Visits to Mars could be essential to prevent the collapse of civilization

TL;DR:
- serious archeology done on Mars might teach us about systematic civilization-destroying events;
- these events could then be avoided on Earth.

Should we devote resources to transporting humans to Mars (and back)? This question sparks disagreement: Some say it’s a waste of time and effort that could be better spent solving problems on this planet. For many proponents of such a mission, however, it promises a childhood dream come true.

I think there is one reason — one that is rarely brought up — why anyone interested in human welfare (and the livelihood of our planet) should also be interested in sending actual people to Mars. To illustrate my reasoning, I will make and defend some assumptions: One, human civilization currently is at a fragile state, something we ought to change, but we can’t agree on the direction of change. Two, there are systematic reasons why we have not yet seen off-Earth civilizations. Three, archeology can teach us important lessons, but it can only be reasonably conducted with human-level cognitive and motor flexibility.

Is it just me who worries about the stability of our civilization as a whole? Our handling of the Covid19 problem was far from perfect, and this was not even one of the worst viruses imaginable, not by a long shot. The political landscape seems to be getting more extreme, which to me is an indicator that we are facing critical decisions about what to do. While it can be argued that many of us are better off than our ancestors, humanity as a whole seems to be in a very vulnerable position right now. The clock is ticking. Joscha Bach puts it well:

Why, on top of all this, should we care to send people to Mars? Almost all proponents of such missions cite the following reasons:

1. to learn about the mineral geology of Mars and to understand how the solar system evolved
2. to make life multiplanetary and to make Mars a surrogate planet on which we might test new systems of government
3. to answer whether or not life is widespread in the universe

All of these reasons seem relevant in some way. Admittedly, the last point comes pretty close to my point below. However, I doubt many are interested in philosophical curiosities like whether or not there are aliens out there. However, I think the most relevant reason to send humans to Mars is to find empirical evidence of realistic civilization-destroying events — those that destroyed a past Martian civilization and those that we are most likely to face as well.

Why would there even be a past Martian civilization?

All the data so far from space probes and rovers strongly suggest that Mars had a much warmer climate with flowing water in the past — and not only that, Mars is thought to have been habitable hundreds of millions of years before Earth. Enough time for evolutionary processes to figure out how to glue those amino acids together and form proteins that, equipped with all sorts of mechanical functions, could serve cells and themselves. From then on, the evolution of complex life is a no-brainer. I am not saying that life actually began on Mars. I am only saying that there are arguments that should really be taken seriously, and that the idea should not be discarded at the first failures to detect signs of life there.

Besides, the planet’s deadness is more of a feature than a bug: without a living water cycle (and without melting landscapes like on Venus), there are hardly any chemical processes that would wash away relics of Martians forever.
So let’s say we find Martian smartphones buried in the Martian soil. What would that mean? Well, it would provide empirical evidence of what can lead to the collapse of a civilization.

To illustrate this, consider the Fermi paradox. If

1) there are a number of Earth-like planets out there beyond our comprehension,
2) and life evolves on some of them,
3) and this life becomes more and more complex,
4) and intelligence develops,
5) and then a civilization,
and space travel within that civilization,
6) and a species that masters physics, then …

… it must be considered paradoxical that we could not find clear evidence of extraterrestrial civilizations out there. A single Earth-like planet with a super-advanced civilization would be sufficient to have already made contact with them. While several solutions to this paradox exist and new ones keep coming, the “great filter” theory seems to have stood the test of time. It basically states that there are natural events that almost no life can pass on any planet. However, it is unclear what these events, or “big filters,” might be:

• Is it the first appearance of cells evolving from non-living materials? Is the life on Earth part of the unique life throughout the universe?
• Is it natural disasters that seem to occur periodically? Have we been fortunate so far to have evolved between two such catastrophes?
• Is it the development of intelligence and civilization? What did it take for that to happen? If we are the only species with so much power over our environment, what did it take and why is it so rare?
• Or, most importantly: Is it the demise of civilization due to poor leadership and decisions?

We don’t know.

So this is my proposition: Mars should be visited by humans to do serious archaeology. And if we find technological relics of a past civilization, it probably means that the great filter is still ahead, waiting to put to rest everything that everyone who has ever lived has ever known. In that case, we had better find out what led to the collapse of civilization on Mars before we run into a similar situation on Earth. To gain empirical data on major filter events after civilization began. To gain leverage before it’s too late.

All this space talk is no longer a naive teenage dream. With all the hard work SpaceX has driven itself to do (just look at their production of Starship — it’s incredible), research in search of our great filter is a real possibility, and I think we should have serious conversations about it. To put it metaphorically, it is a very low-hanging fruit, and we would be foolish not to take it. We are not going to take it away from anybody or anything else, and otherwise it will start to rot.

I thank you for your consideration, and would like to close with some caveats.

I am a psychological researcher. I have at best a rudimentary familiarity with geology, areology, astronomy, physics in general, and the detailed history of space exploration by probes. I know even less about archaeology; it may be that technological relics of a past Martian civilization would have been easily discovered by human robotic descendants on Mars: Sojourner, Spirit, Opportunity, Curiosity, Perseverance, Ingenuity. If this is the case, please let me know. However, I strongly doubt it. To this day, thanks to tireless human excavation, flexible planning, and virtually limitless mobility, unknown ancient relics are being found on Earth, and there is no end in sight.
Therefore, I believe that human exploration of Mars might just save our civilization.