The Ethics of the Colonization of Mars: Principle of Continuous Improvement Volume 3

by Sifwat Ali

Overview

In order to start a discussion on any new idea, or even a proposal, a baseline must be established. It is a bit like going to a psychiatrist and asking for a diagnosis on a human subject. The psychiatrist must conduct a series of tests to determine the subject’s baseline condition to see how the neurons are firing. In this chapter we will attempt to baseline our knowledge of the day and see what inspires the “biological life” to explore, to plan to go, and to aspire to move to a different planet.

Let us think of a giant spaceship named “paradise”. In this spaceship, there is a group of beings including man that has disobeyed the commander. The commander must evict this group from the “paradise” per the rules of the spaceship. So the commander looks for a suitable planet. Let us call this planet the “Earth”. The spaceship hovers over the Earth. The commander lays down the law to this group and says: “get down”. He then foretells them more bad news “that some of you will be the enemies of the other” (i.e. you will shed each other’s blood). At the end of the verdict he gives them a little good news: “and for you, this Earth is the destination and has in it all the provisions that you will need to survive, for a time”.

Well! That time is up; the time has come for the biological life on Earth to start a journey in the cosmos on its own strength, and the first steps have already been taken.

1.1 The Urge to Explore The urge to explore and to multiply takes a Monarch Butterfly from Canada across the United States to Mexico, some two thousand miles. Its wings barely span a few inches and the body weighs not even a quarter of an ounce and yet it fearlessly soars across the Great Lakes and into the Great Plains facing every predator and hostile elements that are unthinkable from its point of view. The pilgrimage happens every year and the Day of Judgment arrives for a generation of the monarchs with the same frequency. There is grace and beauty in this exploration. It has in it a goal; it has in it full success; and it has new life. It has in it the beautiful death of the old and after the burial, the beginning of a new sacred mission of the next generation.

Then there is a species of fish collectively known as Salmon. They lay their eggs in freshwater streams typically at high latitudes. The eggs hatch and evolve in various forms staying from one to three years in their fresh water stream. Ah, it is estimated that only 10% of all salmon eggs survive to this stage. Then they move to an area of the water, in the direction of the ocean, which is more brackish than fresh allowing the body chemistry to change, to live in salt water. In science this process is called Osmoregulation. They then proceed to the open ocean and live there for as long as four years. They endure a dangerous predatory world and under heavy ocean pressures explore a new world. Close to the end, they mature sexually and when that happens they march to a sacred pilgrimage with the only sense of the regeneration of life and return to the fresh waters they came from. Some of these fresh water streams are as far away as a thousand miles both from the Pacific and in the Atlantic Oceans. Swimming a thousand miles against the currents under water is like flying a hundred thousand miles in the air. In moving back to the birth place, they journey upstream, continuously struggling, but never losing the urge to arrive at the spawning site, even as they sense (?) other members being devoured by a host of predators. After spawning, after completing their sacred journey, they gracefully die and the next generation takes over.

Let us now move to another part of the Planet Earth, deep down, in the Mariana Trench, roughly thirty six thousand feet deep in the Pacific Ocean; in fact so deep that if Mount Everest were to be submerged totally in it, all of roughly twenty-nine thousand feet, we will still have seven thousand feet of water left above it. At the bottom of the trench the pressure is roughly 15000 psi; and that is over one thousand times that of the normal atmospheric pressure. The “Miracle of Life” still exists without light and without the warmth of the Sun. The organism and life sustains itself from the warmth derived out of the core of the Earth. There are single-celled organisms that are thought to resemble some of the world's earliest life forms. They may be single-celled called foraminifera but there are an estimated 4,000 species “living”. They inhabit a wide range of marine environments, mostly on the ocean bottom. The discovery at this depth of these foraminifera living in dirt surprised even the scientists from Japan’s Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (who led the exploration).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781463429126
Publisher:	AuthorHouse
Publication date:	08/23/2011
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
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The Ethics of the Colonization of MARS

Principle of Continuous Improvement Volume 3

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By Sifwat Ali

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2011 Sifwat Ali
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4634-2911-9

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Chapter One

Establishing a Baseline

1.0 Introduction

In order to start a discussion on any new idea, or even a proposal, a baseline must be established. It is a bit like going to a psychiatrist and asking for a diagnosis on a human subject. The psychiatrist must conduct a series of tests to determine the subject's baseline condition to see how the neurons are firing. In this chapter we will attempt to baseline our knowledge of the day and see what inspires the "biological life" to explore, to plan to go, and to aspire to move to a different planet.

Let us think of a giant spaceship named "paradise". In this spaceship, there is a group of beings including man that has disobeyed the commander. The commander must evict this group from the "paradise" per the rules of the spaceship. So the commander looks for a suitable planet. Let us call this planet the "Earth". The spaceship hovers over the Earth. The commander lays down the law to this group and says: "get down". He then foretells them more bad news "that some of you will be the enemies of the other" (i.e. you will shed each other's blood). At the end of the verdict he gives them a little good news: "and for you, this Earth is the destination and has in it all the provisions that you will need to survive, for a time".

Well! That time is up; the time has come for the biological life on Earth to start a journey in the cosmos on its own strength, and the first steps have already been taken.

1.1 The Urge to Explore

The urge to explore and to multiply takes a Monarch Butterfly from Canada across the United States to Mexico, some two thousand miles. Its wings barely span a few inches and the body weighs not even a quarter of an ounce and yet it fearlessly soars across the Great Lakes and into the Great Plains facing every predator and hostile elements that are unthinkable from its point of view. The pilgrimage happens every year and the Day of Judgment arrives for a generation of the monarchs with the same frequency. There is grace and beauty in this exploration. It has in it a goal; it has in it full success; and it has new life. It has in it the beautiful death of the old and after the burial, the beginning of a new sacred mission of the next generation.

Then there is a species of fish collectively known as Salmon. They lay their eggs in freshwater streams typically at high latitudes. The eggs hatch and evolve in various forms staying from one to three years in their fresh water stream. Ah, it is estimated that only 10% of all salmon eggs survive to this stage. Then they move to an area of the water, in the direction of the ocean, which is more brackish than fresh allowing the body chemistry to change, to live in salt water. In science this process is called Osmoregulation. They then proceed to the open ocean and live there for as long as four years. They endure a dangerous predatory world and under heavy ocean pressures explore a new world. Close to the end, they mature sexually and when that happens they march to a sacred pilgrimage with the only sense of the regeneration of life and return to the fresh waters they came from. Some of these fresh water streams are as far away as a thousand miles both from the Pacific and in the Atlantic Oceans. Swimming a thousand miles against the currents under water is like flying a hundred thousand miles in the air. In moving back to the birth place, they journey upstream, continuously struggling, but never losing the urge to arrive at the spawning site, even as they sense (?) other members being devoured by a host of predators. After spawning, after completing their sacred journey, they gracefully die and the next generation takes over.

Let us now move to another part of the Planet Earth, deep down, in the Mariana Trench, roughly thirty six thousand feet deep in the Pacific Ocean; in fact so deep that if Mount Everest were to be submerged totally in it, all of roughly twenty-nine thousand feet, we will still have seven thousand feet of water left above it. At the bottom of the trench the pressure is roughly 15000 psi; and that is over one thousand times that of the normal atmospheric pressure. The "Miracle of Life" still exists without light and without the warmth of the Sun. The organism and life sustains itself from the warmth derived out of the core of the Earth. There are single-celled organisms that are thought to resemble some of the world's earliest life forms. They may be single-celled called foraminifera but there are an estimated 4,000 species "living". They inhabit a wide range of marine environments, mostly on the ocean bottom. The discovery at this depth of these foraminifera living in dirt surprised even the scientists from Japan's Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (who led the exploration).

Before we baseline our own ambitions, let us look at just one historical accomplishment of man. It is now almost certain that the great pyramids at Giza Egypt were built roughly 4500 years ago. It is also now well known that the three main pyramids line up almost perfectly with the three stars in the Orion belt. Computer calculations show that almost 600,000 stone blocks were used weighing anywhere from 2 to 40 tons or more. The statistics are well known. The interest here is that of their relationship to the heavens. Man's ability to acquire the knowledge and then take it to a level of perfection 4500 years ago cannot be penned with justice. The art of placement of huge stones and understanding of the underlying geometry as it was practiced in ancient Egypt is truly a scientific achievement. Then to take this science wherein the structures on the earth are positioned to mirror the architecture of heaven shows an unparalleled understanding. The length of the solar year, the mean distance to the Sun, the radius of the earth, the polar radius of the earth, even the radius of the Sun are all fairly accurately measured in these pyramids. This is as if the engineers and the priests were trying to tell someone far beyond the solar system somewhere in the Orion Constellation hundreds of light years away of an address on a planet called Earth. There are supposedly 144,000 "casing stones". They were all polished and weighing about 15 tons each with nearly perfect right angles for all six sides. Computer calculations indicated almost 41000 casing stones were used averaging 40 tons each before the face angle was cut. These would have been a beacon reflecting Sun's light millions of miles away. So, if someone was looking for intelligent life using intelligent devices, will quickly learn about us. It is regrettable that the knowledge base was destroyed by the "barbarians" and it took humanity four thousand years before the Soviets (socialists and communists looking ahead of the self-proclaiming self-righteous?) sent a man in the space.

It is therefore only natural that we ask about our own baseline in the year 2010. In my mind we must set that baseline a bit higher to say the least. We would like to reach the "Heaven", (paradise?) with our own strength. We would like to reach there without being dead, without the arrival of the "Day of Judgment", and without waiting for some spiritual entity to come and tell us what to do. Mars is step one in that direction and to achieve the ultimate goal of discovering the "Heaven" must be taken. We would like to fly there regularly and learn the secrets of living forever without self-destruction and with an ever improving and an impeccable quality of life.

It is not enough to have a few satellites and a Space Station. It is not enough to have reached the moon more than forty years ago and it is certainly not advisable to sit on our laurels. Many of the fundamentals are still undecided and the pace at which we are moving is unacceptable. For example, we still measure time using planetary objects and not our own cycle of the unperturbed biological clock and so on. Much remains to be done here on the planet Earth as well. Thus as a starting point on the Earth, I am proposing a department of "Exploration" as NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) must follow the Principle of Continuous Improvement (defined elsewhere), and graduate to a more appropriate name and mission. In this regard appropriate legislation must be written and congress must find money even if it means eating less by the politicians; even if it means that we are forced to live on just 2000 calories a day. We must force two-thirds of our people to shed weight and obesity should be declared a crime, and it is the doctors and health officials who should lose jobs if they are unable to reverse this trend. For once, the Congress should take the leadership role as the executive branch is too busy fighting three wars and bailing out the banks. Stop all the wars, cut all the funds, and bring all the troops stationed throughout the planet; stop all foreign aid, and instead demand a contribution from these countries to return the money to be used for space exploration. Leadership must think out of the box as we are about to set sail to paradise.

The funding of the "United States Department of Exploration" USDE must be all that NASA receives and many-times more. The recent announcement by President Obama over the next six years of $6 billion increase to conduct research is a disgrace. To achieve significant funding increase, the Congress should direct the IRS to allow income tax deduction from ordinary citizens to the USDE and by law oblige the government to double the amount received from the citizens (so if I contribute five dollars to USDE, the United States treasury contributes ten dollars). The 2010 NASA budget of about 18 Billion dollars is extremely low and should be an order of magnitude higher. The cumulative effect of tax deductions, government contributions, and budget allocations should be around 180 billion dollars in the first year in today's dollar value. This is still low, but is a good start. The ultimate goal should be to have at least four percent of the GDP consistently spent on USDE. The infrastructure development must be initiated at an acceptable pace. The work includes both the terrestrial and extra-terrestrial areas such as ground tracking stations and so on. It is well known that time goals such as proposed by President Kennedy for the lunar exploration are essential in an otherwise lethargic congressional work-schedule. This is also essential if the country has any hope of turning its new generation around to get excited by math and sciences (as it was for me - back in the sixties). I cannot emphasize enough that in the end it is a funding issue as most human endeavors are. We must be looking for excuses to fund exploration on the planet Earth and the cosmos alike. The experiments suggested in reference (1) are all on our own planet and could create tens of thousands of jobs. It is my firm belief that our way of measuring time is stinting human evolution in the biological sense. The adoption of such a system shall be crucial on Mars.

Similarly the United Nations must be enticed to establish a "Department of Exploration". All country to country wars must be stopped and money allocated to such research to bring the scientists of the developing countries at the same level as those in the US, Japan or Germany. The countries bent on conducting civil wars must be blockaded to the point that it is obvious that they are headed for self-destruction. While I am a believer in self-help, it is as though there is a conspiracy to keep the scientists in developing world under- funded far below their counterparts in the first world who themselves have little to rely on. A huge amount of money is wasted in social programs in the name of humanity worldwide to the point of being scandalous. The United Nations should earmark the same (4% of each country's GDP) for exploration designated to help the scientists of the developing countries. It should be based upon a formula that is acceptable in terms of printing currency and not on foreign aid. It is not understandable as to why capital cannot be generated when legitimate work is being done on infra-structure development and space exploration. The UN charter needs significant work, as it has become a body of autocrats and is simply thrashing. A powerful committee on space exploration must be set up, and all the permanent members and those aspiring to be permanent such as Germany, Brazil and India should contribute a minimum of five billion dollars every year to retain their seats as permanent members. This will raise forty billion dollars every year to be used only for space exploration.

1.2 The Next Destination

Reality versus Fiction is the question that comes to mind, you might say; and therefore building political will is crucial on the world scene. The exploration that continues is random to say the least and without a plan that should span two hundred years. Example: The Chinese have started their lunar program. This is insane as the man has already been to the Moon. They should join forces with the rest of the world in exploration beyond the lunar surface. It is not just the Chinese; all the countries are just as bad. Example: There are no space exploration related issues discussed in any local, national, or international elections nor are there any candidates that talk about our success or failure in the field of Exploration. There is no data presented for us "the people" to decide for ourselves as to which candidate is more in favor of setting up the infra-structure for even the next fifty years as was done in the thirties or forties in just the transport sector. It must be shown by careful analysis that in the twenty first century, the only industry left to uplift humanity to the next plateau is planetary and space exploration and that it is the one industry that will create several hundred million jobs worldwide and other terrestrial objects. The analysis must show that it makes economic sense to bring the people closer on the Earth and to boldly set up colonies other than on Earth. In establishing the baseline, I am reluctant to propose what is so bold, it turns into fiction. For example since Mars is very cold, we could begin by warming the planet, once we get there; and in order to do so, we may set up several nuclear powered reactors deep (two miles?) below the surface to generate electricity. We could set up a solar panel ring around the planet Mars (as I have proposed one around the equator on the surface of the Earth). There are other methods of warming the planet which are biological in nature but in the end it has to be a combination of very small yet very practical steps that will yield fast results.

However, if I could enjoin fiction and reality for a brief moment, I will invent machinery to bring to the planet Mars (or to gently have it start attracting) matter in the asteroid belt until it became as nearly massive as possible to the Earth. That might take a "few" years but it will greatly remove the burden of gravity on the human population on Mars. However, that is not possible, at least not in the next thousand years. Mars, however, is habitable as will become obvious to the reader momentarily. A bit of reality is introduced here as opposed to what is close to fiction at the moment. The distance to the Earth from the Sun in light minutes is 8.32 (a light second is the distance 186,322 miles – i.e. light travels 186,322 miles in one second). So the Sun-Earth distance is about 93 million miles. Similarly the average distance to Mars from the Sun is 12.7 light minutes or about 142 million miles. Thus the distance between Earth and Mars varies from 36 million miles (nearest approach) to over 250 million miles, when they are at their farthest. So if you just wanted to say hello to your mother from Mars and it was at the farthest from the Earth, it will take twenty minutes one way at the speed of light – a very long distance telephone call.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from The Ethics of the Colonization of MARS by Sifwat Ali Copyright © 2011 by Sifwat Ali. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents

Contents

CHAPTER I Establishing a Baseline....................1
CHAPTER II Ethics of Planetary Colonization....................11
CHAPTER III Measuring Time and Establishing a Calendar....................28
CHAPTER IV Basic Data on Mars & Comparison with Earth....................45
CHAPTER V Making Mars Habitable....................52
CHAPTER VI Establishing a Corridor of Worship....................61
CHAPTER VII Preservation of the Languages and the Historical Context....................68
CHAPTER VIII Birth & Burial on Mars....................74
CHAPTER IX Initial Structure of the Government on Mars....................83
APPENDIX I....................89
APPENDIX II....................107
APPENDIX III....................115