Resolved: The United States Federal Government should establish a colony on the Martian surface.

Contention 1: Science Leadership Over the next 10 years, we are expecting over an influx of about 10 million children to pass through our school systems and this plan, even if it inspires just 1% of them, we would see a massive boom in STEM jobs and as the world is progressing, these STEM jobs are becoming the key jobs of the future that are the engineers and the scientists. This plan to colonize Mars is expected to create 1 million jobs by 2033 [1]. The economic growth is obvious with the Apollo mission we saw a 6% economic growth from that program. The Mars mission will skyrocket the US economy significantly which is something that is massively needed for the US to finally exit the lingering 08 crisis [2]. This program will help solve the current issue as many our STEM jobs are from abroad. There is a key issue that comes here and that is our economy is at risk in the short term while in the long term it is our national security as we will fall behind an aggressive China. Mars is filled with tons of minerals, as I will get into later, and some will help lead to biomedicine and help possibly lead to new cures. If this plan isn't enacted, then we risk a war with China. China is becoming more and more aggressive as seen by their actions in the South China Sea and against Japan. If they reach this and begin to rival US, this would lead to war as Chinese leadership has even been talking about using nuclear weaponry against the US in a surprise attack if war is to break. The death toll from the fighting itself would be 200 million from the US and over half a billion from the Chinese, assuming no one else gets involved [3]. Mars must be colonized in order to prevent weakening US STEM power and a US-Sino War. Contention 2: US Hegemony Ever since the Beginning of the Obama administration, US hegemony has been on the decline where the influence in Foreign affairs has begun to decline. If you ever look at his achievements under foreign policy, there isn't much to brag about. US has failed to help end conflicts in Syria and deter the Russians in Ukraine. Other global events show the US has begun to decline post Housing Bubble [4]. US hegemony is extremely important to the world as it help deters terrorism. A huge weakness in the Obama administration was that his lack of foreign policy and waning of the US Hegemony helped lead to the rise of ISIS. The US hegemony is key in deterring terrorism as any and all amounts of US policy should be devoted to national security and through this, the world becomes safer. This was shown at nearly every major event that the US would lead the charge to help people in need around the world to help fight off injustice and the terrorist movements [5]. The most recent one was the War on Terror and the US influence over a great deal of the Western nations. The US colonizing Mars would be a massive expansion of US hegemony by showing the US capability to make such a move in outer space and doing such an expansionist move in outer space. It would show that other nations and coalitions are so far out of touch in technology and in military technology and advancement that would come out of such an endeavor. Contention 3: Rare Earth Metals Platinum is a rare metal that is included in many technologies from military satellites down to a cellular device. Prices of REMs have increased by well over 100%. China, who owns 95% of the world's REMs supply has begun to clamp down on the exports due to new environmental regulations and their new crack downs on illegal mining laws. There will be a 48% increase of demand of REMs by next year and the shortages of some of these key metals are not helping the prices [6]. The current price of Platinum is $1,084.30 per ounce. The reason this is important that the US gets to Mars first is when they begin to mine there is 170 million tons of Platinum on Mars and when you do the math, this comes out to $167 quadrillion in platinum and platinum alone which would shatter the Chinese monopoly and be enough to be used for the entire world for nearly 500,000 years [7]. At the end of the last decade, China placed an REM embargo with Japan effetely cutting them off from a huge amount of key resources. The US would need to lessen Chinese dependence and by doing this, the US could be able to avoid a 1973 Oil Crisis-like event on REMs. Such an event could lead to a US-Sino War in order for the US to acquire these resources when China will bar them from us. Colonization and the mining of Mars is the only way to solve this issue. Sources 1. (. http://tinyurl.com...) 2. (. http://tinyurl.com...) 3. (. http://tinyurl.com...) 4. (. http://tinyurl.com...) 5. (. http://tinyurl.com...) 6. (. http://tinyurl.com...) 7. (. http://tinyurl.com...)