The US ought to establish an independently viable colony on Mars by 2070

Thanks, lannan. Pro and Con both advocate for a colony on Mars. Pro wants an American colony now but that"s not a realistic option. For one thing, the US has agreed and signed treaties to attest that our approach towards Mars should resemble our approach towards Antarctica: not a prize for the mighty but a lab for the smart, not a mine to make rich corporations more rich, but an environmental and scientific challenge; a place where human life can find a sustainable balance within unsurpassed natural inhospitableness. There are many ifs to both our arguments for which we can"t pretend to certainty. But I like my ifs better than Pros- if we proceed by rational stages, if we resolve the immediate technical challenges, if we work together, if we"re careful with our money and resources, we can expect success in space. Pro"s ifs are all short-term, exuberant, unconsidered fixes informed by dominance over China or escape from a dying Earth. Pro says we should ignore our international treaties because our planet will soon be uninhabitable, we must build a Martian Ark with the US at the helm. If there is war so be it, war is good for science. I believe the Earth must be saved first, even if Mars must be postponed. This planet is not just our natural habitat, it is our home which we are duty-bound to defend and preserve along with the family of man there living. War and strife between nations may encourage competition but only the victors enjoy the dividends. The more enemies we make by grabbing up shared resources, the less certain a beneficial outcome by force becomes. Pro and Con agree that Martian colonization is notionally popular but I"ve shown that Americans are also unwilling to increase taxes to pay for such a project. I"ve also shown that a colony by 2070 would require rapid mobilization now, dramatic shifts towards research and development, risking dramatic economic impacts. Pro has offered nothing to suggest that the Americans support herculean efforts on behalf of Mars. I"ll take exception to Pro"s suggestion that a counterplan has been offered. I"ve refrained from offering a more rational timetable or from defining a sustainable Martian project. I"ve stated that Mars is not a rational first step or incumbent priority and I"ve given some more worthwhile examples but that is not a counterplan. Nor has Pro illustrated a plan to counter- what are Pro"s solutions for radiation and dust, transportation and communication? How many colonists make a colony self-sustaining? We"ve seen Pro wants mining but is that all of what Pro"s Martian mission is for? Pro cites Mars One as source for Martian research and development but I can"t say I"m impressed. Mars One"s first phase was to send a robotic precursor to Mars by 2020 but they couldn"t crowdfund the $200m necessary for Lockheed Martin to build and forward progress mostly stopped in 2015. Mars One"s founders were humbled in a public debate that year against MIT postgrads entitled " Is Mars One feasible?" As one student argued, "If you"re still developing concepts, you don"t really have a plan." [1] His sentiment applies to every Martian project today: we can"t say whether we can get a colony on Mars because we haven"t even determined what we need yet, much less what it will take to meet those needs, much less how we"ll pay for it. Pro says NASA is "on track" to land a man on Mars by 2030 but what NASA actually says is that they are "developing capabilities." NASA also admits they can"t do much within current budget constraints. [2] Remember that NASA"s best cost estimate to develop and launch a 4-person Mars Mission is about $500 billion but the 2018 budget for all Mars research is $191 million, at which rate we"ll get there in centuries, not decades. [3] Pro argues that a Mars settlement is preferable to the moon because the Sun will begin to expand into a red giant in 5 or 6 billion years. Life itself has only been around for 4.3 billion and considering the changes life has gone through in the interim, I doubt planning that far ahead is worth our while. In any case, Mars will be just as uninhabitable as Earth post expansion. [4] We agree that solutions to Earth"s crowded orbit are now in development. My point is that the successful implementation of such a solution would be a responsible precondition for any large space faring project and we have no timeline for implementation. My point is that there many such responsible preconditions for which a 2070 deadline denotes a failure of accommodation. And what if our faith in technology fails us? In R2, I pointed out that human physiology experiences profound changes during long stays in the space station"s low gravity, including damage to cognition. What if our brains simply can"t long endure the 38% gravity of Mars without significant damage? Do we propose to learn the long term effects of low gravity on brains by sacrificing the first generation of colonists or do we take the time to study such effects cautiously, humanely, informed by longer term needs? We can generate artificial gravity by rotating in space but on Mars the energy costs of such generation would be enormous. If we lost the first colony to something like brain damage, would the funding for space dry up? That"s just one example, but we should acknowledge that colonizing other planets might require incredible resources we don"t yet even realize we"ll need. Why set a date before we"ve assembled the relevant data? Terraforming and other colonial politics are probably issues too distant in time to merit much consideration under the terms of this debate but we should note that in the big picture, colonies don"t always remain willing subjects of distant overseers. The age of colonial expansion led to centuries of conflicts between great powers and revolutions, from the Seven Years War to the Second World War, upheavals in which few original governments survived and few colonies remained subject. This history recommends new thinking, new strategies as we consider the colonization of Space. Pro sees Mars as an American asset, an object to be gained for dominion or gleaned for profit. I prefer to see Mars as one potential waypoint for an entirely new human mission: not merely to conquer the next rock out but to discover, one small step after the next, what it takes to make space our home. [1]http://www.thespacereview.com... [2]https://futurism.com... [3]https://www.nasa.gov... [4]https://en.wikipedia.org...