THE INTERNATIONAL BASE

PER-SEAT PRICE
With full reusability and refueling in Earth orbit, Starship will dramatically reduce the per-seat price for travel to the Moon and Mars. However, the first seats to the Moon and Mars will be expensive due to the need for SpaceX to recover its considerable development costs.

Nations have far deeper pockets than even its most wealthy citizens. So it seems reasonable that nations will be the first to send their national astronaut heroes to explore the Moon and Mars on behalf of their citizens and in their own languages. Not only that, but as an International Base is established, those nations will likely leave most of their astronauts to remain behind to continue to represent their nations in the base.

INTERNATIONAL DEMAND
It seems that, given the opportunity, countries jump at the chance so send their astronaut representatives to space. As of this writing, 37 countries have had their national astronauts in space including on the Mir and Interational Space Stations and there are several other countries that are planning on following suit. As Starship greatly reduces the per-seat cost of going to space, many more nations will seize the opportunity to do so.

NEED FOR COORDINATION
Given the number of nations in the world (195), and how many Starship seats the wealthier nations could purchase, the demand may exceed the number of interesting places to visit on the Moon. And if there is no coordination then the wealthier nations could visit all of the most interesting sites leaving the poorer nations to only repeat what has already been done. That doesn't seem right.

Furthermore, there are some nations that are so small that they wouldn't be able to purchase one seat even at Starships "every day low prices". That too doesn't seem right.

We propose that a group be established that would coordinate lunar and Martian exploration so that all nations will have the opportunity to conduct a newsworthy exploration on behalf of their people. The Space Development Network has developed a website that discusses this in good detail: DevelopSpace.info/international. Check it out.

In a nutshell, all newsworthy sites, artifacts, specialty habs, and activities would be identified. A large series of missions (perhaps about 130) would be designed. Some would be single nation missions while others missions would be groupings (e.g. a Polynesian exploration mission). Nations who have some claim to a site (e.g. American apollo site, craters names after Greek individuals) would be able to choose their site and assign the others to nations of their choice.

Missions within a category (e.g. lava tubes, pits, depressions, and the one arch) would be ordered so that the less newsworthy mission would be done first so that interest will be maintained. Also, there could be a clustering of missions such as a month of missions driving along significant ridges on the Moon. Some of the specialty habs could be assigned to nations for which there is some connection (e.g. Iraq with its history of the hanging gardens of Babylon could assemble the large GardenHab).

ARTIFACTS
Sites to visit fall into a set of categories. Artifacts are human-made objects and features. On the Moon, this includes the Apollo sites, landers, rovers, and (upper stage) impact sites. However, special care is needed to ensure that these sites are preserved for future generations to visit. Footprints on the Moon will remain there a very long time. So we need to think about how the foot and rover prints of the first visitors can be preserved as a historic record. Along with this could be a project designing tourist visitor centers. One fascinating concept is to have a couple of towers with a suspension wire between them in which tourists can ride in a gondola over an Apollo site (for example). By so doing, they would be able to get very close to the artifacts without leaving behind their footprints.

NATURAL FEATURES
Natural features for the Moon fall into the following categories: Young and old craters, lava pits, irregular mare patches, volcanoes, magnetic anomalies, rilles, valleys, mountains, and ridges.

Lava pits would be of particular interest. These fall into five categories including: Depresssions, large pits, skylights, many skylights/pits, fractures, and the one arch.

Irregular mare patches are some pretty strange-looking sites. They are fresh whitish, eroded deposits. Scientists are not entirely sure how they were created. Perhaps some salt-containing gasses came up through the lunar dirt creating these deposits. In-person astronautic exploration of this site would be quite interesting to watch.

Magnetic anomalies are thought to have formed when lava solidified in the context of a lunar magnetic field thereby essentially leaving behind a large bar magnet. Over time, the solar wind is diverted according to these magnetic field lines with the result being an aura-like image being imprinted on the lunar dirt.

The Space Development Network believes that telerobotic rovers could explore all of these sites at far lower cost and more safely than astronauts could. But we believe that we shouldn't let the robots have all of the fun but should retain the excitement of newsworthy exploration for we humans to do.

ACTIVITIES
International missions could also include some creative activities. Could we watch a friendly rover race between a couple of nations. How about the first symphony from the Moon? The first basketball game in which the hoops are six times higher than normal. And finally, who will be the first to put on wings and fly in 1/6th gravity inside a large inflatable?

INTERNATIONAL MARS EXPLORATION
We have focused on the Moon because it will be the first to be thoroughly explored. But with Starship, international Mars exploration will not be far behind. Similar activities with the addition of the search for life will likewise be conducted on Mars. In particular, Mars has the largest volcano and canyon in the solar system and many interesting landforms. There are also robotic artifacts on Mars.

INTERNATIONAL BASE
With hundreds or even thousands of international astronauts going to the Moon and Mars, it would seem logical to establish an increasingly large international base at each location. In fact, after they conduct their mission of exploration, their main job could be to further expand the International Base one specialty hab at a time. Meanwhile, the international astronauts could, on an ongoing basis, conduct less newsworthy but scientifically significant missions.

NATIONS OFF EARTH
As the population of the Internation Base grows over time, private individuals will start to come and in fact will begin to exceed the number of international astronauts already there.

To move to the Moon or Mars, you have to have lived long enough to build up a significant savings in order to affort the move. So older people will be over-represented among the residents. Older people have greater difficulty learning a new language and people generally like to live in a setting where they can easily communicate with their neighbors. So, we anticipate that the International Base will start to have different language sections.

This natural grouping of people according to language, religion, and politics will form the basis for the establishment of new colonies elsewhere on the Moon and Mars. When such people groups reach perhaps 50,000, we could imagine that they may choose to govern themselves independently. When they become a new political entity, if they choose not to sign the Outer Space Treaty then they will not be bound by the prohibition of declaring sovereign territory. But such claims could form the basis for future conflict with competing claims.

We believe that such conflict should be prevented. America's Northwest Ordinance could be a useful historic example of how borders can be established without leading to conflict. Also, localized resources should be developed in such a way where the developers are rewarded for their work but where the resources cannot be monopolized nor excluded from people groups provided they pay according to the free market prices. With dirt roads and self-driving cargo vehicles, resources from anywhere on the Moon and Mars can be transported anywhere else in a few days. So a free trade concept would allow settlements to be established anywhere on the Moon or Mars.