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I often think about this Bruce Sterling quote on The WELL from 2004: ``I'll believe in people settling Mars at about the same time I see people settling the Go

I often think about this Bruce Sterling quote on The WELL from 2004: ``I'll believe in people settling Mars at about the same time I see people settling the Gobi Desert. The Gobi Desert is about a thousand times as hospitable as Mars and five hundred times cheaper and easier to reach. Nobody ever writes "Gobi Desert Opera" because, well, it's just kind of plonkingly obvious that there's no good reason to go there and live. It's ugly, it's inhospitable and there's no way to make it pay. Mars is just the same, really. We just romanticize it because it's so hard to reach.``

dogma1138 8y ago
Yep and while Mars can provide a possible plan b any disaster other than the planet disintegrating would likely leave a more hospitable environment than mars, and if we have the geo engineering needed to terraform Mars we can terraform the earth just as easily. That said however settling the Gobi isn’t cool and as such it won’t drive innovation that could and would improve life on earth.
- ben_w 8y ago
  What is missing from life on Earth that is more improved by turning Mars green than by turning Earth’s deserts green? Sure, Mars is cool and I intend to by a ticket, but making Earth deserts productive sounds like a great improvement down here.
  - dogma1138 8y ago
    Well turning the desert green may have an impact on the global ecosystem of the planet at least as far as local species go. If that isn’t a problem for you then sure go a head. Mars would require us to solves many more problems which can be then used to solve problems here on earth sometimes a bigger challenge is required to push for a breakthrough. But if we go about geoegineering then I rather terraform mars which by all accounts is a dead planet than terraform the less livable places on earth as they are a host to their unique life forms.

dogma1138 8y ago

Yep and while Mars can provide a possible plan b any disaster other than the planet disintegrating would likely leave a more hospitable environment than mars, and if we have the geo engineering needed to terraform Mars we can terraform the earth just as easily. That said however settling the Gobi isn’t cool and as such it won’t drive innovation that could and would improve life on earth.

ben_w 8y ago
What is missing from life on Earth that is more improved by turning Mars green than by turning Earth’s deserts green? Sure, Mars is cool and I intend to by a ticket, but making Earth deserts productive sounds like a great improvement down here.
- dogma1138 8y ago
  Well turning the desert green may have an impact on the global ecosystem of the planet at least as far as local species go. If that isn’t a problem for you then sure go a head. Mars would require us to solves many more problems which can be then used to solve problems here on earth sometimes a bigger challenge is required to push for a breakthrough. But if we go about geoegineering then I rather terraform mars which by all accounts is a dead planet than terraform the less livable places on earth as they are a host to their unique life forms.