Elon Musk's ambitious plans for the colonization of Mars have many obstacles in the way. Last week, the head of SpaceX seriously stated such things that many here, with us, in the comments questioned Musk's sanity, and maybe the nature of reality itself. But the reality is this: SpaceX has set out to transport at least a million people to Mars over the next 40-70 years. Well … let's say.
Let's say we delivered a hundred people to the Red Planet. Let's say SpaceX has developed a giant ship powerful enough to accommodate a hundred people and allow them to survive a months-long trip in airless space. Suppose potential colonists were protected from dangerous cosmic radiation, fed, watered, amused - and they became the first interplanetary citizens of our kind.
But the real difficulties will begin only then. People will have to live on Mars, not even live - to survive, and the Red Planet is not at all adapted for this. A hundred years ago, people were seriously frightened by reports that a race of superdeveloped creatures, which had long planned to attack Earth, was located on Mars. They brought tripod cars and bombed half the planet until we found control on them.
The funny thing is that even if there is no hostile race on Mars, one breath of the Martian atmosphere - and death. Depressurization is death. A serious accident is death. Death, death, death, welcomed by those going to Mars. The first colonists will have to be ready to die, and no one will bury them there in order to save resources.
And they must also be prepared to sabotage. One hundred people who have dedicated their lives to another planet may be serious, but they will fight for their rights just as seriously. Communication with the real world for them will be very fragile and certainly not instantaneous. SpaceX will not have any leverage over its own customers. Away from the prying eyes of earthly governments, the inhabitants (citizens) of Mars can abandon their earthly overseers, go underground, create trade unions, start mutating, in the end. Between the warring factions on a newly developed planet, a representative of the Earth may intervene - as an intermediary - but who cares about him? Most likely, the colonists will stay away from the "blue men" from Earth.
Of course, the problems described above are not enough to assess the full potential of the threats, but just imagine what would happen if you add them to the long list that SpaceX engineers will be preparing for. Here on Earth, we perfectly know the cost of human error - and we know even better the cost of human intention. Especially vicious.
Tell me, is it legal?
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People have accumulated so many questions for Musk that if they gave him a dollar for each, he would become a billionaire again. How will this all work? How legal is it? This question may not be worth asking in the first place, but we got to it, in the end.
Joanna Gabrinovich, director of the International Institute of Space Law, argues that there is simply no legal basis that could explain most of what Musk has outlined in his plans. This is short. So far, the billionaire does not even have permission to send a single robotic probe to Mars, let alone thousands of Earth citizens.
In the United States, for example, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is responsible for putting molecules into orbit. It affirms everything that will be sent into orbit and that will come back. But as soon as you find yourself in orbit or on another celestial body, the rules become a little vague. “At the moment, there is no legal regime for orbital activities,” says Gabrinovic.
For a US company to do anything, it must obtain approval from the appropriate federal agency, the FAA, or the US Department of State. Last month, for example, Lunar X-Prize participant Moon Express received a "favorable cargo definition" from the FAA in response to a request to send a robotic module to the moon. The feds decided that this valuable cargo would not harm people or jeopardize the national security of the United States, so the Moon Express can fly safely. For the first time, a private American corporation received permission to land on a celestial body.
And that endorsement was met with outspoken exclamations of happiness from the commercial space community, which took it as a sign that the feds were favoring space activities. But the FAA has also made it clear that it is not going to do this forever.
“Other companies, or even Moon Express, will have to go through a similar inspection of valuable cargo whenever they want to send it somewhere. Everything will be considered individually."
Moreover, obtaining a permit for a valuable cargo is not the same as obtaining a license to operate after landing. If you want to surf the surface, search for precious metals, send a message to Earth, or build a city, other licenses are required.
All we have at the moment is the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, according to which the country is responsible for any activity of its companies on other celestial bodies. And if SpaceX is going to build a colony on Mars, the United States will have to carefully monitor and regulate this process, whether they like it or not. This will be especially strange against the background of the ban on the use of nuclear weapons in space, to which everyone is very sensitive, and the ban on the pollution of celestial bodies.
It should also not be forgotten that the Outer Space Treaty also prohibits any person from appropriating territories in outer space. That is, according to the current legislation, the Martian colonists will be just squatters (self-capture) or pirates. However, whether this will concern them is another question. And should it?
“There are simply no legal answers to these questions for people,” says Gabrinovich. - I would like to know their status: who are they - workers, tourists or crew? What kind of contract will be concluded between these people and companies? Will there be any kind of circulation of funds? We'll have to solve huge questions."
Bills of all sorts, which have just begun to be passed, could begin to fill in the gaps in the regulatory framework for robotic business in space. But Musk's plan to send thousands of colonists to Mars in the next decade will require significantly accelerating this process. But who will be in a hurry in such matters? Who needs it?
Until then, space will remain the wild west, which will wait for its pioneers.
Not all money has been counted
At the same time, the question of the cost of a common event raises no less doubts than all other facets of the future. As it turned out, Mars is such a golden chicken that while eating gold, but lays ordinary eggs. Armed with traditional methods and getting all the rights, theoretically it would be possible to sell tickets to Mars for $ 10 billion. But who will buy them?
To avoid this ridiculous scenario, Musk wants to develop a new reusable transport system that can carry a hundred people at a time. This will significantly reduce the cost - ideally up to $ 200,000 per ticket, that is, to the cost of an average US home. Fueling the ship in Earth orbit before sailing to its new home will help reduce costs.
But what we did not notice in the presentation of Mars is who will finance the implementation of this whole venture. Musk himself explained that he would like to see a certain mixture of the public and private investors who will jointly invest in the project. But this project will be highly risky. Attractions like the on-board restaurant will make the trip "fun", but there will be a risk of dying, and considerable. As we said, the first colonists will have to be ready to die any minute. Pay $ 200,000 and die hoping to be the first builders of Mars.
An amazing charm should be possessed by a person who practically guarantees death for 200,000 dollars and hopes to collect hundreds, thousands, or even millions of people willing to do it.
Calculating the economic viability of plans to colonize Mars won't be easy, but one person has already tried it. Sydney Doo, an MIT scientist, recently reviewed another similar scheme - Mars One - which also plans to establish a Martian colony by 2024. Du did the calculations and found that the Mars One plan was “fundamentally impossible,” in large part due to the increased costs of maintaining a human presence on the Red Planet.
“It's expensive in terms of the need to supply people with spare parts, to maintain life support systems,” he says.
What does he think of the Musk project? The project is definitely forward-looking, but at the same time getting 100 people to Mars is a serious technological barrier. The maximum that we could imagine until recently is eight people. Plus the spacecraft will be very heavy. Almost the same mass as the International Space Station.
However, Du's main complaint with Musk is that he discussed the relative cost of getting people to Mars, rather than maintaining their presence there. How much will a night on Mars cost humans? Isn't it more expensive than a night on the road? In response to questions from people, Musk said his company was mostly focused on shipping. In other words, SpaceX is an airline. They are not going to build hotels.
ILYA KHEL