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Not everything we do is for the monetary incentive. The goal of Mars colonization is to create a second (eventually) independent base, so humanity has a chance
by olegkikin 10y ago
Not everything we do is for the monetary incentive.
The goal of Mars colonization is to create a second (eventually) independent base, so humanity has a chance in case of a catastrophic event.
I'd say even if it costs a trillion dollars, it's worth it. US GDP is what, 18 trillion per year?
- onewaystreet 10y ago> Not everything we do is for the monetary incentive. It is when a private company is doing it.
- pavel_lishin 10y agoBut this is being driven primarily by one private individual.
- DennisP 10y agoIt is when a public company is doing it. Privately-owned companies can do whatever the heck their owners want.
- maxerickson 10y agoPublic companies can also have whatever mission they want, subject to oversight from the owners.
- DennisP 10y agoYes but the ownership is open to anyone, so it's a lot easier for activist investors to change the mission to a more profitable one. Musk is keeping SpaceX private specifically to keep this from happening.
- mortenjorck 10y agoWorst case scenario, what would that actually be like? A few hundred people who gave up their lives on earth to live in habitats on an inhospitable planet one day learn that the worst fear of the 20th century came true, and there's nobody left back home. It's just them, the only remaining sentient beings in the known universe, without 99% of the technology that got them where they are now. How could they even begin to try to rebuild civilization when they can't even go outside without an apparatus that took thousands of years of science to produce? What is the speed divisor for advancement of a society marooned on a world it didn't evolve to live on? I'm all for Mars colonization, but as a backup plan for Homo sapiens, it kind of sucks.
- mrfusion 10y agoThat's kind of a straw man. Musk envisions a city of a million. No one claims a few hundred is a viable back up.
- ajmurmann 10y agoSounds like the concept for a great sci-fi novel.
- edwastone 10y agoSeveneves is a great novel that explore this idea: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22816087-seveneves https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22816087-seveneves
- yongjik 10y agoA nuclear-proof bunker hidden beneath Greenland with air/water filter system will be 1000 times cheaper, and will promise a better survival chance in almost any scenario. If humanity is wiped out on Earth, people in Mars are fucked anyway: they will be one depressurization accident from extinction.
- jaggederest 10y agoIf you don't think a space colony would have overengineered multiple redundancy against depressurization, you don't understand the psychological effect that vacuum being 6 inches away would have.
- DennisP 10y agoAssuming all the Martians live in a single pressurized structure.