Political geographies of Mars: A history of Martian management

Abstract

The task of this article is to provide an analysis of the uneven terrain of Martian political geographies in the context of western political economic trajectories. Focusing on debates over the nature of Mars’s legal status, the article attends to a key question, a question that has not yet been answered: should Mars be a terra communis – the common property of humanity, unavailable as private property – a terra nullius – or space available for private property claims – or a ‘cosmic park’ space of intrinsic value? That is, should Mars be claimable space, and if so, how could it be transformed into a possession, and by whom? By outlining arguments both for and against the idea of Mars as available for claiming and colonization, the article demonstrates that when it comes to Mars, the historical processes of imperial and capitalist management and organization of ‘new’ spaces are not the only options available for humans’ relationships with Mars.

Key words:

• Mars
• outer space
• space colonization
• terra nullius
• terraforming