SpaceX CEO Elon Musk stated at a conference in Hong Kong that he plans to send humans to Mars by around 2025; he claims it is the only planet where we can establish a self-sustaining city. He believes that humanity needs to be inspired in the same way the Apollo space programme once managed to do. Musk also spoke about the possibility of our civilisation expanding beyond the Solar System. “Our civilisation has to make a truly fundamental decision. Do we want to be forever confined to one planet in the future until some fatal disaster occurs? Or do we want to become a multi-planetary civilisation?”
cnn.com, 30 January 2016
The word “earth” (or “zeme” in Latvian) refers in many languages to both the globe as a planet and its surface. “Zeme” is not just a technical term for the planet’s surface used in construction or agriculture, but also an emotional word associated with one’s own or distant lands, the motherland or native land, and now, it seems, also with our home planet. Geography, which in Greek means the description of the earth, is the science of the earth, and in colloquial speech, we use it as a term for all the territory available to us (terra is earth in Latin). In the period from the 15th to the 19th century, which schoolbooks call the “Age of Discovery”, America, Australia and Oceania were “discovered” in the European mind and along maritime routes, and were added to “our” territory, later supplemented in the 20th century by the planet's polar regions. It must be said, however, that the phrase “discovering America” is now perceived, first and foremost in America itself, as a European exercise in navel-gazing, because this “discovery” actually meant the destruction of the Indian (a word that is in itself a particularly insensitive geographical error) civilisation and the beginning of the era of colonialism. As many neo-colonialism researchers in universities around the world believe, the consequences of these events remain traumatic for those who were on the geographically wrong side of the “discoveries”.
Elon Musk is, without a doubt, a person whose enterprise and spirit of discovery are no less than those of Christopher Columbus, Vasco da Gama or Ferdinand Magellan. Although Musk is working on the mass transition to electric cars (Tesla), a land vehicle that will transport people through a special low-pressure tube (Hyperloop), the widespread use of solar energy (SolarCity), artificial intelligence research (OpenAI), a supersonic electric aircraft (VTOL), and has previously worked on what is currently the largest online payments company (PayPal), it has clearly become too small for him right here on Earth. Therefore, he has turned to the production of spacecraft (SpaceX) and also to a project for colonising Mars. If you feel like you have too much work, try to imagine what Elon Musk’s working day might look like: let’s say, from 6.30 to 7.30 – technical issues for a Martian settlement, from 7.30 to 9.00 – new spacecraft models, from 9.00 to 11.00 – the global transition to electric cars, etc. If we call a spade a spade, then – in connection with his plans to found a city on Mars – it is hard to call Musk anything other than a 21st-century colonist who wants to expand the geography of our civilisation, or, more correctly, turn it into planetography.
Musk himself makes no secret of his ambition as a colonist, naming his company SpaceX’s project the “Mars Colonial Transporter”. With its help, it is intended to transport one hundred settlers or one hundred tonnes of cargo to Mars in a single flight. Musk’s idea is to start with ten people – that is, colonists – and gradually increase that number to one million, which would require 10,000 flights, while the transport of accompanying cargo would require 90,000 flights. A one-to-ten ratio of passenger to cargo flights is necessary in order to transport equipment to the Red Planet for mining, food production, oxygen generation and settlement construction. Houses, schools, hospitals, shops, offices and entertainment centres will have to be built in a place where the average temperature is minus 55 degrees and wind speeds can reach 30 metres per second, although its force is significantly reduced by the very low atmospheric pressure. The difficulties humans face in settling on Mars can be traced in last year’s Hollywood film “The Martian”. In the film, the lone Matt Damon left on the planet heroically solves self-sufficiency issues, which in Musk’s project will be a collaborative task for hundreds of thousands of people. Real estate costs on Mars are currently up in the air, but Musk’s goal is to ensure that a person does not have to pay more than 500,000 dollars to move and live on Mars.
Musk’s logic is quite clear – humanity needs a new or at least a backup living space because our life on Earth is threatened by potential disasters – from climate change and lethal epidemics to nuclear weapons and asteroid strikes. It will be hard not to notice parallels with the mindset of historical colonists, who explained their conquests and the annexation of new territories by citing the need to avert threats to their own people or by the expansion of living space and economic opportunities, which also served as proof of political ambition. Everything that stood in the way of these goals had to be conquered or destroyed – as we well know has happened on Earth. It is understandable that no great risks can be seen on Mars yet – perhaps only some planetary ecologists might raise objections to the pollution of the Martian surface and atmosphere that will inevitably be caused by humans. A much more interesting situation could arise if life or some form of it is “discovered” (though it will be a discovery from a human point of view) on Mars or another colonised planet. It will have to be subjugated, studied and – if necessary – destroyed. Then one might be able to speak of a new and, most likely, brutal colonialism, in which there will be winners and the oppressed (what role humans will play can only be speculated).
If Musk’s plans are realised, some people on Earth will be able to choose whether to move to live on Mars. Perhaps it will even become a sign of heroism or a special honour among people. There is no shortage of those who want to go – this is also proven by the Dutch project Mars One, criticised by Musk, in which 100 people were selected from many hopefuls around the world who were prepared to move to Mars on a one-way trip. The Latvian Pauls Irbins did not pass the competition, but the selected people were showcased by Alvis Hermanis in his production of Berlioz’s “Faust” at the Paris Opera. It will be truly interesting to find out what the apartment offering on Mars will be like, what the entertainment and cultural life opportunities will be, and, of course, the cafés and restaurants, internet speeds, local media, education and sports facilities. While we are busy with our daily affairs on Earth, the lives of our fellow species and perhaps even our own in a Martian colony are already being planned by Elon Musk and his colleagues in California.
Article first published in the March 2016 issue of Rīgas Laiks magazine