An Economical Journey to Mars
Mars colonization has been one of the most awaited events and if successfully conducted, it will be the best achievement of mankind. It would motivate various intelligent minds to take up more colonization projects. The main reason behind this initiative is the similarity of Mars and Earth in terms of their position, land, and orbit. As a new colony, the priority would be to generate living conditions and resources on the planet. The most abundant metal on Mars is iron, which is present in the form of metal-oxides on the red planet. In this case, One of the initial trades from Earth would be the fertile manure and fertilizers which will enable the Martian soil to grow plants required for survival. However, this process would be very expensive and would have many ethical and legal challenges. One should agree to the fact that initial investment would be totally for the establishment of the colony and there would be very little to zero financial return.
According to the United Nations outer-space treaty, “No Mars colonist will own the ground they stand on regardless of who launches the first colony ship”. Articles 1 and 2 of this treaty state that celestial objects (including Mars) are the province of all mankind and are not subject to public or private ownership. They also state that the nations are responsible for the spacecraft they launch. NASA and SpaceX are the two organizations rapidly aiming for Mars colonization. SpaceX has the aim of sending two cargo ships to Mars before 2022. Whereas NASA aims it before 2030. Colonies set up by both organizations will function differently. Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX proposes the concept of free-market and claims that most probably, there would be democracy in the colonies.
Xavier De Kestelier, a well-known architect and technologist who developed long-term habitat for Martians as a NASA research project believes that to colonize Mars, we have to opt for a circular economy and make the judicious use of scarce resources on Mars.
Literary Evidence of Communism
In 1908, Aleksandr Bogdanov published Red Star — a novel utopia explaining mankind’s journey to planet Mars where humans establish foundations of a communist future. It depicts that all the anarchic and government institutions are withered away and humans get to experience principles of equality and communism where all the decisions are taken by a large council and people take initiatives for the betterment of the planet. Men and women have become equal and Mars has successfully established a communist colony. The Martians have a worldwide society and have a common language. Despite all these developments, Mars is dying and slowly resources are getting exhausted. People have no option but to choose between Earth and Venus for colonization. The main reason for this could be the incapability to produce more products or resources. Capitalism surely has a solution for this problem and it is successful in most cases.
Martian Currency
There was a lot of speculation on the concept of money on Mars. While most people agree on it or think that cryptocurrency is the future, this concept is still unclear.
Phases of Colonization
Robert Zubrin from Lockheed Martin Astronautics described the economic viability of Mars colonization in his research paper and categorized the colonization into four phases. He called them, “exploration”, “base building”, “settlement” and “terraforming”. Where exploration and base building would be initial steps performed by organizations. This will lead to the introduction of new trade policies between Earth and Mars. The settlement step will be carried out once living conditions are created on the red planet. This is the part where people will get attracted to Mars and the colony can produce a financial return to some extent. The last step of transformation will last long as it requires a lot of research and planning. To compare and frame the economic model, we must realize that the individuals traveling to Mars would be extremely rich and would spend an expensive lifestyle on the Martian desert. To fund the development, several initiatives were taken to operate and manage the colonies. Mars foundation was one of such initiatives. It was created with the donations of several entrepreneurs like Elon Musk and Larry Page. The other one was the Mars operating company which had various space agencies and the people of Mars foundation as their major shareholders. This company was responsible for launching a public stock offering to raise more equity. If the above concepts are successfully implemented, these companies have plans to introduce several priority-based loans with an option to repay. Ideas were proposed for launching space insurance companies and space banks but they involve a lot of risks and their structure is still in the developmental phase.
Colonization Model
Planete Mars, an association established to support the Mars colonization proposed an economic model and suggested that to achieve a profitable operation over a long run of over 20 years, we must consider Mars as an international territory that enjoys a special tax agreement from each country participating in. They have assumed the colony to operate in a condition where they are free from corporate taxes. The proposed model classifies the customers into the following three types:
- The first one is scientists and technicians who are deployed by their respective organizations or associations to conduct research and experiments and exploit the benefit of the possibility to travel to Mars. They will be paid high salaries and their journey would be funded by the organizations.
- The second ones are tourists who want this trip just for the adventure and are capable of covering the journey cost.
- Wealthy businessmen belong to the third group. They are the ones who are ready to leave earth permanently and settle on Mars with their families. They will be provided with every facility and can also work part-time while exercising their professional skills.
To defend the democratic concern of this model, one should state that the population on Mars will consist mainly of scientists and professionals recruited by the colony itself. Their skills, experience, and expertise will determine their chance of getting hired. They will be highly paid, considering the risk and level of their job. The tourists and wealthy businessmen comprise of very less amount of population and their physical strength and limit will decide their odds of surviving in extreme conditions. Having said that, we can conclude that the person will only be selected on his/her competence and it has nothing to do with their social status or wealth.
Conclusion
There is no doubt that the dream of colonizing Mars still requires a lot of planning and funds to support the establishment and travel costs. But after reading the above-mentioned concepts and analyzing the perspectives of different organizations and individuals, we get a basic idea about the Martian economy. The most crucial and tough part remains the creation of living conditions and felicitation of trade between Earth and Mars. The economies will keep on evolving for the betterment of human civilization till the goal of making an efficient and stable society on Mars is achieved.
