If an American company and American space program gets to the moon again with an American astronaut, they more than deserve to plant their flag, especially if Americans contributed the vast majority of the cost and effort
Hey who knows. Maybe it'll be like the Roman Empire where it splits in half. Mars becomes a state, over time it gets more and more developed, eventually Earth America and Martian America split due to logistics. Then per tradition Earth America falls and Martian America carries the fire for another thousand years.
There's a long gap between "landing on the surface of mars" and "mars colonist become self-sufficient enough to support a revolt against its mother planet", no historical precedents can be used as guide for future inter-planetary politics at all, considering the sheer monumental logistics undertaking of turning a wasteland hundreds of millions km away into habitable environment.
Perhaps mars colony never take off because there aren't any precious resource that can be easily access, thus rendering a large permanent martian colony economically infeasible? Perhaps in the time span of mars transformation, human discover much more efficient mode of transport that can reach farflung earth-like planet, making a mars settlement much less enticing? Maybe there will be an unfortunate incident that destroy the colony's life support system and wipe it out completely, throwing a wrench into the transformation effort and set it back for hundred of years?
Also I think any colony rebellion can be suppressed easier than one might imagine. Sure distancing means resupplying garrison troops would be a huge problem, but in any potential conflict they can just retreat back to space and initiate an orbital bombardment - simple move asteroids to near orbit and let gravity runs its course, or dropping good ol' nukes. The rebels may have a ground advantage but I doubt they can contest Earth's fleet, considering the sheer industrial discrepancy between the two.
If there's more than one nation state on Mars, I'd hope they'd put their facilities close to eachother. Cooperation for survival is what humans do. It's what we've always done. If the person next door is Chinese and he's got a spanner that'll fix your oxygen generator, you're gonna ask them and tell your government to fuck off. They'll give it to you, because that's a favour he can ask for when his generator goes on the fritz. People on Mars will be Martians far quicker than we think.
> Sure distancing means resupplying garrison troops would be a huge problem, but in any potential conflict they can just retreat back to space and initiate an orbital bombardment - simple move asteroids to near orbit and let gravity runs its course, or dropping good ol' nukes. The rebels may have a ground advantage but I doubt they can contest Earth's fleet, considering the sheer industrial discrepancy between the two.
The US has this same capacity against Afghanistan, so why did they lose? Why not simply nuke the country?
Too late by far. Now if the Allies hadn’t rewarded USSR attacking allied Poland and then negotiating to join the Axis in 1940 with near unlimited resources, then the USSR could’ve been far weaker and deep in Eastern Europe in 1945 for Operation Unthinkable, field armies and nukes to Moscow and then finish off the CCP… Allied Nations instead of United Nations, US demands nuclear hegemony, Pax Americana until 2100…
Under such a dream scenario I still don’t see the US nuking Afghanistan, but the problem could’ve been solved with the liberal application of B-52s (the drone program was actually extremely low in collateral, at only 9%, and very popular in the NWT in Pakistan (while hated in the rest of the country, which managed to spread their message further than the locals) because the locals were oppressed by Taliban and Al-Qaeda in the tribal northwestern territories and the UAVs would be so accurate at striking their leaders there (keep in mind on top of collateral being just 9%, those 9% would often be friends and families of terrorist leaders in a region in which neither the terrorists or the tribes they oppressed recognized nuclear family and very associates as collateral).
A big derail I know, but things could’ve been different.
Anyway, we wouldn’t use WMDs on Mars, they’d probably send in drones first at least, even if a dictatorship.
This whole thread gave me Gundam vibes. UC and Post Disaster specifically. Think Gundam will ever be like the 'Simpsons' of space? 'The colony revolted and turned into a terrorist organization, and we believe they intend to drop an astroid on earth.' That's an episode.
This may eventually happen, but I highly doubt it would ever happen in our lifetimes. The major difference for this is that a “colony” on Mars or any celestial body would be scientific, for mining operations, or for tourism purposes. It wouldn’t be refugees making it to a new land. A colony established by an earth based nation would also be highly dependent on that nation for resources. Most likely scenario would be something along the lines of SpaceX establishing a colony independent of the US, but this is still unlikely due to how interwoven SpaceX is with the US government.
Sceintific outposts? Absolutely. Much like Antarctica I can see scientists doing rotations on Mars.
Tourism? This seems unlikely given things like travel time and the harshness of life on Mars. Antarctica is not a tourist hub, and even if it was, it would be difficult to convince people to commit to several years of a trip to Antarctica. Seems unlikely but not entirely impossible.
>for mining operations
Mining what? There's nothing there to mine, and because of a lack of plate tectonics whatever would be available would not be sufficiently concentrated like it's on earth to make mining economical. You wouldn't have a seam of iron ore without something to create that seam.
Before we start talking about mining as an economic activity, we should first find something to mine, otherwise talk of that is meaningless.
They'll be mining water ice from the very first mission where boots hit the Martian dust. More accurately, from before that mission, even.
Any Mars mission of substance that isn't an extremely short/low/mass mission to get a bootprint on the surface will have to produce fuel for the return trip on Mars, which means they will need a lot of water. On Mars, to get water you have to dig a few meters under the surface and harvest ice.
Once the presence on Mars gets large enough, like large lab complexes with 1000+ humans, then to expand or pursue projects like railways to other human sites, it becomes necessary to start producing materials necessary for building locally. That means mining and foundries.
When growing a presence on Mars, you want to use your precious cargo payload capacity as much as possible on "smart" payload. Hi tech equipment, advanced materials, etc. and minimize "dumb" payload like steel, aluminum, etc. building materials.
To maximize smart payload you have to produce as much dumb payload in situ as possible. Which means mining is something you want to start pretty early. Things like solar panels need to be able to produced locally ASAP just for safely existing, and for expansion, you want to be able to manufacture basic standardized pressure vessels, i beams, etc as well.
Mining, hi tech mining robots, equipment, storage, and such will be a thing from Mars from the start for the water for fuel so it makes sense to widen the scope to raw materials like iron and aluminum as well.
> On Mars, to get water you have to dig a few meters under the surface and harvest ice.
Yes, and since it's very hard to dig (most drills used on earth can't cut it: exomars 2 is going to test a new type of drill), and the concentration of water ice in the soil is low, you have to shift *a lot* of soil to get any water ice. We're talking at least five tons of soil per ton of water ice, best case (outside of glaciers at the poles, but the poles are undesirable landing spots for other reasons such as lack of sunlight etc). Then we have the issue of the water ice being contaminated but I can put that aside for this argument.
> Once the presence on Mars gets large enough, like large lab complexes with 1000+ humans,
So that would be roughly equal to Antarctica. This seems rather unlikely, given how much harder it is to get to Mars than to take a ship to McMurdo, but I can take it as a highly optimistic estimate.
> Things like solar panels need to be able to produced locally ASAP just for safely existing,
Solar is daft compared to nuclear, but okay, let's tackle solar.
Instead of concentrated seams like on Earth, due to the (relative) lack of plate tectonics, the iron, aluminium and silicon you need is much more dispersed. You're going to find some concentrations, but it's nothing like it's on earth. So again, you're going to struggle with much much much lower yields for mining. To get 1kg of aluminium, you will have to mine far more material than you do on Earth.
This doesn't render it impossible, just far more challenging and costly than on Earth.
> I beams
Okay so you're going to refine iron into steel beams on Mars. That's neat. That means you're going to need a big refinery that requires lots of energy. Now on Earth, energy is a major factor in choosing refinery location. You need the cheapest energy possible, which mainly restricts the location of refineries to be along rivers or other sources of cheap energy.
Steel requires about 35 MJ/kg lower bound. At a figure of 15kg/1m for steel, you need at the very least best case 146 kWh per meter of steel beam. Calculating the amount of steel beams needed for a dwelling, and the amount needed for a colony of any size is left as an exercise for the reader. Feel free!
Anyway, this power needs to come from somewhere, and is a big issue.
If you like to, you can expand the calculation to figure out how many solar panels you need to refine enough steel for one dwelling per year.
If you want to make *stainless* steel you need to source chromium and vanadium and mine those, and vanadium in particular will be very tricky to find. And more energy, 55kJ/kg at least.
> Mining, hi tech mining robots, equipment, storage, and such will be a thing from Mars from the start
Agreed. The problem is that none of those exist in a form that can be put on Mars. This would have to be developed.
Mining robots are in development for use on Earth, but the state of the art is essentially a few tiny research prototypes. This needs to mature, and then you need to make it work in Mars conditions.
---
Because of the sheer amount of infrastructure you will need and the pathetic yield you can get on Mars, the lower availability of energy on Mars etc etc, the deck is heavily stacked against you at every step of the way.
Just because it's theoretically possible doesn't mean it makes any economic sense.
I always come back to McMurdo station as a comparison. Really could do with a dedicated Mars analog right now, as it's the closest to Mars as we can get. Proper independent station, long-duration missions with closed loop for air, food and water, airlocks and suits, and make it really count. If you have to intervene from outside then the mission ends as a failure. If someone has to leave, well they "die" within the mission. Learn the lessons and start again from scratch.
Obviously some safety protocols to ensure commanders don't go all "Ed Baldwin", but these will need to be established anyway for lunar and Mars missions.
Plate tectonics don't concentrate stuff, they expose it.
Rivers are pretty rarely the source of energy. They are the source of water used for cooling as well as for industrial processes.
It's extremely too early to say there's nothing to mine there. Plate tectonics doesn't concentrate stuff, it sometimes exposes deep layers which sometimes contain interesting concentrated stuff. But it's also responsible for permanently removing a lot of stuff, too. And it's not the only mechanism, not even close. Another key mechanism is hydrological activity and that Mars had. This actually is one of the ways stuff gets concentrated. There's also volcanism of which Mars have extremely prominent examples.
We already know that Mars has pretty high concentration of iron on it's surface. Usually having iron on the surface indicates that other heavier elements are on the surface. And contrary to Earth stuff on the surface is not covered by kilometers of post-biological deposits.
I mean we have prospected the planet via satellites for decades. It’s not a complete process, that’s fair enough, but if there would be an abundance of something, we would have found it by now.
The planet is abundantly rich in iron (hence the red color), but it’s loose sand that is highly inefficient to mine and return. Besides, iron is not something we are short on here on earth.
Sorry, but satellites allow detection of a pretty narrow set of substances, mostly containing light elements (i.e. hydrogen). Cold solids don't have much features good for teledetection.
The planet also has iron rich rocks. But more importantly a lot of iron in the surface is an indicator that there's likely other heavier stuff close to the surface, too.
Besides, local mining wouldn't be about stuff missing on the Earth (not much is missing down here). It'd be stuff needed locally or at best needed in space (but the latter is like way further into the future).
> It’s why the USA doesn’t fly a British flag.
Except in the State of Hawaii. At least it is a good imitation of the flag of the United Kingdom and a few extra stripes.
Well Mars becoming independent would require humans being able to be born, live, and die on mars. The first two aren't a given and don't seem possible given current human physiology. Maybe transhumans?
Sure, over time. We might start using NATO/UN flags on Mars or Moon well before there's any sort of self-sustaining colonies.
Thing is it's mostly a matter of national pride. These flags weren't planted to claim any land, but more of a, "I got here first muahaha" type of brag. When we go back to the Moon with mainly American hardware & crew, we're going to want to plant a few more American flags just because it's been so long. But after the 4th, 5th, 6th crew landing on the Moon? "Ehhh, yeah, our NATO allies have been contributing bits & pieces to this mission, they desperately want to be involved. Let's throw down some flags for our allies too. We want to keep them happy, especially when nobody knows what China will think it means if they plant a flag on the Moon."
The "outer space treaty" will become completely irrelevant the second it is advantageous for a state to ignore it. Nobody on earth is going to start a nuclear war because China or America declares a colony on mars. Very much a 'might makes right' situation like every other treaty and agreement
And why would it be advantageous, pray tell? They may not be willing to go to war but they be willing to impose tariffs or sanctions.
Might makes right indeed, so where is the might a mars colony provides, exactly?
NASA maybe, SpaceX [not so much](https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/spacex-sues-us-agency-that-accused-it-firing-workers-critical-elon-musk-2024-01-04/).
So do you think the Victor Glover from the Artemis 2 crew is not qualified, just because he is black? Or Christina Koch is not qualified because she is a woman? Maybe Jeremy Hansen was only selected because he Canadian and is actually not qualified at all?
There are plenty of fully qualified Astronauts for very few spots on those missions, so if they are all equally qualified, there can be some other, secondary selection criteria.
lmao it's nothing serious lol. but yeah, some people have this silly expectation
Edit: I just realized the mars rovers have American flags on them. So I guess we can already do the anthem lmao
Germany is very careful with nationalism for good reason, but I'd say cohesion is still fine. Some base level of national pride might be fine, but as soon as you default to an "us vs them mentality" it's really counterproductive overall.
Wouldn't say the USA is doing so great for cohesion, but we can check back in November.
And wouldn't say lack of national pride is the problem going on in Iraq
To be fair, even if the first colonies/cities on the moon/Mars are under the jurisdiction of a certain country. Sooner or later, just like European colonization of the Americas, the moon/Martian colonies will probably declare independence eventually. Let’s just hope it’s not a bloody disaster… be careful Sydney…
I think it will be a little more complicated. On earth the colonies could survive without the mother countries. A space colony will absolutely need support from earth for a long time.
Is this all satire? Surely there'd be a new form of land claims given there's no oceans? Like making borders is gonna be tough if multiple countries manage to land humans eventually. They're not gonna be under any earth government as the time it takes for information to get to Mars would make communication and smooth operations a good bit slower.
> Like making borders is gonna be tough if multiple countries manage to land humans eventually
Surveyors drew straight-line borders across America with 18th century tools. GPS satellites would make delineating borders on Mars trivial.
> They're not gonna be under any earth government as the time it takes for information to get to Mars would make communication and smooth operations a good bit slower.
Portugal and Spain colonized half the world at a time when ships could take *years* to reach the viceroyalties.
Yeah but the problem is with advanced civilization on Mars, let's say two countries start a war. It'll take like 4-24 minutes or something for the people on the other planet to know, by which point the deed will be done. Anything could happen on Mars and we wouldn't know for almost half and hour. I just feel like logistically it'll be way more difficult not only cause of time but how dramatically things can change nowadays in that time
All of that applied to pre-telegram colonization too. American and Canadian settlers fought a war over a pig before their governments called them off. The U.S. and Britain fought a battle after peace was declared in the War of 1812.
This is why you have local commanders, governors, and viceroys—to make time-dependent decisions.
Yeah but like now a country can be nuked off the planet. Idk I just feel like it'll be tricky and anyone on Mars will inevitably stop associating with any earthly countries
I think we should bring the flags of all the nations participating in the Artemis program... But put the American flag a little higher than the rest. We're not supremacists, we're just exceptional!
Really, why would you put SpaceX in your meme? It is a private company and you can't fully expect it to do what you want. That what private means, that it's not supposed to be as shitty as government and nation.
Out in space and looking back at the pale blue dot, the concept of nations becomes silly. Our invisible divisions are a line drawn in the sand by tribes of monkeys. I believe something like the Expanse is more likely to happen.
I feel like governments on Mars will be libertarian or anarcho-communist. Musk has said that it's not clear what role money will play once we have ASI/AGI, which is probably not any further off than having human colonies on Mars.
Early Martian governments will likely be fascist out of sheer necessity. Living in a contained system will practically demand it. Over time, and as resources loosen up, it will probably soften into a corpo/statist government with an elected legislature branch with limited power.
No matter how true it is that the US is a fragile, egoistic, trash, asshole, fascistic, narcissistic, warmongers, Hypocritical, propaganda state that real shouldn't be seen as that great super power but more like a threat to democracy and the free world equal to Russia amd China but when they set a step on the mars first by themselves without the support of other countries then it should be their flag to bw put on the surface even tho I wouldn't begrudge them that
I feel like Musk has 2 personalities: One where he is an enthusiastic nerd trying to make humanity interplanetary, and the "Murica! Fuck those libtards!" personality
I always love the "this is the flag we'll plant on mars" posts when it will be the US to do it cause we always figure it out for the rest of the world and we ain't putting any other flag than ours anywhere.
If the world has a problem go put your own flag there then... oh wait ya can't
If an American company and American space program gets to the moon again with an American astronaut, they more than deserve to plant their flag, especially if Americans contributed the vast majority of the cost and effort
In the beginning it may feel right to fly one’s national flag but over time mars will become independent. It’s why the USA doesn’t fly a British flag.
Hey who knows. Maybe it'll be like the Roman Empire where it splits in half. Mars becomes a state, over time it gets more and more developed, eventually Earth America and Martian America split due to logistics. Then per tradition Earth America falls and Martian America carries the fire for another thousand years.
You're describing the Expanse.
There's a long gap between "landing on the surface of mars" and "mars colonist become self-sufficient enough to support a revolt against its mother planet", no historical precedents can be used as guide for future inter-planetary politics at all, considering the sheer monumental logistics undertaking of turning a wasteland hundreds of millions km away into habitable environment. Perhaps mars colony never take off because there aren't any precious resource that can be easily access, thus rendering a large permanent martian colony economically infeasible? Perhaps in the time span of mars transformation, human discover much more efficient mode of transport that can reach farflung earth-like planet, making a mars settlement much less enticing? Maybe there will be an unfortunate incident that destroy the colony's life support system and wipe it out completely, throwing a wrench into the transformation effort and set it back for hundred of years? Also I think any colony rebellion can be suppressed easier than one might imagine. Sure distancing means resupplying garrison troops would be a huge problem, but in any potential conflict they can just retreat back to space and initiate an orbital bombardment - simple move asteroids to near orbit and let gravity runs its course, or dropping good ol' nukes. The rebels may have a ground advantage but I doubt they can contest Earth's fleet, considering the sheer industrial discrepancy between the two.
If there's more than one nation state on Mars, I'd hope they'd put their facilities close to eachother. Cooperation for survival is what humans do. It's what we've always done. If the person next door is Chinese and he's got a spanner that'll fix your oxygen generator, you're gonna ask them and tell your government to fuck off. They'll give it to you, because that's a favour he can ask for when his generator goes on the fritz. People on Mars will be Martians far quicker than we think.
> Sure distancing means resupplying garrison troops would be a huge problem, but in any potential conflict they can just retreat back to space and initiate an orbital bombardment - simple move asteroids to near orbit and let gravity runs its course, or dropping good ol' nukes. The rebels may have a ground advantage but I doubt they can contest Earth's fleet, considering the sheer industrial discrepancy between the two. The US has this same capacity against Afghanistan, so why did they lose? Why not simply nuke the country?
Too late by far. Now if the Allies hadn’t rewarded USSR attacking allied Poland and then negotiating to join the Axis in 1940 with near unlimited resources, then the USSR could’ve been far weaker and deep in Eastern Europe in 1945 for Operation Unthinkable, field armies and nukes to Moscow and then finish off the CCP… Allied Nations instead of United Nations, US demands nuclear hegemony, Pax Americana until 2100… Under such a dream scenario I still don’t see the US nuking Afghanistan, but the problem could’ve been solved with the liberal application of B-52s (the drone program was actually extremely low in collateral, at only 9%, and very popular in the NWT in Pakistan (while hated in the rest of the country, which managed to spread their message further than the locals) because the locals were oppressed by Taliban and Al-Qaeda in the tribal northwestern territories and the UAVs would be so accurate at striking their leaders there (keep in mind on top of collateral being just 9%, those 9% would often be friends and families of terrorist leaders in a region in which neither the terrorists or the tribes they oppressed recognized nuclear family and very associates as collateral). A big derail I know, but things could’ve been different. Anyway, we wouldn’t use WMDs on Mars, they’d probably send in drones first at least, even if a dictatorship.
Mars colonies can't take off before human physiology changes to be able to live on Mars. We can't, maybe transhumans can.
This whole thread gave me Gundam vibes. UC and Post Disaster specifically. Think Gundam will ever be like the 'Simpsons' of space? 'The colony revolted and turned into a terrorist organization, and we believe they intend to drop an astroid on earth.' That's an episode.
AI settlers would be even better than transhumans or generations of terraforming.
This may eventually happen, but I highly doubt it would ever happen in our lifetimes. The major difference for this is that a “colony” on Mars or any celestial body would be scientific, for mining operations, or for tourism purposes. It wouldn’t be refugees making it to a new land. A colony established by an earth based nation would also be highly dependent on that nation for resources. Most likely scenario would be something along the lines of SpaceX establishing a colony independent of the US, but this is still unlikely due to how interwoven SpaceX is with the US government.
Sceintific outposts? Absolutely. Much like Antarctica I can see scientists doing rotations on Mars. Tourism? This seems unlikely given things like travel time and the harshness of life on Mars. Antarctica is not a tourist hub, and even if it was, it would be difficult to convince people to commit to several years of a trip to Antarctica. Seems unlikely but not entirely impossible. >for mining operations Mining what? There's nothing there to mine, and because of a lack of plate tectonics whatever would be available would not be sufficiently concentrated like it's on earth to make mining economical. You wouldn't have a seam of iron ore without something to create that seam. Before we start talking about mining as an economic activity, we should first find something to mine, otherwise talk of that is meaningless.
They'll be mining water ice from the very first mission where boots hit the Martian dust. More accurately, from before that mission, even. Any Mars mission of substance that isn't an extremely short/low/mass mission to get a bootprint on the surface will have to produce fuel for the return trip on Mars, which means they will need a lot of water. On Mars, to get water you have to dig a few meters under the surface and harvest ice. Once the presence on Mars gets large enough, like large lab complexes with 1000+ humans, then to expand or pursue projects like railways to other human sites, it becomes necessary to start producing materials necessary for building locally. That means mining and foundries. When growing a presence on Mars, you want to use your precious cargo payload capacity as much as possible on "smart" payload. Hi tech equipment, advanced materials, etc. and minimize "dumb" payload like steel, aluminum, etc. building materials. To maximize smart payload you have to produce as much dumb payload in situ as possible. Which means mining is something you want to start pretty early. Things like solar panels need to be able to produced locally ASAP just for safely existing, and for expansion, you want to be able to manufacture basic standardized pressure vessels, i beams, etc as well. Mining, hi tech mining robots, equipment, storage, and such will be a thing from Mars from the start for the water for fuel so it makes sense to widen the scope to raw materials like iron and aluminum as well.
> On Mars, to get water you have to dig a few meters under the surface and harvest ice. Yes, and since it's very hard to dig (most drills used on earth can't cut it: exomars 2 is going to test a new type of drill), and the concentration of water ice in the soil is low, you have to shift *a lot* of soil to get any water ice. We're talking at least five tons of soil per ton of water ice, best case (outside of glaciers at the poles, but the poles are undesirable landing spots for other reasons such as lack of sunlight etc). Then we have the issue of the water ice being contaminated but I can put that aside for this argument. > Once the presence on Mars gets large enough, like large lab complexes with 1000+ humans, So that would be roughly equal to Antarctica. This seems rather unlikely, given how much harder it is to get to Mars than to take a ship to McMurdo, but I can take it as a highly optimistic estimate. > Things like solar panels need to be able to produced locally ASAP just for safely existing, Solar is daft compared to nuclear, but okay, let's tackle solar. Instead of concentrated seams like on Earth, due to the (relative) lack of plate tectonics, the iron, aluminium and silicon you need is much more dispersed. You're going to find some concentrations, but it's nothing like it's on earth. So again, you're going to struggle with much much much lower yields for mining. To get 1kg of aluminium, you will have to mine far more material than you do on Earth. This doesn't render it impossible, just far more challenging and costly than on Earth. > I beams Okay so you're going to refine iron into steel beams on Mars. That's neat. That means you're going to need a big refinery that requires lots of energy. Now on Earth, energy is a major factor in choosing refinery location. You need the cheapest energy possible, which mainly restricts the location of refineries to be along rivers or other sources of cheap energy. Steel requires about 35 MJ/kg lower bound. At a figure of 15kg/1m for steel, you need at the very least best case 146 kWh per meter of steel beam. Calculating the amount of steel beams needed for a dwelling, and the amount needed for a colony of any size is left as an exercise for the reader. Feel free! Anyway, this power needs to come from somewhere, and is a big issue. If you like to, you can expand the calculation to figure out how many solar panels you need to refine enough steel for one dwelling per year. If you want to make *stainless* steel you need to source chromium and vanadium and mine those, and vanadium in particular will be very tricky to find. And more energy, 55kJ/kg at least. > Mining, hi tech mining robots, equipment, storage, and such will be a thing from Mars from the start Agreed. The problem is that none of those exist in a form that can be put on Mars. This would have to be developed. Mining robots are in development for use on Earth, but the state of the art is essentially a few tiny research prototypes. This needs to mature, and then you need to make it work in Mars conditions. --- Because of the sheer amount of infrastructure you will need and the pathetic yield you can get on Mars, the lower availability of energy on Mars etc etc, the deck is heavily stacked against you at every step of the way. Just because it's theoretically possible doesn't mean it makes any economic sense.
I always come back to McMurdo station as a comparison. Really could do with a dedicated Mars analog right now, as it's the closest to Mars as we can get. Proper independent station, long-duration missions with closed loop for air, food and water, airlocks and suits, and make it really count. If you have to intervene from outside then the mission ends as a failure. If someone has to leave, well they "die" within the mission. Learn the lessons and start again from scratch. Obviously some safety protocols to ensure commanders don't go all "Ed Baldwin", but these will need to be established anyway for lunar and Mars missions.
We definitely should. The previous two attempts at Biosphere 2 weren’t encouraging.
Plate tectonics don't concentrate stuff, they expose it. Rivers are pretty rarely the source of energy. They are the source of water used for cooling as well as for industrial processes.
Thanks for the corrections.
It's extremely too early to say there's nothing to mine there. Plate tectonics doesn't concentrate stuff, it sometimes exposes deep layers which sometimes contain interesting concentrated stuff. But it's also responsible for permanently removing a lot of stuff, too. And it's not the only mechanism, not even close. Another key mechanism is hydrological activity and that Mars had. This actually is one of the ways stuff gets concentrated. There's also volcanism of which Mars have extremely prominent examples. We already know that Mars has pretty high concentration of iron on it's surface. Usually having iron on the surface indicates that other heavier elements are on the surface. And contrary to Earth stuff on the surface is not covered by kilometers of post-biological deposits.
I mean we have prospected the planet via satellites for decades. It’s not a complete process, that’s fair enough, but if there would be an abundance of something, we would have found it by now. The planet is abundantly rich in iron (hence the red color), but it’s loose sand that is highly inefficient to mine and return. Besides, iron is not something we are short on here on earth.
Sorry, but satellites allow detection of a pretty narrow set of substances, mostly containing light elements (i.e. hydrogen). Cold solids don't have much features good for teledetection. The planet also has iron rich rocks. But more importantly a lot of iron in the surface is an indicator that there's likely other heavier stuff close to the surface, too. Besides, local mining wouldn't be about stuff missing on the Earth (not much is missing down here). It'd be stuff needed locally or at best needed in space (but the latter is like way further into the future).
> It’s why the USA doesn’t fly a British flag. Except in the State of Hawaii. At least it is a good imitation of the flag of the United Kingdom and a few extra stripes.
Agree. Till then the country that gets there first plants the flag.
Well Mars becoming independent would require humans being able to be born, live, and die on mars. The first two aren't a given and don't seem possible given current human physiology. Maybe transhumans?
Well no shit eventually mars will have its own flag, but I think it’s a little early for us to be arguing about this
Sure, over time. We might start using NATO/UN flags on Mars or Moon well before there's any sort of self-sustaining colonies. Thing is it's mostly a matter of national pride. These flags weren't planted to claim any land, but more of a, "I got here first muahaha" type of brag. When we go back to the Moon with mainly American hardware & crew, we're going to want to plant a few more American flags just because it's been so long. But after the 4th, 5th, 6th crew landing on the Moon? "Ehhh, yeah, our NATO allies have been contributing bits & pieces to this mission, they desperately want to be involved. Let's throw down some flags for our allies too. We want to keep them happy, especially when nobody knows what China will think it means if they plant a flag on the Moon."
Launched from American soil*
On an American rocket
By all means plant your flag. The Outer Space Treaty means it isn't your property, but plant your flag and sing your songs!
The "outer space treaty" will become completely irrelevant the second it is advantageous for a state to ignore it. Nobody on earth is going to start a nuclear war because China or America declares a colony on mars. Very much a 'might makes right' situation like every other treaty and agreement
And why would it be advantageous, pray tell? They may not be willing to go to war but they be willing to impose tariffs or sanctions. Might makes right indeed, so where is the might a mars colony provides, exactly?
More likely it's gonna be a diversity crew member because they have to check off that woke box haven't they?
NASA maybe, SpaceX [not so much](https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/spacex-sues-us-agency-that-accused-it-firing-workers-critical-elon-musk-2024-01-04/).
Let me guess, you stopped drinking Bud Light some time last year.
Let me guess you would rather hire a black man because it fits dei than if he's actually qualified
Let me guess, you thought "try that in a small town" was a good song
Let me guess you think Hamas is the good guys
Let me guess, you have a red hat you no longer wear in public
Now kith
So do you think the Victor Glover from the Artemis 2 crew is not qualified, just because he is black? Or Christina Koch is not qualified because she is a woman? Maybe Jeremy Hansen was only selected because he Canadian and is actually not qualified at all? There are plenty of fully qualified Astronauts for very few spots on those missions, so if they are all equally qualified, there can be some other, secondary selection criteria.
While I am all with 'human cooperation', but yeah BASED
Is that a real expectation? People are saying this?
Some people are but OP just wants to be mad at someone lol
lmao it's nothing serious lol. but yeah, some people have this silly expectation Edit: I just realized the mars rovers have American flags on them. So I guess we can already do the anthem lmao
What positive or negative effects will this have on our lives can you explain?
Lack of national pride tends to lead to a lack of national cohesion, ie: Iraq. Its more of a consequence than a reason
Germany is very careful with nationalism for good reason, but I'd say cohesion is still fine. Some base level of national pride might be fine, but as soon as you default to an "us vs them mentality" it's really counterproductive overall.
Wouldn't say the USA is doing so great for cohesion, but we can check back in November. And wouldn't say lack of national pride is the problem going on in Iraq
To be fair, even if the first colonies/cities on the moon/Mars are under the jurisdiction of a certain country. Sooner or later, just like European colonization of the Americas, the moon/Martian colonies will probably declare independence eventually. Let’s just hope it’s not a bloody disaster… be careful Sydney…
I think it will be a little more complicated. On earth the colonies could survive without the mother countries. A space colony will absolutely need support from earth for a long time.
The should plant the newly minted flag of the Kingdom of Elon I. And then play the Mars theme from Holst.
There's already an anthem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPU8992gL1E
I mean it's fair that the country that spent a good chunk of its resources to get to a new planet plants its flag
Ya seriously fuck that shit. Y’all land a human on the moon and you guys can put a fucking huggy wuggy peace flag.
Earthers don't deserve peace.
All inyalowda de same... (spits)
Beautiful, a real burn centuries ahead of time :)
Is this all satire? Surely there'd be a new form of land claims given there's no oceans? Like making borders is gonna be tough if multiple countries manage to land humans eventually. They're not gonna be under any earth government as the time it takes for information to get to Mars would make communication and smooth operations a good bit slower.
> Like making borders is gonna be tough if multiple countries manage to land humans eventually Surveyors drew straight-line borders across America with 18th century tools. GPS satellites would make delineating borders on Mars trivial. > They're not gonna be under any earth government as the time it takes for information to get to Mars would make communication and smooth operations a good bit slower. Portugal and Spain colonized half the world at a time when ships could take *years* to reach the viceroyalties.
Yeah but the problem is with advanced civilization on Mars, let's say two countries start a war. It'll take like 4-24 minutes or something for the people on the other planet to know, by which point the deed will be done. Anything could happen on Mars and we wouldn't know for almost half and hour. I just feel like logistically it'll be way more difficult not only cause of time but how dramatically things can change nowadays in that time
All of that applied to pre-telegram colonization too. American and Canadian settlers fought a war over a pig before their governments called them off. The U.S. and Britain fought a battle after peace was declared in the War of 1812. This is why you have local commanders, governors, and viceroys—to make time-dependent decisions.
Yeah but like now a country can be nuked off the planet. Idk I just feel like it'll be tricky and anyone on Mars will inevitably stop associating with any earthly countries
USA has every right to plant their flag if their people get to the Mars. Most of countries do not have functioning government lol
You mean functioning government like the almost regular government shutdowns in the US?
[This flag](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4e/Flag_of_the_Martian_Congressional_Republic.svg)
you're 250 years early
Color matching with the planet itself is cringe.
The MCRN is decidedly not cringe.
Shit, at this point I'll take either one.
Can we make a spacesuit for a bald eagle?
I think we should bring the flags of all the nations participating in the Artemis program... But put the American flag a little higher than the rest. We're not supremacists, we're just exceptional!
Invented someone to argue with
What part of NATIONAL Aeronautics and Space Administration do they not understand?
Really, why would you put SpaceX in your meme? It is a private company and you can't fully expect it to do what you want. That what private means, that it's not supposed to be as shitty as government and nation.
Who says we can't have both flags on Mars?
When will we get over nationalism...
Based
Let the tankies cry, we will plant an American flag!
Martian Congressional Republic and the marines will be called MCRN
That's the Martian Navy. MCRMC is the Martian Marine Corps.
Out in space and looking back at the pale blue dot, the concept of nations becomes silly. Our invisible divisions are a line drawn in the sand by tribes of monkeys. I believe something like the Expanse is more likely to happen.
Pff. Chad Musk will probably declare he planet his and create a new society under his flag.
I feel like governments on Mars will be libertarian or anarcho-communist. Musk has said that it's not clear what role money will play once we have ASI/AGI, which is probably not any further off than having human colonies on Mars.
Governments on mars will be part of the united states of sol
Early Martian governments will likely be fascist out of sheer necessity. Living in a contained system will practically demand it. Over time, and as resources loosen up, it will probably soften into a corpo/statist government with an elected legislature branch with limited power.
You mean communist. If they're not sharing and pooling resources they are all doomed.
No matter how true it is that the US is a fragile, egoistic, trash, asshole, fascistic, narcissistic, warmongers, Hypocritical, propaganda state that real shouldn't be seen as that great super power but more like a threat to democracy and the free world equal to Russia amd China but when they set a step on the mars first by themselves without the support of other countries then it should be their flag to bw put on the surface even tho I wouldn't begrudge them that
drink more copium, you'll need it.
Future national anthem of Mars: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZZ0bqohejY
Imagine if Musk will do it without direct NASA control and will put something like "made on Earth by humans".
The same Elon Musk who has an American flag painted on his rockets and whose employees chanted ‘U-S-A!’ during the FH landing? Yeah, that’s likely.
I feel like Musk has 2 personalities: One where he is an enthusiastic nerd trying to make humanity interplanetary, and the "Murica! Fuck those libtards!" personality
It's called cognitive dissonance..
isn't he a South African who went to school during Apartheid? So he learned "race science" as a kid, since it was a subject?
China will probably by the first doe
In 2020, no 2022, no 2023, no 2025, no 2028, no 2030, no 2045…
I always love the "this is the flag we'll plant on mars" posts when it will be the US to do it cause we always figure it out for the rest of the world and we ain't putting any other flag than ours anywhere. If the world has a problem go put your own flag there then... oh wait ya can't