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I would suggest to people that want to colonize mars that we try a self-sustaining colony at Bir Tawil first. Of course it would need a sufficient budget, in USD or EUR per year, and cooperation from the adjacent governments for over-land transport of supplies and construction materials.
Not for the purpose of trying to claim it as a sovereign state (silly idea), but as a proof of concept on the volume of material/logistics involved and to stress-test the technology for self sustaining colony infrastructure.
Note that I am not saying we shouldn't also attempt a mars colony, but rather that running a pilot project/proof of concept at Bir Tawil or some similarly harsh environment would be a minuscule cost compared to the actual thing, and may prove very instructive.
It has the advantage of:
standard earth atmospheric pressure and air you can breathe
can go outside without a spacesuit
magnetosphere for radiation protection
ability to extract some drinkable water from the air, even if very arid, if you have sufficient amounts of electricity
relatively easy to transport dozens of tons of cargo to, likely using something like military-type 6x6 5 ton trucks
access to earth based telecommunications systems (geostationary satellites, iridium, inmarsat, etc)
photovoltaic systems can be installed that don't need to be hardened for vacuum
Unfortunately all those advantages also mean that the experiment would be less than useful for simulating a Mars colony.
There have been many attempts at self-sustaining/closed ecosystems over the years, with a distinctly mixed track record.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/06/mars-sim...
I think the point of the experiment would not be to see if you CAN give it a go on Mars, but rather an early indication that you can't. ("If you can't do it here, you can't do it there.")
to really attempt a simulation at it you'd need to build something along the same general concept as biosphere-2 (but much bigger, with more supplies, more redundancy, higher budget etc) and then put it at the very far end of an extremely difficult and arduous logistics chain for periodic resupply.
This is getting further off topic from the article but your post reminded me of a random idea I had along the same lines - if one of these billionaires who wants to colonize Mars wants to take a practice run, they should build a city in Antarctica. Not just a little scientific outpost like we have now, but a full small-city-sized settlement away from the shores that people can actually live in year-round enjoyably without being insanely depressed or repressed. Seems like a tall order, but still way simpler than doing the same on Mars.
My suggestion has long been a viable, long term colony at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. Far more hospitable than Mars and exceedingly cheaper to get to and resupply. And as bonus, is an equally pointless waste of resources and possibly lives...
This is often used as an argument against space settlement. How can they build a settlement on Mars if they can't even build a settlement in Antarctica.
But doing anything like resource extraction or permanent settlement is simply not allowed by the antarctic treaty system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_Treaty_System, and would be heavily fought by all the signatories of that system.
It does seem like it would be much less costly, as measured in hundreds of millions of US dollars, to build a fleet of something equivalent to Russian's heavy nuclear powered icebreaker fleet, than to colonize mars. Just as one essential link in the supply chain and infrastructure if you wanted to sustain a newly founded coastal city somewhere in Antarctica.
>they should build a city in Antarctica.
Not a single billionaire alive today can be trusted to safeguard the delicate ecosystem there.
But we…very much don’t want to melt the ice down there.
Completely independently of a mars colony, this would be an interesting experiment.
You might want to start with just building a very large east/west solar installation to create a large shaded area, then some water extraction systems and high intensity greenhouses. And obviously give the whole place very good internet connection.
It would not have to be fully closed, like biosphere 2. Many things you don't have to worry about, like CO2 from concrete accumulating. You can even have a bit of water loss.
But the problem is this: if you are successful and create some thriving city there, one of the neighbouring countries will suddenly discover some long lost claim to the land and annex it.
A better idea might be to take a place that is very inhospitable but already has a sizeable human presence, like the site of the EELT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremely_Large_Telescope . This region is politically stable. It has to be for the extremely large investment of the EELT.
Then take a few square kilometers of desert in the vicinity and try to build a self sustaining city there for the EELT employees. Maybe it can grow into a tourist attraction. You would have to be extremely careful not to create light pollution though.
I disagree. Antartica is best suited to simulate the climate, hostile environment and logistical challenges. Especially the unexplored parts.
Antarctica is a great idea as well. I am not sure what the political challenges would be if somebody with a sufficiently absurd amount of money to throw at the project actually attempted it. The antarctic treaty is supposed to prohibit nation states from claiming pieces of it as sovereign territory, but those negotiations from the 1950s/1960s didn't really envision modern billionaires doing such things independently.
Whether somebody would have the early stages of their construction project shut down by a flown-in team of military forces from some major nation states (US, Russia, UK) is another question. Or simply blockaded and shut down at places like the ports in Chile, Argentina, Tasmania, mainland Austrlia, New Zealand, South Africa.
Indeed! Although I'd frame Bir Tawil as a good steppingstone. Anyone interested in Mars colonization should first also setup a prototype Mars base in the interior of Antarctica.
It has the same advantages as Bir Tawil, and it's still much warmer than Mars. If you can't succeed at Bir Tawil, you can't expect to succeed at Antarctica, and if you can't succeed in Antarctica, you can't expect to last on Mars.
Why not just do it in the Nevada desert? You can set any restrictions you want on how many resources you can bring or how you can transport them.
that as well, though some of the most bleak and desolate places like dry lakebeds are already occupied by things like area 51/groom lake.
The only thing this would demonstrate is that the nicest place to live on Mars is a hundred times shittier than the worst place on Earth.
Before Mars is a viable colonization destination, we need to build a good size habitat that's fully or almost fully self-dependent in one of our many oceans that make up most of this planet.
If the purpose really is to attempt to escape extinction events I'd rather live down where food and water are plentiful and within arms reach than any celestial object.
Additionally, international waters are by definition not owned or controlled by any government and are accessible by anyone with a boat.
Technically, this is more than possible with current tech at less cost than sending a rover to Mars (probably), but no one wants to do it because it's not land you can plant a flag into and "claim" as yours.
Building under the sea at any kind of scale falls down quickly as soon as you compare it to say building it on land.
In other words, from cost, to sustainability, to environment, to trade, to defence, to literally whatever criterion you want, living on land is better than living under the sea.
And alas it would not really increase survivability of ELEs. (inside mountains is likely better for that.)
The only reason to colonise Mars is to mitigate an ELE, and its a pretty poor mitigation at that - Mars is more likely to experience an ELE than we are, all it takes is a bit of machinery to fail.
Which begs the question of course, why do we care? If an ELE happens, then it happens. Bummer.
> cooperation from the adjacent governments
This is fairly impossible with two nations currently in a border dispute. Antarctica is a better place for that because there are no nations at war, no bandits, no geostationary satellites. It's quite a bit like Mars only with more water and an atmosphere.
The land either belongs to Egypt or to Sudan. Suppose I buy a bike from you. The bike is faulty so I declare the transaction null and void and demand my money back. You refuse to reverse the transaction. Who owns the bike? You claim I own the bike and I claim you own it. Who the owner actually is won't be settled before a court process. Bir Tawil is the same. Thus third parties claiming Bir Tawil is nonsense. It's like a random person claiming the bike is theirs since neither I nor who I bought it from wants it.
This is different from stuff that legitimately has no owner, like a flower in a forest. Unless the forest is private property, the flower has no owner until it is picked. As can be imagined, very few things actually has no owner.
The bike analogy breaks down when a random person comes and surreptitiously takes the bike away from you while you and the seller are arguing. The taker makes no claim of ownership, they just take the bike and use it, as it is in a good enough condition for them.
Who then has the motivation to stop the ostensible theft: you or the seller? The seller doesn't care, but you do. Without possession of the bike you cannot hope to return it in exchange for the money.
By contrast, say that a third party somehow manages to make use of Bir Tawil, without having any effect on the surrounding land, without posing as a security threat, and without making any actual claim. Which country is most motivated to intervene in principle: Sudan or Egypt?
Exactly. There are people who never set a foot on that region claiming the land from the comfort of their sofa, such as the owner of this site http://bir-tawil.com/
Out of all joke domains I've seen, this one is probably the laziest.
They got a standard city template, changed the title... and that's it. They didn't even replace the lorem ipsum.
1/5 stars, would not recommend.
The headline is actually misleading. It's just that neither Egypt nor Sudan can claim it without giving up the claim to Hala'ib Triangle.
And Bir Tawil is just a worthless desert, but Hala'ib Triangle is mostly fertile land with a sizeable shoreline, so why would anyone pick the worthless desert over it instead?
> without giving up the claim to Hala'ib Triangle.
Well, strictly speaking, either country could decide to claim both areas, it's just they believe that by doing so they would be lessening their chances of their claim over the preferred area succeeding. So it might be more accurate to say "without weakening their claim" instead.
"Mostly fertile land"?? I don't think either are worthless (I love deserts for their own sake), but to describe that triangle as fertile is ... not very close to accurate!
> Bir Tawil is just a worthless desert
To you perhaps, but outside of your imagination?
“members of the Ababda and Bisharin tribe … carry goods, graze crops and make camp within the sands.”
> And Bir Tawil is just a worthless desert
- good military outpost - possible mineral rights?
Potential U.S. claim if oil is found.
This 2:13 minute youtube video, is far more succinct and informative about why no country wants Bir Tawil:
I’m more drawn in than I expected. Something about this reminds me of Stephenson’s writing:
> The senior officer concluded, perceptively, that, whatever we were attempting to do, we were far too incompetent to do it properly, or to cause too much trouble along the way.
Must admit, that's good writing. I almost felt like I was on the trip myself!
>Its terra nullius status results from a discrepancy between the straight political boundary between Egypt and Sudan established in 1899, and the irregular administrative boundary established in 1902. Egypt asserts the political boundary, and Sudan asserts the administrative boundary, with the result that the Hala'ib Triangle is claimed by both and Bir Tawil by neither.
Ah, so that explains it.
As someone who hangs out in the surrounding countries from time to time: this is a pretty good case where "because you can doesn't mean you should." Like, this is some crazy idiocy and you should know what you're in for with the relatively painless bureaucracy. Some diplomatic spat or tragedy and they will ignore whatever they signed onto with Heaton.
But hey, if I were Heaton's daughter I turn my princess status into a college admissions essay,
You spend time in Egypt and Sudan? What do you do there?
I visit Egypt a few times a year for the last decade. I have a few friends who know Sudan well. I wanted to maintain some privacy, so I leave out details.
About claiming land with the cunning use of flags:
Why not just get the UN to declare Jersey City as terra nullis, and let whoever from the Orkney Islands to Swaziland take over administration?
If this land truly belongs to no country does that mean you could legally kill people here? Imagination runs wild.
IANAL, but I don't think so. See, for example, the famous R v. Dudley and Stephens case concerning cannibalism at sea [0].
The group was shipwrecked, surviving on a turtle and drinking their own urine. The victim, Richard Parker, was apparently in a coma. Despite these mitigating circumstances, the two defendants, Dudley and Stephens, were sentenced to six months each in prison.
That is a very thought-provoking case, but the article does say "the Mignonette was registered in Britain for jurisdiction under s.267 of the Merchant Shipping Act 1854" (and presumably that jurisdiction extended to the lifeboat too).
My assumption is that even if the victim and defendants weren't British citizens (or subjects) the case would still have fallen under British jurisdiction, whereas if the same incident had occurred on a boat registered to a different nation, Britain would have to rely on the courts of that country to interpret their own laws on the matter.
I suppose it's possible that another country could have in its laws a defence of necessity that was applicable to that precise situation, and I don't know how double-jeopardy rules and extradition treaties interact with the nationality or passive personality principles of personal jurisdiction:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_jurisdiction#Internat...
Once I read the name Richard Parker it make me wonder if Life of Pi was somewhat inspired by the story, and indeed the article mentions such.
Some countries claim jurisdiction over actions carried out by their citizens abroad, so you might find yourself in legal trouble when you returned home. Also, even if no country claims jurisdiction over events that occur there, that doesn't mean there are no consequences for your actions, precisely because it wouldn't be illegal for the locals to kill you in revenge.
So I guess one should first become a stateless citizen.
No, by definition you couldn't "legally" do anything, as there would be no law.
Well, that was an interesting read. I just think deserts are awesome.