitat structures etc for a settlement. I cannot see that this charitable funding route would be available to Space X as the seller of tickets to Mars, though I see nothing to stop it from making donations to such a foundation itself.
On the funding of the transportation system, it has concerned me how much seems dependent on ticket sales, which can hardly be expected to roll in at a pace till the project is ready to start landing people on Mars. So I think it would be worth exploring the early sale of ticket options. The seat price quoted by Elon Musk is extra-ordinarily cheap, particularly when you consider the prices that wealthy tourists have already paid just to get into space (let alone the outrageous, highway robbery level, ticket prices Russia is now charging each NASA astronaut for a ride to the space station). There could be quite a market for early seat reservations for the trip to Mars, particularly if they could be on-sold. I think, say, $100,000 per reservation might generate considerable interest. The $100,000 would be part of the eventual cost of a seat, so no-one would pay more (except in opportunity costs). But some crucial up-front development costs might be met.
Enough for now. But more later I expect.....
Friday, July 5, 2013
Grandeur Or Boredom?
You will sometimes hear Mars described as about half the size of the Earth. It is true that the diameter of Mars is roughly half that of our planet but its surface area is less than a third, its volume less than a sixth, and its mass little more than a tenth that of Earth. However, if you feel short-changed planetwise by Mars, rest easy; since Mars has no oceans and seas, its actual land surface is very close to the dry land area of Earth. And that land surface contains some of the most breathtaking scenery in the solar system. Mars has the system's greatest mountain in Olympus Mons; and it has the canyon to end all canyons in the Valles Marineris, nearly ten times the length of the Grand Canyon and over three times as deep. So the seeker after grandeur will not be disappointed. Just to underline that point, we can ignore the common misconception that the horizon on Mars is much closer than it is on Earth, thereby restricting the majesty of any view. In fact, at average eye height on Mars, the horizon is still over four-fifths the distance away that it is on our own home world.
In the millennia since we started exploring our planet, we have not come to the end of its beauties and mysteries. Given the scale of Mars and its huge variety of landscape types, I see no reason to fear that martian colonists either are going to end up suffering from ennui in their quest to explore and familiarise themselves with their adopted home.
In the millennia since we started exploring our planet, we have not come to the end of its beauties and mysteries. Given the scale of Mars and its huge variety of landscape types, I see no reason to fear that martian colonists either are going to end up suffering from ennui in their quest to explore and familiarise themselves with their adopted home.
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