MUSK ON MARS

Elon Musk, the worlds 2nd most wealthy man and 1st most eccentric, has famously said “I want to die on Mars, just not whilst landing..!”  He also wants to send “millions of colonists” to Mars in case of nuclear war on Earth, so that “Earth could be re-populated from Mars”.   Colonisation of Mars is a ludicrous ambition not just for the foreseeable future, but possibly for all time considering conditions there – a freezing desert with an atmosphere only 1% as dense as earth’s – mostly Carbon Dioxide.   Barring the discovery of a revolutionary space-propulsion technology which does away with wasteful inefficient rockets, any “colonising” mission this century would probably number no more than a few score colonists, if even that many, due to the difficulty of sustaining them once there, assuming they didn’t arrive in the fashion Musk fears the most.  And they would probably have to live underground. And its a one-way trip, there is no coming back – so why would anyone in their right mind want to go and live there?    

ELONS AGO AND FAR AWAY.

Elon Musk is a very strange man but brilliant, so maybe he has secretly invented a time machine and he intends going back in time to when Mars was habitable?   Stranger things have happened – well almost..!   It would certainly make far more sense as, many Elons ago, Mars had oceans and seas and rivers, so it may have been habitable and even have evolved advanced life forms.  Maybe giant carnivorous lizards similar to T-Rex and the other huge dinosaurs which roamed Earth millions of years ago.   So let’s assume Mars – or the Mars that Musk wants to die on – is still like that.  Let us further pretend we have the technology to send say 10,000 colonists – perhaps not all at once but over several years.  So, assuming they have all the necessary materials and manufacturing facilities, etc, what sort of homes would the Mars colonists construct to live in, whilst bearing in mind that Martian creatures are highly dangerous, either venomous or carnivorous? 

2050 headline – MUSK MURDERED BY MARTIANS

Musk’s Mars of his imagination is also home to cannibalistic human-like creatures.  In 2050 the first large group of colonists, led by their 79 year old patriarch Musk, lands safely on Mars, to their leaders great relief..!   But, in a re-play of the Roanoke Island mystery, the colonisers disappear without trace soon after, !  A relief expedition found evidence that they had been killed and eaten by Martian aborigines who decided “culinary enrichment” – “earthling-on-the-spit” – was far  preferable to “cultural enrichment”..!    

Back to the future (or is it the distant past?) – would our 10,000 plucky pioneer colonists scatter all over the planet, establishing a number of smaller colonies in several places – or would most of them remain in one big home colony?  Mars being a very hostile environment in every way, most of them would want to settle in a home base, both for personal security and to conserve resources. So would they construct a typical earthling townscape?  The usual mix of individual houses, small to medium-sized apartment blocks, with separate buildings for factories, offices and shops, etc.?  If so, then power and water would need to be piped to all the separate buildings, which would also need to be linked by a road network, requiring cars and delivery vehicles, maybe even a public transport network?  And then there’s the issue of waste removal, human waste for starters.

When you stop to think about everything that is needed to create even a small conventional townscape from scratch, it does seem rather a daft idea doesn’t it?  

There can be little doubt that the colonists would be housed in ONE LARGE BUILDING in which they could safely, securely, and comfortably live under one sheltering roof – a big roof that could also harvest water and solar power..!  Not only would this be much safer than being scattered around in many individual buildings, it would conserve resources whilst greatly simplifying maintenance and the provision and distribution of water, energy, food, etc. It would also make waste re-cycling – including the very useful human variety – so much easier..!  Its a bloody no-brainer..! 

IF ABOVE THEN WHY NOT BELOW..?  (or, ON HEAVEN AS ON EARTH..!)

OK, enough of the Sci-Fi musings.  I was surmising about what kind of habitat would make a suitable home on another planet, but the idea of large numbers of people living under one roof also makes sense on earth..!   Maybe even more so, since there are so many more of us down here, and our conventional 2-dimensional sprawls consume too many resources and generate much more WASTE than necessary..!  And the biggest waste of all (although rarely thought of as such) is the TIME WASTED rushing to and from workplaces, shops and schools, etc.  If everything we need is under one big roof, everything would be far simpler and operate more efficiently.   Maintenance and repairs, public utilities, delivery of supplies, conservation of energy and other resources, re-cycling and sustainability in general, .  You may accuse me of being alarmist but, what with ever increasing terrorism and massive illegal immigration, future cities will need SECURITY and DEFENSIBILITY..!.   Maybe I will be proved wrong, but it is something we should plan for and something that would be virtually impossible in conventional sprawl cities with their countless uncontrolled entry points.   

Enclosed shopping malls – the first one opened in 1956 – were once considered futuristic.  So having progressed from noisy and windy streets lined with shops to enclosed shopping malls, why not enclosed cities..?  Surely that is what an ADVANCED CIVILISATION would build..! 

Its the no-brainer of no-brainers..! 

So why aren’t we doing it NOW..?  The Jeremiahs will opine “what makes sense on another planet doesn’t apply here on earth..!”  But why not?  An enclosed habitat in which several thousand people can live is not NOT ROCKET SCIENCE but common-sense..!   The idea is simplicity itself when compared with the technical complexities of many other technologies, especially that of getting a small unmanned probe to land on Mars. The Jeremiahs will then opine that most people don’t want to live in such close confines because we will fight amongst each other..!   Counter-intuitively, the prevention of “fighting amongst each other” is one of the best arguments in favour of the concept, as I will explain later on..!

Of course we DO NOT YET have the technology to get large numbers of people to Mars, regardless of whether it be the habitable Mars of the distant past or today’s frozen lifeless desert.  BUT we DO have the technology to build large all-purpose habitats such as just described, and in fact we have already built many such habitats. 

We call them “cruise ships” but they are also known as FLOATING CITIES..!

The most massive of these are the 4 “Oasis” class (no relation) ships, which can accommodate 6000+ in luxurious cabins, sorry “staterooms”, in great comfort.  Admittedly most cruise-ship staterooms are quite small and don’t have cooking facilities or kitchens, as nobody is expected to live in them full time.  But a lot of people would want to live in them if they could..!  And how much simpler and cheaper it would be to construct such habitats on land where expensive engines, lifeboats, navigational equipment, etc., not to mention thousands of “crew” – are not needed..!  

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Having made my opening case (I have only just begun..!) that the idea of a “city” under one roof – an “enclosed city” – is the correct and only road for civilisation to take, I must now address all the predictable criticism that such places will be “too densely populated” and “it would be like living in a human hive” as my own niece (as no doubt countless others would) put it without even bothering to listen to my case and consider the facts..!