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Has this disaster improved robot tech. Might it help on Mars.

• jansan 8y ago
  Before we think about Mars I suggest we should first get our shit together on this little planet.
  • umvi 8y ago
    It's fun dreaming about becoming an interplanetary species. It's not fun thinking about cleaning up a huge mess created by tragedy of the commons. That's said, Earth at its worse is still probably infinitely more livable than Mars at its best
    • v_lisivka 8y ago
      > That's said, Earth at its worse is still probably infinitely more livable than Mars at its best. Except for taxes. Anybody, who will live on Earth and be above average, will need to support other living beings (humans, animals, fish, forest, grass, birds, insects) with his taxes, otherwise we will have dirty cloak with few billions of angry and hungry living beings, which can dig you out of any bunker. At Mars, it will be hard to survive without external support for about century, but much lower taxes and self selection of educated people with high IQ can make it booming.
      • imtringued 8y ago
        Are the homeless in san francisco forced to support other humans?
        • v_lisivka 8y ago
          Yep, in form of 6% sale tax.
  • noonespecial 8y ago
    I suggest we do both, as fast as possible, in case either doesn't work out.
  • Symmetry 8y ago
    Why do people always respond this way to space exploration but not other stuff? I seldom hear "Maybe we should stop making movies until we get our shit together" even though Hollywood has a budget about the same size as NASA's or slightly larger.
    • linuxftw 8y ago
      Colonizing Mars is a stupid, fundamentally impossible idea. > I seldom hear "Maybe we should stop making movies until we get our shit together" even though Hollywood has a budget about the same size as NASA's or slightly larger. People are somewhat free to spend their money on what they choose. Taxes, not so much.
      • Symmetry 8y ago
        Wait, fundamentally impossible? If you were to say it were technologically impossible or economically impossible I think I might be inclined to agree with you, we're a long way from a self-sustaining Mars colony being feasible. But what fundamental limits are there that couldn't be fixed with a proper application of technology? We know how to build centrifuges to simulate gravity and radiation shielding. We know all the elements necessary for life are present on Mars and I'm not seeing any fundamental problems with keeping people alive, though there are certainly a lot of things that need to be figured out. I don't think colonizing other planets in the solar system is a good strategy for giving the human race a second chance because its only a very narrow range of disasters that could wipe out all humans on Earth but spare a colony on Mars. But there's an incredible amount of science to be gained through more exploration of the solar system. Comparing the atmosphere of Earth to that of Mars and Venus has helped a lot in understanding the details of global warming and ozone depletion. We don't know exactly how fundamental science research is going to pay off but it has before and I'd argue that there is actually something of fundamental value in understanding the universe better.
        • linuxftw 8y ago
          > Comparing the atmosphere of Earth to that of Mars and Venus has helped a lot in understanding the details of global warming and ozone depletion. Research for the purposes of improving life on Earth may be a good use of tax payer dollars. Establishing a colony is a whole other thing, which implies sustained human existence in a location for the purposes of either species propagation/continuation or resource extraction. Mining things in space and sending them home to Earth is science fiction nonsense. The energy required means it's fundamentally impossible to have a profitable operation resource extraction from a colony.
  • JudgeWapner 8y ago
    the best way to do the latter might be to colonize another planet and lead by example.
  • nnq 8y ago
    ...or the other way around: get a self-sufficient backup-colony up somewhere else before we totally loose our shit on this one!
  • foxyv 8y ago
    If we can live on Mars we just may have a chance of getting our shit together on this planet. A ton of the renewable technology we have now is a result of our progress in space. Group psychology, recycling, energy conservation, food waste reduction, and sustainability are all goals of a space colony. Everything we need to help maintain our own planet. In addition understanding why Mars is a frozen wasteland and why Venus is a molten lead hothouse can lead to revelations about our own climate to help us avoid destroying our own climate.
  • tracker1 8y ago
    It's not zero sum here... some people can work on one thing, and others in another.