What is it about?
In this article I discuss my interviews with people who have volunteered to be the first people to settle Mars as part of the Mars One programme - a Netherlands-based oragnization that is seeking to raise the funds needed to make the human settlement of the planet Mars a real possibility. I explore why they think it is important for people to try to do this and how they imagine a new human society on the planet.
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Why is it important?
There has been a long-standing expectation that could be traced as far back as the 17th century, that human beings will go to or even live on another planet other than Earth. In particular, there has been an enduring fascination with Mars. Today, there is renewed interest and investment in not only sending people to visit Mars, but to create a new society there as well. Entrepreneurs such as Elon Musk and his company Space X appear to be taking the idea very seriously. Therefore, a new discussion about whether this is a desirable project for governments, organizations or individuals to invest their time, energy and money and what they think it will achieve is timely.
Perspectives
I grew up in the 1970s expecting that humans would travel to and live in outer space and I was excited by that prospect. Visiting Mars would be a great - but dangerous and difficult- adventure, but I feel ambivalent about the idea of trying to create a human presence on other planets in our solar system. We need to think about our reasons for doing so, especially when so many injustices and inequities in current societies continue unaddressed, and the significant resources that would be required.
Richard Tutton
Lancaster University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Multiplanetary Imaginaries and Utopia, Science Technology & Human Values, October 2017, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/0162243917737366.
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