Damek.

As Slashdot informs us, the ESA’s Mars Express has now been given the green light for the MARSIS radar on board to be deployed during the first week of May. “Assuming that this operation is successful, the radar will finally start the search for subsurface water reservoirs and studies of the Martian ionosphere.”

If any useful quantities of water are found, it will mean 1) those are good places to go looking for life, if there is any on Mars; and 2) it will be a little easier for whatever humans eventually go to Mars to survive there. I hope they find some, because the easier colonizing space becomes (and aside from our moon, Mars seems the best first step), the quicker it will happen and the safer life’s continued existence will be. If we value life at all, we have a duty to spread it.

Instinctively, I favor not screwing up what’s already out there doing fine on its own. But the thing is, that instinct comes from a conservationist/environmentalist heritage from here on Earth. The reason for protecting our own environment is mainly to protect the continued existence of life (human life specifically, but other life benefits as well). One might even say we have a biblical duty to be good stewards of life. Therefore, since the prime motivation is to safeguard and perpetuate life in all its forms, the empty rocks out there are all fair game for human intervention, as far as I’m concerned. Hopefully we’ll preserve large chunks of the places we go to, or at the very least document them and our process of changing them thoroughly, for the edification and enjoyment of future generations. The only thing I’m really concerned about, and thankfully the scientists are as well, is that we might end up wiping out any life that’s already out there. So I’m glad the first go at this is from the scientists and explorers, and not, er, “space miners.”

Seriously, though… I’m reading The Fatal Shore: The Epic of Australia’s Founding by Robert Hughes, and it’s gotten me thinking about colonization in general and who would most likely be the first people to actually go to Mars, the Moon, or space in general. I’m only 1/6 of the way through Fatal Shore, but so far it’s been a good introduction to Georgian England’s prisons and convicts and the circumstances that led to some of them being sent to Australia in the first place. Basically, England at that time had very strict laws with harsh punishments, and a wildly increasing population, which together led to a glut of prisoners. Some were being sent to labor in America, but at the end of the 18th century, America declared independence and didn’t want any more convicts from the mother country (especially since the slave trade was better for them). So the solution to the prison crisis was to try transporting some of them elsewhere, and Australia won the honor.

Right now the book is detailing the new colony’s struggles to survive and their early interactions with the native “Indians” who lived there. Interestingly enough, the martial leader of the colony forbade interfering with the natives (not out of enlightened notions, but merely because he knew the colony would not survive any actual war with the natives). It’s fascinating; I can’t wait to read the rest of it.

Anyway, back to space: who would be most likely to be the first humans to colonize space? I hadn’t really thought of sending criminals before, but, well, we do have an over-burdened, corrupt prison system here in the US. Which would be easier, actually repealing the idiotic drug laws we have that are the main cause of this, or just sending batches of criminals off to the moon? Luckily, I think it’s still too expensive to consider the latter option as in any way viable, so that buys the drug law reformists more time…

Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy posits an international effort sending an initial colonizing force to Mars of 100 scientists, engineers, and other technically qualified, carefully chosen individuals. As logical as this sounds, I really do not see it happening.

My money is on China and/or commercial interests. China has a huge population, and significant amounts of their natural resources are being tarnished by the activities of this large population as the country works towards becoming a major player on the global scene. Where else to go but up? They’re already making forays in that direction. They may be interested in colonizing just to have somewhere for some of the population to go, but even more than that, they and others will be interested in exploring space for commercial interests. With efforts like the X Prize, space is slowly becoming cheaper to get to, and at the very least there’s minerals up in them thar rocks. At some point, either because of economic woes here on Earth, or because the technology to get there finally becomes cheap enough, or both, it will become worthwhile to invest in mining the heavens. Initially this will probably be done with robotics, but slowly living creatures will be adapted both to vaccuum and various atmospheres — giant tree cities on asteroids, kelp ponds in Mars craters, post-human cyborgs, etc. All of which research will allow life to spread further.

Creating new biospheres and offworld industries will greatly improve both our standards of living and our ecological footprint on Earth. Enough colonization will mean the ability to protect the home world better from the occasional continent-wide or planet-wide life-threatening events like earthquakes, tsunamis, asteroidal impacts, etc. Making space bloom is our duty and destiny.