The Priciness of Mars

[David_H_Singanas]

Nava, thanks for the corrections.
Another angle on the cost of an ocean crossing is the number of years an Englishman
had to spend as an indentured servant in the colonies. Seven years of white servitude
was the price of the voyage, if you did not want to pay in coin or currency.

[David_H_Singanas]

@For You

I should think that a NASA manned Mars effort would almost certainly not be focused on colonization but on a go-and-come-back expedition. I mean, imagine how Tellurian scientists salivate at the thought of holding samples from Mars in their hands (so to speak, surely they would be kept in isolation). Mars One seeks to bypass the enormous expense of the return trip, but as far as I can see, the prospect of never coming back to Earth would have an unimaginable effect on the Mars One astronauts. The television value of astronauts who went there and came back seems much more palatable than the opportunity to watch insanity slowly take its toll on the Martians.

And to think that Bush the younger supported this one way trip idea.
It’s like a rerun of the Franklin Expedition to find the Northwest Passage.
British confidence in 1840’s technology was so great that they completely
ignored a Plan B or an overland rescue strategy of the Franklin survivors.

[RickJay]

@drachillix

Wouldnt the moon be a far more practical place to start for colonization and or study on life in space. Once we have a working infrastructure there I would think launching from the moon would be far easier/more practical with a small fraction of the escape velocity of earth.

From what Moon materials were you planning on building Mars-bound spacecraft?

[Malthus]

@Little_Nemo

Five hundred years ago there were equally sensible people asking what the point was in sending colonists to the Americas.

But then Tobacco was discovered, and the Beaver Hat invented.

Now all we need is the Martian equivalent.

[Carl_Pham]

It doesn’t have to turn a profit. The American colonies were 100 years old before they started turning a consistent profit. The main reason for the initial colonization was to get the hell away from the misery of Europe. Recall American colonization came just after the Counter-Reformation and the birth of the epic struggle between France and England occasioned by the accession of the Sun King to the throne of the former and his arch-nemesis William of Orange to the throne of the latter. Many nonconformist types – what we’d call Tea Partiers and preppers now – fled England and the Continent to get away from between those giant millstones and live a life of relatively peace. Trading the constraints of jolly old England or the intrigues of Amsterdam for the savage winters and unpredictable savages of the American continent seemed like a good deal.

Arguably the same may ultimately be true of Mars, say. People may go there to get the hell away from the gradual grinding down of liberty, the transformation of the individual from captain of his small ship to just a shiny little cog in the immense Ship O’ Win The Future. They may be willing to give up nearly every material comfort and much of their Earthbound wealth to achieve that. And, no, it would not do to get away to Antarctica or the bottom of the Atlantic. They can still * find * you there, and impose their will upon you.

The only difficulty with this is that the set of those with the motive to go is generally disjoint with the set of those who have the money to go. People with boatloads of cash tend to be those who get along well with the social structure – who are not alienated and wishing to go live far far away and be left alone. Conversely, if you loathe your fellow man sufficiently to escape him to Mars, you are probably not sufficiently socially adept to acquire $millions.

So some lucky coincident meeting of interests has to happen. Say, somebody has to be successful under an older regime, then become demonized and unhappy under a newer (as happened to more than one Nonconformist in 17th century Europe).

[Kimstu]

@Carl_Pham

Many nonconformist types – what we’d call Tea Partiers and preppers now – fled England and the Continent to get away from between those giant millstones and live a life of relatively peace. Trading the constraints of jolly old England or the intrigues of Amsterdam for the savage winters and unpredictable savages of the American continent seemed like a good deal.

Arguably the same may ultimately be true of Mars, say. People may go there to get the hell away from the gradual grinding down of liberty, the transformation of the individual from captain of his small ship to just a shiny little cog in the immense Ship O’ Win The Future. They may be willing to give up nearly every material comfort and much of their Earthbound wealth to achieve that.

:dubious: Discounting historical quibbles about how big a role this romanticized “thirst for freedom” actually played in European settlement of the Americas, there is a BIG difference between that scenario and any possible colonization of Mars.

Namely, while the Americas as part of planet Earth were fundamentally human-habitable in terms of their physical environment, Mars is emphatically not. No lone rugged individualist or small freedom-loving band of same has a snowball’s chance in hell of even drawing two consecutive breaths on the surface of Mars without the help of several shit-tons of centrally coordinated technological infrastructure.

For the foreseeable future it’s only governments, megacorporations and the like that will be able to afford any type of off-Earth colonization efforts. If somebody really wants to get away from the “gradual grinding down of liberty” they associate with governmental oversight and social regimentation, Mars is the last place they ought to seriously consider going.

However, considered merely in the light of an unrealistic ego-boosting daydream, I don’t see why Mars colonization shouldn’t work as well for Tea Party anti-gummint “nonconformists” as for sci-fi nerds.