LOG ENTRY: SOL 381 I’ve been thinking about laws on Mars.

Yeah, I know, it’s a stupid thing to think about, but I have a lot of free time.

There’s an international treaty saying no country can lay claim to anything that’s not on Earth. And by another treaty, if you’re not in any country’s territory, maritime law applies.

So Mars is “international waters.”

NASA is an American nonmilitary organization, and it owns the Hab. So while I’m in the Hab, American law applies. As soon as I step outside, I’m in international waters. Then when I get in the rover, I’m back to American law.

Here’s the cool part: I will eventually go to Schiaparelli and commandeer the Ares 4 lander. Nobody explicitly gave me permission to do this, and they can’t until I’m aboard Ares 4 and operating the comm system. After I board Ares 4, before talking to NASA, I will take control of a craft in international waters without permission.

That makes me a pirate!

A space pirate!

From China to America to Mecca, forget mandates from Heaven, Jesus, or God. They do not exist. An a-priori mandate, however, does exist from metaphorical Zons here on Earth and across the cosmos.

They say once you grow crops somewhere, you have officially ‘colonised’ it. So technically, I colonised Mars.
In your face, Neil Armstrong!

Sending large numbers of people to explore and settle Mars in the decades ahead isn't inevitable, but it is entirely possible. The biggest challenge isn't the engineering and spacecraft, however difficult they may be. Instead, it's making sure that a sustained Mars campaign proceeds as a national priority, and that will happen only if the American people are behind it. We have the opportunity now to make this happen. We might not be so fortunate in the future.

I plan to travel to Mars and make it my home.
..
People should be traveling to Mars and doing it in our lifetime.

I do not take my mandate from the European people.

Someday I'd like to read a story about competent people on Mars.

no need of the quo Mars

Maybe I know nothing about politics, but if this is getting you votes, I am a Martian astronaut!

There is no mandate for hard Brexit, and I don't believe there is a majority in parliament for it either... it has to be a matter for MPs.

A lot of people are really afraid that we are going to start imposing things through the government. I have absolutely no nostalgic feelings for that time. I want to go forward. Of course, we have nothing to impose on anyone — not the government nor the people. We want to propose but not impose. We propose and present the message and people are free to accept it.

Thus, the central objection raised against the human settlement and terraforming of Mars: Such projects may be technologically feasible, but there is no possible way that they can be paid for. On the surface, the arguments given supporting this position appear cogent, for Mars is a distant place, difficult to access, and possesses a hostile environment that holds no apparent resources of economic value. These arguments appear ironclad, yet it must be pointed out that they were also presented in the past as convincing reasons for the utter impracticality of the European settlement of North America and Australia.

We are so far from being able to move a good fraction of the population anywhere else. Even if Elon Musk and other private individuals manage to start sending humans to Mars, we may be a few hundred years away from putting any sizable population there—and we have to fix Earth right now. Eventually, if we’ve been irresponsible enough to create problems in our world, moving to a new one won’t necessarily solve the problem because we might do the same thing in the future.

I have to say that if you are anti-mandate but not anti-vax, you are gay.