Why colonize Mars?

On this page you can read about our collaboration with the other Danish iGEM team from the technical university of Denmark, Hyphae hackers, and the iGEM team from the University of Exeter, Project perchlorate. We have had an extensive collaboration from early in the process, resulting in a cross disciplinary report on Mars colonization in which we together examine the motivations for Mars colonization, and the bioethical concerns of bringing humans to Mars. We have furthermore collaborated with the DTU iGEM team Hyphae hackers on an event held in the Tycho Brahe Planetarium in Copenhagen.

Our collaboration with Hyphae Hackers and Project Perchlorate is substantial because:

• We have been working closely together on making a report on Mars colonization
• We have used the conclusions from the report in our dialogues with laymen on a major culture event in Copenhagen

The process

We noticed our common interests with the other Danish team DTU (The technical university of Denmark) quite early. Our universities are tightly bound together and we have had extensive dialogue from the very beginning. We met the DTU team early in the process both at the Biobrick seminar held by DTU and at the Nordic iGEM conference held by iGEM team Lund. Since we had both chosen to work with projects related to Mars and since we were both interested in exploring the subject, we decided to collaborate on it.

Soon after the decision of collaborating with DTU was made, The iGEM team from the university of Exeter contacted us to ask if we wanted to collaborate with them on exploring Mars related Human Practice issues. We asked Exeter if they would like to collaborate with us and DTU making it a three-teams collaborations, and they said yes.

Extensive brainstorming sessions

Brainstorming was a big part of our first Skype meetings, and because of our early start, our discussions managed to shape parts of each others Human Practice projects. We especially discussed how unusual it was for space related igem teams to question space travel ethically, even though there are lots of obvious questions to ask. We decided that we would like to explore the questions further and found especially the history of colonization and the moon landing, the arguments for and against Mars colonization and the ethics of colonization interesting and worthy of further exploration. We continuously met online and discussed what we had found for most of the summer months, and then began writing by the end of August.

The report

Our report on Mars colonization focuses on the reasons for colonization and the bioethics of humans potentially contaminating Mars. It analysis the reasons for colonization from a historical and a rhetorical perspective, and discusses the potential risk of contamination from a bioethical perspective. While the historical analysis is focused on analyzing reasons for the first moon landing and motivations for colonization of land on earth, the rhetorical analysis is focused upon analysing main arguments for and against Mars colonization in the public debate. The Bioethical discussion is concerned with the potential risk of contamination of Mars.

In the historical analysis of comparable events it is concluded that:

• The major historical reasons for exploration of space and colonization of land on earth has been demonstration of power and eagerness to explore new land
• Support from the public seems to play an important role in motivating such decisions

In the rhetorical analysis of argumentation in the public debate it is concluded that:

• There are major arguments against colonizing Mars right now, that the average world citizen is likely to take into consideration. Therefore we find it unlikely that the wish to colonize Mars will gain significant public support right now
• In the future, as technology improves and the realisation of colonizing Mars moves closer, and the current mayor problems for humanity hopefully takes an end the topic might gain more public interest and awake stronger opinions and more engagement from the public

In the bioethical discussion of potential risk of contamination it is concluded that:

• The risk is rather small due to extensive sterilization procedures and that it is considered unlikely that any bacteria coming from humans would be able to survive in a martian environment and thereby contaminate Mars

You can read our report here.

The historical part is written by Melissa McGrail from the DTU iGEM team, Hyphae Hackers, The rhetorical part is written by Frida Kampp from our team and the bioethical part is written by Matthew Romang from the University of Exeter iGEM team, Project perchlorate.