> As far as I'm aware, no billionaire has ever said anything about "moving humanity" to Mars or anywhere else; except to dismiss such claims as nonsense.
Yes, it's even worse than that.
Environmental types want to keep Earth habitable for humans, because Mars as a plan B is infeasible.
> "Why are we doing this?" Musk said at the company's February 2022 Starship progress update. "I think this is an incredibly important thing for the future of life itself ... there's always some chance that something could go wrong on Earth. Dinosaurs are not around anymore!"
So yeah, it's not really that we'll save humanity by moving it to Mars. It's that some people will go to Mars and the rest of us can die out here.
Well, there is still similar chance of an asteroid hitting Mars instead of Earth so it's not like they are moving to a safe space leaving "the rest of us to die".
In fact if you are so worried about going the way of dinosaurs you must support establishment of a colony, because the industry developed for that will be the best way to change the path of an asteroid flying to earth.
Asteroids aside, Mars is inhospitable at the moment and will remain so for thousands of years, forcing any inhabitants to live in similar or worse conditions as the researchers on Antarctica. And at least the people in Antarctica don't have to worry about breatheable air.
> It's that some people will go to Mars and the rest of us can die out here.
If the alternative is that no-one goes to Mars and everybody dies, I'm OK with only some people going there.
There are a lot of possible catastrophes that can wipe us out from Earth, and not all of them are preventable or due to mankind.
Starting to move towards a direction were we at least have a temporary alternative, even if the alternative is much worse than Earth, and cannot sustain everyone, seems like a basic goal.
Having a plan B does not mean that plan A is not the preferred solution.
That argument makes sense for e.g. carbon capture schemes, or geoengineering: they seem like easy fixes, compared to the necessary sustainability improvements we actually need to make.
Yes, it's even worse than that.
Environmental types want to keep Earth habitable for humans, because Mars as a plan B is infeasible.
> "Why are we doing this?" Musk said at the company's February 2022 Starship progress update. "I think this is an incredibly important thing for the future of life itself ... there's always some chance that something could go wrong on Earth. Dinosaurs are not around anymore!"
So yeah, it's not really that we'll save humanity by moving it to Mars. It's that some people will go to Mars and the rest of us can die out here.