Model Mars imagines the red planet fifty years in the future, when a few scattered settlements have taken hold. Those living and working on Mars have built comfortable and functional habitats, and have established a reliable infrastructure. With less time required for day-to-day survival, settlers can spend more time considering ways to augment and improve their Martian lives and communities. While years of experimentation and preparation on Earth offer workable models, few new standards or norms have been established on Mars.
Some settlers recognize a unique opportunity to invent (or reinvent) many elements of society, culture, commerce, health maintenance, education, economics and governance, and see this approach as preferable to importing institutions, systems and practices as developed on Earth. At present, however, there are more questions than answers:
Who relocates to Mars, and why? How can Mars become more than “Earth 2.0?”? What connections to Earth should be maintained? How important is community building in establishing eventual self-reliance? What factors determine wellness? Culture? Citizenship? Ownership? What happens when someone violates “rules” that are still uncodified? How can settlers engage in “commoning” activities that will benefit all living on Mars?
Model Mars is a unique platform offering youth (ages 12-18) opportunities to address some of these questions - and to ask more - as virtual settlers living in future communities on Mars. ****Inspired by the Model United Nations and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, Model Mars enables its participants to examine how life on Mars might evolve, in order to consider how we might do things differently, better, and in support of the sustainable development goals on Earth. Mars is not a Plan B or an alternative to Earth, it is a vehicle to explore humanity, question priorities and current models, and learn to do more with less.
(open to participants only)