what will be the first flag planted on mars be?

[worir4]

I hope that a flag will be planted that will simply say 'Humans were here' on top of an image of the Earth.

I hope by then we have moved beyond having pride in a coloured peace of cloth,

[adsii1970]

What if the first group of people to Mars does not represent a nation but a corporation? Virgin Galactic would be my first bet...

 

[Umlüx]

i am hoping for something like this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_the_Earth#The_International_Flag_of_the_Planet_Earth

[J.Random]

48 minutes ago, adsii1970 said:

Virgin Galactic

HAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHA

[Nibb31]

1 hour ago, adsii1970 said:

What if the first group of people to Mars does not represent a nation but a corporation? Virgin Galactic would be my first bet...

 

I don't think you've been following Virgin Galactic very closely.

Even a corporation represents a nation.

[ModZero]

1 hour ago, Nibb31 said:

Oh, and SpaceX isn't going anywhere without somebody paying for the trip. Even if SpaceX gets to Mars, it will probably be a chartered flight by NASA or an international mission.

Well, SpaceX kinda pretends to want to do it out of their own megalomania, pardon, goodwill, and while I may have a rather obviously unfavourable opinion on the subject, it's their stated goal. 

And, as the thread is (predictably) mostly about either cheering or expressing cynicism (I'm not cynical, I just see space as not actually most important thing around), I'll express my own hope here: that by the time we send humans there, we'll be thoroughly done with the idea of sticking flags into places we visited. 

Edit: though we might just make all the astronauts stick a flag for the xp and Final Frontier badge. 

Edited December 22, 2015 by ModZero

[Nibb31]

20 minutes ago, ModZero said:

Well, SpaceX kinda pretends to want to do it out of their own megalomania, pardon, goodwill, and while I may have a rather obviously unfavourable opinion on the subject, it's their stated goal. 

No they don't. They intend to find thousands of rich people who will sell everything they've got to become janitors, builders, and maintenance technicians and spend the rest of their lives living in tin cans on air conditioning and recycled urine. That's their stated goal

 

20 minutes ago, ModZero said:

 

[ModZero]

10 minutes ago, Nibb31 said:

They intend to find thousands of rich people who will sell everything they've got to become janitors, builders, and maintenance technicians and spend the rest of their lives living in tin cans on air conditioning and recycled urine. That's their stated goal

Those aren't customers, those are investors *wink-wink nudge-nudge*. Though I'm not buying that Elon will go, he has like two dozen children or something. 

Now, at risk of going off-topic, the scary reality (if it would succeed) would be rich people exporting lots of people to Mars, which might kinda put a strain on workplace inspection budgets. 

Also, it's nice to see the quoting system is causing trouble to other people as well. It's barely usable on fondleslabs :-(

[adsii1970]

1 hour ago, Nibb31 said:

I don't think you've been following Virgin Galactic very closely.

Even a corporation represents a nation.

No, I haven't kept up with Virgin Galactic. I just threw them out there for a conversation starter, to be honest.

And in our current civilizational development, it appears that nationalism and corporate identity has been severed. This began sometime in the mid 1990s and is clearly demonstrated in the larger international corporations, such as Wal-Mart, McDonalds, General Motors, Mercedes-Benz, and Nissan/Toyota. In each case, the corporate headquarters has evolved a series of standard operating procedures and products that can be used in multiple nations. We even see these corporate entities lobbying national governments and even the United Nations, on policy matters. One could even argue that for the most part, these corporations have become political entities that are autonomous and do not owe any allegiance to their host nation.

In graduate school I took a course on non-western empires and as part of that class, we had to conduct research on political entities outside of western Europe and North America - but the instructor meant nation-states. My partner and I did a 45 page project on how the modern corporation has come into being an empire within itself - and in some cases, completely sovereign from the nation-state that it is headquartered in. If mankind does make it to Mars, it will be at the pushing of the corporations because of the potential for generating huge revenues.

Edited December 22, 2015 by adsii1970

[Nibb31]

The quoting system is so badly broken on this forum, I've given up trying to clean up the mess it creates. The mods don't seem to give a kerbal, so I don't see why I should bother.

[ModZero]

3 minutes ago, adsii1970 said:

And in our current civilizational development, it appears that nationalism and corporate identity has been severed.

Yesterday there was a (rather gross by my standards – I'm an internationalist brand of socialist) moment where the people in SpaceX HQ started chanting U-S-A. So this really depends on the company. 

Even more, there's plenty of speculation of government involvement in funding of some companies (Google!), and in some cases it's just what companies are (Statoil, for example). Finally, company power bows before government real-quick like when necessary (see generics in pharmaceuticals), and conversely, really like offloading all risk to the state – so I don't really see them doing things like Mars out of their own unless the price tag drops so much a billionaire can do it just because that's where ostentatious consumption has went. 

[Robotengineer]

4 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

No they don't. They intend to find thousands of rich people who will sell everything they've got to become janitors, builders, and maintenance technicians and spend the rest of their lives living in tin cans on air conditioning and recycled urine. That's their stated goal

Sign me up! I seriously doubt that that exact model will workout the way Musk thinks it will, I imagine it being more likely that the super rich and institutions will sponsor people who would otherwise be unable to fund their own trips. Similar to the way rich investors sponsored colonization efforts by Europeans. 

[razark]

1 minute ago, Robotengineer said:

Sign me up! I seriously doubt that that exact model will workout the way Musk thinks it will, I imagine it being more likely that the super rich and institutions will sponsor people who would otherwise be unable to fund their own trips. Similar to the way rich investors sponsored colonization efforts by Europeans. 

There's always the Australia model of colonization.

[Robotengineer]

Just now, razark said:

There's always the Australia model of colonization.

Not really viable for something as high tech as Mars colonization. It would also be kind of wrong to have the first humans to settle another planet be rejects from our planet, doesn't send the right message IMO. 

[ModZero]

2 hours ago, razark said:

There's always the Australia model of colonization.

Those are the same, from the perspective of the "sponsored".

[razark]

2 minutes ago, ModZero said:

Those are the same, from the perspective of the "sponsored".

But not from the perspective of "investment" and "give a damn what happens to them afterwards".

[tater]

22 hours ago, basbr said:

NASA's budget is decreasing every year

No, it isn't, it wobbles a little around constant funding levels in constant dollars.

[viktor19]

19 hours ago, justidutch said:

McDonalds

Param pam pam paaa...

9 hours ago, Umlüx said:

i am hoping for something like this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_the_Earth#The_International_Flag_of_the_Planet_Earth

My thoughts exactly!

May I remind the participants of this argument that there are no solid plans for human footprints on Mars. There's a saying in my country: "Don't light the fire while the rabbit is still in the wood."

[tater]

It should be whichever country in the mission has paid the most---including the entire cost of all their national space efforts up until the point of the Mars mission.

[cubinator]

I'll see to it myself.

[cantab]

Probably US. Maybe UN if there's some international co-operation going on. For an outside bet, India.

Russia is past it when it comes to space. ESA doesn't have the serious interest and budget, nor does JAXA. China do have the resources and the motivation, but I don't believe the USA would let China be the first to Mars.

[tater]

A UN flag isn't remotely plausible. There is no UN space agency, and any "UN" effort effectively means the US is writing the checks---and putting a UN flag on that would be politically impossible (domestically in the US).

Edited December 23, 2015 by tater

[Aser]

17 hours ago, worir4 said:

I hope that a flag will be planted that will simply say 'Humans were here' on top of an image of the Earth.

I hope by then we have moved beyond having pride in a coloured peace of cloth,

I get where you're coming from, but I hope you are wrong. The reason being: I feel like that level of cooperation is quite a ways into the future, and I really hope it doesn't take humanity that long to reach Mars.

 

Unless another nation starts a large spending program within the next 1-5 years, I'm hopeful that Ole Glory will be the first human planted flag on mars.

If someone else were to get there first, I would support them 100%. Whoever does it first will have my full backing and enthusiasm.

[Bill Phil]

2 hours ago, tater said:

A UN flag isn't remotely plausible. There is no UN space agency, and any "UN" effort effectively means the US is writing the checks---and putting a UN flag on that would be politically impossible (domestically in the US).

There's an Office for Outer Space Affairs. 

And a dedicated cooperation effort could be created through the UN.

And there's ISA. But I don't know about that being legitimate.

[tater]

1 hour ago, Bill Phil said:

There's an Office for Outer Space Affairs. 

And a dedicated cooperation effort could be created through the UN.

And there's ISA. But I don't know about that being legitimate.

How many 10s of billions of USD a year does the OOSA have to spend? Any dedicated effort would be NASA with some other flags added that are not actually needed. If the US taxpayer is footing the bill, there's only 1 acceptable flag. Say the mission costs 40 billion. That's just the current cost. The US has spent nearly half a trillion on NACA/NASA since inception (in constant dollars). If the US is involved, for me to consider any other flag acceptable, someone else needs to chip in a quarter of a trillion bucks---and I think I'm a typical taxpayer in that regard. That's not gonna happen.