Humanity’s Growth & Space Exploration

As posted yesterday, there is a strong environmental movement—based on the principles of deep ecology—to limit the human population of earth, which many have rightly concluded is the evolution of the Marxist approach to history that works to destroy the influence of religion in temporal affairs.

The Catholic response to this has been and remains, that each baby conceived is a blessing and furtherance of God’s love, and human society on earth, rather than seeking more effective ways of destroying human life, needs to seek more effective ways of protecting and growing it.

One of the most effective in terms of population growth is to dedicate our space technology towards the colonization of space, beginning with the most logical first step, the human settlement of Mars.

Human space travel to Mars is the mission of the Mars Society, but the recent Summary Report from the current American administration’s Committee for Review of U.S. Human Space Flight, appears to be negative regarding human space exploration directed to Mars, and that is consistent with their culture of death approach to life issues.

The founder of the Mars Society recently testified to the congressional committee responsible for the Summary Report, testimony which has been published by The New Atlantis.

An excerpt.

“In order to accomplish anything in space we need to set a goal. What should that goal be? In my view, the answer is straightforward: Humans to Mars within a decade.

“Why Mars? Because of all the planetary destinations currently within reach, Mars offers the most—both scientifically, socially, and in terms of what it portends for the human future.

“In scientific terms, Mars is critical, because it is the Rosetta Stone for letting us understand the position of life in the universe. Images of Mars taken from orbit and the ground show that the planet had liquid water flowing on its surface for a period of a billion years during its early history, a duration five times as long as it took for life to appear on Earth after there was liquid water here. So if the theory is correct that life is a naturally occurring phenomenon, emergent from chemical complexification wherever there is liquid water, a temperate climate, sufficient minerals, and time, then life should have appeared on Mars. If we can go to Mars, and find fossils of past life on its surface, we will have good reason to believe that we are not alone in the universe. If we send human explorers, who can erect drilling rigs which can reach ground water where Martian life may yet persist, we will be able to examine it, and by so doing determine whether life as we know it on Earth is the pattern for all life everywhere—or alternatively, whether we are simply one esoteric example of a far vaster and more interesting tapestry. These things are worth finding out.

“In terms of its social value, Mars is the bracing positive challenge that our society needs. Nations, like people, thrive on challenge and decay without it. The challenge of a humans-to Mars program would also be an invitation to adventure to every youth in the country, sending out the powerful clarion call: “Learn your science and you can become part of pioneering a new world.” There will be over 100 million kids in our nation’s schools over the next ten years. If a Mars program were to inspire just an extra one percent of them to scientific educations, the net result would be 1 million more scientists, engineers, inventors, medical researchers, and doctors, making technological innovations that create new industries, finding new medical cures, strengthening national defense, and generally increasing national income to an extent that utterly dwarfs the expenditures of the Mars program.

“This point is so critical that it is worthy of further emphasis. The wealth and the strength of a nation are based first and foremost on its intellectual capital. In this respect, the Apollo program produced a terrific return, as it doubled the number of our science graduates, at every level—high school, college, Ph.D. This paid off massively when those twelve-year-old little boy scientists of the 1960s became the forty-year-old technological entrepreneurs of the 1990s and launched the computer revolution. A humans-to-Mars program today would repay even greater dividends, because in this day and age the science and engineering professions are also open to women in a way that was simply not the case during the 1960s. Thus an Apollo-like challenge today would not only inspire into being legions of little boy scientists, but little girl scientists as well, whose ensuing research and inventions would benefit the nation, and humanity at large, for decades to come.

“But the most important reason to go to Mars is the doorway it opens for the future. Uniquely among the extraterrestrial bodies of the inner solar system, Mars is endowed with all the resources needed to support not only life but the development of a technological civilization. In contrast to the comparative desert of the Earth’s Moon, Mars possesses oceans of water frozen into its soil as permafrost, as well as vast quantities of carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen, all in forms readily accessible to those clever enough to use them. These four elements are the basic stuff not only of food and water, but of plastics, wood, paper, clothing—and most importantly, rocket propellant.

“In addition, Mars has experienced the same sorts of volcanic and hydrologic processes that produced a multitude of mineral ores on Earth. Virtually every element of significant interest to industry is known to exist on the Red Planet. While no liquid water exists on the surface, below ground is a different matter, and there is every reason to believe that geothermal heat sources could be maintaining hot liquid reservoirs beneath the Martian surface today. Such hydrothermal reservoirs may be refuges in which survivors of ancient Martian life continue to persist; they would also represent oases providing abundant water supplies and geothermal power to future human settlers. With its twenty-four-hour day-night cycle and an atmosphere thick enough to shield its surface against solar flares, Mars is the only extraterrestrial planet that will readily allow large-scale greenhouses lit by natural sunlight.

"For the coming age of space exploration, Mars compares to the Moon as North America compared to Greenland in the previous age of maritime exploration. Greenland was closer to Europe, Europeans reached it first—but it ultimately proved too barren an environment for the establishment of a new branch of human civilization. Similarly, in contrast to the Moon, Mars can be settled. For our generation and many that will follow, Mars is the New World. In establishing our first foothold on Mars, we will begin humanity’s career as a multi-planet species."