When Will You Rent a House on Mars? A Colonist’s Codex.

There are two fundamentally different ideas about how humanity should start colonizing Mars. One revolves around investing billions of dollars into a large scale colonization program. Another one takes a more cumulative step-by-step approach.

Yes, we can try to channel an incredible amount of money into a program that would have to governed on the national level. Private investments would not suffice as the expenses will outweigh any possible profits that an independent investor would like to harvest when the project is complete. Additionally, governmental support is usually affected by changing agendas and shifts in choosing the most important national priorities. The biggest downside of such projects is that they may fail horribly. We do not even know how much it will cost us to build a colony on Mars from scratch. We do not have designs, plans, estimations, etc. The project is out of our reach even on a strictly theoretical level which clearly explains why there are no governments that discuss the idea.

^{Image Credit: The Saturday Evening Post, November 26, 1955}

However, we should not forget that the ambiguous destiny that awaits a large scale project without a clear practical purpose is not the destiny of a more result-oriented privately sponsored project. Independently funded flexible projects may be the way to go. The problem is that even a relatively small project is still a great technological and financial investment. At the same time, the project will never be efficient enough in terms of payback. It is not a one-time deal; we will have to resupply the colony constantly. No fundraising campaign will ever be able to sustain a Mars mission.

An incremental, cumulative approach is a better prospect

A slow gradual project that will slowly build up with more and more complicated phases as project milestones are reached. With this approach we will have a fairly low-cost method of handling various technological obstacles.

Each project phase will be tested independently and planned in a relative isolation from other projects.

Firstly, we need to go through a couple of preliminary steps like creating efficient spacecrafts and cheap vehicles that will help us to explore Moon and asteroids nearby. This will help us to make space programs financially attractive and test our technology. Over time, we will be able to estimate programs better and lots of factors will look less perplex. Transfer costs, safety levels, budget sustainability, technology challenges – everything will be within comprehension.

There are people who see this as a reality worth moving towards. Rich independent entrepreneurs like Jeff Bezos (Blue Origin), Richard Branson (Virgin Galactic), and Elon Musk (SpaceX) are the pioneers in cumulative Mars colonization approach. They have working business models that fuel their space research programs. They develop new means of space access. They dream about accommodation at Mars, but they keep their reality here, on Earth. Some practical obstacles limit our reach now. Only when cost of transferring will drop to the range from $100-$1000, we will be able to think about starting a colony on the red planet. This price range can be reached with enough dedication and people like Elon Musk try to make this a reality while others try to make design a multibillion Mars colonization project.

Such large scale projects are doomed for failure. Shy attempts of Mars colonization enthusiasts become less and less frequent, while people like Branson and Bezos slowly move towards their goal. We should never think of Mars colonization as a single big operation. It is a slow cumulative process that will be a reality as stages become affordable to us. When smart people and independent funds will make a small initial project work, the path to Mars will be open!