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I'd love to see people on Mars in my lifetime. But the biggest problem longterm is that Mars will be a pretty miserable place to live. Right now you can move

I'd love to see people on Mars in my lifetime. But the biggest problem longterm is that Mars will be a pretty miserable place to live. Right now you can move to Antartica if you really wanted to. Do you? I don't. And Antartica is a much more pleasant place to be than Mars for many reasons: you can breath the air, it's got water, it's quite a bit warmer, and you get almost twice as much sunlight.

jaredhansen 10y ago
This is such a tired argument. Yes, Antartica is less miserable than Mars. So what? Antartica is, crucially, part of Earth. It is missing the main thing Mars has to make it desirable, which is being another planet. If you don't get the point of ever leaving Earth that's fine, but don't pretend that $random_inhospitable_place_on_Earth is automatically better, for 'being on other planets' purposes, than another planet is.
- nostromo 10y ago
  Yes, if you're only solving for "not Earth" then Mars is good match. But if your only goal is to leave Earth, why not move to the Moon? It's much more practical. Without a plan to make Mars more habitable for humans, Mars will be a lot like ISS or Antartica: a place where a small number of lucky scientists go for a few months before returning home.
  - jacquesm 10y ago
    Terraforming Mars is an undertaking that may well be beyond humanity, but it doesn't have to be the whole planet to make it effective (though that would be the safest).
  - kitsunesoba 10y ago
    The moon is only more practical in terms of distance/travel time. In every other way, the moon is drastically more inhospitable than even the worst day on Mars, so anything gained by the shorter distance is quickly nullified by the difficulty of existing there. If the issues surrounding transit can be addressed, Mars is by far a superior target for colonization.
  - dgudkov 10y ago
    As far as I understand the Moon has no water which makes it far less suited for colonization than Mars, even if the Moon is closer. Also Mars has atmosphere and it's surface temperatures are less extreme than the Moon's.
- jacquesm 10y ago
  One could argue that Antarctica being on the same planet is actually an advantage, it is a lot easier to reach. It is worth splitting the species across multiple planets as some kind of insurance policy. But the long term viability of Earth in the worst of circumstances may still be better than any colony in space or on another planet in our own solar system. Such a colony would likely be dependent on Earth in many ways for a long long time into the future, and in many ways this may be desirable. For me the major reason to be positive about space exploration and colonizing space is similar to the reasons why some people will climb mountains: it's there, exploration is in our nature and meeting challenges is something we generally feel positive about. Setting foot on another planet in the solar system alone would be a huge milestone, even if we don't manage to establish a viable outpost. And for that purpose it doesn't matter much which planet we pick, Mars is for many reasons the best candidate. Here's to hoping it happens in the next 20 years. It may, it may not, I'm not going to hold my breath but I'm really happy to see some actual progress since 1969 on this front. I can still hear that roger beep...
- novalis78 10y ago
  Could not agree more. Reading "A Case for Mars" by Dr. Robert Zubrin, esteemed aerospace engineer and founder of the Mars Society, explains - in every possible detail - the why and the how of settling Mars. Anyone interested in this topic should check it out. I would not be surprised if that's what got Elon Musk excited (and convinced that it's quite possible) in early 2002.
- vernon99 10y ago
  You have to fuck up our planed really badly to make Mars better than Antartica. I don't get this argument - what really can happen here for Mars to become more appealing? Nuclear winter? Virus outbreak? Zombie apocalypse? Antartica still would be better by a solid margin. You can get water reserves with little effort, it would be easier to clean polluted air than to produce it out of nowhere and temperature range is still much better in any case. What's the point then?
nixos 10y ago
I don't think people realize just how _bad_ is Mars. When scientists talk about "water on Mars", they think they've found a river. When they hear how far it is, they think it's only twice as far as the moon. It even has an "atmosphere". For some reason, people think that it's easier or more useful to build cities on Mars than in the Marianas trench
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
startling 10y ago
I'd love to go to Antarctica.
- strictnein 10y ago
  It's easy. Assuming you've got $15k+ to burn you can take a nice cruise there. http://www.nationalgeographicexpeditions.com/expeditions/antarctica-cruise/detail http://www.nationalgeographicexpeditions.com/expeditions/ant...
  - startling 10y ago
    Yep. Someday.
- vkou 10y ago
  Great news - the various contractor firms maintaining Antarctic bases are hiring. (And have extremely high turnover.)
JorgeGT 10y ago
> Do you? I don't. Last time there was an AMA on Reddit from an antarctic manual worker there were lots and lots of people just asking how they could sign up for it.
InclinedPlane 10y ago
No, you cannot move to antarctica, it is not legally possible to do so. There are very stringent treaty terms defining just what can and can't be done there, which are unlikely to be changed, ever. You cannot mine, you cannot own private property, you cannot build wherever you like. There are very narrowly defined provisions for scientific research and tourism of the continent, but that's it. Also, antarctica is in some ways a more difficult place to live than Mars.
- Pinckney 10y ago
  So? Nobody has been able to present any credible economic plan for Mars, either, which makes it more like Antarctica (or central Greenland, if you insist on somewhere you can legally move) than Norilsk.
lambdadmitry 10y ago
Unfortunately, Antartica is very boring thanks to a few kilometers of ice sheet on top of it.

jaredhansen 10y ago

This is such a tired argument. Yes, Antartica is less miserable than Mars. So what? Antartica is, crucially, part of Earth. It is missing the main thing Mars has to make it desirable, which is being another planet. If you don't get the point of ever leaving Earth that's fine, but don't pretend that $random_inhospitable_place_on_Earth is automatically better, for 'being on other planets' purposes, than another planet is.

nostromo 10y ago
Yes, if you're only solving for "not Earth" then Mars is good match. But if your only goal is to leave Earth, why not move to the Moon? It's much more practical. Without a plan to make Mars more habitable for humans, Mars will be a lot like ISS or Antartica: a place where a small number of lucky scientists go for a few months before returning home.
- jacquesm 10y ago
  Terraforming Mars is an undertaking that may well be beyond humanity, but it doesn't have to be the whole planet to make it effective (though that would be the safest).
- kitsunesoba 10y ago
  The moon is only more practical in terms of distance/travel time. In every other way, the moon is drastically more inhospitable than even the worst day on Mars, so anything gained by the shorter distance is quickly nullified by the difficulty of existing there. If the issues surrounding transit can be addressed, Mars is by far a superior target for colonization.
- dgudkov 10y ago
  As far as I understand the Moon has no water which makes it far less suited for colonization than Mars, even if the Moon is closer. Also Mars has atmosphere and it's surface temperatures are less extreme than the Moon's.
jacquesm 10y ago
One could argue that Antarctica being on the same planet is actually an advantage, it is a lot easier to reach. It is worth splitting the species across multiple planets as some kind of insurance policy. But the long term viability of Earth in the worst of circumstances may still be better than any colony in space or on another planet in our own solar system. Such a colony would likely be dependent on Earth in many ways for a long long time into the future, and in many ways this may be desirable. For me the major reason to be positive about space exploration and colonizing space is similar to the reasons why some people will climb mountains: it's there, exploration is in our nature and meeting challenges is something we generally feel positive about. Setting foot on another planet in the solar system alone would be a huge milestone, even if we don't manage to establish a viable outpost. And for that purpose it doesn't matter much which planet we pick, Mars is for many reasons the best candidate. Here's to hoping it happens in the next 20 years. It may, it may not, I'm not going to hold my breath but I'm really happy to see some actual progress since 1969 on this front. I can still hear that roger beep...
novalis78 10y ago
Could not agree more. Reading "A Case for Mars" by Dr. Robert Zubrin, esteemed aerospace engineer and founder of the Mars Society, explains - in every possible detail - the why and the how of settling Mars. Anyone interested in this topic should check it out. I would not be surprised if that's what got Elon Musk excited (and convinced that it's quite possible) in early 2002.
vernon99 10y ago
You have to fuck up our planed really badly to make Mars better than Antartica. I don't get this argument - what really can happen here for Mars to become more appealing? Nuclear winter? Virus outbreak? Zombie apocalypse? Antartica still would be better by a solid margin. You can get water reserves with little effort, it would be easier to clean polluted air than to produce it out of nowhere and temperature range is still much better in any case. What's the point then?

nixos 10y ago

I don't think people realize just how _bad_ is Mars. When scientists talk about "water on Mars", they think they've found a river. When they hear how far it is, they think it's only twice as far as the moon. It even has an "atmosphere". For some reason, people think that it's easier or more useful to build cities on Mars than in the Marianas trench

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

startling 10y ago

I'd love to go to Antarctica.

strictnein 10y ago
It's easy. Assuming you've got $15k+ to burn you can take a nice cruise there. http://www.nationalgeographicexpeditions.com/expeditions/antarctica-cruise/detail http://www.nationalgeographicexpeditions.com/expeditions/ant...
- startling 10y ago
  Yep. Someday.
vkou 10y ago
Great news - the various contractor firms maintaining Antarctic bases are hiring. (And have extremely high turnover.)

JorgeGT 10y ago

> Do you? I don't. Last time there was an AMA on Reddit from an antarctic manual worker there were lots and lots of people just asking how they could sign up for it.

InclinedPlane 10y ago

No, you cannot move to antarctica, it is not legally possible to do so. There are very stringent treaty terms defining just what can and can't be done there, which are unlikely to be changed, ever. You cannot mine, you cannot own private property, you cannot build wherever you like. There are very narrowly defined provisions for scientific research and tourism of the continent, but that's it. Also, antarctica is in some ways a more difficult place to live than Mars.

Pinckney 10y ago
So? Nobody has been able to present any credible economic plan for Mars, either, which makes it more like Antarctica (or central Greenland, if you insist on somewhere you can legally move) than Norilsk.

lambdadmitry 10y ago

Unfortunately, Antartica is very boring thanks to a few kilometers of ice sheet on top of it.