I am not a scientist, therefore I study the social "sciences" and carry a post and lots of straw and a lighter around in the boot of my car, just in case somebody starts quoting physics at me.

That is to say, unless someone puts it in layman's terms, I am only moderately familiar with the technologies required, challenges and the feasibility of space travel and colonization.

Given that, let's, for the purposes of this thread, assume that we can, in some significant manner (i.e. in the thousands, not two or three people like on the space station) build a colony on mars.

I am interested in the political and legal ramifications of this. If the United States does it by itself, what "right" does it have to Mars? Can it set up a liberal democracy there if it chooses? Is interplanetary trade realistic? Or would the two economies exist in a vacuum. Or would the United States (or whoever did it) supplement the economy of another planet until it was self sufficient?

What if it was a joint effort? What would the "constitution" of the colony look like? How long before there was conflict? Would the conflict take place there or here?

I have too many things bumping around in my head to put down in a clear manner, so I'll just leave it here and see where the thread goes.

Let's try to keep it clean, kthx?

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"Have you no decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"
-Joseph Welch

i suspect it would start rather like the european expansion of a few centuries ago. the colony would begin as dependent (economically, politically and socially) on whoever started it. with time it would develop its own identity and society with its own agenda and direction, and eventually this would start to clash with its founders on earth. then people at the colony would start to argue for independence in some form. different factions on the colony would have different ideas as to exactly what to do, and different factions on earth would too.

it would probably take centuries though. any colony would be very dependent on earth for trade, technology, materials, population influx and assistance with disasters. they would be unable to really demand much until they were independent in most areas and transport, trade, communication was available through several different and competing agencies (consider, if USA controlled all the spacecraft, the colony would be stuck with them)

alternatively, it could begin with the agenda of setting up an independent colony from the beginning. they might be considered independent and free of any political ties to earth from the moment they landed (or at least the moment they became relatively self sufficient). it would be fragile though, and depend once again on whoever it was on earth that actually controlled their trade, transport, communication, etc.

(it would be different if the mission to colonise was set up as one way, such as a centuries long voyage to a near star, with the colonists carrying everything they might ever need with them and not being capable of contacting earth ever again)

i think either way, any conflict would take place at the colony, factions fighting over the extent of independence and the nature of their society once they had independence. again, this parallels the situation with the european colonies in africa, america and asia centuries ago. hopefully by then humans would have finally matured enough to make a war of independence unneccesary but i doubt it.

independence would only truly exist once the colony was capable of controlling its own transport and trade and large enough to sustain itself. once that happened, i think complete political independence would be inevitable.

centuries later still, the pattern might repeat itself. humans will start to colonise mars and venus first but one day we might make it to other solar systems. will the first colonies on the planets of sirius be sent from earth or mars ? if they are sent from mars, which is now a completely autonomous planet, what is the sirius colonies ties to earth ? are they martians first or humans first ? and how long before they want independence for sirius ?

The colony would start very very dependent on Earth (as seeing as it would need a constant flow of resources to survive). It would likely start with a terraforming project, on either Mars or Venus, to make the planet hospitible. From that it would likely start as an economic endevor (to mine resources that are rarer on earth), and people would colonize, because it is cheapest to live near the resourses rather than commute several million miles to work.

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Set your destination with your heart, get there with your mind.

"The wisest men follow their own direction." - Euripides

it might not be as dependent as that. it would certainly rely on earth as a market for whatever it was doing (mining i suspect is most likely, but possibly food production or as space for population to grow into). but it is several million miles away. the colony would probably be set up as fairly independent from the beginning, self sufficient for food, medical care, repairs and expansion, etc. it would be easier to make the colony self sufficient than have it rely on imports across millions of miles. hell, it would even take light half an hour to get there sometimes, so the colony would have to be pretty much independent from day one.

i know this contradicts some of what i wrote earlier, but thinking about it a bit, i rekon any extraterrestrial colony would be easier to develop as self sufficient from the outset in as many areas as possible. it would remain dependent and connected politically, but not so much physically. also, i suspect any political connection would be felt more strongly here on earth. one can imagine the backers and investors of the project imagining they have ownership and control of it all, but the actual colonists feeling they were very much independent.

it would be dependent on earth for future population and for a market for its produce, and probably for transport. strategically it would begin as a long term plan of whoever on earth started it (either a nation or group of nations, or a company) and they would want to keep control and ownership of it. eventually the colony would want its independence.

australia and new zealand started that way. new zealand was described as "an efficient off shore farm" for england. this was the case for years and it relied heavily on support from the british empire. but now it is its own nation.

It would go for that, but it would undoubtibly be unable to start as self sufficient. There is no way they'd be able to hold off until every thing was good to go.

The reason that importing would be fine to sustain it is because it would almost certainly be begun as mining or something other thing to bring needed materials to Earth. So the transport could go both ways (import the needed stuff to sustain it on the trip there, and export the minerals on the way back to earth).

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Set your destination with your heart, get there with your mind.

"The wisest men follow their own direction." - Euripides

If the United States colonizes it first, the United States can claim it as American territory - just like the Brits, Spanish, French, and Dutch did with most of Africa, Asia and the Americas.

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A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes toward the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

Not Mars. Too far away, not enough resources. Call it the Moon. Luna, with the aid of some technology, that existing, anticipated, and theoretical, could be self sufficient in everything but nitrates for fertilizer and for the air mix. Everything else, O2, H2, H2O, most metals, phosphates, calcium, and silicates can be acquired with a little high technology (I can explain some of it if you want).

However, as for the economy and such, it's anyone's guess. There would have to be some kind of trade, at least for nitrogen (essential for plant growth in the form of ammonium nitrate, potassium nitrate, and similar chemicals, and an important part of breathable air) and for technology products, as well as supplemental hydrogen fuel. Aside from that, you might as well try to predict the weather where you are now at this time in fifty years. You could make educated guesses, but you don't know.

A good look at a plausible scenario can be found in Robert Heinlein's story The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. That might give you some ideas. But really, I don't think we can make any useful predictions.

initially this is true. but just like the british, spanish and dutch colonies, they would agitate for independence eventually. asia, africa, australia, america are not colonies of europe today. their political independence came about in various ways, from negotiation to civil unrest to outright war, but it happened in the end. i would suspect this is a likely ultimate outcome of any extraterrestrial colony too.

exactly how long and by what means is impossible to guess. as has been said above, it is impossible to predict the technological possibilities of the future, so it is impossible to predict what means might be available to those wanting independence.

another interesting possibility is that the colony may not be started by a nation but by a company or consortium of companies. whose territory is it then ?

Oregon Elephant;

the journey there would be on some kind of spaceship that would have to be self sufficient, and most of this would be able to continue once the colony was established. it is a long way, it would take a long time and recieving support from earth would not be something they could rely on. while there would be times that they would recieve backup from earth, i think it would be easier, cheaper, safer and faster to build the colony up front as self sufficient.

this would not be the easiest way to do it. it would be easier, i think, to make an independent colony and have the colony sent material back to earth on a one way trip. why go both ways every time when you could send everything there on the first trip ?

the material sent back would then not need the same kind of life support, protection, etc as a human crew, and the time spent in transit would not be so critical. if it was a mining operation, it could even be sent back as raw chunks of minerals flung in earths direction.

anther thought: a mining expedition might be better done without human personel at all. there are already robots on mars, exploring. it would be possible to send robots with the capacity to extract minerals and send it back to earth without needing humans there. this would make the expedition easier and safer, and eliminate the possibility that the humans might rebel.

How do we know what resources there are on mars?

Anyway, I see large scale planetary colonization not as a quest for more resources, but as a place to put an expanding homo sapiens population. It seems mars would be more suited to that.

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"Have you no decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"
-Joseph Welch