Elon Musk wants to build a Mars colony. Apparently, he is motivated by the conviction that humanity must become a multiplanetary species in order to secure its long-term survival in case we render Earth uninhabitable. I wonder if he hopes it will be governed by an Elon (the title given to the leader of the Martians in Wernher von Braun’s book Marsprojekt.
Reactions have ranged from enthusiastic agreement to scepticism to dismissal as ‘a dangerous delusion’ (Martin Rees). Personally, I would place myself well towards the sceptical end of the spectrum.
While I am prepared to believe that Musk might well establish a permanent Mars colony within the timescale he envisages (by the early 2040s), I am very doubtful that he could achieve the kind of colony necessary to make humanity genuinely multiplanetary.
There is a vast difference between a permanent colony able to utilize in situ resources and a genuinely self-sustaining colony (i.e. able to exist without continuing support from Earth). It would certainly be feasible to establish a colony of a few thousand or even tens of thousands. But they would remain dependent upon Earth for anything they could not manufacture for themselves from local resources.
Musk envisages developing a much larger colony (perhaps as many as a million people) over a period of about 15 years. To achieve that, he would have to launch 1000 colony ships each carrying about 100 passengers during each of the launch windows in that period. But, even if he pulled this off, would a colony of this size be genuinely self-sustaining. Would it have the manufacturing base to construct everything the colonists would need?
What about computers? Even the most reliable computers have a lifetime of perhaps ten years. But replacement computers or their components cannot easily be manufactured from the raw materials even if they can be found, mined, and refined locally. You would first need to maufacture the machinery needed for their manufacture. So, before you can build even a small production facility, you would need to have in place several other industries.
Now, repeat that exercise for every other aspect of life – the machinery needed to manufacture the habitats in which the colonists live; their furniture; their clothing; their transport; the consumables used by the kind of health services that a population of that size would need.
I strongly suspect that even if the colony were ten times the size envisaged by Musk, it would still rely on Earth for some things – items that are simply too costly or complex for a society of this size to produce for itself, major technological innovations, luxury goods.
And what about a cultural life? Would a society of this sort have the surplus time or resources to allow some of its most creative members to engage in art, or music, or theatre, or dance, or literature?
Far from ensuring the long-term survival of the human race, I fear that a Mars colony would merely ensure that after the death of Earth, it would merely a ensure a long, slow decline and ultimate extinction.
