Located several hundred thousand miles away, Mars seems like
a long way to go just to take a few pictures. But it’s a good first step. In
early 2004, NASA successfully sent a rover to the Red Planet, marking a new age
in space exploration. After the rover landed, President George W. Bush
announced a plan to focus on the space program in the next few decades, with
the goal of sending a man to Mars within twenty years.
This new talk of space travel raises a few questions. If
people can easily travel back and forth from Mars and other interplanetary
destinations, then who gets to lay claim to these galactic areas. If the United States is the first to send a man to Mars, does that mean that the United States owns Mars?
Should all nations and people share it equally? Isn’t only fair to establish
some sorts of property rights? It can all get very confusing.
After Christopher Columbus discovered America in 1492, the powerful nations of Europe spent the next century trying to lay claim to the New World. With each new area that a country discovered came respect, power, and—if that
country was lucky—valuable natural resources. Is it possible that this same
desire to colonize new frontiers will exist in an age of space travel and
explorations?
In order to answer that question, you have to first
determine whether these new planets would be worth colonizing. During the 16th
and 17th centuries, the competing nations of Europe (such as England, Spain, Portugal, and France) relied on an economic system known as “mercantilism,” in
which a Mother Country colonized other nations to exploit their natural
resources. These raw materials were exported from the colonies and turned into
finished products by the European nation.
Is there anything of value on Mars? If scientists discover
gold on Mars (which is highly unlikely), or some other new and valuable
resource, then several nations on earth will rush to take advantage of the Red
Planet. If Mars is made up of little more than dust and worthless rock, then
there won’t be too many countries rushing to colonize it. However, there are
many more planets other than Mars in the solar system and beyond, and each
planet has a new potential for containing something great and valuable.
During the 1600s, the settlers who came to America didn’t always leave Europe to find something precious in the New World. Sometimes they
left their homes to escape persecution, economic troubles, or unsatisfactory
living conditions. Isn’t it possible that people would want to colonize Mars
and other planets just so that they can leave the harsh setting here on earth?
Possibly—but only on one condition. The new planets would
need to be able to sustain human life. People are delicate creatures who need
just the right amount of water, oxygen, nitrogen, and hundreds of other
specific conditions. So far, scientists are not aware of any planet where
humans—or any other living organism—can survive on their own.
Lastly, there is another reason why nations might not
compete to colonize the space world. During the Age of Exploration, each
European nation competed to secure a respectable place in the expanding world.
Today, the world is much more globalized, which has been the result of improved
communication and transportation over the past few centuries. Modern nations
often collaborate on large projects—including space travel. Therefore, the
“property right” issues concerning other planets would probably be decided by a
global governing body rather than individual nations. But it doesn’t really
matter now. Barring some remarkable scientific advances, it’s still going to
be a few generations before people start wanting to move to Mars.
