America must create the law that will govern the colonization of space. In his inaugural address, President Donald J. Trump said:
The United States will once again consider itself a growing nation, one that increases our wealth, expands our territory, builds our cities, raises our expectations and carries our flag into new beautiful horizons. And we will pursue our manifest destiny into the stars, launching American astronauts to plant the Stars and Stripes on the planet of Mars.
President Trump says we are going to Mars, and his friend Elon Musk has demonstrated a capacity to make it happen. Trump and Musk are two once-in-a-lifetime leaders. Trump, at seventy-eight, pulled off the most incredible political comeback in American history this past fall, and his leadership has already led to Americans being safer at home and substantial progress toward peace in the Middle East.
Musk, for his part, has built two incredible companies in Tesla and SpaceX, at a rate that few thought possible.
In 2004, he successfully sued NASA and won when it awarded Kistler, a failing company, a no-bid contract to keep it afloat. With Musk’s legal victory, he changed the way NASA awarded space contracts. He subsequently secured fixed-price contracts from NASA, under which SpaceX would bear the initial cost of its projects, and would not be paid until it hit certain benchmarks as defined by the contract.
This was a better deal for the American taxpayers than the usual “cost-plus” contracts that NASA and the Department of Defense had usually awarded to slower and more stagnant companies like Lockheed Martin and Boeing. Under the “cost-plus” contracts, the companies would have all of their costs paid for by the government plus a guaranteed profit, regardless of performance. Musk blew that system up and advanced science because of it. (RELATED: Elon Musk, Enemy of the Managers)
Musk has achieved incredible feats: SpaceX became the first entity in history to land a rocket during an orbital launch in December 2015, and more recently, it caught the booster of its Starship rocket using long mechanical arms, a process that will make using reusable rockets cheaper, easier, and more common. This is necessary in order to push humanity forward toward commercial space flight and, consequently, space colonization. (RELATED: Three’s the Charm for Elon Musk’s Starship Launch)
Like most other technological advances — including Tesla’s electric cars — commercial space flight would be funded by the rich and eventually trickle down to middle-class Americans. With all of this underway, the next obvious goal would be to settle on Mars. This would be a great human achievement and would fulfill Musk’s lifetime goal of making humans a multi-planet species.
The appeal is obvious: the threat of nuclear war is real, the earth is set to be consumed by the Sun anyway, countries’ electric grids are subject to solar flares, natural resources are limited, etc. With technology developing at a faster pace than ever, a once-in-a-lifetime entrepreneur like Musk — and other billionaires like Jeff Bezos who are competing with him — pushing the frontiers, and a historic president determined to leave America more prosperous than it ever has been before, substantial progress toward the colonization of space seems inevitable, so long as we aim at it (and avoid nuclear catastrophe here on earth).
Trump is hell-bent on expanding America’s power on the world stage. While critics try to make a mockery of Trump’s ambition to take control of the Panama Canal and acquire Greenland, for example, informed observers know that both those locations are crucial to U.S. security and primacy. (RELATED: China Poses a Severe Threat in Panama and Leaves the US With No Choice.)
Trump has shown a capacity to effectuate policy that is out of the box, and that most politicians wouldn’t dare try to achieve. His use of the bully pulpit, for example, led to Panama pulling out of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. After surviving multiple assassination attempts and politically motivated prosecutions, Trump is emboldened to take extraordinary steps to make America great again. One way to do that is through encouraging investment in space and creating the legal framework that will govern investment its real estate. (RELATED: To Secure the Panama Canal, Reinstitute the Monroe Doctrine)
“Why would people invest in the colonization of space?” you might ask. Because it will push humanity forward, and because with the proper leadership, it can be a great investment opportunity. Look at the things people spend money on: crypto, NFTs, real estate in the Metaverse, etc. None of these things are actually useful or offer much benefit to society.
Crypto, for example, is very expensive to make: its mining constitutes 0.6 percent to 2.3 percent of the U.S.’s electricity consumption. It also costs a lot: one Bitcoin as of this writing is selling for $96,830.95. It has no intrinsic value, is not an asset that generates income and is not widely held (or cheap enough) to be used as a common currency.
The average cost to mine a single Bitcoin is $86,354, and the electricity used to do so could power 61 homes for an entire year or drive a Tesla Model 3 around the Earth over 86 times. This is an abject waste of societal resources, and the only reason people benefit financially is because other people are willing to buy Bitcoin.
If people are willing to invest in Bitcoin, why wouldn’t they invest in real estate on Mars? If the pioneers in that endeavor were successful, the world would be way better off. And in the meantime, they will be investing in plots of land on Mars, in the same way they invest in Bitcoin or real estate in the Metaverse (only this would be far more intrinsically valuable). (RELATED: Mars is Earth’s Destiny)
Throughout history, the rich have financed new products in their early stages by purchasing them at higher prices than the rest of us could afford, and in turn, eventually, those products trickled down to the middle and working class. That happened with cars, planes, and even television. Now, the rich are funding and selling spaceflight.
But spaceflight isn’t enough. Congress needs to pass laws governing the investment of real estate in space. This will democratize the space colonization process and open up the frontier to new investors, including working and middle-class Americans. This is not without precedent, as laws governing the settlement of new land are as old as governments. Even here, the passage of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which established a plan for governing the Northwest Territory and adding new states from that region to the union, predated the ratification of the Constitution itself.
Throughout our history, we have passed laws recognizing the need for expansion. In 1862, the Homestead Act was passed to encourage westward expansion. It provided 160 acres of land to any U.S. citizen who was willing to work the land and improve it for five years. Obviously, we are not in a position to send people to work the land on Mars right now. However, we have things that Americans didn’t have in 1862.
We have technology that empowers engineers and architects to build entire buildings in computer models. We have reusable rockets that can carry people and cargo into space. We have already landed spacecraft on Mars — the first time was in 1975 — and we have an accomplished visionary in Musk aiming to land five unmanned rockets on Mars in 2026.
We have artificial intelligence, which has already reshaped engineering, law, and industries. Who knows how helpful it can be in this endeavor, despite the other risks and challenges it presents? It’s here anyway, we might as well use it. (RELATED: AI Snake Oil: Separating Hype From Reality in Artificial Intelligence)
The benefits of early investment in Mars are obvious: work will need to be done to study how our understanding of physics and chemistry apply to a new planet. An entire field of study will have to be created to learn about Mars’s surface and environment.
Questions will have to be asked about how to create an inhabitable planet, or more likely in the short-term, a portion of the planet. Is it possible to create a dome under which humans can live and crops can grow? Is it possible to create a breathing device that converts the air on Mars into oxygen? Is it possible to bring oxygen into Mars in a large capacity and reproduce it? We already capture oxygen for steel production and other purposes using a process called fractional distillation. Why not just put it on a rocket ship and send it to Mars?
Surely, there will be failures, as there have been with SpaceX’s own past rocket launches, but that is part of the process. Success lies in the lessons a company takes from its failures and in the adjustments it makes when it tries again. Money will be needed to finance these endeavors, and the government must create laws to govern this investment.
Why wait? There are scientific advancements we can make now. I am under no illusions that the skyscrapers are going to go up on Mars tomorrow. However, in order to settle people there, early-stage investment and experimentation have to commence. Why not do it now? This is a historic opportunity where we have two extraordinary political and business leaders who have a personal relationship with each other and want to make this happen. We have the most advanced technology we’ve ever had at our fingertips. This is the time for relentless action in this field.
Mars will be colonized whether the government acts swiftly or not. But its action or lack of action can be the difference between accomplishing space colonization 30 years (or more) earlier than we otherwise would have. To be clear, I am not calling for massive government spending in this area. Instead, I am calling on Congress to pass a new body of laws that will govern private investment in the frontier and empower Americans to invest in it.
Currently, there is no way for someone to buy a plot of land on Mars. There should be. Otherwise, investment in this area will be left exclusively to the already established companies and high-net-worth individuals when the time comes. Americans investing in land on Mars should be notified via mandatory disclaimers that their investment is speculative, similar to how they would be for other investment products, and similar to how companies in the stock market are required to disclose risks on their annual 10-K forms. Safeguards must be in place so members of the public who choose to invest in this know what they are buying.
Important questions will have to be asked about what the best way to do this is. Does the government want to sell plots of land on Mars directly? If so, what is the market value of a given plot of land on Mars? To what extent can investment in plots of land on Mars be accomplished within existing security laws?
It is likely better to empower people to buy land on Mars directly rather than invest in a company that promises to build developments on Mars. This seems more equitable and cuts out the middleman.
However, even within that paradigm, a private company could emerge that would, as a service, construct property in space for the people who already bought the empty plots of land. Is the current legal framework in place sufficient to empower a company to do that? Are there any current SEC laws in place that would prevent a company from raising money for that purpose? To what extent does the colonization of space have to be governed through laws passed by Congress rather than executive agency rulemaking?
These are all questions that policymakers will have to consider as they contemplate this emerging field. Americans have an enormous opportunity to be at the forefront of humanity’s next great achievement. The extent to which we capitalize on it will be determined by whether our elected leaders meet the moment.
READ MORE:
Three’s the Charm for Elon Musk’s Starship Launch
‘Martians Wanted’ for NASA Simulation: White Males Need Not Apply
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