Colonising Mars
From Wikibooks, the open-content textbooks collection
This book explores and attempts to predict and/or create a roadmap to the colonization of Mars, with an emphasis on the civil and cultural issues. This is a book in its initial stages of creation. Contributors are invited to establish their own chapters or to edit material in existing chapters. Please have a look at the related Wikipedia pages for a guide to relevant topics. Other material can be found under the "See Also" section of the "w:Colonization of Mars" Wikipedia page.
This topic provides an interesting thought-experiment in science, technology, but also social, political and economic areas of inquiry. The project of colonizing Mars provides an opportunity to examine how we live here on Earth and what aspects of our own planet and its effects on our lives we value and would wish to re-create on Mars. The Mars Project also provides a case-study for further planetary colonization. Even if people believe that attention is better focussed on problems here on Earth, explicitly considering the alternative of colonizing Mars may enlighten and enliven debate by focusing attention on issues of at a global scale, such as the environment, global politics and the nature of progress.
There is an ongoing debate on this topic on the Mars Civil-Cultural mailing list. One way that this topic can be explored is to look at the lessons learned from science fiction.
