The first thing to consider is who will hold sovereignty over the colony. It’s more than whose flag is on top of the habitation modules, it’s the power over life and death, responsibility for diplomacy and justice. A Mars project’s success is vital, whatever the founding organization’s ideology. This mission not only represents a genetic backup, it will act as the template for how we approach all future settlements, within our solar system and farther afield.

Colonists aren’t just tools to achieve this end, their role — their stake — in the project will dictate the sustainability of the settlement and those it prototypes. The human race cannot afford a Martian Roanoke, Jamestown, or East India Company — for the sake of our species and our future, this colony cannot fail or be reduced to a petri dish where we recreate our prejudiced history and cultures of the past.

The issue with corporate initiatives — as seen in countless sci-fi books and movies — is that colonists are treated as consumers, not citizens. Corporate settlements in human history benefited from undermining their colonists’ citizenship, using their de facto sovereignty to direct labor and profit from taxation and trade. SpaceX plans to put a staggering $500,000 ticket fee on the journey for prospective settlers, rendering colonization and genetic backup an option only for Earth’s immensely wealthy few.

If sci-fi alarm bells are ringing at this point, you’re probably thinking of Blomkamp’s Elysium, where the rich leave the polluted Earth for a utopian orbital, or Bioshock’s Rapture, a Randian haven beneath the Pacific Ocean. Notably, both collapse due to internal political conflicts and pressure from a disenfranchised working class. It’s not just a socioeconomic issue, but an approach to human worth that threatens the values we hope for. Look at Wall-E, with its humanity infantilized by consumerism, ruled by a tyranny of its own making — democratic despotism. The treatment of colonists as consumers perverts democracy and weakens the bonds of partnership essential for success of pioneer society. Crucially, Mars is more important than focusing on profit or recouping investments, and diversity is too important to only send those who can afford tickets.

If corporate sovereignty is undesirable, could a federal nationalist/ internationalist state of Mars work? Asimov’s “Foundation” series describes a federated galactic government, promoting trade and maintaining defensive fleets, while allowing autonomy for societies to govern their own matters internally. This kind of hands-off federalism could benefit our Martian colony; self-actualization and autonomy are absolutely vital, not as an ideological goal but as criteria of project success. Though initially Mars will rely on regular imports, extensive trading and political participation with Earth has to be emphatically discouraged for the sake of safety. Sharing an economy would undoubtedly stimulate Martian growth, but critical infrastructure independence — food, oxygen, machine tools, government — provides redundancy against species-wide existential threats. The very purpose for founding a Martian colony!

Our own history tells us the dangers of colonial overreliance on trade: Early in the 17th century, the Jamestown colony depended heavily on imported supplies, since its inhabitants lacked skills and resources for self-sufficiency. In the winter of 1609–1610, poor harvests and supply fleet failure led to mass starvation, driving settlers to cannibalism. Though The Martian’s Mark Watney is able to eke out rations and farm crops for himself, it’s unlikely that an entire society could survive dependent on vital supplies from a dying Earth.

Fundamentally, a federally administered Mars, governed from Earth, is problematic given that NASA and Elon Musk, founder and CEO of SpaceX, expect us to have boots on the ground around 2030. If we accept that a colony must represent humanity, not merely national interests, which institution could be the federal core? We live in an era where the European Union project faces extraordinary obstacles and the United Nations even lacks power to prevent wars of aggression by its own security council. Before thinking about a federally incorporated Mars, we have to tend our own garden first.