No, it would breach the Outer Space Treaty. This is the treaty that prevents Russia, China, etc from putting weapons of mass destruction in orbit, or claiming the Moon as a military base. None of the space faring nations, or aspiring space nations have shown any intention at all of breaking away from this treaty. If they did it would cause other nations to be extremely concerned about their long term intentions. Even North Korea has signed the OST and is not interested in breaking away from it.
In any case the surface of Mars is pretty much as inhospitable as the Moon. A near vacuum, you couldn't survive outside of a habitat, even for seconds, without a spacesuit. So the surface is pretty much valueless for habitability in its original state. Like the deserts and Antarctica - but more so.
We can set up habitats there, closed system habitats, that use some of the materials extracted from the surroundings. Maybe eventually get almost everything through mining of asteroids and ice deposits etc.
But still, even if we manage to create oases of life in such ways amongst the barren landscape - the rocks and the ice are abundant and useless in their current form. They are only useful - for human habitation - when made into habitats.
So I think for the foreseeable future, then nobody is likely to want to stake claim to those vast areas of regolith and rocks and ice. Not when it means withdrawing from the OST, the main treaty that permits peaceful exploration of space. But they will want to claim ownership of their habitats.
The habitats are covered by the OST, so long as they are occupied, then you own them, even if made of extraterrestrial materials. But it's a gray area for unoccupied habitats. The treaty says that they still belong to you, whoever made them, but that if not occupied, other nations can return them to Earth and give them back to you. Which is not exactly what settlers would want.
Also it would be natural to want to have some jurisdiction over an area around your habitat - for safety reasons if nothing else. There are various legal ideas about how this can be done compatible with the OST.
So - the OST is a good start. But these sorts of issues show that some day we will need to add to it or refine it.
It doesn't seem likely, in the near future, that we will need to scrap the OST, and it would be next to impossible to rewrite it, as just about every nation on the Earth has signed it including all those with even the most remote intentions of going into space. It's not easy to get an agreement between so many different nations with so many different viewpoints and it is a remarkable achievement.
So I expect instead that extra provisions will be added and agreed on by the main space faring nations compatible with the OST. Such as for instance provision of jurisdiction over approaching vessels and the immediate vicinity of the habitats.
Similarly some form of functional ownership of resources. If you start a mine, and are still working it, then it would be reasonable to say you have jurisdiction over that mine. But once abandoned, others can move in, so you only own it because you are using it.
In any case I don't see it likely, when it comes to it, that anyone will send humans to the surface of Mars in the near future for planetary protection reasons as you can see from my other answers here. Just don't see how such an expedition could satisfy the requirements for planetary protection of Mars which all nations have agreed to and decide on under the auspices of COSPAR - we need to protect Mars from Earth life, as one of the most interesting places to search for both past and present life in the solar system. Which could be "ET microbes" - probably as interesting or more interesting for their biology, if they exist, than any of the more "cuddly" rare creatures we have on Earth - they could revolutionize biology.
But we could get settlements on Deimos (especially if it has ice) studying Mars by telepresence from orbit, or on the Moon.
I see all those, at current stage of technology as likely to be like the settlements in Antarctica - high technology.
Trying to be self sufficient on Mars or the Moon or on Deimos, is like trying to be self sufficient in Antarctica, making your chips, spacesuits etc from resources mined in Antarctica in Antarctic conditions. But more so - because Mars is far more challenging than Antarctica. You have to build your habitats strong enough to hold in ten tons per square meter of outward pressure, and most likely have to dig below the ground, at any rate have to cover them with several meters thickness of soil to protect from the cosmic radiation. And outside the habitats, you can't breath the air and if your spacesuit is damaged you die. And any mining for ores to make your habitats and spacesuits etc has to be done in clumsy spacesuits, in vacuum conditinos, with stiff gloves etc.
It might be possible, with some future technology which we don't yet have, to be able to make everything you need to survive there. But if so, you'd spend all your time just surviving, and it hardly seems worth attempting to me, any more than trying to be self sufficient in Antarctica. At least in the near future, and unless we develop some technology (self replicating nanobots or whatever) that is truly game changing and "magical" compared with present day technology.
But as outreach settlements, like the Antarctic settlements, to help explore the solar system, supported with flow of resources from Earth to support them such as electronics, spacesuits, rocket engines, perhaps inflatable habitats etc all most easily made on Earth in the near future - and return of things valuable to Earth back - and with as much use of resources there as possible such as ice, metals etc - I can see human bases outside of Earth as likely to be of great value eventually, once we sort out the technology to do it.
For settlements like those, then like Antarctica, I can't see it likely to lead to conditions where nations want to lay claim to celestial bodies in defiance of the OST. More likely just scientific competition, and national competition more by way of competition for prestige of the research, like Antarctica.
Will We Meet ET Microbes On Mars? Why We Should Care Deeply About Them - Like Tigers
In any case the surface of Mars is pretty much as inhospitable as the Moon. A near vacuum, you couldn't survive outside of a habitat, even for seconds, without a spacesuit. So the surface is pretty much valueless for habitability in its original state. Like the deserts and Antarctica - but more so.
We can set up habitats there, closed system habitats, that use some of the materials extracted from the surroundings. Maybe eventually get almost everything through mining of asteroids and ice deposits etc.
But still, even if we manage to create oases of life in such ways amongst the barren landscape - the rocks and the ice are abundant and useless in their current form. They are only useful - for human habitation - when made into habitats.
So I think for the foreseeable future, then nobody is likely to want to stake claim to those vast areas of regolith and rocks and ice. Not when it means withdrawing from the OST, the main treaty that permits peaceful exploration of space. But they will want to claim ownership of their habitats.
The habitats are covered by the OST, so long as they are occupied, then you own them, even if made of extraterrestrial materials. But it's a gray area for unoccupied habitats. The treaty says that they still belong to you, whoever made them, but that if not occupied, other nations can return them to Earth and give them back to you. Which is not exactly what settlers would want.
Also it would be natural to want to have some jurisdiction over an area around your habitat - for safety reasons if nothing else. There are various legal ideas about how this can be done compatible with the OST.
So - the OST is a good start. But these sorts of issues show that some day we will need to add to it or refine it.
It doesn't seem likely, in the near future, that we will need to scrap the OST, and it would be next to impossible to rewrite it, as just about every nation on the Earth has signed it including all those with even the most remote intentions of going into space. It's not easy to get an agreement between so many different nations with so many different viewpoints and it is a remarkable achievement.
So I expect instead that extra provisions will be added and agreed on by the main space faring nations compatible with the OST. Such as for instance provision of jurisdiction over approaching vessels and the immediate vicinity of the habitats.
Similarly some form of functional ownership of resources. If you start a mine, and are still working it, then it would be reasonable to say you have jurisdiction over that mine. But once abandoned, others can move in, so you only own it because you are using it.
In any case I don't see it likely, when it comes to it, that anyone will send humans to the surface of Mars in the near future for planetary protection reasons as you can see from my other answers here. Just don't see how such an expedition could satisfy the requirements for planetary protection of Mars which all nations have agreed to and decide on under the auspices of COSPAR - we need to protect Mars from Earth life, as one of the most interesting places to search for both past and present life in the solar system. Which could be "ET microbes" - probably as interesting or more interesting for their biology, if they exist, than any of the more "cuddly" rare creatures we have on Earth - they could revolutionize biology.
But we could get settlements on Deimos (especially if it has ice) studying Mars by telepresence from orbit, or on the Moon.
I see all those, at current stage of technology as likely to be like the settlements in Antarctica - high technology.
Trying to be self sufficient on Mars or the Moon or on Deimos, is like trying to be self sufficient in Antarctica, making your chips, spacesuits etc from resources mined in Antarctica in Antarctic conditions. But more so - because Mars is far more challenging than Antarctica. You have to build your habitats strong enough to hold in ten tons per square meter of outward pressure, and most likely have to dig below the ground, at any rate have to cover them with several meters thickness of soil to protect from the cosmic radiation. And outside the habitats, you can't breath the air and if your spacesuit is damaged you die. And any mining for ores to make your habitats and spacesuits etc has to be done in clumsy spacesuits, in vacuum conditinos, with stiff gloves etc.
It might be possible, with some future technology which we don't yet have, to be able to make everything you need to survive there. But if so, you'd spend all your time just surviving, and it hardly seems worth attempting to me, any more than trying to be self sufficient in Antarctica. At least in the near future, and unless we develop some technology (self replicating nanobots or whatever) that is truly game changing and "magical" compared with present day technology.
But as outreach settlements, like the Antarctic settlements, to help explore the solar system, supported with flow of resources from Earth to support them such as electronics, spacesuits, rocket engines, perhaps inflatable habitats etc all most easily made on Earth in the near future - and return of things valuable to Earth back - and with as much use of resources there as possible such as ice, metals etc - I can see human bases outside of Earth as likely to be of great value eventually, once we sort out the technology to do it.
For settlements like those, then like Antarctica, I can't see it likely to lead to conditions where nations want to lay claim to celestial bodies in defiance of the OST. More likely just scientific competition, and national competition more by way of competition for prestige of the research, like Antarctica.
Will We Meet ET Microbes On Mars? Why We Should Care Deeply About Them - Like Tigers
About the Author
Robert Walker
Writer of articles on Mars and Space issues - Software Developer of Tune Smithy, Bounce Metronome etc.Studied at Wolfson College, Oxford
Lives in Isle of Mull
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