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No manned flight to Mars in the next 10 years, I bet. (Why anyone would want that escapes me... Then again that is why I will be wrong, if indeed I will be.)

• mintplant 10y ago
  I'm in favor of steps, big or small, toward lessening humanity's total reliance on the viability of life on a single planet.
  • duaneb 10y ago
    Sure. I have no idea where the (vanishingly unlikely) 10 year window is from, though. It would be suicide for all the passengers.
  • _yosefk 10y ago
    Humanity being its own only remotely dangerous enemy, I never understood how more planets help.
    • MawNicker 10y ago
      Maybe if you only count intelligent enemies. Otherwise asteroids, gamma ray bursts and planetary dynamics are also dangerous. A second planet would let us recover from all of those. Except for maybe a gamma ray burst depending on how close the second planet was. Even if you limit the scope to ways we may kill ourselves: Nuclear war would likely be contained to a single planet. A second would at least improve our odds. Disclaimer: I very much agree with the sentiment of the comment you responded to. I don't even plan on having kids or anything. I just imagine a dark and boring universe deprived of humanity drifting off towards it's icy death with nothing to replace us.
    • kbenson 10y ago
      Humanity faces many dangers, one of the largest being itself That doesn't mean we shouldn't do what we can to reduce or eliminate other dangers (planet level extinction event). Also, even though it doesn't eliminate our ability to wipe ourselves out, that it's a a step towards setting that capability back a few decades is also beneficial (it should be very easy to identify and destroy long-range nukes in space).
• marcosdumay 10y ago
  Somebody will want it. I also have no idea why would somebody, but somebody will. May take longer than 10 years to the prices get low enough for those some people that want to pay. But a suicide mission to Mars is very likely. And won't bring us any closer to definitively living in space - investments on our next models of smartphones will probably be more relevant.
  • neltnerb 10y ago
    Will be easier once we have can upload our brains to the singularity and not risk bodily harm by going =)
    • otempomores 10y ago
      I shall write a virus that convert uploaders to the church of singu