Will Martians obey Earth’s control in the future? Can Musk’s Mars colonization plan be realized?

This article is based on answering similar questions from netizens. It seems that large-scale human travel to Mars is still a long way in the future, and no one knows. But we can imagine it based on basic common sense and ethics.

First of all, let's talk about what it means to be able to control or not to control

I think that the future relationship between the Earth and the Martians cannot be summed up by the word "control". The reason why some people always have this kind of "control" consciousness is that they have a eunuch mentality that has been cultivated by the long-term imperial culture.

When humans land on Mars in the future, the first question they will have to answer is not how the Earth controls them, but how they can survive in that environment, and whether they can build and develop on their own with the help of the Earth. Moreover, the first human explorers to land on Mars will face many unpredictable risks, and may even sacrifice their lives at any time and be buried on another planet.

So how can we say whether such a group of people listen to control or not? We only respect and support these pioneers of human immigration, and support them as much as possible. Why should we control them? They are on a foreign planet billions of kilometers away, and they can only survive and open up a future with their wisdom and hard work.

Musk's Mars immigration plan awakened the world

Mars exploration and colonization were just a science fiction dream a few years ago. Only a few unmanned probes had been there, and most of them were almost exclusive to NASA. In addition to launching dozens of probes, several Mars rovers have been working there for more than a decade.

The United States once had a Mars transformation plan, which was to first create greenhouse gases on Mars, raise the temperature of Mars, dissolve groundwater, and then slowly transform it into a habitable planet, and then carry out immigration.

Some say this plan will take tens of thousands of years, while others say it will only take 1,000 years. Even 1,000 years is a long time in human history, not even a dream. Who knew that there was a "madman" on Earth, Elon Musk, who claimed that he would send people to Mars in 2025 and build a city of some size on Mars by 2050.

This is a crazy plan, which brings the thousand-year dream to the forefront. It seems that few people believe this "crazy talk", but Musk speaks very sincerely and excitedly. At the International Astronautical Congress, he burst into tears and believed that if humans do not speed up the Mars immigration plan, it will be very dangerous. Once a major disaster comes, there will be a risk of extinction.

The reason for this is that the eggs of mankind are placed in only one basket on Earth. Once a major disaster strikes, mankind will have nowhere to escape and will be extinct. Therefore, Musk and his team decided to accomplish one great thing in their lifetime: sending humans to Mars and forming a large-scale mission. In this way, the eggs of mankind are placed in two baskets, and the risk of extinction is greatly reduced.

This seems to be just a grand ideal, and many people just sneer at it. But in just a few years, Musk has accomplished one great thing after another, which has forced people to look at him with new eyes. Musk's plan has hope, so many people are eager to become the "pioneers" of Mars.

Although Musk has repeatedly emphasized that the first batch of pioneers to Mars may only have a one-way ticket and no return, and the probability of sacrifice is very high, there are still 80,000 volunteers from all over the world who apply to become such "pioneers". Our Chinese compatriots are not willing to lag behind, and there are more than 10,000 applicants.

Musk himself has claimed that he wants to go to Mars, but he will have to come back to organize and transport more people there. He will go there again when he is 70 years old, become a permanent resident of Mars, and be buried on Mars after his death.

Musk's plan for Mars colonization

Musk believes that the people who first land on Mars will definitely not be able to provide for themselves, but will have to rely on supplies sent from Earth, including living materials and means of production. Therefore, several unmanned spacecraft will be sent to transport a large amount of necessary goods to Mars in advance.

These goods include food, automatic mining machines, solar power generation devices, devices that use the Martian atmosphere and water to produce oxygen and fuel, 3D printing machines, etc. Once the immigrants land on Mars, they must use Martian resources, such as the thin atmosphere and underground frozen water, to produce oxygen and drinking water needed by humans, as well as fuel for the starship to return.

According to this plan, the advance team will initially be small in number, mainly consisting of some engineering technicians who can operate robots, and the entire construction activity will be mainly carried out by robots. The main project of base construction is to find a place with water (underground frozen water), preferably an underground cave, and build a closed residence that can prevent Martian radiation and sandstorms and is suitable for survival.

The automatic mining machine will crush and sort the materials into the necessary building materials and transport them to the 3D printer. As long as the design drawing program is input into the 3D printer, the printer will be able to build a building suitable for the Martian environment, and even have all the furniture and utensils inside.

Large-scale immigration will only begin when a base suitable for human survival has taken shape and most of the production and living materials can be met on Mars.

Musk's massive immigration plan

Musk's immigration plan is very bold. He plans to prepare 1,000 reusable SN starships, each of which can carry 100 people at a time, so that 100,000 immigrants can be sent to Mars at a time. There is a launch window from Earth to Mars every 26 months. If all goes well, 260 months, or about 22 years, will be enough to send 1 million immigrants to Mars.

Musk believes that 1 million people is the most suitable size for a Martian city and the most suitable base for Martians to reproduce. These 1 million people are the pioneers of human immigration and the ancestors of Martians. They will face many difficulties that are unimaginable to Earthlings, and even the threat of death.

Therefore, they will manage and make decisions on Mars completely according to the environment and conditions there, without having to listen to the questions on Earth about whether they can be controlled or not. In ancient times, there was a saying that a general may not obey the orders of the king when he is away from home, let alone this modern group of people separated by two planets?

Therefore, the future connection between the Earth and Mars is a connection between two planets, which has long gone beyond the connection between countries and can only be a relationship of mutual assistance. Of course, at the beginning, it is mainly a relationship in which Mars relies on the support of the Earth, while the Earth has no dependence on Mars.

How long will the Martians depend on Earth for aid?

Mars will most likely need Earth's support for a considerable period of time. How long will this take? It's hard to say, maybe 100 years, maybe even longer, but I think it won't be more than 100 years. Because as Martians' survival technology matures, they will be able to be completely self-sufficient and no longer need Earth's support.

The production and consumption patterns and resource needs of Earthlings will become increasingly different from those of Martians, to the point where the two sides cannot share resources at all.

Due to the special conditions on Mars, the direction of scientific development there is likely to be completely different from that on Earth. Some technologies may be useful on Earth, but are difficult to develop on Earth, while some are just the opposite. This will lead to mutual exchange. As Martian technology develops, Mars' dependence on Earth will no longer exist, and the two sides will only have an exchange relationship.

If Musk's plan goes well, the first generation of Martians will have been born before 2040, and at least the third or even fourth generation will have been born by the end of this century. These native Martians are completely different from Earthlings.

If the first and second generations of Martians are still influenced by the first generation of ancestors born on Earth, their parents, or grandparents, the third generation of Martians will have no emotional dependence on Earth at all. They have completely adapted to the Martian culture that is different from that of Earth.

Regional reproductive isolation will make Martians a new species, with a completely different body structure and thinking from Earthlings. For example, since the gravity on Mars is only 2/5 of that on Earth, Martians are taller than Earthlings, and they are only adapted to living on Mars. If they come to Earth, they will not be able to bear the gravity and will need to wear special exoskeletons to straighten their bodies and walk.

Will there be management and resource conflicts between Mars and Earth?

As for whether the Earth controls Mars, I have already made it clear that it is impossible. So will the Earth send representatives to Mars to manage it? I think it is unlikely, because the people who are selected to go to Mars are already elites, so there is no need to send another manager.

These people will gradually become locals on Mars. Therefore, I don’t think Mars will be managed in the same way as human colonies. If anyone really wants to do this, it won’t take long before they will be overthrown.

So will there be a resource dispute between Earth and Mars? I don't think so. Because Earthlings and Martians are completely different except for some similarities in food.

There is no oil, coal or natural gas on Mars, so from the beginning, the Martians would not use internal combustion engines or other power equipment, and Earth fuel is completely useless to the Martians; there is no atmosphere on Mars, so even if there is a lot of it on Earth, it cannot be transported there; the cost of transporting food from Earth to Mars is much higher than for them to produce it themselves. Moreover, as the Martians have evolved, their food structure has long been different from that of Earth people, and the food transported from Earth may not suit their taste.

In this sense, Martians have little to contend with Earthlings.

The most likely reason for the war is that when the Earth is no longer habitable, a large number of immigrants will flock to Mars, and the resources on Mars will be difficult to feed more people, so there may be an incident where the Martians resist the invasion of Earthlings. In the more distant future, human migration will no longer be limited to Mars, but will migrate to more distant interstellar space, or even out of the solar system.

How much preparation has Musk made to realize his dream of Mars?

Musk claims that a city with a population of 1 million will be built on Mars by 2050. If he were a poor man and said this, it would be a boast. But Musk has become the richest man in the world, and his huge sums of money are constantly being spent on this "crazy talk". Is he crazy and stupid?

In fact, Musk is neither crazy nor stupid. He is working down to earth to solve Mars problems one by one. To this end, Musk has invested his accumulated wealth over the years and established various companies.

Musk owns about 18 companies. In addition to the most famous SpaceX private rocket company, there are also Tesla Electric Vehicle Company, Solar City Photovoltaic Power Generation Company, The Boring Company that solves traffic congestion, Starlink company that solves communication problems, Neuralink company that deals with artificial intelligence, and Square Roots, a super farm co-founded with his brother, etc. These companies are more powerful than each other and stand at the forefront of world science and technology.

These companies he founded seem to be solving the most pressing problems on Earth today, but in fact, they are all preparing for humans to land on Mars in the future.

Tesla cars were developed because there is no oil, natural gas, or coal on Mars, so it can only rely on electric drive; solar energy was developed because the main energy source on Mars in the future will come from solar energy; underground vacuum tunnel high-speed trains were developed because the atmosphere on Mars is thin, making it easy to realize this kind of underground high-speed channel transportation.

He developed recyclable rockets and starships that can be used multiple times, and developed the Raptor engine, in order to reduce the transportation cost to Mars and make it affordable for civilians to buy tickets; he and his brother founded the Square Root Company, and developed a technology that can grow crops and vegetables without soil, and can grow them in three dimensions indoors, in order to solve the grain and food problems of Martian immigrants, etc.; the Starlink project is an exploration of future solutions to Mars communication problems.

The fuel that humans use to go to the moon and back is brought by the spacecraft itself, but Mars is dozens of times farther away than the moon, and the journey time is also dozens of times longer, so it is impossible for a starship to bring back a huge amount of fuel. But there is no oil on Mars, let alone refineries, so how to solve the fuel problem?

Musk and his team racked their brains and finally came up with a solution. There is water ice on Mars, which can be melted to produce water; Mars has a thin atmosphere, mainly composed of carbon dioxide, while methane is composed of hydrogen and carbon. As long as electricity and appropriate catalysts are used, oxygen and methane can be separated.

So they developed the powerful Raptor engine, which uses methane and liquid oxygen as fuel. This way, the starship will have fuel to return.

Can Musk's dream of colonizing Mars come true?

In order to realize the dream of human landing on Mars as soon as possible, Musk worked hard. In just a few years, various preparations were carried out simultaneously, and the Starship development record was broken again and again. Now SpaceX has become the first company in the world that can recover rockets; the "Dragon Spacecraft" developed by it has successfully docked with the space station and can carry people back and forth in full automatic operation.

The "Dragon Spacecraft" also achieved the goal of sending four civilians into the 580-kilometer Earth orbit for a three-day tour, all fully automatic and without astronauts!

The SN Starship, which will carry people to Mars in the future, can carry 100 passengers each time. After experiencing explosions in four launch tests, Musk, who was not discouraged, made nearly 200 improvements based on the lessons learned from the failures. He launched the Starship SN15 directly from SN11. After launching on May 6, 2021 and reaching the predetermined altitude of 10 kilometers, he accurately adjusted his attitude according to the program and returned to land safely, which was a success.

Just a few days later, a SN20 Starship assembled from a super heavy booster and a Starship stood at the launch site. The entire ship is 120 meters high, and the booster and the Starship are equipped with a total of 36 Raptor engines. The Starship is about to conduct an Earth orbit test hundreds of kilometers above the Earth, and it seems that the day of landing on Mars is getting closer and closer.

On May 31, Musk announced that SpaceX will be able to manufacture one Raptor engine every 48 hours and assemble a Starship in 72 hours. It will complete the manufacture of 1,000 Starships within 10 years. These Starships will be launched into Earth orbit and be ready to go to Mars at any time.

Many countries and companies that have dreams of developing Mars are also very jealous and do not want Musk to be the only one on Mars, but they are helpless because their development progress and level are too far from Musk, either the technical content is very low or the cost is too high. Although they are dissatisfied, they can only sigh in despair.

However, seeing some people maliciously slandering and labeling Musk's Mars project as a conspiracy theory, comparing it to the U.S.-Soviet space race in the last century, saying that it was intended to bring down other countries' economies, it is despicable that they are just dark-minded and always think bad of others.

So, is Musk's plan possible? Will the once distant dream of humans becoming immigrants to Mars really come true so soon? I can't be sure, I can only wait and see, but I sincerely admire and appreciate Musk's spirit.

Throughout human history, there have always been some mavericks who have pushed human civilization to a leap forward. I think Musk is one of them. What do you think? Welcome to discuss, thank you for reading.

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