The Battle for Mars: How Elon Musk, Blue Origin, and the United States Could Establish the First Alien Government

The moment when the first human sets foot on Mars is getting closer and closer. The distance of 140 million kilometers between Earth and the red planet should be crossed in the next two decades, predicts NASA.

Just recently, the space agency announced plans for its Artemis lunar missions – slated to take place in 2024 – which could establish a lunar base on the Moon as a stepping stone before the first planetary spacewalk.

For some, however, simply taking the first step onto an alien planet doesn’t look far enough into the future. Once a community is established on Mars, discussions will need to be held on exactly how it is governed and functions. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is one of those people planning for such a future and already appears to be laying the groundwork for the terms of service for the company’s current products.

“For services provided on Mars, or in transit to Mars via Starship or other colonization spacecraft, the parties recognize Mars as a free planet and that no Earth-based government has authority or sovereignty over Martian activities. “, states the applicable law section.

“Consequently, the disputes will be settled according to principles of autonomy, established in good faith, at the time of the Martian settlement.”

SpaceX did not respond to multiple attempts to get more information from The independent, but experts suggest that adding this segment might actually have two purposes: the first is that it’s a joke; the second is that it lays the groundwork for a constitution of Mars – based on the permissiveness of existing legislation for space exploration.

The section Musk added is “a little ironic with his contracts … referring to this Martian constitution he’s going to draft,” according to Randy Segal of the Hogan Lovells law firm. “It tries to include in its trade terms… how you are going to comply with applicable law.”

The applicable law here are the Artemis Agreements of 2020 and the Outer Space Treaty of 1957 (by which the signatories of the Artemis Agreements say they will abide by). Among these laws is the following line: “Outer space is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by use or occupation or by any other means.” As a result, these treaties prevent space exploration from becoming a “land grab,” as Segal describes.

However, the regulations are, in general, “motherhood and apple pie,” Segal says – an American expression for something that no reasonable person could disagree with, such as the provisions for transparency, interoperability and emergency assistance in space exploration.

“All of space law considers that those of us on this planet share the rights and responsibility to make space something that we can all share together,” Segal says.

“Typically, if a clause is illegal, you would read the rest of the contract as enforceable and independent. He added a section relating to Mars services (which is not provided today, so no effect) “, but in five or 10 years” he will be able to revise his contract.

“I don’t know that a provision like this, other than being humorous and anecdotal, is something that does anything to the rest of the contract. He could try to lay the groundwork for offering an independent constitution … just like he did with electric cars and reusable launchers. Is there a precedent or binding force? The answer I would say is clearly no; but if you say enough, people might come.

While Musk’s contracts aren’t legally powerful (or “gibberish,” as one professor has judged them), they are likely to start a conversation about how lawmakers should go about planning a March constitution. This is something that SpaceX General Council David Anderman seems to be already looking into.

“Our goal is to be able to send 1,000 spaceships with 100 people every two years,” Anderman said, according to Business Insider.

“We’ll start with 100, then a few hundred, then 100,000, then a million until we have a really sustainable colony. This will happen during my lifetime. Faster than you think.

He also said he expected SpaceX to “impose our own legal regime,” but that it would be “interesting to see how that plays out with Earth governments exercising control.” Anderman did not respond to multiple requests for comment from The independent before publication.

While colonization may be how SpaceX and other companies think about alien exploration, Musk is legally more likely to create a community than a colony, as he would still be under the rule of the United States. .

“A community is a group of people with common interests and characteristics. Colony is a legal term applied to a territory subject to the sovereignty and jurisdiction of the colonizing state, ”said Professor Sa’id Mosteshar, director of the London Institute of Space Policy and Law. The independent.

Currently, if SpaceX or Musk created a community on Mars, its activity would be subject to the governance of the United States. However, in the future, lawmakers may see the need for a constitution that governs all of March, rather than dividing laws into geographic jurisdictions as they do now.

It remains to be seen exactly how that would play out. In 2016, Musk said his intentions for a Martian government would be direct democracy, where people vote on issues themselves rather than through politicians in representative democracies as we do now.

“So it would be the people who would vote directly on the issues. And I think that’s probably best, because the potential for corruption is drastically reduced in a direct democracy compared to a representative democracy.”

“I think I would recommend an adjustment for the inertia of the laws would be wise. It should probably be easier to remove a law than to create one,” Musk also said. “I think that’s probably a good thing, because laws have infinite life unless they are done away with.”

The advantages and pitfalls of such a system, like many government systems on Earth, are many, and experts suggest that the most beneficial Martian government is more likely to be the one ultimately decided on Mars itself. even.

In addition to SpaceX, other space competitors, such as Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, are also likely to explore similar proposals – albeit in “a bit more cohesive and logical work than SpaceX,” Professor Von der Dunk , a space law expert at Nebraska College of Law, says The independent.

“It is entirely appropriate to reflect on how the certainty that conflicts will arise requiring a legal solution must be approached. At the end of the day, of course, SpaceX and all the other companies can only go this far, ”he said, adding that if companies can set the agenda, it will ultimately be up to governments. to decide to adopt it.

Blue Origin’s intentions for Martian governance remain unknown. Its founder, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, made a few allusions to his idea of ​​extraplanetary life, predicting an “incredible civilization” where a trillion people live in bucolic settlements similar to those emitted by physicist Gerard O’Neill.

“They are not what you imagine. I mean, they’ll have farms, rivers, and universities; they could have a million people in them. They are cities. But I would also like to be able to go back and forth to Earth, ”Bezos said, but he takes a deliberately slower approach to space than Musk. Regarding the legislation, Blue Origin said The independent that it was not a subject he had talked about.

As for the future of these laws, the strange legal cases of the past may provide some indication. It has previously been suggested that a murder in the Arctic, where the lack of legal jurisdiction meant the murderer was acquitted of all charges, could provide the basis for extraplanetary laws where Earth-related jurisdiction cannot. achieve.

There is a human impulse to create stability through law, Anderson said The independent, and as such would result in a push for a framework that could be applied to the entire planet in a way that could not be done on Earth due to geological and cultural boundaries.

If Musk – or any other space pioneer – is looking for favorable arrangements to make sure the legislation they want is what is implemented, there are a number of routes available.

Counties like Luxembourg are already looking to privatize space, while others like New Zealand and the United Arab Emirates are both attractive for potential space launches due to their geographic location and advantages. tax, respectively. While neither seems particularly likely as the seat of SpaceX’s or Blue Origin’s next launch site – as both companies are deeply embedded in the United States’ industrial ecosystem for crafting spacecraft. – they present the opportunity for a distinctly anti-American hegemony outside our planet, Anderson says.

As to when the final, and arguably the most important, question of when Mars could become self-sufficient with its own legal system, lawyers aren’t sure – but it’s likely that once the first community is established, it would look to self-regulate fairly. rapidly due to the difficulties of interplanetary communication.

“I have to defer to the real scientists here, some of whom might claim 10 years, others more like a century or more,” says Professor von der Dunk. “I would probably position myself somewhere safe in the middle.”