The future of Mars Colony Two

Tyrone felt uneasy questioning Professor Flowers. Decades ago, as a student, he had worked in her space-studies group, and the human colonization of Mars had caught his imagination. His mind had changed since then, but hers had not. Now, he found himself conducting a hearing for the Global Climate Control Commission on future human activity on Mars.
“You have requested a waiver of greenhouse emission limitations for the launch of Mars Colony Two,” he said. “It has been 20 years since Mars Colony One landed. As a private space programme, it was not covered by the existing emission regulations. That is no longer the case. So I must ask what would justify waiving the present rules.”
The ghosts of Mars Colony One hovered invisibly above the directors of the commission in their hearing room. The colonists had been 20 of the world’s richest people, who had spent trillions of dollars from their personal fortunes to blaze a new frontier for humankind. Their leaders had said they expected to die on Mars. They had not expected that all of them would die 18 days after landing.
Professor Flowers looked at Tyrone with unreadable eyes. “The first Martian colonists were heroes who risked their lives to open a new refuge for humanity,” she said. “Those were troubled years. Heat was killing the whales. Coastal cities and island nations were slipping below the waves. The world’s richest technologists decided to spend their own fortunes to reach a new world. No one else would spend the money or take the risk of sending humans to Mars, so they took it upon themselves.” The strain showed when she paused for a deep breath. Tyrone could see her 80 years weighing upon her. “When they landed and we saw them on our screens waving to us from Mars, people around the world cheered and had hope. We need to get people back into space to fulfil our destiny.”

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“No one can deny that they were brave,” Tyrone said. “But neither can we deny they were foolhardy. They chose not to send robotic probes to test for survivability. We still do not know how and why they died, or if something on Mars might have killed them.” He looked around the room. “And these are still hard times. We have slowed the growth of greenhouse emissions but not stopped them. To do that, the commission had to suspend most space activities and limit aviation to 1990 levels. We know how much it would take to send people to Mars again, and we know we can’t afford the emissions.”
“The heirs of the Mars Colony will pay for a second mission. They are hugely wealthy, and have designed a second mission that will make tremendous contributions to scientific knowledge. But we have to start here on Earth.” She looked at Tyrone, her face pleading for his support.
“That is the problem,” said Tyrone. “We live on a thin edge of further disaster. We were stopping coal burning when the first Mars Colony launched. We keep trying, but we don’t know when the next giant glacier will break off from the shore of Greenland or Antarctica. We have no safety margin.”
“We must have a dream. We need one to go forward,” the professor said. “You were born after Apollo, but during the 1960s people rightly feared a nuclear war that could wipe out the human race. John F. Kennedy promised the US would land a man on the Moon, and people around the world celebrated after they saw Neil Armstrong walk on the surface in 1969. We could dream of travelling in space and building a better life for humanity.”
Tyrone could see tears starting on her face. “It was never that simple,” he said. “The race to the Moon was never sustainable. It was a race for America to show the Soviet Union that they could beat them in space. We needed more than half a century to get back to the Moon. And by then scientists knew we had to get the global environment under control. Storm intensities kept climbing, oceans warmed faster than we had expected. We had to shut the Moon bases and limit new satellites other than climate missions. We aren’t sure if we can stop it.” Professor Flowers cast her eyes down, looking weathered and ancient. “That’s why the Global Climate Control Commission has again rejected your plan for the Second Mars Colony.”
She stood silent for so long that Tyrone worried she’d been taken ill. He saw her pain when she finally spoke. “Please tell me there will be a time in the future when we can launch a second Mars Colony mission? Please tell an old woman that her dreams will not die with her body.” She stared at him.
“I hope so,” Tyrone said. “But now we must focus all our efforts to control the climate crisis so sometime our children and grandchildren can have those dreams.” He shivered, all but certain that neither he, his children nor his grandchildren would ever see that day.