Some Income Possibilities

So, what about financing the initial voyage to Mars. The crucial pre-income costs. Well the first point is that they need not necessarily pre-date income streams. Investors do not need to carry the whole burden. The Dutch founded Mars One venture, although only at a very early stage, envisages a one way voyage for colonists, financed by media deals with intensive coverage. A kind of super reality show. The Dutch did after all invent the Big Brother TV format. Mars One already has 80,000 volunteer colonists. It intends to whittle these down to a very few initial pioneers through a TV show process of competition and public voting ( Mars Has Talent?!!!) Merchandising may also have scope for creating substantial income. Can Mars One generate the funds it will need? Philanthropic donation, crowd funding efforts, perhaps some sort of link up with an Elon Musk venture. All these could help. And never underestimate the Dutch - some of the foremost merchant venturers in the history of the exploration of our own planet!

One thought I have myself is that the colony should be named something like Mars Free City and the honorific 'Free Citizen of Mars' should be promoted as a badge of distinction for all colonists. FCM after your name should come to mean something rather noble. Perhaps large scale donors could also be conferred the honour. After all, university donors often receive honorary degrees. But I think there is scope for another untapped resource on a large scale in promoting the concept of free citizenship. Suppose, say, that the early colonists were to build a monument on Mars, a hollow pyramid perhaps 10 feet tall (nothing of significant cost or work effort). This could be ornamented with a golden apex light and a small LED band for displaying names at mid height. The pyramid could gradually be filled with 1 cm micro-engraved cubes carrying a portion of the ashes of earthbound enthusiasts, whose names would be shown in rotation on the LED display. Each of the departed seeking this form of memorial could obtain it by making a donation of, say $5,000 dollars in their will, a quite inexpensive addition to funeral costs. There are many millions of space enthusiasts out there. I believe there could be quite a demand, particularly if each donation also conferred the Free Citizen of Mars honorific posthumously.

You may say, 'so what, that won't raise much!' Maybe so, but if just 125,000 people chose the option, then the funds raised would be over $600 million dollars. And the freight space for all this? Just one 50 cm cube in one Mars ship, not much more than an average supermarket delivery box.  And what if the idea took off by just ten times, still only one and a quarter million of the several billion humans on this planet? The resulting income would be $6 billion! That would be an immense contribution towards making a Mars colony a reality.

By the way, I am not suggesting that free citizenship should in some way displace colonist's existing Earth nationalities or create complex legal problems. The distinction would simply be a matter of pride in ones involvement and something that I think others would come to honour in its own right.