SpaceX Evolution (Chapter 11)
A serialized version of this book for SubStack
Link to First Installment: https://chrisprophet.substack.com/p/spacex-evolution
CHAPTER 11: MARS CULTURE
Surviving Mars will be tough; its surface temperature is 50°C lower on average, with an atmospheric pressure around 1% of Earth’s. Any first landers will likely have a minimal amount of infrastructure to save on mass, which implies some tough sledding, as Elon puts it. At first sight this might appear an ideal setting for a reversion to some kind of Lord of the Flies culture, if things begin to go awry or they encounter unexpected hazards. However, their unparalleled extremis and close interdependence will likely forge a different approach to ensure individual and group survival.
SpaceX intend to send two functionally independent teams on two separate Starship spacecraft, to form the first settlement on Mars. One team alone might be doomed to fail, while two teams offer more than twice the chance of success, because the whole equals more than the sum of its parts. While it is more than possible these twin teams will compete for first to set-up camp, e.g. set foot on the surface, deploy solar arrays, contact any of the cargo transport vehicles etc, they will of course share everything they learn with the crew of the second vehicle. In effect each crew will act as a safety net for the other, that way if there’s anything they can’t readily handle there’s always another team they can call on for back-up. Likely this will promote a culture of ‘collaborative competition,’ where any tendency towards overt competition is tempered by meaningful collaboration.
For example: say a specialist was incapacitated for any reason, the affected team would probably rely on the equivalent specialist from their mirror team to stay fully functional, until the situation eventually resolved. Hence it benefits each team to support their mirror team because you never know what you might need from them in the future; be it personnel, spares, stores or even in extreme situations to take shelter in their lander (initially crew landers will double as surface habitats). It should come as no surprise then that this kind of behavior is already practiced at SpaceX. Originally two separate sites were tasked with building the first version of Starship from stainless steel plates, one in Cocoa Florida, the other in Boca Chica Texas. Even though these twin sites technically competed with one another for best results, any beneficial technique developed by one was swiftly transferred to the other as standard procedure. While it’s true that one site (Boca Chica) came to dominate, while the other now plays a relatively minor role in Starship, it’s fair to say both sites rocketed through development, due in large part to their relatively unusual relationship.
To take a wider view, humanity originally adopted a competitive outlook due to the limited availability of resources, e.g. food, territory, mates etc. However, this is unlikely to be the case on Mars, where there should be plenty of anything they might require onboard the four transport spacecraft or from the closed loop ecosystem they will use to produce food and water. Territory again there’s no limit within reason and likely no competition from indigenous lifeforms. Even if one of the crew would prefer a different partner, this would likely be encouraged to assist genetic diversity in this neophyte community. Not expected behavior on Earth but on Mars a person wouldn’t be dependent on their spouse for any material reasons, so free to choose a new partner, no partner or remain in their current relationship if that’s what suits them most.
Obviously some situations might lead to friction yet any such dispute should be limited in scope and quickly mediated for pragmatic reasons. Everyone is so completely reliant on everyone else there would be little option for anything except broad tolerance and support. Likely this survival tactic would become ingrained in the culture in the long-term i.e. Mars expects hard work, communal spirit and shared resources in order to improve everyone’s condition.
No doubt this would constitute quite a culture shock for new arrivals, for example any new startups would be expected to compete hard against their commercial rivals – while at the same time offering mutual support. Altogether sounds like an impossible idyll, except…
Likely this collaborative competitive approach will help transform Mars into a highly conducive place to live and raise a family, somewhere open, secure and prosperous, where the influence of special interest groups are kept in check by direct democracy.
“[Mars government requires] direct democracy by the people. Laws must be short, as there is trickery in length. Automatic expiration of rules to prevent death by bureaucracy. Any rule can be removed by 40% of people to overcome inertia. Freedom.1” ~ Elon Musk
Basically any official who wished to retain their position would have to find better reasons than external threats to solicit support from these tech savvy voters.
The Judges
As already discussed, SpaceX intends to create a constitution for Mars, to serve as a foundation for their system of laws. Of course this would only be the first attempt at a long-term legal system, you could call it a beta. No doubt as colonists encounter new issues which require attention from the law, they will either amend the constitution or add new laws, through a process of direct democracy. Elon suggests these new laws should consist of one or two pages maximum, written in plain text, to make them easily understood by everyone. This should allow anyone with access to a computer or phone to submit a new law for consideration. Possible they will operate a three-tier system for vetting these proposed laws. For instance an alpha proposal would require the approval of 1% of the population to become a beta proposal, which then requires a 10% vote to progress to gamma status. Finally these gamma proposals could be fully enacted if they receive 60% approval, although these laws would likely include some time limit on how long they would remain in effect to ensure they remain relevant to their fast-evolving world.
This implies there would be no need for a parliament to discuss legislation, the internet itself would act as an open forum. So no parliament, which implies no official leaders, perhaps the closest approximation to such would be the CEO’s of various companies who supply services (either directly or indirectly) to the colony.
All of which implies somewhat of a power vacuum, which will likely be filled by the judiciary. As the only serving public officials, the judiciary would wield considerable influence and power – even popularity. Hence we might expect these colony officials to comprise mostly of Judges and sheriffs, with the support of a few correction officers. Hopefully they will have relatively sparse work due to the general peaceful nature of the community, stemming from their interdependent culture. Hence the judiciary should comprise of relatively few people compared to the overall size of the community, which implies their individual power could be considerable. In many cases judges would have to interpret the spirit of these relatively sparse laws and set legal precedence – effectively creating common law.
Given their position of authority, any prominent members of the judiciary would likely be elected directly by the colony, for a fixed term to avoid complacency. Activities carried out by the judiciary could be funded by fines awarded through legal actions, with pay-caps put in place (to disincent any tendency to feather their nest), and limits set on the number of subordinates (to prevent empire building). All necessary checks, considering their secular power would be considerable.
To give an example of the extent of these judge’s power, say a law was passed to increase the amount paid by SpaceX for Universal Basic Income (UBI).2 Any failure to comply would mean judges could authorize arrest warrants for relevant SpaceX employees, including the CFO and CEO. Judges appointed by public election, enacting publicly approved laws – no one would want to cross these popular justiciars, no matter their rank or position.
Quite possibly these judges could be called upon to fill some extrajudicial role, such as ambassadors to Earth or sitting on the Board of Advisors (see Chapter 14: X.com Right or Wrong, Board of Advisors). No doubt they would be banned from working for any of the established companies on Mars, once they leave office, to avoid conflict of interest.
Mars Politics
Given the people of Mars will be highly dependent on large corporations to support their community, we can probably predict the polarization of public opinion. Likely some citizens would view technological development as the best way to forward Mars interests, while others might prefer to use existing technology gains to improve living conditions, provision for education and healthcare in the community. Perhaps we could describe these two polar groups as the “Mars Progress Party (aka Pros)” and “Mars Consolidation Party (aka Cons)” respectively. No doubt there would exist a whole spectrum of interest groups involved in Mars politics but likely these two major parties would constitute the primary poles.
Succinctly: Mars politics will range between those who prefer a protopia or utopia.
These large parties would hold the keys to any election process, because of their ability to mobilize the large numbers of supporters needed for a positive result. In addition, without these rally groups’ support new laws would have little chance of passing the gauntlet of Alpha and Beta selection or crossing the Gamma finish line. To some it might appear the Cons would win hands down on any vote due to their mass appeal but that would ignore the preponderance of technically oriented people employed by Mars development companies and their technocrat leaders, who likely lean towards the Pros.
Assuming these two polar groups achieve a rough balance of support, that implies any minority parties might have the greatest influence overall, because soliciting their approval could be vital to achieving a successful vote. Interesting times indeed for the nascent Mars colony, especially considering large corporations will likely hold the purse strings.
Interestingly, Elon Musk is already taking positive steps to improve free speech and unbiased discussion here on Earth, through his takeover of twitter. He suggests the software used to promote tweets should become open architecture, any means of artificial influence (e.g. twitter bots) are quickly identified and excluded from the platform, and overall it becomes a far more liberal and open forum. Hardly seems a coincidence this is exactly the kind of unbiased medium for discussion that Mars settlers will likely need to debate any proposed legislation on their version of the internet. From this perspective you could say Twitter has become a prototype for the first internet parliament.
“This [takeover of Twitter] is not a way to make money… Having a public platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is extremely important to the future of civilization. I don’t care about the economics at all.3” ~ Elon Musk/TED2022
No War
Even if in some incomprehensible scenario an Earth nation decided to physically attack Mars, it would take between six to nine months for any attack vehicles to arrive, giving the settlement ample time to prepare. For example, they could repurpose their advanced asteroid defense system to intercept any incoming threat with relative ease. Similarly, any attempt to smuggle a nuclear, biological or chemical device to Mars would first have to pass the robust security checks performed at the Earth launch site, using next tier detection equipment. Even if some of these launch sites were eliminated it would have relatively little effect on Mars, due to the proliferation and diversity of such sites, located in many countries around the world, in international waters. Last but not least, the most compelling reason not to attack Mars would be the threat of sanctions, any antagonist cut off from Mars technical advances would be doomed to technological obscurity over the long term. All told, picking a fight with Mars with its vast array of technical resources and backing of a superstate (see Chapter 12 SpaceX Superstate) would be a stunningly bad idea, pity anyone who tries.
Unbridled competition might seem to work on Earth but it’s produced a divided world that wastes incredible resources maintaining arsenals of nuclear weapons and armed forces. More than likely this will end badly as the efficacy of weapons steadily increase, due to advances in technology. Hence it is imperative Mars settlers deny such distractions, it will be hard enough fighting the extreme environment without dealing with threats from their nearest neighbor. Why fight over resources when there’s literally a world full of them, where you can literally trip over precious metals on the surface and everything needed for a healthy life are provided free and gratis?
Mars Zeitgeist
Beyond doubt these early colonists will have to rely on their own abilities to resolve most human issues and technical problems. Any additional personnel, equipment, spares or materials required are unlikely to come from Earth outside the normal 26 month launch window. That implies colonist’s will have to be highly capable, adaptable and used to working off their own initiative to address their urgent needs. This should foster a culture of robust self-reliance, with a generally stoic yet positive outlook, which might be described as ‘Mars tough.’ No doubt this independent can-do attitude will greatly assist the drive to make the colony self-sustaining, as soon as practically possible.
As a side note, it hardly seems a coincidence these positive character traits are currently nurtured at Musk companies. It seems, not only are they creating vital technologies they are also acting as training grounds to develop the virtues needed to make Mars thrive.
Link to Next Installment: https://chrisprophet.substack.com/p/spacex-evolution-chapter-12
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1008124944289370113
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1007762646182047744
I imagine that early settlements will be, more or less, run by the bondholders that financed them. Bondholders should probably be given some power in a future Martian Parliament, perhaps in an “upper house” type capacity. This is what I suggest in an upcoming essay “Imagining our Martian Government” publishing on Feb 29th. Travelers to Mars should be under no illusions though, life is going to be extremely difficult for the foreseeable future.