07 Sep Earthlings haven’t any vested fascination with the status quo on Mars, and no one else seems to either.
Before then, it is an ecological and economic free-for-all. Already, as Impey pointed off to the AAAS panel, private companies are involved with a place race of sorts. For the time being, the ones that are viable aided by the blessing of NASA, catering directly to its (governmental) needs. But if capitalism becomes the force that is driving space travel – whether through luxury vacations to the Moon, safari tours of Europa, mining asteroids for precious minerals, or turning alien worlds into microbial gardens we harvest for ourselves – the total amount struck between preservation and exploitation, unless strictly defined and powerfully enforced, are going to be at risk of shifting in accordance with companies’ profit margins.