I have doubts that Mars One will actually blast off in 2024 (or ever), let alone become a global reality show, but let’s say it does. What will govern this handful of astronauts should lawlessness occur as the cameras beam the crimes back to Earth? That’s what Anders Herlitz of Practical Ethics wonders.

I wonder something else: How will viewers respond when one of the astronauts dies onscreen on a strange and lonely planet? Since these transplanted Martians won’t be returning, death is a given. If the Apollo 11 astronauts had died on the moon, much of the world would have been inconsolable. Would that be the case now? Has reality TV, in all its glorious stupidity, prepared us for bad things happening to foolhardy people? Is the melding of the real and the fictional so ingrained in us now that the blow will be softened? And if so, does that say something good about us (sophistication, maturity, acceptance) or something bad (desensitization)?

From Herlitz:

“I wonder what happens when the first crime is committed. We are going to put four persons inside a spaceship. They will travel with this spaceship for a year. As they arrive to Mars, they will live together in a confined space for the foreseeable future. I wonder what happens when property rights for the first time are violated. What happens when Ann cheats Charlie and jumps out of the vessel before him, thus becoming the first man on Mars, even though they had an agreement that Charlie would be the first? What happens when the first punch is thrown? What happens when the first rape occurs, when the first murder is committed? There will be no law enforcement in any conventional sense. One wonders: will there even be laws? But perhaps more important: since the crew will not return to earth, there will be no consequences of these people’s actions beyond those that they inflict upon each other. And all of this will be broadcasted. We are about to put four volunteers from around the world in a small capsule, give them resources enough to survive for a very long time, and send them to a different planet on which they will live their lives, and we broadcast all this for the world to see. I wonder if this will not so much be a giant leap for mankind, as it will be the materialisation of Lord of the Flies in the arenaTM. Will this be a giant leap backward, where we turn space into a postmodern amphitheatre, and gather gladiators from around the world to meet there?”