That most likely would have happened anyway. Even without Columbus's voyage, the existence of ships capable of intercontinental travel would have led to an an encounter that would have played out much the same way: decimation of the population by foreign pathogens from a society with strong immunity due to high population density, ensuing collapse the native states that may have been able to organize resistance, looting of mass quantities of gold and silver, and mass agricultural slavery. The only difference would have been a slightly greater technological edge for the invaders.
Also, there's nothing special about Europeans. If the explorers had been from China via the eastern region, the scenario would likely have played out the same way. Up until modern times, most warfare was either about power, e.g. preventing a rising rival or conquering a falling power, or extraction, where the goal was to remove as much wealth as possible in as short a period of time as feasible. Given human history, extractive warfare against the native population by militarily superior Eurasian invaders would be the expected outcome.
So no, I doubt the lack of Columbus's voyage would have done more than set back the timetable a bit, or changed the players. Societies in Eurasia just had too much of a biological (germs from city density), technological, and organizational advantage.
That said, what's unique about the Mars colonization idea is that we may have a limited time window in which to try it. Given that our chief sources of energy are non-renewable, we are living in a golden age of cheap production. We haven't so polluted space for Kessler syndrome to lock us in. We even have precociously advanced space technology due to the huge boost from the USA-USSR space race.
Right now we're watching our space programs atrophy. There may be a limited amount of time to get a viable off-world colony going.
Sure, right now we're talking about an Antarctica-style bunker mission, the Martian equivalent of Apollo. But to get to a true space colony you have to start somewhere.
Mostly agreed, but having a truly independent Martian colony will surely require millions of people to be transported there, and millions of tons of material. If non-renewable fuels or Kessler syndrome are ever going to be a problem, then any colony we found today is doomed to die waiting for the next shipment of stuff from Earth.
Agreed. Colonization must include a very high degree of self-sufficiency. Occupation is a prerequisite for colonization, and the window to do the work necessary to complete the task of a true colony may not be that large.
Did Europe have that long to wait? Hell, the Aztecs were pretty advanced. Maybe if they started sailing, they could have brought all the diseases of the Americas to Europe and Africa. Then they could have had an adventure in pyramid-building and blood-sacrifice among the decimated peoples of the "Old World"! (Hat-tip: OSC)
Actually, it's thought that few diseases (perhaps only limited to venereal diseases) were brought back to Eurasia from the Americas. Thoughts on this range from the higher densities Europeans may have been living at and the much higher contact with many more varied types of animals. Though I'm not sure we know exactly.
Yeah I've read Diamond's book too. b^) The livestock hypothesis is plausible, but another model would be the following, from the perspective of the crew of explorers:
Crew carries all diseases endemic to their native land. Crew travels to foreign land. Now foreign land has all diseases endemic to native land, and crew has some diseases endemic to foreign land. (The all/some asymmetry I get from the assumption that a crew of nothing-to-lose sailors are likely to be better-traveled than the tribe that inhabits their landing site.) Some or all of crew dies of these foreign diseases while in foreign land. Whatever portion of crew returns to native land carries foreign diseases that are survivable from a no-immunity starting point. Population of foreign land has all native diseases, including those such as smallpox which will leave alive but a fraction of a population that has no immunity.
Hypothetical question: if we had indeed ended war, famine, etc. in the known world before finding the new world, would genocide and slavery still have ensued?
Most likely many people would have still died. Much of the genocide was precipitated by (unintended) biological factors. Perhaps more of those civilizations would have survived, but they would have still be reverse-decimated (decivivimated?) by disease.
If we cared enough to end war I would have hoped we would have ended slavery as well.
Ha, there's something absurd about the idea of sending a bunch of people to a distant planet just to get their hands on a bit of shiny, somewhat rare rock.
I don't know the math offhand, but the return trip from Mars would take far less fuel than the initial trip. The atmosphere is almost non-existent and Mars' gravity is about 2/5 of Earth's. Similar to our experience on the moon, it took a Saturn V to get to the moon, but the Lunar Lander + CSM were enough to get back to earth from there.
Solar panels and water gets you all the fuel you ever need. One of the things that is interesting is finding asteroids with water and parking a solar panel on them to quietly sit and make hydrogen so that you have loads of refueling stations zipping around the inner solar system.
