Question: Who gets to decide who owns Mars?

[Kendrakirai]

At first. Then personal and commercial interests will get involved. Or those colonists will start staking our claims for homesteads. *Something* is going to happen eventually and Mars, the moon, everywhere will come down to ‘I’m here and I don’t want to leave’ and then some government-sponsored force will have to kick them off and *nobody* is going to like *that*.

Hell, that’s the main reason for Earth and her colonies to go to war in like, *every science fiction story ever*. You either respect the rights and efforts of a place and people or they will rise up against you.

[hammerofglass]

To quote The Lion in Winter: "It's got my troops all over it. That makes it mine."

[Yukaphile]

So a big corporate bidding war. Hooray.

[Mecha82]

Odd, Wikipedia lists China as acceded. Regardless, the economic motivations rely on as of yet to be developed technology, and in the event that space suddenly becomes valuable, we'll probably see something like the Congress of Berlin (EDIT: I meant the Berlin Conference) for space.

I stand corrected about China, thanks you!

I still amuse myself with idea of CCP claiming that Mars has been part of China's territory since ancient times. I doubt anyone would take that claim seriously.

[Yukaphile]

It should hopefully be countries that won't goddamned pollute it, pilfering its resources to use here while sapping it on the host planet and polluting that one too. Then again, would it be easier to build solar panels on another planet? Or even within interior dwellings, even those generating artificial gravity by centrifugal force, to MacGuyver up a wind or electric or water turbine? Because they don't want people here buying it, so they tax it all to hell. No, I want fusion power by the time we begin settling other planets. No toxic byproducts, right?

[TGLS]

Odd, Wikipedia lists China as acceded. Regardless, the economic motivations rely on as of yet to be developed technology, and in the event that space suddenly becomes valuable, we'll probably see something like the Congress of Berlin (EDIT: I meant the Berlin Conference) for space.

I stand corrected about China, thanks you!

I still amuse myself with idea of CCP claiming that Mars has been part of China's territory since ancient times. I doubt anyone would take that claim seriously.

Well Chang'e lived on the moon since time immemorial, after she flew there when she drank the immortality elixir.

It should hopefully be countries that won't goddamned pollute it, pilfering its resources to use here while sapping it on the host planet and polluting that one too.

So what? It's another celestial body, and as far as we know, there is no environment of any kind to destroy. Unless you're concerned we'll offend Chang'e or something.

[Yukaphile]

What if it's a planet like ours, in a habitable zone? What if in the next 20 years, we do send those thousands of little probes to the closest star in project Breakthrough Starshot? And 20 years later, we find it does have a comparable atmosphere? What then? If we don't have alternative energy then, we'll just ruin that planet too once we head to it.

[TGLS]

What if it's a planet like ours, in a habitable zone? What if in the next 20 years, we do send those thousands of little probes to the closest star in project Breakthrough Starshot? And 20 years later, we find it does have a comparable atmosphere? What then?

Let's be incredibly generous and suppose that the Breakthrough Starshot actually pulls off it's scheme by 2036 (difficult at best, miniaturization needs breakthroughs, lasers need breakthroughs, space power needs breakthroughs), it arrives without a hitch in 2056, and responds by 2071. We now know that there is a habitable planet in Alpha Centauri. However, this is a fat lot of use this does for us, because:

1) An interstellar travel system that can move centimeter scale objects is uses to move people (meter scale) and colonization equipment (decameter)

2) Even if it was usable, we have no good way of stopping once we reached the planet.

3) Even if we had a way of stopping, any plausible laser travel system (for people) would take decades to go from Earth to Alpha Centauri. If we could survive in space that long in a can, we wouldn't need a habitable planet.

4) Even if we need habitable planets for some arbitrary reason (i.e. Stasis enables interstellar transport?), any plausible laser travel system for people will require so much energy that we will need to start plastering Mercury with solar panels to generate it all.

[Darth Wedgius]

Fusion does have toxic (well, radioactive) byproducts but they're a lot less troublesome than those fission produces. There isn't as much radioactive waste from fusion and the radioactive waste isn't as long-lived as the worst of the fission products.

As to when we'll have commercially viable fusion reactors here, much less ones we can land on Mars...

[Yukaphile]

Oh so that's the benefits. I was a bit confused. Thanks, Lord Wedgius.

@TGLS Still a bit leery about plundering planets to help our own even if there is absolutely no life. It's not a sustainable system because it's just going to extend the one we have now instead of pioneering true reform and some talk about terraforming these planets. Are we really ready for that?