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

As per rules, this round shall be contested only of my Opening Arguments. Framework: UtilitarianismFor this case of Utilitarianism I will be focusing on John Stuart Mill's case of Utility here. We have to look at the Greatest Happiness for the Greatest Number of Sentient Beings. This means that we have to look at the needs of the whole vs. a few individuals. Another key thing we have to look at from Mill is Net Pleasure. If the colonization of Mars by the US can create a greater net pleasure than pain then it must be implamented for the betterment of soceity [9]. Many people are becoming more and more concerned with climate change as the world is coming closer and closer to levels of no return. Generally, global warming is when Carbons would build up in our atmosphere to trap heat to help warm the planet so that life on Earth is possible. Recently, this has been becoming more and more problematic as the Ozone layer is deteriorating and Earth's atmosphere is getting thicker and thicker, warming the planet with it. This has only problematic issues stemming from it. As many nations in the West, the US has a high consumption rate of fossil fuels as it accounts for 95% of our transportation consumption and energy consumption is nearly 70% as alternative energy is slowly beginning to emerge [10]. Fossil Fuels have another job, as they are being used, they produce carbon emissions that harm our environment and our atmosphere. The World Health Organization has reported that pollution generated from the excess of fossil fuels has killed nearly 7 million people worldwide, while 70,000 were killed in the US [11]. There are several issues that this can cause and many lead to having our planet become very unhospitable. As the Earth heats up due to the constant increase in Carbon in our atmosphere where the Carbon begins to build in layers in our atmosphere. This increases the problems as it will help cause the ocean to 'burp' where the frozen reserves of Methane will be released into our atmosphere which would result in a 44.6-degree increase in our Earth's temperature at higher altitudes [12]. This would completely end all life on our planet as we know it and if we don't try to curtail this then we will be damning our children and our grandchildren. We would see decades of time where the Earth's climate is varying so severely that the plants and animals would die off due to the conflicting weather patterns leading to mass starvation. Food production will see a fall by nearly half by 2050 [13]. The Earth has already breached the 'Point-of-no-return' of 400 ppm which means that if we do not make some sort of effort through the political process of our nation, we, as a human race, will face extinction if this isn't done now. This can start to be curtailed by the US establishing a colony on Mars as, eventually, other nations will begin to follow suit ensuring the peace of Earth and the survival of humanity. Science LeadershipOver 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]. These were previous projections as now with the original time period of the colonization of Mars to be extended to 2070, these numbers are significantly higher than origianally projected. 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. Colonization possible nowContrary to popular belief, we are able to colonize now. Many people will constantly talk about how it would take forever to get there, but the Space-X Falcone-9 Rocket can get us there in 6 months’ time to begin colonization [4]. The cost of the rocket is $100 million per shuttle and this is key as it will help get things transported faster as we will have plenty of rockets to help colonize Mars quicker and faster. They can carry up to 17 metric tons which can help carry supplies and we can see they will be able to do this as many times as they want [5]. Many people are already lining up by the thousands to be the first to go and colonize Mars or even live there, so we already have an ample amount of people willing to go. NASA has already developed food that is able to be grown on Mars and the ability to make the Red Planet a hospital able one. NASA has also projected the Orion Rocket to carry the astronauts to Mars as that is their overall goal and it carries twice the amount of people than much of the previous NASA rockets and missions [8]. The techology already exists for colonization and more advanced rockets are in the mix. As brought up in the previous contention, the increased US activities in space would create a new technological boom speeding up this process and even more technological innovations will be ushered in which would have a significant impact on the aid of the colonization of Mars. Rare Earth MetalsPlatinum 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]. Please note that by the US colonizing Mars will not ensure they get the entire planet's platinum resource, but will ensure they have a supply of it for the future and create a safety net against a Chinese monopoly on the resource. 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.