The Case for Mars (49 page)

If the Mars Prize bill were passed, it would be success in the field, rather than committee judgments, that would decide what architectures and technologies are best. The system of prizes would provide not only the needed incentives to get humans to Mars, but a financial “runway” as well that will allow private organizations to accumulate the capital required to finance such a venture. For example, an organization could start by focusing on winning prize 9, the development of the heavy-lift launcher. The $2 billion prize for this is not much better than a break-even proposition, but once it is in hand, the organization would be in an excellent position to win prize 10, $3 billion for hurling 50 tonnes onto trans-Mars injection. This second prize would put the organization heavily in the black, and set it up to wi prize 11, $5 billion for the first soft landing of 30 tonnes on Mars. Once that was accomplished, the organization would have in hand the primary Earth-Mars transportation system needed to fly the Mars Direct mission, and plenty of working capital, and could then launch an assault on the grand $20 billion prize for the round-trip human mission. Groups with smaller initial capital could start out by chasing some of the lesser prizes for precursor missions, and thus get into the game through the side door, so to speak. Thus, entering the contest via various routes, organizations would accumulate both capital and experience as they compete for and win prizes that rely on demonstrations of the critical technologies and accomplishments of key precursor missions required to meet the major program challenges. But the prize system does not prescribe the d
esign of the mission—no one is obligated to go for all or any of the lesser prizes in their quest for the grand prize. The “runway” boasts multiple entrances. Each competing organization will be able to use its own creativity to determine the most efficient path to Mars, in the process creating a set of cheap transportation systems that would not merely make possible a flags and footprints mission, but the systematic exploration and settlement of the Red Planet.

After being elected Speaker of the House, Gingrich was overwhelmed with the demands of tax activists, abortion activists, balanced budgeteers, and other interest groups. He requested the Mars Prize work-up, and according to Eisenach he was delighted with it. But he didn’t do a thing with it, and I doubt his successors will either unless they see some evidence of political support for the idea out in the field. The same can be said for Al Gore, who until being elected vice president, frequently intimated that he supported the Sagan plan for a joint U.S./Russia mission to Mars. He hasn’t said a word about it since. If we are ever going to see any action out of these people, we’re going to have to show some strength. This brings me to my next point.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

If you want humans to get to Mars, then you need to become a space activist.

As we saw, Miller’s study of the space-interested public identified a group of close to 40 million. Yet, the three main domestic space activist organizations, the National Space Society, the Planetary Society, and the Mars Society, boast a total of perhaps 100,000 members. We have immense latent support for space exploration in this country, but only a tiny fraction of it is organized. Permanent organizations allied with large memberships are needed to generate the kind of political muscle required. In a nutshell, Mars needs you. It’s not enough to wish the space program well; if you believe in a future that is not limited by Earth’s horizons, you need to join with other like-minded individuals and make your voice heard. Joining a space activist organization is probably the best way to do that.

There are basically four organizations to choose from. I’m a bit prejudiced here because I happen to be a leader of one of them, the Mars Society. But I’ll try to give you an accurate enough picture to decide where you
should center your efforts.

The Planetary Society
is the largest of the four, with perhaps 70,000 members. Founded by Carl Sagan, it is led by Executive Director Louis Friedman and former Jet Propulsion Lab director Bruce Murray. The Planetary Society is primarily interested in promoting the robotic exploration of the solar system, but it is supportive of a humans-to-Mars program, provided it is done along the lines of the Sagan international collaboration model. You can oin the Planetary Society by sending a check for $35 to: The Planetary Society, 65 North Catalina Avenue, Pasadena, CA 91106.

The National Space Society
is the second largest, with 25,000 members. Founded by Wernher von Braun and Princeton space visionary Professor Gerard O’Neill, it is led today by Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin, Shuttle astronaut Dan Brandenstein, and Executive Director Pat Dasch. The primary interest of the National Space Society (NSS) is to promote the human settlement of space, including the Moon, Mars, the asteroids, and free-floating space colonies. The NSS would be equally happy supporting a Mars (or Moon) program based on any of the J.F.K., Sagan, or Gingrich models. The NSS is organized into about a hundred local chapters, which organize local and regional events, as well as a national conference once a year. You can join the NSS by sending a check for $35 to: National Space Society, 922 Pennsylvania Avenue S.E., Washington, DC 20003. Membership benefits include a bimonthly glossy magazine and frequent mobilization bulletins concerning the space program.

The Space Frontier Foundation
is the smallest organization, with about 500 members. Led by Rick Tumlinson and Jim Muncy, the Space Frontier Foundation has a very strong free-enterprise tilt. Of the three approaches to Mars discussed in this chapter, it would favor only the Gingrich model. If opening space with maximum free enterprise and minimum government involvement is fundamental to your principles, then consider joining this group. The Space Frontier Foundation sponsors one national conference per year.
You
can join the Space Frontier Foundation by sending $25 to: The Space Frontier Foundation, 16 First Avenue, Nyack, NY 10960.

The
Mars Society
is the newest of the space organizations. Together wit
h many other members of the Mars Underground, including Chris McKay, Carol Stoker, and Tom Meyer, as well as science fiction authors Greg Benford and Kim Stanley Robinson, I founded the Mars Society with the purpose of furthering the exploration and settlement of Mars by
both
public and private means. Our founding convention in Boulder, Colorado, in August 1998 drew 700 people from 40 countries, featured 180 papers and talks on everything from Mars mission strategies to the ethics of terraforming, and attracted international press coverage. As of this writing, we have around 2,000 members, divided into 80 chapters, of which 50 are in the United States and 30 span the globe. We have an internet journal called
New Mars
, edited by Richard Wagner, and are embarked on campaigns including broad public outreach, political lobbying, and the construction of a human Mars exploration simulation base in the polar desert on Canada’s Devon Island. International conventions are planned for every August. You can join the Mars Society either through its web site at
www.marssociety.org
or by sending $50 ($25 for students) to Mars Society, Box 273, Indian Hills, CO 80454.

If you want to reach me, you can write in care of the Mars Society address above. If you want to help, I’d like you to send me a postcard so I can put you on the Mars Society mailing list. Be sure to include your e-mail address if you have one. If you have access to the internet, I have a web site at
http://www.nw.net/mars
. You can get a fair number of my technical papers there.

Making history is not a spectator sport. It’s your turn at the plate.

A QUESTION OF HISTORY

Establisng the first human outpost on Mars would be the most historic act of our age. People everywhere today remember Ferdinand and Isabella only because they are associated with the voyage of Christopher Columbus. In contrast, the number of people who can name predecessors and successors of Ferdinand and Isabella are few and far between, and all the wars, atrocities, palace coups, scandals, booms, and bankruptcies that must have seemed so important to people at that time are today nearly forgotten. Similarly, almost no one five hundred years from now will know what Operation Desert Storm was, let alone the Whitewater sc
andal; they will never have heard of the wars in Kuwait or Nicaragua; and they will neither know nor care whether the present United States had national health care or a balanced budget. But they will remember those who first got to and settled Mars, and the nation who made it possible.

When I was a boy, I used to read a lot of classical history. I still remember quite well one speech that Pericles, the Athenian leader, gave for the Athenian war dead at the end of the second year of Athens’ desperate struggle with Sparta. To the assembled relatives he intoned: These men, your sons and husbands, are dead—and I understand you are sad. But look at what they died for: They died for Athens. And what is that, but a city which uniquely calls upon its people to be citizens, not subjects; which celebrates philosophy, science, and reason; and which allows its people to live well while exercising both their duty and right to be fully human. And then Pericles opined: Future ages will wonder at us, even as the present age wonders at us now.

Although Athens would soon be destroyed as a major power, Pericles was correct: It’s been over two thousand years and despite all the technological and literary accomplishments since, people wonder at her still. Well, if we do our job and open up the first new world for humanity on Mars, then two thousand years from now, there will probably be people living not only on Earth and Mars, but on numerous other planets throughout this region of our galaxy. Those people will have technologies and abilities that would seem as magical to us as ours would to a resident of Periclean Athens. Yet, despite all their wondrous powers, if we are the people who make it possible, then those billions of advanced beings living on worlds orbiting multitudes of civilized stars will look back at our time, and they will wonder at us.

EPILOGUE: THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE MARTIAN FRONTIER

A bit more than one hundred years ago, a young professor of history from the then-relatively obscure Unive
rsity of
Wisconsin got up to speak at the annual conference of the American Historical Association. Frederick Jackson Turner’s talk was scheduled as the last one in the evening session. A long series of obscure papers preceded his address, yet the majority of the conference participants remained to hear him. Perhaps a rumor had gotten afoot that something important was about to be said. If so, it was correct; for in one bold sweep Turner presented a brilliant insight into the basis of American society and the American character. It was not legal theories, precedents, traditions, national or racial stock that was the source of America’s egalitarian democracy, individualism, and spirit of innovation, he said. It was the existence of the frontier.

“To the frontier the American intellect owes its striking characteristics,” Turner said, “That coarseness of strength combined with acuteness and inquisitiveness; that practical, inventive turn of mind, quick to find expedients; that masterful grasp of material things, lacking in the artisticut powerful to effect great ends; that restless, nervous energy; that dominant individualism, working for good and evil, and withal that buoyancy and exuberance that comes from freedom—these are the traits of the frontier, or traits called out elsewhere because of the existence of the frontier.”

Turner went on, driving his points home, “For a moment, at the frontier, the bonds of custom are broken and unrestraint is triumphant. There is no tabula rasa. The stubborn American environment is there with its imperious summons to accept its conditions; the inherited ways of doing things are also there; and yet, in spite of the environment, and in spite of custom, each frontier did indeed furnish a new opportunity, a gate of escape from the bondage of the past; and freshness, and confidence, and scorn of older society, impatience of its restraints and its ideas, and indifference to its lessons, have accompanied the frontier.”

“What the Mediterranean Sea was to the Greeks, breaking the bonds of custom, offering new experiences, calling out new institutions and activities, that and more the ever retreating frontier has been to the United States. . . .”
⁴⁷

The Turner thesis was an intellectual bombshell, which within a few years created an entire school of historians who demonstrated that no
t only American culture, but the progressive humanist civilization that America generally represented resulted primarily from the great frontier of global settlement opened to Europe by the Age of Exploration.

Turner presented his paper in 1893. Just three years earlier, in 1890, the American frontier had been declared closed: The line of settlement that had always defined the furthermost existence of western expansion had actually met the line of settlement coming east from California. Today, a century later, we face the question that Turner himself posed—what if the frontier is truly gone? What happens to America and all it has stood for? Can a free, egalitarian, innovating society survive in the absence of room to grow?

Perhaps the question was premature in Turner’s time, but not now. Currently we see around us an ever more apparent loss of vigor of our society: increasing fixity of the power structure and bureaucratization of all levels of life; impotence of political institutions to carry off great projects; the proliferation of regulations affecting all aspects of public, private, and commercial life; the spread of irrationalism; the banalization of popular culture; the loss of willingness by individuals to take risks, to fend for themselves or think for themselves; economic stagnation and decline; the deceleration of the rate of technological innovation. . . . Everywhere you look, the writing is on the wall.