date: February 1st, 2016

The opportunity of colonization of other planet in the Solar system is the current real challenge for the humanity. This issue is considered especially by the experts in the field of engineering sciences. However, we can find an important challenge also for philosophy and the social sciences. Let us assume that the human technology will allow prepare the highly developed transport modes and spacecrafts. Assume that also other troublesome and strategical for survival issues will be solved as living in such specific and unnatural Martian environment, water, food and air supply, etc. It appears that these issues will not be the great trouble because now we can find at least two projects of the Mars colonization. One of them, commercial project known as MarsOne is a plan to send in the next ten years four people on Mars. These volunteers will live there forever. The other great mission of Mars colonization is preparing by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). For example, the current recruitment for the new astronauts by NASA is made for the purpose of the future human missions on Mars. Beside technological challenges, we can find some ethical, social, political and cultural issues associated with the future Mars colony. It seems that its development is the great puzzle which is rather impossible to predict. We can refer only to the human evolutionary past and we can try to predict the possible future development of the Martian society only by comparison with the human evolution on the Earth. The most important questions are as follows: - What kind of social organization will be developed by the future Mars colony? - Which type of society could be the best option? - Which norms and values will be developed by the Martians? - What about the natural human tendency to aggression, conflict and, at least, to strong competition? - What will be the attitude of the Martians towards the Earth? You can find more questions and some preliminary answers in the following papers: Konrad Szocik, “Unseen challenges in a Mars colony”, Spaceflight, January 2016, Vol 58, pp. 20-23; Konrad Szocik, “Etyka kolonizatorów Marsa” (“Ethics of Mars colonizers”).