The Earth-Mars transfer window opens about every 26 months. We only have a few days to weeks before the optimal window closes. Carefully choreographed, interplanetary transports leave their parking orbits and burn for trans-Mars injection. They’re delivering millions of tons of payload in support of the Martian colonization effort. It’s the culmination of 2 years of preparation for this transfer window and countless decades of engineering and architecting our railway to Mars. Their payloads contain everything from toilet paper to heavy machinery. Months later, surface-to-orbit craft rendezvous with the transports and begin unloading payload for delivery to our budding Martian civilization. This is a glimpse into the future of full-scale colonization, the topic of this series. While a scene like this seems like science fiction, with proper execution, I believe it can be a possibility within the lifetime of humans who are currently alive. In this series, I’ll examine what it will take to make this a reality. What technologies will we need? From an architectural perspective, how will we design our infantile Martian civilization so that it not only survives, but thrives? These are just some of the myriad of questions I will attempt to address. In this entry, I’ll start by discussing the differences between a settlement, colony, and civilization. While mundane, it’s important to develop a frame of reference when talking about different stages of civilizational development.

The Spectrum

Pedanticism. It is not that I hate it, I love it. I love it very much. But, I love it against my better judgement. Here, I must be pedantic in the discussion of what is a settlement, a colony, and a civilization, so that the different stages of our future Martian settlement, or colony, or civilization, may be discussed precisely. To talk about this effectively, I must first define terms and establish a spectrum with which I will classify societies. Commonly, there are many variations of a definition, depending on which dictionary one searches, and which context one uses a term, so I’ll select an example and discuss its relevance to my purposes here. I propose a “Spectrum of Civilizational Development.” On this spectrum, the broad bands of settlement, colony, and civilization are ranked based on reliance on the origin civilization.

"Just a Settlement"

A Settlement, according to Oxford Languages, is “a place, typically one that has hitherto been uninhabited, where people establish a community.” From the Martian perspective, this definition is already mostly applicable. Mars, as far as we know, is an uninhabited place. We intend to establish a community there. Boom, any society established on Mars satisfies the definition of a “settlement.” However, there’s more to this. On the Spectrum, the settlement is the most simplistic. Of course, a simple airtight outhouse bootstrapped with a life support system would be more simple that a settlement of multiple habitats, but I’m considering the spectrum in three distinct bands, the least developed and most reliant of which is the settlement band. I consider a settlement to be a community on Mars that is approximately fully dependent on imports from Earth. A settlement will likely not be able to manufacture replacement parts, except for simple 3D printing, and medical help will be limited to noninvasive procedures and orally or hypodermally administered drugs. Habitats will be relatively unimpressive. It goes without saying that the settlement will contain required infrastructure to support human life, but it will not support expansion or population growth. Water and food consumption will be tightly monitored and regulated. While the engineering challenges to set up a mere settlement on Mars are immense, it is the most simple and least developed stage of civilization. The goal of the settlement is to establish a basic foothold on Mars. In this stage, we as a species will be focused on learning how to solve the challenges of interplanetary space travel, living in a remote outpost of humanity, and countless others. The next band up on the Spectrum is the colonial band.

Colonial Mars

For our purposes, a colony is more comprehensive and substantive than a settlement. A definition for “colony” from Oxford Languages is “a country or area under the full or partial political control of another country, typically a distant one, and occupied by settlers from that country.” This, again, applies broadly to many conceivable variations of societies on Mars. It will be an area, likely under full or partial political control of another country or entity (this will be a whole other topic of conversation which I intend to write about eventually). It is most definitely distant, and is occupied by settlers (or colonists) from the origin civilization. On the development spectrum, the colony is moving slowly away from full reliance on imports from Earth. A colony has the ability to manufacture in-situ. Some resources from the planet will be harvested or mined and used in the production of useful products. This is known as ISRU, or In-Situ Resource Utilization. It’s a process commonly speculated on by space thinkers. The colony puts ISRU into practice, beginning the slow, incremental process of weaning off Eathly reliance. As with the settlement, habitats will support human life, and resource consumption will likely still be restricted and monitored closely. However, individual energy usage will be less restricted, such as device charging, network usage, and other points of consumption. Water and food allowances likely will increase per capita, but will still be heavily restricted compared to the free flowing sustenance in developed societies on Earth. Minimally invasive medical procedures and simple surgeries will likely take place in a colony, but more serious afflictions will still require transport back to Earth, or more likely, will result in death. Imports are still required for proper functioning of the colony. If imports from Earth abruptly stopped, the colony would, as a result of that, collapse. The amount of time between cessation of imports and complete colonial collapse depends on the stage of development within the colonial spectral band, but collapse would likely be inevitable. On the Spectrum, the colonial band is likely to be the widest in terms of how many likely variations of Martian society it spans. This is because, very shortly after establishing a settlement, it would behoove us to develop into a colony. Beginning the reduction of reliance on Earth, increasing quality of life, and increasing societal redundancy will be top priorities. These pressures will inexorably push a settlement into the colonial band, however, do not preclude the possibility of failure, which is likely high in the early stages. The other side of the Spectrum, the transition from colony to civilization, is very far from the transition from settlement to colony, as we’ll see shortly. This makes the colonial band the widest, and society will likely spend considerable time in this band before passing many great filters into the civilizational band.

Finally, Something Civilized

A civilization is the pinnacle of the development spectrum. The civilization is the most difficult to achieve. A civilization requires immense time, effort, money, and problem solving success to establish, and its existence will only come upon passing many filters, all of which could result in the snuffing out of life on Mars if not successfully navigated. As a landmark goal for humanity’s quest for eternal survival in the universe, the Martian civilization will have the ability to be entirely self-reliant. The majority of things will be made on Mars. This does not mean there will be zero imports from Earth, there still will be. Many things we have here on Earth likely will not be available on Mars unless imported, such as exotic fruits, many animals, and difficult to obtain resources, but all of the necessary products to support a fully self-sustaining and independent society will be made on Mars. The civilization will be a recreation of society on Earth in terms of industry. Tourism, education, medical facilities, retirement homes, and more, will exist on Mars. People will be born, live their whole life, and die on Mars. The civilization will not only support life, but allow it to expand. Mars will have its own institutions, space programs, and universities. In this stage of development, there will likely be different countries on Mars that trade and war with one another, and do the same with countries on Earth. In this late stage of the development spectrum, humanity will finally be a full fledged space-faring species, and for the first time in our history, will have full civilizational redundancy. This definition aligns well with the Oxford Languages definition of a civilization, in which it’s defined as “the stage of human social and cultural development and organization that is considered most advanced.” Getting to this stage will take generations, and once established, the civilization will hopefully live for many thousands of years.

Everything's Kardashev

In some ways, this spectrum acts as a prelude to the Kardashev scale, except that the key metric for pre-Kardashev, civilizational splinter societies is reliance on the origin civilization rather than measured energy consumption. A society will progress from settlement, to colony, and then to civilization, at which point it will register as a Type 0 civilization on the Kardashev scale. At which point, it will remain a civilization and have the potential to span the entire planet. The line is blurred whether in the far future, we will refer to the human civilizations on Earth and Mars as one collective civilization, but initially, this will most definitely be true. The societal impact of being a multiplanetary civilization is unpredictable. However, one fact is clear: the only way to establish a civilization on Mars is to recreate the industrial base of human society on Earth so that we can survive, thrive, and expand in space.