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This is wrong on a fundamental level. Humanity has always looked to colonize places seemingly on the margin of livability. Northern Europe, the arctic, the Eur

This is wrong on a fundamental level. Humanity has always looked to colonize places seemingly on the margin of livability. Northern Europe, the arctic, the Eurasian steppes, etc. Our ability to live and thrive in different environments has come concomitant with our development of the technology to do so. We push to new environments because we can, we develop technology to better live in new environments because we're there, it goes hand in hand. Living in the Sahara (aside from all the other problems) is not living on Mars, it won't depend on and push the development of technology for living off-Earth. Living on Mars will be hard. Harder than many people appreciate today. But the more we do it the easier it will get, and the faster our technology will advance for living off-Earth. By living on Mars we'll unlock our ability to live not just there but in space and on other planets. Colonizing Mars won't just give us Mars, it'll give us the stars. It'll kickstart the development of technologies that will enable self-reliant space habitats, which will give us, eventually, generation ships, and will also feedback to improving life on Earth (better recycling systems, better power systems, things we can't even envision today). That doesn't happen if you just try to spread out on Earth more.

adekok 9y ago
> Humanity has always looked to colonize places seemingly on the margin of livability. I think you're missing my point. It's just dreaming to call Mars "on the margin of livability". There's insufficient air to breath. No plants will grow there. There's no industry, etc. Every single thing outside of rocks and solar power will have to be brought from Earth. > Northern Europe, the arctic, the Eurasian steppes, etc. Comparing those places to Mars is again dreaming. People have been living in those places for thousands of years, and subsisting on what they can grow / gather / kill locally. No such local lifestyle is possible on Mars. > By living on Mars we'll unlock our ability to live not just there but in space and on other planets. How does that work? Maybe some technology helps, but you can't get past the sheer volume of air / water required to terraform Mars. And once you've done that, it's all on Mars. You can't use it to do anything else. I like science fiction as much as the next person, but your response is a fantastical vision of hope. It requires a hard-nosed engineering approach to turn that hope into reality.
- yellowapple 9y ago
  "There's insufficient air to breath." Only if we don't make the air ourselves, which is totally doable because... "No plants will grow there." They'll grow in greenhouses, and they'll even grow with Martian soil, probably even with the carbon dioxide that makes up the majority of the Martian atmosphere. Some clever genetic engineering might allow plants to grow outside of greenhouses. Mars is cold, but not that cold compared to other worlds in our solar system. "There's no industry" We're talking about a colony of a million people or more. With that kind of workforce available, bootstrapping an industrial complex is not insurmountable. "water required" Mars has actual ice caps. It might even have liquid water. The water's not nearly as abundant as, say, Ceres (which is a giant sphere of water ice and rock), but it's not scarce, either. Just gotta land in the right spot.
  - adekok 9y ago
    Hand-waving is nice, but... Plants don't make air. Plants turn CO2 into O2. If there's no CO2, plants can't make O2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Mars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Mars There's 0.6% of the air of Earth. For all intents and purposes (i.e. human / plants), it's a vacuum. And the surface temperature isn't much better. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Mars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Mars -55C is common. An extreme heatwave at the equator is 20C. With lows of -153C. So no, plants don't grow in a vacuum, and they don't grow in -55C. Any greenhouse will have to be pressurized and sealed. This means that the main purpose of plants will be food, not O2 regeneration. Algae do O2 generation better and more efficiently than plants. There is likely enough water for a small colony, if you can get to it, melt it, and it's in the right place. > We're talking about a colony of a million people or more. With that kind of workforce available, bootstrapping an industrial complex is not insurmountable. I suspect you severely underestimate the complexity of our industrial system. It's very hard to create life-support on Mars for a million people. And a million people are nowhere near enough to create a modern industrial base, even with support from Earth.
    - rmah 9y ago
      I vaguely recall reading that a population of apx 200mil is required to maintain a modern industrial society with all bells and whistles (e.g. semiconductor fabs, rockets, etc).

adekok 9y ago

> Humanity has always looked to colonize places seemingly on the margin of livability. I think you're missing my point. It's just dreaming to call Mars "on the margin of livability". There's insufficient air to breath. No plants will grow there. There's no industry, etc. Every single thing outside of rocks and solar power will have to be brought from Earth. > Northern Europe, the arctic, the Eurasian steppes, etc. Comparing those places to Mars is again dreaming. People have been living in those places for thousands of years, and subsisting on what they can grow / gather / kill locally. No such local lifestyle is possible on Mars. > By living on Mars we'll unlock our ability to live not just there but in space and on other planets. How does that work? Maybe some technology helps, but you can't get past the sheer volume of air / water required to terraform Mars. And once you've done that, it's all on Mars. You can't use it to do anything else. I like science fiction as much as the next person, but your response is a fantastical vision of hope. It requires a hard-nosed engineering approach to turn that hope into reality.

yellowapple 9y ago
"There's insufficient air to breath." Only if we don't make the air ourselves, which is totally doable because... "No plants will grow there." They'll grow in greenhouses, and they'll even grow with Martian soil, probably even with the carbon dioxide that makes up the majority of the Martian atmosphere. Some clever genetic engineering might allow plants to grow outside of greenhouses. Mars is cold, but not that cold compared to other worlds in our solar system. "There's no industry" We're talking about a colony of a million people or more. With that kind of workforce available, bootstrapping an industrial complex is not insurmountable. "water required" Mars has actual ice caps. It might even have liquid water. The water's not nearly as abundant as, say, Ceres (which is a giant sphere of water ice and rock), but it's not scarce, either. Just gotta land in the right spot.
- adekok 9y ago
  Hand-waving is nice, but... Plants don't make air. Plants turn CO2 into O2. If there's no CO2, plants can't make O2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Mars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Mars There's 0.6% of the air of Earth. For all intents and purposes (i.e. human / plants), it's a vacuum. And the surface temperature isn't much better. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Mars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Mars -55C is common. An extreme heatwave at the equator is 20C. With lows of -153C. So no, plants don't grow in a vacuum, and they don't grow in -55C. Any greenhouse will have to be pressurized and sealed. This means that the main purpose of plants will be food, not O2 regeneration. Algae do O2 generation better and more efficiently than plants. There is likely enough water for a small colony, if you can get to it, melt it, and it's in the right place. > We're talking about a colony of a million people or more. With that kind of workforce available, bootstrapping an industrial complex is not insurmountable. I suspect you severely underestimate the complexity of our industrial system. It's very hard to create life-support on Mars for a million people. And a million people are nowhere near enough to create a modern industrial base, even with support from Earth.
  - rmah 9y ago
    I vaguely recall reading that a population of apx 200mil is required to maintain a modern industrial society with all bells and whistles (e.g. semiconductor fabs, rockets, etc).