So I'm Going to Mars...

…Society’s 18th Annual Convention this August. I will be speaking about governance in space. Here’s the abstract:

Extended human space exploration requires governance structure that does not yet exist. While the Moon Treaty’s prohibition on property rights is often regarded as an impediment to private space exploration, the ability of an isolated group to govern itself off-world is also an impediment to long-term exploration. Given a group of explorers on a long-term trip to the Moon, Mars, or traveling on a generation ship, the group will need self-governance to provide the essential functions of state in situ.

This talk will briefly outline the governance problem, what issues will demand self-governance, and what issues today demand self-governance. In addition, this talk will provide an outline of how self governance originated amongst Europeans in North America and what lessons we can learn from that today. This talk will then present options on what frameworks are necessary to encourage extended human space exploration. Finally, this talk will present a call to action for what steps can be taken today to advance the human space exploration agenda.

Slides will be posted when they are ready.

Images by NASA and the Mars Society.