Mars Colonization solve existential risks.

Settlement of Mars—is it a dream or a necessity? From scientific publications to public forms, there is certainly little consensus on whether colonization of Mars is necessary or even possible, with a rich diversity of opinions that range from categorical It is a necessity!20 to equally categorical Should Humans Colonize Other Planets? No.21 A strong proponent of the idea, Orwig puts forward five reasons for Mars colonization, implicitly stating that establishing a permanent colony of humans on Mars is no longer an option but a real necessity.20

Specifically, these arguments are:

Survival of humans as a species;

Exploring the potential of life on Mars to sustain humans;

Using space technology to positively contribute to our quality of life, from health to minimizing and reversing negative aspects of anthropogenic activity of humans on Earth;

Developing as a species;

Gaining political and economic leadership.

The first argument captures the essence of what most space colonization proponents feel—our ever growing environmental footprint threatens the survival of human race on Earth. Indeed, a large body of evidence points to human activity as the main cause of extinction of many species, with shrinking biodiversity and depleting resources threatening the very survival of humans on this planet. Colonization of other planets could potentially increase the probability of our survival.

While being at the core of such ambitious projects as Mars One, a self‐sustained colony of any size on Mars is hardly feasible in the foreseeable future. Indeed, sustaining even a small number of colonists would require a continuous supply of food, oxygen, water and basic materials. At this stage, it is not clear whether it would be possible to establish a system that would generate these resources locally, or whether it would at least in part rely on the delivery of these resources (or essential components necessary for their local production) from Earth. Beyond the supply of these very basic resources, it would be quite challenging if not impossible for the colonists to independently produce hi‐tech but vitally important assets such as medicines, electronics and robotics systems, or advanced materials that provide us with a decent quality of life. In this case, would their existence become little more than the jogtrot of life, as compared with the standards expected at the Earth? 22

This brings us to the second argument—in order to deliver any positive change to the quality of life of humans on Earth, the question of Mars colonization should not only be about survival but also about development if it is to present a viable alternative to our current existence. Such development is inherently linked to the availability of local resources required to sustain life, which is in turn reliant on the availability of instrumentation and equipment necessary for their discovery, extraction and refining. There is little doubt that in early stages of Mars colonization, the greatest fraction of the payload delivered to Mars will be dedicated to equipment needed to provide critical infrastructure and sustain the most fundamental needs of the colony, and not scientific instruments for greater Mars exploration. However, it should be noted that with recent advancements in miniaturized, energy‐efficient electronic and robotics devices, it may in principle be possible to deliver a highly functional yet compact automated laboratory to Mars. A recent breakthrough discovery of (possible) ancient “building blocks of life” made by Curiosity rover greatly supports this notion.23, 24 Where Curiosity accommodates only 6.8 kg of scientific instruments, the scientific capabilities of a high‐tech laboratory delivered by one of Mars One landing units solely dedicated to such a mission (i.e., not carrying humans and related resources) could be quite considerable.

The third argument relates to technological advances related to space exploration, specifically how technologies that we may develop in our effort to colonize Mars may find their way into our daily life and deliver unintended benefits. As an example, Orwig points to the image analysis algorithm originally developed for extracting information from blurry images received from Hubble Space Telescope. After the technology was shared with a medical practitioner and as a result applied to medical images, such as X‐ray images, it enabled more accurate visualization of breast tissues affected by cancer, and subsequently led to the development of a minimally invasive stereotactic large‐core needle biopsy.25 In a separate study, the sequencing and analysis methods developed by NASA to detect and characterize bacterial species on spacecraft to effectively prevent contamination of other worlds with Earth's biota was used to study the link between microorganisms in breast ductal fluid and breast cancer.26

Finally, the fourth and fifth arguments refer to Mars colonization as an opportunity for humans to grow as a civilization, actively changing the way in which we interact with and exploit our environment. Indeed, in this aspect we can (following Pyne) consider Mars colonization as a kind of cultural invention.27 Looking back to the Age of Exploration, could the exploration of near‐Earth space together with the Mars and Moon colonization be judged as unavoidable and intuitive continuation of processes started at the dawn of human civilization? Some would argue so, as Shiga points out: “All of the space shuttles – and the ill‐fated Mars rover, Beagle – were named after famous sea vessels.”28 To many, such a deep attachment to rich history of nautical exploration certainly confirms this hypothesis.