MAR 98-088

The Rights of Mars
Robert Zubrin, Pioneer Astronautics, 445 Union Blvd. #125, Lakewood, CO 80228

In the past, new lands have served as laboratories for “noble experiments” in which new sets of rights could be tested as means of organizing human society on a more progressive basis than deemed practical in well-settled and organized home countries. The most obvious example of this process is the United States, in which a collection of basic rights, including freedom of press, religion, assembly, trial by jury, right to bear arms, and to vote for representative government were implemented in the face of widespread skepticism of educated European opinion, and by their success, set the pattern for the reorganization of human society on a higher basis globally. The author believes that there is a need for this process of experimentation to continue, and that Mars could serve as the laboratory for a further set of noble experiments, that could help humanity find its way to a still more human form of society.