I think this whole argument boils down to "people need to be inspired to do something great". Settling Antarctica isn't as inspiring as colonizing Mars.
But in my estimation, colonizing Mars would run out of steam really quickly. Mars is horribly inhospitable, yes, but it's also pretty boring. There isn't that much geological diversity, and there's no life. You wouldn't want to take a vacation there. I know there's going to be a lot of people here who are going to say "No! Mars is really cool!" The people here aren't normal. Living in a cave underground without being able to go outside and see the sun or take a walk is a nightmare for most people.
Landing on Mars could inspire lots of people. But once it's done, its mystique is just going to wear off. People will lose interest and it'll be about as interesting as Antarctica. And then what?
The "Terra Ignota" series really gets into this question in a way that finally broke me out of what I agree to be a sort of "faith" in the Idea of Mars. For me, Mars has always been an obvious target for the reasons discussed here re: inspiration, but also because I feel terror at the idea of all of our species on one planet with no backup.
In Terra Ignota, there's a "nation" (the novel has a radically different concept of sovereign states an nationhood than our world today) composed of people who many here I think would identify with: they take a vow both of productivity and leisure so as to maximize their potential ability to contribute to the betterment of the human race, and their national obsession is the eventual (500 year timeline) colonization of Mars.
(spoilers)
A critical ideological revelation in the novel is that despite the fact that basically the entire nation is obsessed with the eventual colonization of Mars (they send their bodily remains there so as to increase the organic biomass), when push came to shove for the idea of actually putting people on the planet, it was realized by many in the nation that they don't actually want to abandon all of humanity on Earth for a life sentence of scrabbling out a hard life on Mars. Not because they don't want to put in the work, they are arguably the hardest working society in the series, but more like, it would just separate them for the remainder of their lives from all of humanity, and they have to acknowledge to themselves that they don't want that.
As cool as you can make Mars with improving colonization technologies,I think that for a ticket to Mars to be economical from a labor, safety, equipment, and resources standpoint, it has to be one way. It has to be you telling yourself that you will die on Mars, away from all of humanity but the smallest slice. I think that's a pill too bitter to swallow.
And what a fate to impose on your children. You personally may choose the hardest road, but your unborn children would have no choice in the matter, and those future children would be essential to a permanent colony.
Moral dilemma: What if children conceived and born on Mars (if that's even medically viable) decide that Mars totally sucks, and they want to migrate to Earth?
Do we build a wall around Earth and stop them as "illegal aliens"?
Seriously, life on Earth is likely to be much better, much easier than life on Mars, so there's going to be a desire among a significant number of Martians to leave, just as there's a desire among Earthlings to move for a better life. Then what? In order to keep the Mars colony sufficiently "staffed", do you turn it into a totalitarian regime, where nobody can leave? No personal freedom?
How many of us want to sacrifice our lives and our happiness just to be a "backup plan"?
I rarely if ever hear space enthusiasts talk about the morality of a Mars colony. They act like it's just a technological problem, and it's somehow a given that we can put large numbers of humans wherever we want, whether or not the humans themselves would want that.
> Moral dilemma: What if children conceived and born on Mars (if that's even medically viable) decide that Mars totally sucks, and they want to migrate to Earth?
This is essentially the plot of Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson (albeit on a generation ship heading mission to another solar system(
Moral dilemma: What if children conceived and born on Earth decide that Earth totally sucks, and they want to migrate to Mars?
Do we build a wall around Mars and tell them their shitty life on earth is all they get, and they should be happy with antarctica?
I think your moral argument can easily be flipped, why do you get to decide that we shouldnt do something because there exist people who dont want to do it? What of the the people who do?
> Do we build a wall around Mars and tell them their shitty life on earth is all they get, and they should be happy with antarctica?
I'm not personally in favor of the "colonize Antarctica" approach. It's true that if we can't figure out how to colonize someplace like Antarctica first, then it's unlikely we'd be successful on Mars, but I'm not advocating the colonization of Mars anyway.
> If you dont want to go, then dont go...
This completely ignores what I said, which was "You personally may choose the hardest road, but your unborn children would have no choice in the matter".
> I guess i see children having to deal with choices their parents made a part of life.
Most responsible parents strive to make the lives of their children better rather than worse. Not always successfully of course, but it's the goal, and going to Mars is predictably worse.
> Would the offer of a trip back to earth for any child born on mars go any way to overcoming your concerns?
It might allay the moral dilemma, but it would increase the concerns about the long-term viability of the colony.
Would you also say "shame on you" to anyone who procreates in a country with a lower standard of living than the wealthier countries on this planet? After all, aren't those parents subjecting their children to a life with more hazards / less opportunities?
Only very few places on Earth are truly that shitty that I would doubt people's sanity for raising children there. Active war zones and areas affected by climate change for example, and to no one's surprise people risk their lives to escape from those. Even in a refugee camp, their children would still lead a life that is magnitudes easier and more pleasurable than on a Mars colony.
> Would you also say "shame on you" to anyone who procreates in a country with a lower standard of living than the wealthier countries on this planet?
I would not hesitate to do so to any parents that leave a perfectly functional society to raise children as subsistence farmers in an smog-choked, irradiated, arid clime. Opting to raise your children under worse conditions than those one grew up under, and has access to is despicable and selfish.
> I feel terror at the idea of all of our species on one planet with no backup.
While I would like to live out the rest of my life as best as I could, and I hope everyone alive and not yet alive gets that chance too, I don't think it would be that great a tragedy if humankind no longer existed. Imagine a world where everyone is hooked up to a simulation that feels as real as real life and everyone gets to live out the best possible life (or even lives) for them. They can have as many (AI) children they want in the simulation and never even know they weren't real. In that world, where no one ever had real children again and humanity naturally died out, would that be a bad thing? Humanity is not providing any benefit except to itself.
That seems pretty bad, yeah.
I care about humanity. I care about myself! You're welcome to sterilize yourself, but i don't think I'll follow.
The scenario you describe doesn't involve pain, but that doesn't mean it isn't bad. An empty, dead universe seems worse to me than one teeming with thought.
The thought experiment wasn't to end sentient life in a glorious generation of virtual hedonism, just humanity. Let the octopi build their ~own VR escapism pods.
I think people really underestimate resources needed to run these VR paradises - it needs mass and energy!
I can fully imagine a totally disconnected VR dwelling civilization that still has hordes or self replicating bots of doom that dismantle planets and stars only to make more memory and compute.
Might very well be more dangerous than a "normal" space faring civilization.
It's really not required to be one-way. Starship is explicitly designed to refuel and return. It's way harder (in rocketry terms) to go from Earth to Mars than the other way around.
Anybody who volunteers for a one-way trip is not sane enough to want to have along.
They might not object to going with equally insane incels, but do I want to spend to send and maintain them? The best that could be said is they wouldn't be here anymore.
So what is the legality? AFAIK, euthanasia and assisted suicide are not legal in a lot of jurisdictions. An actual Mars mission may set a precedent, for, uhm, voluntary short-term underwater scientific missions for geriatrics and hospice patience with challenging pain management situations.
For the law, intent usually matters. If you help someone who has the intention to die, then that's assisted suicide. But people can accept any level of danger they please, as long as they intent to survive the ordeal. The actions might be the same, but the intent is different.
they applied for a training program that will give them a ton of exposure.
I doubt they will leave Earth to go dying on a desert planet with no oxygen, water and Instagram after they eventually gained the "Mars space program" status at home.
> Settling Antarctica isn't as inspiring as colonizing Mars.
> Mars is horribly inhospitable, yes, but it's also pretty boring
Yep, exactly.
Mars is fundamentally retro futurism promoted by a bored billionaire who ran out of ideas to impress the news.
edit: for reference. this is how Musk really ignited the public interest around SpaceX, whose goal is primarily reusable rockets, not missions to Mars.
> Uh no, this has been one of his passions for a very long time. It’s the reason SpaceX exists:
How does that contradicts the premise?
SpaceX is primarily (emphasis on is) in the business of reusable rockets.
Musk launched the Mars colonization idea as a self promotional venture.
There are many things Musk said about Mars which are borderline retarded
Starting from the fact that he wants to colonize Mars, I am much more interested in the exploration and I believe it defines human nature much more than simply being a billionaire with a colonialist mindset.
For example
- Humans must prioritise the colonisation of Mars so the species can be conserved in the event of a third world war ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I guess he believes that his life (and other billionaires like him) must be preserved. I'm not sure about regular folks like most of us...
- “I feel fairly confident that we can complete the ship and be ready for a launch in about five years. Five years seems like a long time to me” this is from 2018, it hasn't aged very well
- I think fundamentally the future is vastly more exciting and interesting if we’re a spacefaring civilization and a multiplanet species than if we’re or not. Why???
- Musk said there's 70 percent chance he’ll get to Mars within his lifetime, with plans to permanently resettle on the Red Planet. No, he won't. We all know he wouldn't do it. He's never gonna be an astronaut, at best he can be a Bezos.
- in 2021 he said he would send humans to Mars by 2026, now it's become 2029 (it's always five years away). He also said that by 2050, there will be 30,000 to 50,000 people who choose a one-way trip to Mars to begin a new life. Everyone's free to form an opinion on this, I simply call them BS.
I’m refuting that he’s “a bored billionaire who ran out of ideas to impress the news”.
He wasn’t a billionaire when he started working on it, and he’s been working on it for 20+ years, so I don’t think he’s bored.
The rest of your complaints boil down to his overly optimistic timeframes, and disagreement that making humans spacefaring / multiplanetary is a worthy goal.
> The rest of your complaints boil down to his overly optimistic timeframes
it boils down to the fact that he's lying. And he probably already knows it.
> and disagreement that making humans spacefaring / multiplanetary is a worthy goal.
Please refrain from interpreting what I say and write.
I do not necessarily disagree with Musk on that, I simply can differentiate from day dreaming and reality.
Mars is a worthy goal as much it is going to live on the top of Mauna Loa.
Or deep down the Marianas Trench.
Musk said it: he would like to go because it's a challenge, like climbing mount Everest.
That's all he cares about.
But lets also be absolutely real: he means send someone to die, he will never be fit to be an astronaut, let alone a space colonist. He's also not stupid enough to go towards certain death after having accumulated an enormous amount of money here on Earth. That he could actually use for the good, but, who cares, buying Twitter is more fun.
It's also honestly quite depressing to listen someone with so much money say that humans are worth only if they waste their enormous wealth on macho challenges.
He literally said that humanity will be much less interesting if we don't become a multiplanetary society, which, assuming it will be possible (I seriously doubt it) will take millenia, if not more. And once it happens, Martians won't be able to come back to Earth, because our gravity would crush their body.
How splendid.
p.s. I'm a fan of retro futurism. I grew up watching movies like Forbidden Planet and reading Asimov.
> People will lose interest and it'll be about as interesting as Antarctica. And then what?
Sports! Imagine playing basketball (or football, etc.) on a dome on Mars with less than half the gravity of Earth. People back on Earth would love to watch it. People on Mars would love to play it.
I actually think this would be a great idea...for the Moon. Pro-athletes making millions of dollars per year won't want to spend their whole lives in a desolate, extremely remote desert. The Moon has a much more reasonable commute.
And I think some new sport would need to be invented.
Why would you assume it'd be a dome on the surface of mars, given there's no radiation protection? You'd need to play it in underground rooms or wearing bulky radioactive protection suits.
The case where Mars becomes very interesting is if Earth becomes uninhabitable for some reason, maybe nuclear war or a runaway climate problem or big enough asteroid impact. (I'm not pushing any of that alarmism, but on a long term time scale of 10^6 to 10^10 years, almost anything could happen eventually.)
I really don't buy this argument though. It you want a colony that can survive almost any planetary-scale catastrophe, build a colony at the bottom of the ocean. Kilometres of water will shield you from literally any amount of radiation, the surface of the earth could be a scorched wasteland and you'd be fine. And you'd have access to ocean floor resources as well as limitless resources still on the surface, even if you need to use robots to get them.
And yes I mean sure - colonizing another planet is the ultimate backup plan. But like this article(and many others) have said, it feels like jumping the shark - we can barely keep people alive for a prelonged period of time on a space station, and we are jumping straight to mars outpost from there? Why not make a self-sufficient base on the moon first, where literally everyone on earth would be able to see it almost with a naked eye and it would inspire countless generations of people to pursue science?
> Why not make a self-sufficient base on the moon first, where literally everyone on earth would be able to see it almost with a naked eye and it would inspire countless generations of people to pursue science?
Yes. This.
I hope that we piggyback on Mars exploration for building infrastructure on the Moon.
The Moon is a much better target for a first self sustainable colony and also could become economically interesting.
There is nothing on Mars that is economical interesting AFAIK.
Well, its the gate to the Asteroid belt & even has two asteroids full of resources in low orbit! Not to mention having and a (thin) atmosphere and usable gravity, that also opens a lot of opportunities (aerocapture, no micrometeoroids, easier thermal control, etc.).
Why do you need to be on Mars to do that? It's simpler to do everything in orbit, which is the real gate to the asteroid belt. Or directly establish bases in the belt, if we knew how.
Yes, that's also certainly an option. Still, it seems to me that a lot of people still can't really think in terms of space only infra and "a hight tech city, but on Mars/Moon" gets them to a more familiar context.
So I think it makes sense to talk also about surface bases, to get more people on board, even if those are potentially quite inefficient.
Maybe I'm wrong but I think it's actually more difficult to keep an airbubble under the ocean from flooding than it is to keep an air bubble around yourself in thin atmosphere.
Not really - we now have the technological and resource window and we should use it. Wasting this opportunity could otherwise doom us forever if we can't get back to this level of capability again.
We have literally millions of years to prepare for that. Mars isn't a stepping stone, Mars is a stretch goal. A few hundred or even thousand years sooner or later is a rounding error in the kind of timeframe you're talking about.
At the current rate we don't have to wait for the sun to kill us, climate change will do that first. Sure, it might not be an extinction level event but societal collapse requires much less than that. Disruption of the supply chains needed to maintain a Mars colonization program requires even less than that.
> We have literally millions of years to prepare for that.
So do sea anemones. What are their chances of inhabiting Mars? ~0%.
You can have billions of years of spare time. If you only concern yourself with Earth and never move beyond it, you'll end up just like anemones
> Mars is a stretch goal.
If Mars is a stretch goal, we're fucked. By time of red giant sun Mars will also be toasted.
> climate change will do that first
It probably won't. Devastate and depopulate anything outside arctic circle? Yes.
Nuclear winter has a good chance but even that's not a certainty..
> societal collapse requires much less than that
I don't care about societies I care about totality of humans. All societies exist while their energy/work production can ballance the expanding complexity, or are knocked out of balance by another society.
What do you think where your Mars rockets come from? Who mines the raw materials? Who refines them? Who builds the tech? Who does the assembly? Who does the research to actually make Mars colonization possible?
"Societal collapse" is another way of saying you will not go to space today (or ever). I'm not talking about a society. I'm talking about our entire global economical and political system. Unchecked climate change will wipe out food production and make vast swathes of land uninhabitable.
For someone who seems to focused on human survival and creating self-sustaining life on Mars, you don't seem to have a very good understanding of supply chains (and in case you're unaware: everything has a supply chain, even modern agriculture can't function without entire industries producing its resources and equipment). You'll have a hard time establishing let alone maintaining that on Mars in the next million years if we can't maintain it on Earth in the next hundred.
If you want to ensure human survival, fix climate change first, then we can worry about Mars colonization.
>>So do sea anemones. What are their chances of inhabiting Mars? ~0%.
We were nothing more than sea anemones once too. In a billion years you could have literally any lifeform currently on earth evolve into intelligent beings capable of spaceflight. The timeframe is just so unfathomably long thah it's impossible to predict what could happen.
We had common ancestors with sea anemones. We weren't necessary anemones no more than anemones being humans. Parallel evolution led us here and anemones where they are.
> In a billion years you could have literally any lifeform currently on earth evolve into intelligent beings capable of spaceflight.
That depends on how likely is human-level intelligence to arise, so far only one species arrived there and no other. Then you add expectations of being able to build a spaceship capable of escaping Earth's gravity well.
Hoping some future intelligence can do job we can do now is ultimate form of procrastination.
There are probably at least 20 stereotypes/organizations objectively more dangerous than "crazy MAGA freak with a gun", but congratulations, you've contributed to political divisiveness on a tech-oriented forum!
By the time Earth becomes this uninhabitable, we don't have the resources anymore for a Mars shot, much less a full-scale evacuation or, dare I say, colonization. And Earth would have to turn into a Venus-like hellscape to truly become uninhabitable. Even an iceball Earth is ten times as hospitable to life than Mars.
The idea is to establish a self-sustaining colony on Mars during a time of prosperity on Earth, not evacuate anyone when things fall apart. The humans already at the colony would continue the existence of our kind.
Please name one other sentient, human-equivalent intelligent species.
Animals are awesome and I am indeed amazed by how smart some of the species are. Not a single one is near human level, though, and won't be for millions of years, if ever - which is not at all guaranteed, it's very much possible that human-level intelligence is evolutionary mistake/accident.
Let me know when you find an animal that can do e.g. lambda calculus and relational algebra like a human can. Since this has nothing to do with anthropocentrism, the same argument will be made - we have to preserve this species on another planet to ensure that intelligence doesn't disappear from the observable universe in case something happens to Earth/its biosphere.
> we have to preserve this species on another planet to ensure that intelligence doesn't disappear from the observable universe in case something happens to Earth/its biosphere
And why would such disappearence be bad? Really, honest question. Is there some inherent greater good to adher to by preserving intelligence, no matter how narrow it's being defined in this thread?
It could just cease existing. I don't see the problem.
"For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much --- the wheel, New York, wars, and so on --- whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man --- for precisely the same reasons."
Yeah sure. If they had the ability to learn math but chose not to, it might be true. They don't, though - and I bet there is more than a few dolphins that'd like to do more if they could.
All living creatures have genes, why humans in particular?
Don't dogs and dolphins have offspring?
Aren't they intelligent?
And why not plants, which are the real reason why Earth life forms can exist on the surface of the planet?
But most of all, if you have children, would you really want for them an horrible life on a Mars colony where they would grow up in a labor camp like life and develop such weak bones that they could never live the red planet to visit Earth?
Well, a cat should live just fine on say an O,Oeill cylinder[0] or a surface level Lunar or Martian hab (possibly a large dome or huge cavern). They might have to adapt to the low gravity or the side effect of spin gravity, but the environment should eventually be pretty similar otherwise.
> Well, a cat should live just fine on say an O,Oeill cylinder[0] or a surface level Lunar or Martian hab
sounds pretty sad for a lion or a moose and frankly impossible for a shark or a whale.
Science fiction is nice, but transporting wild animals for months in a spaceship to a desert planet with no water and oxygen?
Forget about it!
Hard sci-fi actually addressed the issue and the outcome is always the same: there are no animals in space, except some domesticated small ones. There are no wild animals in Asimov works, no wild animals in Dick, no wild animals in Lem or Clarke, no animals either in recent works, the Expanse for example.
There are humpback whales in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home though :)
The myth of the Noah's arc is just a myth, if we'll really move into space because our planet cannot sustain humanity anymore, we'll be the only species to survive. We, some plants we'll use as food and viruses/bacteria living inside us. Maybe we'll have perfected cloning technology and will try to resurrect them if the conditions arise.
But even then, how many people do you think could live in such a dome?
1,000? 10,000? 100,000?
Would we share the little precious oxygen with rats or mosquitos?
How do your scifi stories solve social issues like the breakdown of civilization following events like civil wars caused by events like the Capitol storming?
In other words, isn't the threat to the human species mostly within itself, and finding solutions to those issues much more impactful (and attainable) than dreaming of building such fantasy structures?
Aside from the realization that society wouldn't work differently on Mars either. Look around you. The fraction of idiots in a society on Mars is unlikely to be lower than here on Earth.
"In other words, isn't the threat to the human species mostly within itself, and finding solutions to those issues much more impactful (and attainable) than dreaming of building such fantasy structures?"
Society will break down, once there is no more hope.
Good sci-fi stories, like a colonisation of mars (like in the mars trilogy from Kim Stanley Robinsons) gives people hope, that a different world is possible, therefore (helping) preventing that breakdown in the first place.
This is the reason, why so many otherwise smart people ignored reality and signed up for Mars One for example. It is the dream of having the chance to start over in a clean way.
"The fraction of idiots in a society on Mars is unlikely to be lower than here on Earth. "
And when you have colonists with that altruistic mindset, then yes - the idiot rate of that society has the potential to be significantly lower. This is why people would sign up for one way tickets - exactly to get away from the idiots here on earth.
But yes, a real mars colony is very far away and would likely stay a hellhole for a long time, until either terraforming becomes realistic, or big domes, that protect enough from radiation, but gives people freedom to move in sunlight.
No one wants to go to mars, to become a mole in a bunker, even though this is what the beginning most likely will be. It is the dreams, that attract us Mars enthusiast. I would argue, if there would be more people dreaming, instead of mindlessly watching netflix over and over, there would be a better chance to make those dreams real. Also here on earth.
Ok, but you do care about their well-being. And their well-being will depend on their offspring, etc.
I would not be comfortable knowing, that the children I helped bring into this life are doomed in the long run. That would be pointless to me, there needs to be a way forward, whether it is mars or something else.
1000 generations into the future? People to whose genome you contributed 2^-1000, i.e. almost nothing? Who know neither your name nor care about it? Like you don't really care about your ancestors 1000 generations ago? Or 100,000 generations?
I don't get it.
Basically: Let's face it, when we're dead then we're dead. That's it. You have your life. Trying to achieve some sort of immortality or higher purpose by creating offspring is just as futile as praying or paying some quack to help you with afterlife matters.
"Basically: Let's face it, when we're dead then we're dead. That's it."
If you feel that unconnected, than yes, that was it to you.
And sure, I will be dead one day, too and my name forgotten. That doesn't mean, my life was without purpose nor significance, because I do feel part of something bigger. Progress of humankind and the spreading of life and consciousness in general.
I don't know the names of my ancestors, but they are of significance, as without them, I wouldn't exist and without me, neither would the 1000. generation after me.
For the colony to be truly self-sustaining it would have to replicate the entire industrial supply chain for its technological and material needs. Without it, the colony and its infrastructure would slowly crumble apart. In such a situation, we could always go back to basic agriculture and hunter-gatherer lifestyles on Earth. Most humans would perish, but the species would survive. That option does not exist on Mars before self-sustaining terraforming.
Putting boots on Mars doesn't help solving the above problem. As TA explains, the first humans would be mostly busy surviving and would be dependent on permanent resupply from Earth. It's a pure prestige project.
The effort would be better spent on engineering a streamlined and automated version of our technological base that can be deployed with minimal effort and supervision to set up a colony or a mining base. Once we have achieved that, we are on the way to become a post-scarcity civilization and can easily push much farther than Mars.
Any of those leaves Earth thousands of times more habitable than Mars. They even leave Antarctica and the sea floor thousands of times more habitable than Mars.
What plants would resist the massive amounts of radiation, or perchlorate soil?
Note that we don't even know if any plants today would actually be able to fruit in the low gravity environment (nevermind if any animal would be able to successfully procreate).
You would generate a magnetic field at the center of the colony to deflect solar energetic particles and galactic cosmic rays. The colony would produce compost with biowaste and use that for soil. There are various ways to remove perchlorates from soil. One avenue of research is to find an optimal mix of martian soil and compost to allow plants to thrive.
The points you are making are excellent but I believe solvable. Also we do know if plants can fruit in space. We've already grown tomatoes in space and they are fruits of the tomato plant. And that was zero G.
You are going to run into energy generations REALLY fast trying to generate such a massive magnetic shield, Not to mention all the other massive energy needs for mining and processing material.
Also nobody has yet produced a self-sustained biodome.
I'm not really sure farming will work on Mars with sunlight alone given the distance from the Sun. Still, you have gravity and reasonable day length and even some atmospheres, not to mention a lot of mass available - that already makes a lot of things easier.
And why would anybody care? Will you or anybody who will know about you be alive at that point?
There are millions if not billions alive today who are suffering from war, famine, dictatorships. And climate change is just making that worse. It would be more reasonable to help those souls instead.
mankind is heading for space ~ this is unstoppable. colonising mars makes a lot of sense as its the only other semi habitable planet in the solar system. short term ~ there might be some interesting mineable ores on mars. medium term ~ lower gravity makes it easier to launch ships into space / build a space elevator. long term terraformation of mars is a possibility.
It's not unstoppable at all. It's 54 years since we landed on the Moon and we're only just getting around to considering another visit. The ISS, amazing as it is, is a glorified shed in orbit. We're still getting into orbit by throwing giant fireworks at the sky. (Is there a better way? Possibly. We really haven't spent a lot of time looking for it.)
But none of that is the problem. The real problem is that we haven't learned how to do reality-based politics and economics, and possibly never will. We're so bad at this we haven't even solved the kindergarten-level problem of creating a stable living environment on a planet with abundant water, oxygen, natural resources, free energy, and a ready-made (mostly) supportive ecosystem.
The idea that we might somehow get better at planning rationally by moving to a planet that has none of the above is really quite strange.
> we haven't even solved the kindergarten-level problem of creating a stable living environment on a planet with abundant water, oxygen, natural resources, free energy, and a ready-made (mostly) supportive ecosystem.
Haven’t we? I guess it could always be more stable. Where is the line for you? Is there any point where you’d consider this problem solved?
Besides, if things feel unstable to you, why would that be an argument against attempting to set up a secondary living environment on another planet?
If we had stability issues in our primary datacenter, would this be a reason not to create an offsite backup?
I think that what happened since the industrial revolution is pretty much a definition of unstable. We are living a mass extinction right now (not even caused by global warming, which will just make it worse).
Since the industrial revolution, we have become excellent as destroying life. Not the opposite.
Citation needed, because real-world experience shows otherwise.
Mankind is heading for a larger capacity for information processing, this is the unstoppable arc of history. Mars or space doesn't figure into this equation at all.
The only unstoppable thing is human imagination. Unfortunately physically and economically it's not worth it to pursue this dream unless we generate unlimited power.
> > mankind is heading for space ~ this is unstoppable. colonising mars makes a lot of sense
Yes, it makes a lot of sense for mankind, no doubt about it. Does it make sense for men and women though?
It's easy to say mankind. Flight makes a lot of sense for mankind too, but less than a third of the global population has ever been on a plane because for the remaining 2/3 it doesn't make sense to do so given their economic constraints.
But in my estimation, colonizing Mars would run out of steam really quickly. Mars is horribly inhospitable, yes, but it's also pretty boring. There isn't that much geological diversity, and there's no life. You wouldn't want to take a vacation there. I know there's going to be a lot of people here who are going to say "No! Mars is really cool!" The people here aren't normal. Living in a cave underground without being able to go outside and see the sun or take a walk is a nightmare for most people.
Landing on Mars could inspire lots of people. But once it's done, its mystique is just going to wear off. People will lose interest and it'll be about as interesting as Antarctica. And then what?