The Mars Society, a non-profit organization, has announced progress in creating an innovative startup incubator in the Seattle area that will specialize in artificial intelligence and biotechnology. This initiative aims to support the development of technologies necessary for sustaining settlements on Mars.
At the annual conference of the Mars Society at Washington University, President Robert Zubrin emphasized the importance of a highly innovative Martian colony. He noted that innovations created on Mars will meet the needs of the colony but can also be licensed on Earth, becoming a key economic pillar of the Martian city-state.
To bring this vision to life, the Mars Society is establishing the Mars Technology Institute, modeled after Y Combinator in the technology industry. The institute will provide seed capital and guidance to promising enterprises in exchange for equity.
James Burke, the executive director of the Mars Society in Seattle, has been in talks with government officials and representatives of other organizations in the Seattle area, including Bellevue College, to create a home base for the institute. These discussions may yield results in the coming months.
The first startup of the society is already in development. The enterprise, codenamed Athena, has raised $150,000 in crowdfunding and is focused on creating an expert system based on AI. This system will combine search engine tools with curatorial expertise in space engineering and will be able to reflect various perspectives on the correct technological approach to tasks.
In the field of biotechnology, the Mars Society plans to establish an incentive award for methods in which microbes are used to convert simple chemical substances, such as methane or methanol, into food products. Such efficiency would be particularly valuable on Mars, which cannot compare to Earth in terms of sunlight levels and available nutrients. This idea has already caught the attention of several companies in China working on similar projects.
While the Mars Society is also interested in nuclear fission and fusion technologies, it has postponed this initiative due to the high entry point for involvement in these technologies. Instead, the organization will focus on more accessible areas such as AI and biotechnology to ensure a successful launch of the startup incubator.
Overall, the Mars Society is making significant progress in creating a startup incubator that will contribute to the development of technologies needed to sustain settlements on Mars while also generating profits on Earth. This initiative includes the establishment of the Mars Technology Institute, the launch of the first AI-focused startup, the establishment of an incentive award in biotechnology, and the exploration of possibilities in advanced nuclear fission and fusion technologies in the future.