Our “
Dreams of Mars
” series in four episodes
:
Episode 1: Goodbye planet A, direction planet B?
Episode 2: Expat Life, Millions of Miles
Episode 3: A Thousand Years to Recreate the Earth
(published
February
17
)
Episode 4: Exploring Time
(
February
18
)
This February 16, 2121, in the Martian colony, it is a day of celebration: the first nuclear generator is inaugurated.
Seen from Earth, the event may seem boring, the installation dangerous.
But for the "Martians", as they are now called, it is the assurance of no longer depending on solar panel fields alone.
And then, for these pioneers who sometimes work like convicts, there is no small opportunity to decompress!
Here, the quest for energy is an obsession, survival depends on it ... To produce oxygen, absent from the planet, for heating (it is -60 ° C on average, outside), to light new greenhouses ...
In order to avoid seeing the plantations ravaged by solar storms, we initially opted for artificial light.
The time will come when plants will see our star behind blocks of ice, a better screen against its ionizing flows.
But first, we had to protect humans.
Having established the new town near a cliff makes it possible to stop a large part of the radiation.
The installations were also covered with a layer of one meter of regolith, this mixture of dust and debris from rocks once shattered by meteorites.
You have to get used to the lack of windows, but you can take advantage of the skylights in the collective enclosures.
The architects racked their brains to avoid the risk of monotony inherent in extraterrestrial habitats.
Also, the colony is not organized around a long central corridor, but in a star: a nerve center leads to spaces with various decorations corresponding to distinct activities.
Martian greenhouses, as imagined by Richard Heidmann.
Planet Mars / Richard Heidmann Association
These lines that you have just read are inspired, among others, by the work of Richard Heidmann.
The founder and vice-president of the Planète Mars association, the French branch of the Mars Society, in recent years has blackened pages of diagrams and calculations to imagine the Martian colony of tomorrow.
And its inhabitants.
“It won't just be people paying to go to Mars.
There will also be paid people!
The billionaire tourist in search of exoticism?
A minority, assures the former engineer in space propulsion, who participated in the development of Ariane launchers.
“We tried to estimate the population.
55% of residents will be people assigned to services: construction, catering, medicine ... A bit like in a Mediterranean Club, there are practically as many organizers as there are members.
These people don't need to be rich, they need to be talented and healthy.
Third category, scientists, of course, paid by the agencies.
Paid, these “expats” will be generously paid (from 9,000 to 35,000 dollars, depending on the category, on average per month) “to compensate for the risk and inconvenience of being separated from their family for several years”.
According to the paradigm developed by Richard Heidmann, we rarely stay more than a decade on Mars.
Reduced gravity pool
For such a project to be sustainable, it is necessary to cross levels.
While many scientists doubt that there will ever be more people on Mars than in an Antarctic base, teacher-researcher Jean-Marc Salotti calculated that a colony would become viable once it reached the number of 110 individuals.
To imagine the life of these pioneers, you have to realize what they will lack and how they will have to compensate.
Jean-Marc Salotti believes that Martians will have no choice but to resort to a circular economy and that the lessons learned could have repercussions on Earth.
“There won't be a store around the corner.
To buy a robot, a computer, a piece of furniture, you will have to be very careful, any object will be very rich.
We will have to be robust, and to do maintenance, to take an interest in the life cycle of these objects, ”says this administrator of the Planète Mars association.
A skylight, designed to escape radiation and overlooking a restaurant area.
Planet Mars / Richard Heidmann Association
After gaining in autonomy, the community that we describe, which has a few thousand members, tries to give itself a little comfort.
For example, by diversifying a diet initially reduced to freeze-dried food.
The restaurant's menu, which until now was the delight of vegans, has just been enriched with a new dish: tilapia, a fish.
Base doctors are carefully monitoring any deficiencies that residents may develop.
No question of a "space scurvy" appearing.
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In this place conducive to the wildest dreams, it can seem curious to see so few children.
The souvenir shop's daughter widens her eyes every time she crosses paths with a little tourist.
It does not take long for her to make a playmate of him and the farewells are often heartbreaking ... One day there will be a school here.
In the meantime, the girl plays with the son of the owner of the 3D printer who builds "houses" in Martian material.
His neighbor, responsible for cleaning in this area, begins to moan: red dust lurks everywhere and clogs the equipment.
March 2117, the United Arab Emirates project.
Dubai Media Office
A few kilometers away, you can visit the city built by the United Arab Emirates.
The project, called March 2117, dated back over a century and no one doubted their ability to grow a city in the middle of the desert!
It's a bit of a theme park: we go there to get away from it all, to see other faces too… There are things that are lacking at home, a wide choice of chocolates, teas and coffees.
In hotels and casinos, we marvel at the high ceilings.
Sumptuous, but well thought out, uncluttered.
Rooms immerse visitors in terrestrial atmospheres that we no longer know.
It is very pleasant to hear the sound of raindrops or wind in the leaves again.
But the big attraction is the Martian gravity pool which offers the luxury of slow motion diving!
If we manage to get bored of it, we can schedule a short stay on Phobos or Deimos, the satellites of Mars.
Martian gravity is one third of that of Earth.
At the swimming pool, the jumps in the pools are done in slow motion.
Planet Mars / Richard Heidmann Association
Direct democracy
Every 26 months, when the blue and red planets are close enough for a migration, it is the “season” of welcome.
The population of the colony is renewed by about a tenth.
Every manned flight from Earth is an event.
We give a warm welcome to newcomers.
We fantasize about meetings.
We are also worried about rumors about the intentions of private companies, exploitation projects, which could distort the original philosophy.
In 2020, the Mars Society, this organization that advocates for human exploration of the planet, launched a competition: imagine in this distant world a city of a million people!
Which will not happen in the near future… Coming in third place, the Foundation project designed by a team of French people was particularly interested in the issue of governance.
The authors advocate direct democracy and autonomous districts of around 10,000 inhabitants.
"The danger is near and shared, therefore decision-making is near and shared," explains a document presented at the latest convention of the Mars Society.
Another strong principle: everything that is essential for survival (water, oxygen, pressure, etc.) is "free and inalienable".
If solidarity seems to go without saying when we are in the same boat, cases of figure may provoke debate.
Richard Heidmann puts it: "Imagine that someone develops a fatal cancer and that we know that on Earth, we could cure him, will there be a social insurance system that will be able to support the cost of repatriation?
Or will we say: no, too bad, he chose to live on Mars, he knew the risks?
We live on Mars, we die on Mars?
"
If SpaceX was the law
What does Elon Musk think, who sees himself dying on Mars in a colony of a million individuals, of the framework to be given to the latter?
Asked on Twitter in 2018, the founder of SpaceX, a key player in astronautics, gave a very dynamic vision of his ideal Martian legislation: “Direct democracy by the people.
Laws must be short, because there is long deception.
Automatic expiration of rules to avoid death by bureaucracy.
Any rule can be removed by 40% of people to overcome inertia.
Freedom.
"
Direct democracy by the people.
Laws must be short, as there is trickery in length.
Automatic expiration of rules to prevent death by bureaucracy.
Any rule can be removed by 40% of people to overcome inertia.
Freedom.
- Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 16, 2018
A break with land legal canons?
In any case, SpaceX apparently intends to use all its influence on the organization of future colonies.
In an interview with Law360 last October, SpaceX's legal director, David Anderman, said that he is “currently working on a constitution for Mars”: “I think SpaceX will act to impose our own legal regime.
I think it will be interesting to see how this plays out with the earth governments exercising control.
I think we're going to have a pretty big role to play in what works and what laws apply.
"
"I very much doubt that this constitution will be recognized as lawful by any state", comments the lawyer Cris van Eijk, specialized in space issues.
“Of course, as a science fiction fan, I totally agree that at some point if Mars is colonized it will require a constitution and a legal order.
But I strongly disagree with the idea that it should be drafted as a side project by the legal director of a company in the tech industry.
The countries of the South (Editor's note: emerging) played a huge role in the development of the initial space law.
I imagine they would like a seat at the table.
"
"States will not so easily give up their prerogatives vis-à-vis their nationals in space", underlines Julien Mariez, head of the legal service of the National Center for Space Studies (Cnes), who insists on the hypothetical character of a life in self-sufficiency on Mars.
“In the early days of colonization, there is necessarily a strong bond that continues between states and colonies.
Until Mars is terraformed (Editor's note: transformed to make it habitable) and cultivable, human communities will need the sending of materials, labor, food, Earth.
As long as the practical independence in terms of life, survival, on Mars is not established, the legal link of subordination with the law of the States from which these communities come, will remain.
For me, it is a certainty.
"
