Johnny

Space. Elon. Mars.

[Johnny @1marscolonizer]

at some point in the far future there will be a last human to leave earth. and that moment will be the most significant event in the 4.5 billion year history of this planet

earth existed for 4 billion years before anything on it could think. then for 300,000 years one species slowly figured out fire, language, agriculture, mathematics, physics, and rocketry. and then that species left. and eventually the last one of them looked back at the planet from orbit and saw it for the final time

we won't know when it happens. it might be a planned evacuation from a dying sun in 5 billion years. it might be a catastrophic event in 500 years. it might be a gradual migration over centuries as mars and the outer planets become more developed than earth. however it happens, one human will be last

every footprint ever left on every beach. every city ever built. every song ever written. every war ever fought. every love story that ever happened. all of it occurred on that one sphere. and the last human to leave it will carry the weight of all of that in a single backward glance

the dinosaurs were here for 165 million years and left nothing. no record. no memory. no continuation. they were erased completely. we've been here for 300,000 years and we're already building ships to ensure our story continues on other worlds

the difference between us and every other species that ever existed on earth is that we're the only ones who can choose to not go extinct. every other species that came before us was subject to whatever the planet decided to do. we're the first ones who can leave

that's what spacex is actually building. not rockets. not a transportation company. an exit door for a species that has never had one before

the most important door in human history is being built right now in boca chica texas by a guy who posts memes at 2am. and most people are too distracted to notice

[Johnny @1marscolonizer]

the first person to die on mars will create a problem that nobody at spacex has publicly addressed

on earth when someone dies we bury them or cremate them. both options exist because of earth's specific conditions. abundant oxygen for cremation. soil full of microorganisms that decompose a body over years. neither of these conditions exist on mars

mars soil contains no decomposition bacteria. a buried body on mars would be preserved almost perfectly for thousands of years. potentially tens of thousands. the cold, the lack of moisture, and the absence of microbes means the body simply doesn't break down

cremation requires enormous amounts of energy. on a mars colony where every kilowatt is precious and life support depends on power generation, burning a body is an extravagant use of resources that the colony may not be able to justify

so what do you do. you can't bury them because they won't decompose and eventually you run out of burial space. you can't easily cremate them because the energy cost is too high. you can't send them back to earth because the launch window only opens every 26 months and the fuel cost is astronomical

the most likely solution is composting. using controlled biological processes to convert the body into soil that can be used to grow food in the colony's greenhouses. the first person to die on mars may literally become the nutrients that feed the people who survive

that's not morbid. that's the most beautiful version of the circle of life ever conceived. on earth we return to the earth. on mars we return to the garden that keeps the colony alive

the first mars funeral won't look like anything we recognize. it will look like a planting ceremony

[Johnny @1marscolonizer]

the first person to get married on mars will probably do it around 2040. and nobody has thought about what that actually means legally

mars has no government. no legal system. no courts. no jurisdiction. no country owns it. the outer space treaty of 1967 explicitly prohibits any nation from claiming sovereignty over mars. so the marriage certificate can't be issued by any country because no country has authority there

who officiates it. under whose law is it binding. what happens if they divorce. which court has jurisdiction over a separation agreement on a planet with no legal system. what about property rights on a world where property law doesn't exist yet

the first mars wedding won't just be a ceremony. it will be the first legal act that forces humanity to confront the question: who governs mars. and that question will define the next 500 years of human civilization more than any question we're currently debating on earth

the united states constitution doesn't apply on mars. neither does chinese law. neither does european law. the people who live there will have to write their own. from scratch. for the first time since the american revolution, a group of humans will sit down with a blank page and decide how they want to be governed

the first wedding will be romantic. the legal framework it forces into existence will be revolutionary. a couple saying "i do" on another planet will accidentally trigger the creation of the first extraterrestrial legal system

and the person who writes the first mars constitution will be more historically significant than anyone alive today. we just don't know their name yet

[Johnny @1marscolonizer]

the first human baby born on mars will have never experienced rain, never heard thunder, never felt wind on their skin, and never seen a blue sky. they will grow up looking at earth as a tiny blue dot in the night sky the same way we look at mars as a tiny red dot in ours

that child will be the first human in 300,000 years of our species whose bones develop in 38% gravity. their skeleton will be longer and thinner than any earth human. their heart will be smaller because it doesn't need to pump blood as hard against gravity. their muscles will develop differently. they will be, in a very real biological sense, the first of a new kind of human

if they ever visit earth they would struggle to walk. the gravity would feel like wearing a suit made of lead. the air would feel thick and heavy. the sun would be blinding because mars receives 43% less sunlight. earth would feel hostile and overwhelming to a person built for mars

within 3-4 generations of mars-born humans, the biological divergence will be measurable. taller frames. thinner bones. different cardiovascular systems. different lung capacity adapted to lower atmospheric pressure. different eye structure adapted to lower light levels

at some point a mars-born human and an earth-born human will meet and the differences will be visible. not dramatically. subtly. but enough to notice. that's the beginning of human speciation. two branches of the same species diverging because they live on different planets

this will happen within the lifetime of people reading this tweet. not in a thousand years. not in science fiction. within the next 50-80 years. the generation that colonizes mars will be the last generation of a single-planet humanity. everything after that is something new

we are the last humans who will only know earth. our grandchildren might be the first who think of it as the old world

[Johnny @1marscolonizer]

Good morning.