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Which is why the "activation energy" for colonizing Mars is different than it was for the Americas (either time). Yet still, that doesn't push colonizing Mars o
by InclinedPlane 11y ago
Which is why the "activation energy" for colonizing Mars is different than it was for the Americas (either time). Yet still, that doesn't push colonizing Mars outside the realm of reasonable activities, it just means it requires more of a push.
People want to live on Mars, for lots of reasons. Mostly Mars colonization is about getting the activation energy lower than the latent resources available for doing it (which are substantial, make no mistake).
- aetherson 11y agoI sort of agree. If we imagined a world thousands of times more wealthy than the present one, I think you'd probably see a Martian colony kick off more or less "just because it's there." But absent any return on investment, the available resources today are orders of magnitude too small to make a go of it. In any foreseeable world, any kind of substantial off-Earth human presence (more than say 200 people) is going to require a substantial practical value to justify it. Pure science or "just because it's there" or fulfilling the childhood sci-fi dreams of various people are not going to cut it. Which bums me out too! I have childhood sci-fi dreams. If there's a path to large-scale (or even medium-scale) human presence off Earth, it's something like solar power generation or asteroid mining.