Iceland on Mars

Last summer, when I spoke at the Mars Society Convention, I used Iceland as one of three comparison points for the expected evolution of self-governance on Mars. Today, the Mars Society posted an older link about a 2014 conference on establishing a bill of rights for Mars:

[Iceland] is in a relatively isolated location with a low population. And, as on Mars, inhabitants also face a unique set of natural challenges, in fact parts of Iceland even look like an alien world.

Those are important, and I acknowledged those reasons, though Mars is far less hospitable than Iceland. Still, the results are interesting, including this:

Delegates also agree that the “right to leave” should be included in the new constitution.

Because of how impractical that is at Mars, vis-a-vis, for instance, the Moon, my research has split the governance strategies depending on whether getting back to Earth is easy (Moon and LEO), hard (Mars), or impossible (a generation ship).

Image by D Mitriy / Wikimedia Commons.