GIDDYUP: Astronomer Sees Possible 'Wild West'-Style Mars

LEICESTER, England (Reuters) - Mars could resemble the lawless Wild West if privately funded adventurers seeking to exploit the planet get there before government-backed expeditions, a leading British astronomer said on Wednesday.

Hmm...the Wild West includes California, right? The state with happier and healthier people and more wealth than most of the countries on Earth?

This would be bad because...?

Before humans make it to Mars, the entire solar system will probably have been explored by flotillas of tiny robotic craft, but within a century there could be a permanent presence on the planet, Sir Martin Rees of the Institute of Astronomy told a science conference.

Thank you Sir for your faith in human abilities. There could be a permanent human presence on Mars in a decade, or less, with a little effort.

I can picture this guy's counterpart in 1903 suggesting that man might someday establish regular air routes between the continents, in say a million years or so.

Once an infrastructure is established the costs of getting to Mars will go down, which could open up the possibility for different types of expeditions.

"If they were governmental or international (expeditions), Antarctic-style restraint might be feasible. On the other hand, if the explorers were privately funded adventurers of free-enterprise, even anarchic disposition, the Wild West model would be more likely to prevail," he said.

What is so admirable about Antarctic-style "restraint" applied to a whole planet? Heaven forbid humans actually go there to settle the place, stay permanently, and make a new home. Nope, gotta bring 'em home after thirty days, lest the pristine Gaia Mars be bespoiled by our mere human presence. And let's not even think about the horror of horrors: that someone might actually turn a profit there or something.

Mars, the fourth planet from the sun, was first photographed from space in 1965. More recent missions landed on the surface of the rocky, cold Red Planet and discovered the possible presence of liquid water.

But if humans shouldn't settle there, of what importance is this discovery beyond mere scientific curiosity?

(Besides which, it's not entirely correct. The landers -- Vikings 1 and 2 and Pathfinder -- did not discover the possible presence of liquid water. MGS has discovered evidence of "recent" outflows of water on the Martian surface, but these were only recent in the geological sense, having taken place thousands or perhaps millions of years ago.)

Amateur astronauts have already paid millions for a trip in space. If more efficient propulsion systems and fuel needed to escape the Earth's gravity could be situated on the ground, rather than as part of the cargo, the trip would be much easier and cheaper.

And we can't have that...then, (gasp!), there might be space tourists running around everywhere on the surface of Mars, wearing annoying Hawaiian-print EVA suits, gawking at the scenery, barging into queues, and complaining about the food.

No, we must piously maintain space as the province of professionally trained astronauts and titled astronomers, and primly forswear any interests in space beyond the purely scientific.

Rees envisions a type of "space elevator" that could lift people and payloads from the ground to a satellite.

"The rest of the voyage could be powered by a low-thrust, perhaps nuclear, rocket," he told the British Association science conference.

This guy can't seem to make up his mind. First he says that humans going to Mars permanently, for ordinary human purposes (profit and pleasure), is wrong. And then he blue-skies about just how to get there, cheaply and easily. If he only wants Mars to be visited by scientists, how does he expect to ever get to the volume of traffic sufficient to bring down the costs of launch and transit? Oh, silly me...he probably never thought of travel to Mars in practical, real-world terms.

Posted by T.L. James on September 12, 2002 08:31 PM