4Frontiers is a corporation run by Mark Homnick and his co-founders, Bruce Mackenzie and Joseph Palaia, aimed at developing the economic potentials of what they describe to be the four frontiers: Earth's orbit, Mars, the moon and the asteroids. Their primary objective is to build a settlement on Mars derived from mostly local materials on Mars itself. 4Frontiers plans to use the resurgence of interest in space travel to help develop the technology necessary to achieve this goal. Through partnerships with large space organizations such as NASA and short term contracts in a variety of space sectors, the corporation hopes to establish itself as a premier space organization in order to work towards its objective of colonizing Mars.
Although colonizing Mars would prove to be a tremendous achievement for mankind, it is an extravagant goal. President Bush's proposed plan to return to the moon would cost $100 billion. I have no idea what President Bush plans to do on the moon (maybe he still thinks it's made out of Mozzarella cheese), but that's another issue entirely.
With the costs of returning to the moon in mind, the costs of building a self-sufficient colony on Mars would be astronomical. These costs present us with a question: are the benefits of a colony on Mars worth the cost? I believe that they are not. Homnick and his co-founders claim that humankind needs a new frontier to explore and that colonizing Mars would present many new intellectual and technological challenges for us to face.
Yet doesn't humankind have enough challenges to face already? Cancer kills millions of people every year, the world is running out of fossil fuels, international conflicts constantly threaten to tear nations farther apart, global warming poses a significant danger to the environment, President Anthony Marx mentions how we need more social entrepreneurs in every speech he gives, and all the while, 4Frontiers claims that the world needs more intellectual and technological challenges. The billions of dollars it would take to homestead Mars could be spent handling any one of these terrestrial problems instead of trying to achieve an extravagant and unnecessary goal.
Homnick and his co-founders also claim that a colony on Mars would safeguard the existence of the human race in the event of a catastrophe such as nuclear war, a devastating pandemic or an asteroid destroying Earth. I'm sure nuclear war, pandemics and asteroids are what the general masses fear most every day when we get out of bed, but it's extremely unlikely that any of these events will happen, let alone destroy the human race entirely. Since it is unlikely that the human race will face extinction in the near future, and we are currently faced with many more severe problems right here on Earth, 4Frontiers' motives for colonizing Mars just do not justify the high costs of such a mission.
Although 4Frontiers' goal of colonizing Mars diverts attention away from many more important issues, it does present an interesting concept. In the past, government bureaucracies have been the driving force behind space missions. However, now a private corporation is trying to drive space travel forward. This novel idea offers many benefits over governmentally-controlled space organizations. Private corporations are singularly devoted to their goals while governments are devoted to all of the goals of a society. While a private corporation can allocate all of its resources towards its goals, a government often needs to curtail funding from one group to pay for unexpected difficulties in another sector. Furthermore, since private corporations are looking for profit, they are more likely to use resources efficiently and creatively. For instance, 4Frontiers plans to build a 25,000 square foot replica of a Mars settlement on Earth and then plans to charge tourists admission. According to the corporation's plans, this project will generate a portion of the revenue required to fund a future mission to Mars while simultaneously developing the technology for such a mission. Regardless of the practicality of 4Frontiers' fund raising plan, the creative thinking and focus of which a private corporation is capable makes it highly suited to accomplish the colossal goal of colonizing Mars.
However, despite the valiance of 4Frontiers' goal, it's ultimately as useful as searching for interstellar cheese. Sure it would be great if it happened, but there are many more important things that must be dealt with first. Moreover, 4Frontiers is unlikely to generate the funds necessary to undertake such an expansive project. They hope to raise $25 million to start up, and by the year 2010, which is a third of the way through the time frame they have set to reach Mars, they plan to have a net profit of $29.7 million. I'm not a math major, but if President Bush thinks he will need $100 billion just to reach the moon, then I doubt a company with absolutely no experience in space exploration can get to Mars with $29.7 million.
And $29.7 million is still a lot of money. It's money that could be building homes for the homeless, feeding the hungry, curing cancer or doing any number of other great things. Unfortunately, 4Frontiers plans to use it to find out whether Mars is really made of Monterrey Jack or if it's just Mozzarella under that red wax coating.
Barbieri can be reached at
jbarbieri09@amherst.edu