In February there will be three countries with a presence at Mars; two in orbit and one on the ground. Why everyone is clambering for space, and why it's probably our only economic hope for the future.
In the Star Trek movie First Contact the Enterprise travels to earth just before the first warp drive is put into operation, thus attracting the attention of a Vulcan ship which, at the end of the movie, triggers Earth's first contact with an extraterrestrial race.
It is my favorite Star Trek movie for many reasons, not the least of which being the juxtaposition between the somewhat idyllic (if not Utopian) Next Generation folks and the very mercenary and venal Earth and Vulcan folks. Two points here: hero worship not withstanding, Zefram Cochrane has developed his warp drive for purely mercenary reasons; and for all their logic and altruism, the Vulcans are out on a survey and trade mission. This is important to consider, because humankind is on the brink of a period in its history we have not seen the likes of in over 500 years.
Like the Fifteenth Century, our old world is starting to show its collective industrial age. Our infrastructure is crumbling, legacy technology like power delivery via wires is rapidly becoming archaic and unable to meet our growing needs, the furor over carbon and its use for energy generation is pitting society between the unenviable position of progress and stagnation, if not downright regression, and worst off all, global capital has vanished in toto, replaced by an increasingly un-payable and fully interconnected debt.
Space will fix all of this. When highly successful entrepreneurs like Sir Richard Branson, Elon Musk, and Jeff Bezos write checks in the billions, no matter what they say with regard to the greater good and the survivability of mankind, they are really doing it because there is a tremendous potential profit in it. Likewise countries. Why would an emirate in Arabia want a presence on Mars? China a presence on the moon? A great first answer is fuel; namely Helium 3.
Whereas helium 3 has abundance in the lunar regolith, it is nothing compared to the gas giants. If you were a energy producer dependent on the sales of carbon fuel (the emirate) or the leading manufacturing power on earth, and dependent on cheap energy (China) wouldn't you be interested in space? The moon suddenly becomes a valuable power plant for both the earth and the inner solar system, and Mars becomes the Saint Louis of the Western expansion into the realms of the gas giants and their moons with untold potential and unimaginable wealth.
For those who think I have taken one too many of my brain pills, please keep in mind that in 1492, educated Europeans re-discovered the western hemisphere; a Terra Incognita populated by millions and at the very breaking point of global logistics at that time. By the 1550s Spain, France and Portugal all had established mercantile empires fully integrated with Europe, not only in the New World but in Africa, India and the far east. Markets made all the difference. One can only wonder where we might have been by now, if the 1970s had been dedicated to space economics rather than golf balls and publicity stunts.
But it might very well be too late for the United States this time around. If we are not careful we could find ourselves late to the game and scrambling for crumbs. This is not a question of ability or intelligence; its a question of will. The U.S. space program in the 70s became the victim of a noble but misguided concept that we should"fix the problems on our planet before we spend money on exploring other planets." I say noble but misguided, because new industry means new jobs, new wealth, and more middle class people. Do I foresee tract homes on Mars before 2100? Absolutely. Just like people emigrated to the Americas because it offered better prospects than where they were living at the time, so history will repeat; a new manifest destiny will be ignited that will persist until we have mining colonies on Pluto and beyond.
However, I do not expect it to look anything like Star Trek. The space opera Utopia, often sung in a wavering, shriek falsetto, is not realistic when explored by either history or human nature. Nations racing to the moon and Mars (like nations before them racing to the Americas, Africa and Asia) will be no less territorial, petty, covetous or aggressive than their forebears were; quite the opposite. Wealth will be great, but biologic resources few. I expect the Crater Wars; the Polar Wars and the Asteroid Wars will all be prominent chapters in Twenty-Second Century text books.
So how do we avoid all this? How do we keep the rivalries and selfishness of Earth exclusively on this planet? The simple answer is we don't. No one is going to face the grim prospect of living in a mining colony on Mars without the potential of making a whole ton-load of money. Since opportunities to spend this largess will be few, this will mean huge remittances to families left behind on Earth. Much like 1849 California, our early commercial colonies will be somewhat lawless, highly individualistic, and within a generation or two, nearly impossible to govern from Earth. Elon Musk may start off as the Twenty-first Century William Penn, but his fate will be more like that of Lord Baltimore.
As we move to the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, the old dominions of the Moon and Mars will be the quaint East Coast cities of their times; pleasant mementos of when humans sat on the front porch of their plantations and dreamed of an ever expanding frontier of opportunity just over that next hill; just beyond that next river; and Earth; that golden garden spot, will be the Europe of their times; the place where the wealthy space barons send their children for school and on grand tours before coming home and moving further out onto the frontier.
This essay is not about the future; it's about now. The Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa María have already sailed. One way or the other, the die is cast, and our future is already sealed. Hopefully we will be ready for our destiny when it calls.
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