Memories of the 28th Century

.


Antonio wasn’t the only one whose ship had to come in. He aimed high, and he was farsighted. Yes, he was a speculator, but if it weren’t for people who were willing to try something, then we humans would still be following predators around in the hope of scaring them off their kills. And that was only one of the huge gambles that humans have made. I was just thinking about the Mars One idea. I don’t know how far it will go, but big gambles pay off big, if they come in.

I don’t know much about the Mars One company, but it looks like something that might work, but a cynic might say that it looks a little like that colonization program in “Marching Morons” by C. M. Kornbluth. I can imagine campaign to colonize Mars that could work, and this has some of the necessary elements. I don’t know how much money is behind Mars One, but I can’t imagine that it is enough. If Warren Buffet and Bill Gates both put all their money into it, then it might be enough, but I would guess that they only have a billion, or so, to play with, and that’s nowhere near enough.

In the past governments funded things of that sort, Columbus’ voyages for example, and the governments of Spain and Portugal funded many more explorers, as did the governments of England, France, the Netherlands, etc. The U.S.A. put a large amount of money into space exploration in the past, but that money has largely dried up, which is unfortunate. While the argosies to the Moon never brought back riches that could pay for the voyages many times over, but the spinoffs from NASA were very substantial(see link below), but the government didn’t get direct payoffs in most cases. Even getting direct payoffs may not be a good return. Spain kept or marketed most of the precious metals in their American colonies, but it ruined the economy of Spain and led to extreme inflation in Europe. But that was done by flooding the economy with gold, which made gold worth relatively less. The payoff from space exploration would be less direct, and it would be difficult haul back enough precious metals to do anything to the world’s economy, and Mars is less promising than the New World was. I don’t think that Mars One will ever be able to turn a profit, unless they find something that is not yet known.

I’ve read enough Science Fiction that I can imagine people mining the Asteroid Belt profitably, but that would require a Mars Colony where they could get provisions. And techniques for farming in plastic domes could be applied to asteroids. Whatever humans do, we will need to keep expanding our horizons. The general methods for space colonization were developed decades ago, but they have to be put into use; expressing things in works of fiction only is not very satisfying. To go beyond Mars we will need propulsion systems that would be much more effective than anything that exists at present. The most effective transportation systems are also the ones that are least likely to actually work, but there are a few methods that might work. Even if generation ships will be used, agricultural methods that would be developed on Mars would be necessary, and building such ships in a smaller gravity well, such as the Moon or Mars would make a lot of sense.

There was a news story a few days ago about the crew selection for Mars One. It turns out that one of the men on the short list is married, while the rest are not attached. The married one was trying to decide, but the final decision hasn’t been made, so he doesn’t have to decide, yet.

I hope Mars One will move forward. It might spur the government to throw money at that instead of wasting money on military and other activities. If that were combined with some minor changes in tax laws and in business regulations, there might be a few more jobs in the U.S., and the taxes generated from those could pay for more space exploration.



https://www.mars-one.com/
Space spin offs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spin-off_technologies