America ... Mars?

Trying to use my time here in MSP well
Did read part of hardcopy (rare for me, online is quick, easy and hands clean)

Found the following - but not online
My New Year wish is that we return to the time and attitude of can-do/will-do, not one of flash/bling and entitlement - both rich and poor.

From “The Emigrant’s Guide” (1829) by British writer William Cobbett:

“One great advantage in America is, that there is nobody to overshadow men of moderate property; no swaggering, shining, tax-eating wretches to set examples of extravagance, wealth, not according to what is called birth, but according to the real intrinsic merit of the party: this is a wonderful advantage.”pride and insolence to your sons and daughters, who are brought up in the habit of seeing men estimated, not according to the show that they make, not according to their supposed"

Above the the above piece was :

A New Land of Opportunity
One way to recapture the frontier spirit and relearn the value of hard work, self-reliance and risk-taking.

By GLENN HARLAN REYNOLDS

Back when America was being settled, enterprising authors in Europe published books and pamphlets aimed at would-be immigrants, offering advice on how to flourish in the New World. Some of the advice was sound, and some of it wasn't, but readers devoured them anyway.


With "How to Live on Mars," Robert Zubrin has produced a new entry in the genre -- a guidebook for settlers to a place that hasn't been settled yet, written in the present tense of a future that won't happen for a hundred years. It makes for amusing and interesting reading and in some ways may capture the feel of a colonization-in-progress Mars better than more sober works about the challenges of planetary habitation.

Mr. Zubrin -- who has degrees in both astronautics and nuclear engineering -- has himself written plenty of more sober works on the subject of Mars, including "The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must" (1996). But unlike many scientists and engineers, he is interested in human nature as much as the laws of nature, and he understands that life on a frontier is very different from life in a society without one.

Thus the Mars that Mr. Zubrin describes is a place where opportunity and risk are both much higher than on late 21st-century Earth -- or, for that matter, early 21st-century Earth. The bold and enterprising can succeed big, or fail big, without fear of confiscatory taxes or hope of government bailouts. Getting ahead calls for a keen mind, a strong back, and a willingness to work hard and take chances; opportunities to succeed by manipulating laws and regulations are harder to come by -- though, humans being human, not entirely absent even on Mars.

Some of the qualities of the new world on Mars are outlined in a chapter titled "How to Get a Good Job That Pays Well and Doesn't Kill You." Mr. Zubrin opens by observing: "There is no point writing a chapter about 'how to get a job' on Mars because the problem does not exist. I know that this statement must sound unbelievable to you, coming as you do from a planet where your primary lifelong concern has been to find a way to convince some institution to grant you a livelihood in exchange for service, but that is not how things work here. . . . Earth has a labor surplus, while Mars has a labor shortage." As for possible work, he observes that crucial "fluorosilicate minerals are sometimes encountered in significant concentrations in the highlands. So, if you are up for a little field exploration, one way to make some serious money is just to go out and find the stuff and stake some claims."

Evidently, there is lots of honest work on a planet under settlement (as well as a lot of potentially lucrative semi-honest work in land speculation). And the shortage of people produces a number of other differences from Earth, not least when it comes to dating, sex and parenting. "I need to discuss one fact concerning our social life that inevitably startles and amazes all new Earthling immigrants . . . ," Mr. Zubrin writes. "On Mars, the institution of marriage still exists. I am not making this up. . . . Incredible as it sounds, people on Mars actually want to have children of their own and they form families for that purpose. Thus, while sexual attractiveness is a factor among us while seeking pairings, unlike Earth, it is not the only factor." Concerned with getting ahead and raising families, Mars settlers view traditional attributes like loyalty and trustworthiness as far more important than do the residents of Earth, who, as best as can be determined from Mr. Zubrin's passing allusions, live in one gigantic welfare state.

If "How to Live on Mars" is in the vein of 19th- century guides to the New World, it is also in the tradition of futuristic fiction -- using a hypothetical future society as a way of pointing up trends and problems in our own. There seems little question that Mr. Zubrin views the values of a frontier as superior to those of a closed civilization. He begins with a quotation from the historian Frederick Jackson Turner: "To the frontier the American intellect owes its striking characteristics. That coarseness of strength combined with acuteness and inquisitiveness; that practical, inventive turn of mind, quick to find expedients; that masterful grasp of material things." Mr. Zubrin has written elsewhere that he believes the outlet and example of a frontier is necessary for the long-term survival of freedom for those who remain behind.

Such frontier values are perhaps unfashionable in the age of Hope and Change, but they are widely held among Americans nonetheless. If "How to Live on Mars" inspires a greater enthusiasm for opening frontiers in space, it will have served a good purpose. But it will have done as much if it merely succeeds in reminding people of the importance of things like enterprise, hard work and self-reliance.

Mr. Reynolds, a professor of law at the University of Tennessee, serves on the Board of Advisors of the National Space Society.