Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

YES! I would sign up immediately

22 (19.3%)

Yes. I would go, but only after a successful colony already exists

20 (17.5%)

No, it's too expensive, even if I had the money

14 (12.3%)

No, I don't think it would ever be safe enough to travel there

5 (4.4%)

No, for other reasons.

21 (18.4%)

[Kobold Noises]

32 (28.1%)

Total Members Voted: 113

[PTTG??]

I guess that what one could say is that you aught to live life like there's going to be a $500,000 ticket to mars in a decade.

The alternative is, in ten years, you'll have $500,000 sitting around with nothing to do with it... which isn't a bad second place to going to mars.

[FearfulJesuit]

I suspect this "enforcers" thing isn't going to be too much of a problem. Mars is tough to live on and hard to get to, and it will remain that way for a few centuries at least.

Living as we do in a world where the CIA can track down and kill you if they so much as lift as a finger, it's hard for us to remember just how tenuous a grasp any Earth government would have on a Martian colony. Remember, until the 19th century, when communications speeded up, about all European countries cared about was that their colonies bring home the goods.

Simply put: the remoteness of Mars may also be its salvation. While American law may be the foundation for the colonists' legal system, it's likely that they'll have- if only de facto- a large amount of freedom in which of those laws they choose and don't choose to follow.

To boot, there are a number of very well-grounded concepts in American law that simply won't work. If anyone thinks that Mars is where we'll send the world's John Galts to create a Randian paradise, they should chuck their ticket in the rubbish bin. Mars will have a legal and social system that is well-geared to people in a hostile wilderness trying to make a living: if there is capitalism, it will not be corporate, and it will be heavily regulated; the government will likely be democratic, but it will be highly centralized and possibly strike even moderate to moderate liberal Americans as overly controlling. As well, it's likely that the first Martians will find that democracy as she is practiced in the modern West is too change-happy to be of much use. America can put up with a good amount of gridlock, and has been, but on Mars the sort of gridlock we've been seeing would be suicide. How they'll fix those problems, I don't know, but they're certainly going to have to strike out on their own and not operate according to the American way of doing things. (This is where I think having the Chinese on board for this project would be a good thing. I'd much rather have the smartest guys on the ship running the show than whichever fool demagogue gets up on the stump. But I think that individual civil freedoms will still be really important.)

What will the American/Chinese response to all this be? Likely, nothing. It would look really very stupid to- after spending who knows how much on a mars colony- spending as much all over again to conquer it for not sending music companies their royalties and making political candidates pass a test, or whatever they do. But nothing advances technology like a good war, and if we spend a hundred billion dollars finding out how to send eighty thousand people to Mars peacefully, you can bet we'll spend five hundred billion dollars finding out how to send as many troops even faster to conquer them.

But even there, there might be trouble. It's much, much easier to get to Earth from Mars than vice versa, because of the gravity well, and we all know defenders have a built-in advantage...

[10ebbor10]

The one that requires minimal fuel takes several years. (Assuming you're talking about the interplanetary transport network). These are the numbers for a Hofman(incorrect spelling) orbit. Or at least a rough estimate.

Also, this thing has rough estimates for food. It assumes you recycle everything on flight, and such.

When a single mistake can kill a large part of the population , I doubt there will be much laisez-faire politics going on. The colony, at least initially, will be a completely scientific/military project, and will obey those rules.

[Dutchling]

Yeah, I doubt there will be much democracy with those 80k people. Don't see a point for it either.

[PTTG??]

More likely than not, you launch people on the short path, and a couple big stacks of construction supplies on the efficient path.

Social issues will exist, and for those a democratic solution will exist. Fiscal and existential issues will exist, and if you find 80,000 people able to get half a million dollars up to go to space, then you'll probably find about 60,000 people willing to go along with the most rational course of action to survive on mars, and 18,000 people who can be convinced.

[10ebbor10]

More likely than not, you launch people on the short path, and a couple big stacks of construction supplies on the efficient path.

Social issues will exist, and for those a democratic solution will exist. Fiscal and existential issues will exist, and if you find 80,000 people able to get half a million dollars up to go to space, then you'll probably find about 60,000 people willing to go along with the most rational course of action to survive on mars, and 18,000 people who can be convinced.

And 2000 to be used as a emergency food supply?

[PTTG??]

2,000 nutjobs with rich relatives who don't really mind spending a lot of money to get rid of an annoyance.

I don't imagine everyone would be agreeable, but most of the people who can get there and would want to be there will probably be willing to compromise.

Back to slavery, if 40,000 of the 80,000 try to make the other 40,000 do all the work, then it might be a problem... but that won't last very long. More likely, if there were to be social problems, it would be 200 people trying to make the other 79,800 do all the work for no pay.

First, Just because you're far away doesn't mean earth doesn't have any power to bear for human rights. Second, If such an unbalanced power structure existed beforehand, I wouldn't agree to it, and I don't think it's likely many people would. I believe it is even less likely for such an arrangement to occur spontaneously. After all, the last time a bunch of people got together and traveled on fragile ships for months and months before arriving on a harsh new world, I understand that human dignity and liberty, on the whole, came out for the better.

[GlyphGryph]

Yeah, I'm always surprised by how well Australia turned out.

[misko27]

If I had money, FUCK YEAH.
 
However, I don't have money. Ergo, no.

[mainiac]

This is an absurd underestimate of the costs and is looking at the wrong solar body.  The most cost effective way to colonize mars would be to colonize the moon up to a population of 10,000 or so and then wait another 10 years for lunar heavy industry to be up to the task of building colony/trade ships for mars.  Even then mars offers very little besides a surprisingly high concentration of atmospheric carbon.  I see mars at best turning into an agricultural backwater that is dependent on the moon for all manufactured items and existing solely to export food to the moon for the first few decades.

If there was an offer of being a moon colonist for $500k in a colony of 8000 people I'd jump at it in a heartbeat (assuming I could raise the funds).  If I could get a job at in either a mine or foundry for silicon or iron/steel that would pay a reasonable percentage of what a workers output would be then working such a career would let me get filthy stinking rich from my labors.  Plus I could chose to retire on earth if I wanted since the cost of a return ticket wouldn't be crazy expensive.  But 500k per person is way less then what such a project would cost.

[werty892]

First of all, all of you who are saying "ITS ONLY 40 BILLLION HOW ARE THEY-" NO! That's part of what there asking for, from private citizens. They are asking for about 3 times that from government and such. Slavery, it wont exist. Also,l I think they pay 500000 to go to mars is bs, we will get a bunch of people who are so rich and white it will be like shipping cheesecake to mars. They wont do shit. Mostly, I think it would be better if they asked rich people to pledge 500000 to send people who can work and know what they are doing to mars, and then have a wall of donators in what becomes the central area, so we don't get cheesecakes going to mars, we get people who know what they are doing. I would sing up, but I have no relevant skills nor money.

[Loud Whispers]

With that much money on the line they can't afford to not screen who signs up. No one physically or mentally unstable to colonize another planet for example should go.

[werty892]

With that much money on the line they can't afford to not screen who signs up. No one physically or mentally unstable to colonize another planet for example should go.

I don't mean physically or mentally unable, I mean that they will refuse to do anything or have no relevant skills. These are the kinds of people who could afford to pay that

Not blue collar workers, such as people who work in manufacturing or construction.

[PTTG??]

What you'd get is "rich people who want to go to mars", not just "rich people". That is a smaller group, and it includes, mainly, technically-minded, successful geeks.

The hard part would be finding people with the money, skills, and most importantly, a loose enough connection to earth to go.

[Loud Whispers]

Why would they honestly spend that much money on a one way trip to a place without their luxuries? I mean... Wow. The buyer's remorse they would feel.
I would bring them along just for that.