The Martian Federation Society
Copyright 2017 by Raul E, Lopez, MD
Our Plan
Space is the new frontier. The colonization of space is the future of mankind and it gives us access to a tremendous amount of resources which will allow our species to continue to grow and develop. Those who are involved in the early stages of this venture stand to reap tremendous rewards. However, there are two important obstacles which must be overcome. We believe our plan is the best way to overcome these obstacles. These obstacles are as follows:
(1) Exploring and colonizing space is very expensive. Even though the potential profits are great, the up front costs are high.
(2) No one owns the resources of space. Most nations have signed the Outer Space treaty which prohibits those nations from claiming any of the resources of space.
These two obstacles have three important consequences:
(1) Most nations are not interested in manned spaceflight, let alone colonization, because they cannot claim those lands for their people. This eliminates the patriotic motive.
(2) Most for-profit corporations are not interested in developing space resources because they cannot use these resources as legally accepted collateral for the capital required to develop these resources. This eliminates the profit motive.
(3) The development costs are too high for a purely non-profit organization. Not enough people are going to simply donate the significant resources necessary to develop space resources without expecting something in return. This eliminates the charity motive.
This makes it difficult for these three types of organizations, the nation, the for-profit corporation, and the not-for-profit organization, to serve as the tool for space colonization. In order to make the development and colonization of space a reality these obstacle must be overcome. In chemistry, when a large energy barrier exists for a slow but energetically favorable chemical reaction, a catalyst is used to speed up the reaction. We believe we have a plan that can act as a catalyst to tunnel through the obstacles associated with space colonization in order to achieve this goal in our lifetimes.
Our plan has the following points:
(1) We need to develop the cheapest, simplest, fastest possible revenue stream using space resources. We believe that the moons of Mars are the most accessible bodies in the solar system and that returning regolith from those moons to Earth orbit and selling it there is the simplest way to create a revenue stream. The first project would be a sample return mission from the moons of mars to determine what material they are made of. These samples could be sold to universities throughout the world to recover at least part of the cost of the mission.
(2) We need to establish an organization which avoids the weaknesses of the three types of organizations listed above but combines their strengths. Basically we need to set up a for-profit corporation which uses as collateral, resources which they do not legally own in the eyes of Earth governments but in a way which allows it to operate legally on Earth. The solution is to set up a legal non-profit organization on Earth which serves as the sponsor for a government of Mars which then authorizes a for profit organization to be set up for the purpose of developing the resources of the moons of Mars using these resources as collateral. So, the Martian Federation Society is the legal, non-profit Earth entity under which the whole thing operates. The members of the society are also citizens of the Martian Federation, which functions as the government of Mars and which charters Phobos Deimos Inc. as a for-profit corporation which owns the resources of those two moons and which is entrusted with the task of developing them. Legally, the Martian Federation and Phobos Deimos Inc function as two arms of the Martian Federation Society and all investments are donations to the society. The Space Treaty only prohibits nations from making claims to the objects of the solar system. It says nothing about transnational organizations.
(3) The society will be incorporated in Puerto Rico, an unincorporated territory of the United States. This means that the island is a territory which is under United States jurisdiction but is not part of the United States. Technically it is a separate country governed by the United States. As such, it has never signed the Outer Space treaty. This means that Puerto Rico could recognize claims made to space resources by entities launching space craft from their shores. A later goal would be to set up a space port in Puerto Rico, either in the island of Vieques or at the abandoned Roosevelt Roads Naval Base.
In reality, the first group to get to Mars and set up a government there will determine how the resources will be used. The biggest obstacle to getting to Mars is raising the capital necessary for laying the initial infrastructure. After that happens, profits should follow. The greatest risk faced by the enterprise is not being able to acquire sufficient capital to get started. This means that donations must be based on having faith in the outcome and trust in the promises of its members. By definition this makes it a faith based activity and makes the organization a faith based organization. It is my belief that a society can be legally organized based on the belief that we will be the first, or one of the first, to establish a settlement in space on or near Mars, and faith that the organization will keep its promise to achieve that goal as efficiently as possible and create and distributes profits equitably to those who sacrificed to achieve the goal. I believe that such an organization would be protected under the first amendment to the constitution of the United States.
