‘Settlement of Space’
‘Settlement of Space’
I’ve placed this in quotes because to me the phrase ‘Settlement of Space’ is about as sensible as settlement of the Gobi Desert — only far less likely.
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This is not to say there aren’t romantic and other charming reasons in circulation. I just see nothing workable in today’s ‘Settlement of Space’ hubbub addressing essential elements.
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Christopher Columbus portaged a fair number of Catholic priest to the New World — and brought home loads of looted gold.
On the Moon, Mars or asteroids — so far as we know — there are no ingenuous beings to convert nor gold to mine. If Spain had somehow funded expeditions to such places, Christopher Columbus would have made one voyage out and one voyage back.
After that, nobody would have tried this again for another 500 years.
Settlement of the New World was rooted in greed and power — requiring loot of one fashion or another to fuel those two endeavors.
Spain did not settle the New World just because it was cool.
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With money to burn, at best we might treat ‘Settlement of Space’ like how we explore Antarctica. These are not self-sustaining bases. They are entirely dependent on regular resupply.
What happens in Antarctica is nothing anyone would consider a ‘settlement’ — babies being born, schools built, etc.
There is no economy. There is only a collection of scientific expeditions.
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A temporary expedition to Mars would cost ten thousand times more per person. That is one big reason we haven’t worked toward this very hard. Nor have we seriously touched the topic of an environment than makes Antarctica look like the Garden of Eden.
To live on Mars (or on the Moon, or an asteroid) is crazily expensive, extraordinarily dangerous and would be grossly unappealing to most people.
Go for a sandy-beach stroll? — Nope.
Play a round of golf? — Nope.
Take a train to another city? — Nope.
Watch birds on the wing? — Nope.
Already several people with wads of cash to burn have paid upwards of $40m for week-long vacations aboard the International Space Station. Others have set down payments on $200k suborbital flights over New Mexico. Yet I can’t imagine anyone paying two to five billion for a couple years on Mars — even if commercial rides were available.
Any true ‘settlement’ requires passage paid by someone other than the government. Shipping soldiers off to war or flying scientists to Antarctica or maintaining a diplomatic mission is not a ‘settlement.’ In the 17th century, no ordinary person could afford passage to the New World. Many sold themselves into temporary servitude or paid their way on the installment plan as they made their way in the New World. The money that could be made in the New World paid for this. If there’d been no land to clear or farms to plant, nobody in Europe would have been paying passage for themselves or anyone else.
Okay — maybe Bill Gates could afford a ride to Mars outright. Yet Bill Gates all by himself, plus one or two other hardy billionaires hardly constitutes a ‘Settlement of Space.’
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Someday we will send expeditions to deep space destinations. This will not be a settlement. It will be a human presence, and nothing more. Unless we discover critically valuable resources — enough to pay for settlements ten times over — there will be no ‘Settlement of Space’ — villages, town, cities, or celestial nations.
What about the Moon? Even though closer, ‘Settlement of Space’ on the Moon is no more likely than on Mars. The environment there is even worse than Mars with only a few places (about the size of my hometown) with enough local water and sunlight to survive.
Is such a place likely to yield the sort of wealth we would need to justify a permanent settlement?
Unlikely.
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If I were advocating ‘Settlement of Space’ I would look for economic opportunities. Mining for rare-earth elements might create a slew of revenue — though at present there are no elements used on Earth that would be remotely less expensive to mine somewhere else in the solar system. Maybe in 500 years. But not now.
I refer to mining not so much to promote solar system industrialization but to say how settlements won’t ever take root without exports to pay for launch services and supplies from Earth.
The original occupants of the New World migrated from Siberia to South America. They managed this trek because the land as they found it supported their needs. This would not be the case on Mars, the Moon, or anywhere else in the solar system. Except on Earth, there’s no such thing as living off the land.
True space settlement must be rooted in practical economics of investment and return — paying its own way after a reasonable start-up time. It can’t be pipe dream, or happen because we have the technology to pull this off as one-shot mission right now (which we don’t), or for some blurry-eyed messianic salvation of humankind sort of arguing — in case the good Earth doesn’t make it.
Anyone describing the settlement of Mars or the Moon or nearby asteroids as something withing our reach without an economic return is either deluded or selling you snake oil.
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