So where is the section on one's rights on Mars and what security and punitive measures are going to be employed on this mission?
Well, to start with there are going to be four people. Just four. For a group that small (basically, your new family), if you cannot figure out how to manage together without some outside imposition of rules, you've no business in a colonist-scenario, IMHO. It is only over time (4 new colonists every couple of years) that the group grows to the point where governance is required. And, yeah, it makes a whole lot of sense to allwo them to work it out as they see fit over time.
And if the colonists government isn't profitable for the company, they just stop selling them air.
Cynic! Remember that at this stage, "profitable for the company" seems to be "makes interesting television". The whole point of this being a one-way trip is that the tech to get mass back off mars (really, the tech to refuel ships on Mars) does not yet exist. It follows that no significant cargo is coming off the planet, either. The only thing coming back is data.
I think you're looking at the training and the possibility of the project not going through in the wrong way. Going into the training is just a career change. People do it all the time. It's not like you'll come out the other side, (if the project fails), with no skills -- I mean, you're getting *training* in something.
Yes. Training in being a pioneer - a skillset largely unnecessary on Earth at this point. You're not training to do *a* thing, that you can do here instead of there. You're training to do a bazillion things.
I was thinking about this. There's a reason why the training program is 8 years long, and they don't care about your education level before going in, largely because you'll need a whole different set of skills to get by there. For example - you're sending people to Mars forever, right? Well, human teeth are not built to last forever. Someone is *going* to get a cavity. And, untreated, a tooth-root abscess can be miserable, lead to malnutrition and even death. So, someone (two someones, at least, as if you only have one, that one cannot give themselves a filling) will need training in basic dentistry. Just enough to get by, not enough to be a real dentist. Same for medicine. And for construction work and machining.
Basically, successful training for this mission will have to fit into Heinlein's adage, "Specialization is for insects." And that is a poor fit for modern Earthly life.
that's a big assumption that Skills for Mars are as marketable on earth as his original skills. Physicist and Vet are the kinds of jobs one doesn't leave and come back to (I know we'll get 3 examples of people who did).
I am sure it is possible, but it would be difficult, and I wouldn't go so far as to say it would be a sure-thing.
Bear in mind, half of the kind of people thinking about going on a one way reality show trip to Mars, are not deeply invested in a career on Earth. Whereas, Umbran and his Wife are.
Changing careers when you like the one you have, are successful in it, and are deeply invested in it is foolish and needless.
Or, at least something to be done only with great consideration.