11 ms·

The goal of Mars to me is silly. Mars is already worse off in terms of climate than Earth. Why not work to improve what we have? The only appeal I see is "uncha

• tdb7893 7y ago
  I think the idea is that they aren't mutually exclusive. I think in fact the projects are generally good examples of how you can do both.
• pesfandiar 7y ago
  Agreed. Let's first try and "colonize" places like Nevada. Getting safe drinking water to many major urban centres could become a challenging engineering problem in the upcoming decades, much more worthwhile to solve than living on Mars.
  • cycrutchfield 7y ago
    Why not both?
  • niftich 7y ago
    There are large parts of Nevada that could be 'reclaimed' (in the Bureau of Reclamation sense) without too much effort -- just a couple of well-placed dams, berms, and canals. Large parts of the state are in closed basins, from which the water just evaporates anyway, so using it first within the basin would make sense. Extensive projects like this were once the norm, but fell out of favor as the 1970s transitioned into the 1980s, feeling the impact of the environmentalist movement, the opposition of Jimmy Carter, and the failure of the Teton Dam. Some big urban areas already need to rely on interbasin transfers for their water supply: LA, NYC, San Diego, Mexico City, SLC, Denver. Tunnels for water would actually be a sensible and 'boring' pivot for the Boring Company.
  • borkt 7y ago
    Also much, much easier to solve, and more than possible with existing technology. May require more clean energy but it can be solved.
• gnahckire 7y ago
  It sure is but, I believe the ultimate goal is to become an interplanetary species which would be pretty cool.
• Jimpulse 7y ago
  There's also mitigating the Great Filter: https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html
  • ryanbrunner 7y ago
    If you accept the great filter hypothesis to explain Fermi's paradox, wouldn't that make interplanetary exploration a bit pointless? Presumably many other civilisations would have been able to achieve the same thing, and they were still wiped out by the filter event.
    • munk-a 7y ago
      Not really, it could be that the great filter is apathy and single world habitation for instance - maybe we've been really lucky in terms of asteroid collisions so far and putting our eggs in two baskets is the necessary step for survival. We don't know what the filter is, so it's sensible to reject pessimism and just keep on trucking.
      • petschge 7y ago
        The alt text on https://xkcd.com/893/ https://xkcd.com/893/ fits really well here: “The universe is probably littered with the one-planet graves of cultures which made the sensible economic decision that there's no good reason to go into space - each discovered, studied, and remembered by the ones who made the irrational decision.” -- Randall Munroe
        • vkou 7y ago
          And I postulate that "The universe is littered with one-planet graves of cultures which made the sensible economic and game theory decision of having thousands of thermonuclear weapons pointed at eachother, hoping that MAD will make that whole bit of lunacy sensible." -- vkou It's got about as much empirical evidence to back it as RM's postulate. (And a similar sample size of N=0) Anyone care to get on the train for my pet issue, and get around to nuclear arms reduction, already? The beauty of making arguments, based on observing experiments with a sample size of N=0, is that you can argue whatever the hell you want.
• WhompingWindows 7y ago
  1. Potential for finding evidence of life outside of the Earth, never mind scientific research into dozens of other topics. 2. Joy and sheer inspiration; why go to the moon, run a marathon, or compose a symphony? Joy and inspiration. 3. Potential to improve our own technology as we strive for the above points. Clear, clear evidence of this in parent's comment and after NASA's innovative tech. It's irrelevant if you personally don't care, you don't have to do it. It seems there will be billions of dollars and thousands of willing individuals, you can sit back and relax while the rest of us explore the stars.
  • ridgeguy 7y ago
    4. Removal of single-point extinction event if/when another dinosaur killer asteroid strikes Earth.
    • chepaslaaa 7y ago
      you're just making the single point bigger
      • NullPrefix 7y ago
        This could be said for any expansion, until your single point becomes "everything that is".
        • smileysteve 7y ago
          It so happens, that the Sun's expansion will eventually consume most of the planets in the galaxy; of course, it will also be so cold long before that point humans won't be alive.
          • vageli 7y ago
            > It so happens, that the Sun's expansion will eventually consume most of the planets in the galaxy; of course, it will also be so cold long before that point humans won't be alive. In the galaxy or solar system?
• _Microft 7y ago
  It's not a replacement, it's a backup. You don't do these after a headcrash either but start doing them as soon as possible.
  • quickthrower2 7y ago
    I came here to say this. If Earth gets struck by a large object we might be glad (i) we have another planet and (ii) we have a way to survive on an otherwise uninhabitable planet that Earth has become. In fact living on mars might be the perfect preparation for what Earth might be like after climate change in a few hundred years time. The technology generated by colonising Mars might help with climate change.
• spookware 7y ago
  For me its to get away from religion.
  • whatshisface 7y ago
    You think nobody will bring their faith with them?
    • vntok 7y ago
      Precisely. Religions are in decline among the younger generations. By the time we go to Mars as a colonizing species, hopefully we won't bring "faith to a deity" with us.
      • ineedasername 7y ago
        There's plenty of other damaging ideologies to take their place. Look at the extremist 1% on either side of the left/right political divide for examples. Religion isn't a cause of negative ideological/extremism, it's a symptom of cognitive tendencies that give rise to it.
      • DMT-shitlords 7y ago
        Probably not going to go the way you're pulling for. In case you haven't been paying attention, there's a lot of new age mysticism floating around that seems to take root in: - hallucinogens (aka: entheogens) - multidimensional realities - interdimensional beings - time travel - psychic powers, like ESP - out of body experiences - paranormal reincarnation - extra terrestrial meddling in the origin of life on earth - CoSM artwork by Alex Grey
      • mensetmanusman 7y ago
        In decline among young people who are not having replacement levels of offspring. Social science has taught us religion imparts survival benefits (as does ‘politics’)
      • HNLurker2 7y ago
        >Religions are in decline among the younger generations. And ideology is rising, see
• zaroth 7y ago
  Little Elon had a dream that he will one day walk on Mars. He thought to himself, well why can’t I? All I need is billions of dollars, and rockets (lots of rockets), and space ships, and renewable energy, and tunnels, and,... And then Little Elon started a little company during the dot com boom called Zip2 and sold it to Compaq for $300 million. Then X.com which led to PayPal. Then SpaceX, Tesla, and all the rest. It’s anything but “silly”. It’s incredible, it’s aspirational, it’s undeniably impressive. I love that his goal is so audacious as to be entirely implausible, and he keeps taking step by tiny step toward to realization of his mission. And even though the goal may be entirely pointless to 99.999% of humanity, the steps taken along the way are reaping tremendous benefits to our lives and those of future generations. Back to TFA, again I think they are missing the significance of what Boring will be doing here. An underground autonomous system which otherwise would have cost hundreds of millions for $50 million risk free is a perfect win-win for Boring and Vegas. Boring gets a beautiful test bed for a whole array of new tech, and a marketing demonstration of what they can accomplish if all goes well. Vegas saved a boat load of money, and gets a tourist attraction to boot. It’s sad hearing/reading all the comments that this is stupid, just build a train, etc. Because that misses entirely the point that while this deployment could be served by a train the bigger vision is not one that could be served by trains, and the whole point, like everything Elon does, is to take a step on the path toward the Big Vision in a way that provides incremental value that can be monetized in order to fund and drive future R&D.
  • bongobongo 7y ago
    Yikes, dude. I'm sorry, but Elon Musk is just a guy with money. He's not a demigod. He's not a genius. He's not even a captain of industry. He's just a rich guy playing with money and and building a personal brand. I'm not saying that he doesn't have ideas, and that some of those ideas aren't the totally self-serving delusions of a rich dickhead, but a good many of them are, and I certainly don't want any part of "the path toward the Big Vision" of some rich dickhead. Seriously, buddy. Listen to yourself. You just described "the path toward the Big Vision" of some unelected billionaire as if it were some form of spiritual revelation or ideological telos.
    • 7y ago
• cygx 7y ago
  And people are free to work on that. If Musk wants to take a shot at colonizing other planets, more power to him. We're blowing trillions of dollars on pointless wars or 'frivolous' entertainment, so even if you don't agree with his vision, Musk's efforts should be pretty far down on the list of things to criticise...
• charlesju 7y ago
  I think it's more than a back up. A lot of the problems, like the original poster pointed out, to survive on mars, are solutions that'll greatly benefit us on earth. You cannot name one endeavor to get to Mars that doesn't have immediate byproducts that are incredibly useful to everyone on earth.
• toephu2 7y ago
  Musk has said Mars is the backup plan for earth. What if one day there is a disease or meteor that wipes out the entire human population on Earth? (e.g., see the dinosaurs) Even if the only appeal was the wild wild west and uncharted territory, what's wrong with that? Look at what exploring the Moon has brought us, many unexpected innovations and inventions useful for life on earth.
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  • bunderbunder 7y ago
    The meteor strike wiped out the dinosaurs, but not all life. Mars currently has no life. The strong implication is that, Earth post meteor strike would still be far, far, far more habitable for humans than Mars ever will be. As far as why describing Mars as Earth's backup plan rubs people the wrong way, I think it's a bit like Noah's Ark. While there is absolutely the cute story about the boat full of animals, and it does make for a good story, there's also the "meanwhile literally everyone aside from a minuscule elect ends up dying" bit. Which would be nothing but sour grapes if you didn't see people holding up the possibility of colonizing other planets as a mitigating factor that implies that we really shouldn't be quite so worried about all the environmental damage that's happening here on Earth. But you do. Put it all together, and the complete narrative starts to sound like, "Sure, we're recklessly hurtling toward turning the planet into an inhospitable shithole for billions of people, but don't worry about that, because 0.00000005% of them are going to get to live on a completely different inhospitable shithole instead!" Which, disclaimer, I'm not wanting to pan human space exploration. But I much prefer the "exploration for the sake of adventure and discovery" narrative. If that's not good enough, the ground to retreat to should be robots, not messianic fables for rich people.
    • aeternus 7y ago
      What is the actual goal of environmentalism on earth? If it is to preserve diverse species, then it absolutely makes sense to colonize other planets and spread the wide variety of plants, animals, and other organisms. The earth will eventually be burned up by the sun.
• SmirkingRevenge 7y ago
  There's a 100% chance of all life on earth going extinct, eventually, unless we colonize other planets.
  • hndamien 7y ago
    This guy gets it.
• spullara 7y ago
  We will eventually be wiped out by an asteroid strike no matter what we do.
  • mr_toad 7y ago
    Most species don’t last long enough to get wiped out by asteroids. I’d say that unless we evolve into something else, we’re unlikely to make it to the next big extinction event.
    • spullara 7y ago
      We are done evolving naturally, at this point it would all be genetic engineering. We can have our eggs in more than one basket this century as long as we put effort into it. That is plenty of time to avoid getting wiped by an asteroid in all likelihood.
• jobseeker990 7y ago
  Why am I not allowed to downvote this nonsense?
  • F_r_k 7y ago
    That's exactly why: because you cannot (yet) discern nonsense from something you don't agree on
  • ineedasername 7y ago
    Because you have zero karma. The right to negatively impact someone else's comment is predicated on having first positively contributed to numerous discussions.
• 127 7y ago
  Some find better ways to live on other planets, some find better ways to educate people how to live sustainably on this one, without fucking it up. It's all positive in my book.
• maxxxxx 7y ago
  Totally agree. Mars seems a miserable place. I would prefer we sent probes to Europa, Enceladus and upper atmosphere of Venus first to see what’s going on there.
• PopeDotNinja 7y ago
  There is anything plenty of stuff that could irrevocably nerf the viability of Earth as a habitable world. Something will wipe out all remaining life on Earth eventually. A billionaire wanting to go to Mars makes more sense to me than a billionaire trying to build the world's biggest private yacht.
• mymythisisthis 7y ago
  Having a small group of people on Mars would be a great scientific boom. Einstein was inspired because as a patent clerk he worked across from the railway station and was very aware of time, time standards, physical trains. We'd give up our earth centric imaginations of time, gravity, and many other things.
  • fhbdukfrh 7y ago
    They would spend all their time struggling to stay alive; no real science would ever get done. Look at the space station today. They're in a low earth orbit, completely dependent on resupply and accomplish very little other than siphon funding from unmanned exploration that actually leads to amazing breakthroughs because, "humans in space!"
  • gus_massa 7y ago
    > Einstein was inspired because as a patent clerk he worked across from the railway station and was very aware of time, time standards, physical trains. [citation needed] I guess he was more inspired by the Michelson experiment and the Lorentz transformations. > We'd give up our earth centric imaginations of time, gravity, and many other things. Gravity works exactly like here (But you can jump higher). Time works exactly like here too (The length of the day and the year are different, it will be a problem to choose a good calendar, but it's already a mess here. Anyway, it's not a scientific or technological problem, people just don't want to change the calendar they are use to.) Perhaps they will find a few new interesting cases for climate science an geology???
• epanchin 7y ago
  Ironic that you use the Wild West as an example. Do you think the world would be better now if the British had just worked on improving Britain rather than settling in America? I’m sure there were many people calling the settlers silly back then too.
  • perfmode 7y ago
    It's a coin toss. America, as it came, came at a huge cost. And over the course of 300+ years, it was carried out in possibly the least ethical manner possible. I for one would have been happy for the Europeans to evolve for another 1000 years before they set foot in the Americas, in earnest, under the aspect of eternity.
  • notahacker 7y ago
    > Do you think the world would be better now if the British had just worked on improving Britain rather than settling in America? I suspect quite a few Native Americans do...
  • spraak 7y ago
    I meant it as in "the freedom to do what one wants", not so much literally. And even so, Mars has probably less resources than even the (physical) Wild West did. In another comment I made the analogy that Earth is like a car in need of repair, and Mars is a rusting junker in the forest - in far worse of a state than Earth, but somehow there is the desire to go there.
  • Retra 7y ago
    The settlers back then were not trying to settle a barren rock with no breathable atmosphere or heat. If Britain had tried settling Antarctica, things would have gone very differently. And as others pointed out, America was already settled when Europeans arrived, so what innovation even occurred there?
• austhrow743 7y ago
  "Uncharted Territory" / wild West is easily enough appeal to make it worth it. Musk could be the sheriff of a colony in his very own space Western. People have worked hard their whole lives for much less.
• prepend 7y ago
  Mars is not full of people. Improving climate on Earth, means billions of people to deal with. Also, these aren’t exclusive tasks. Everything that works for Mars also helps earth and in many cases specifically with climate change.
• ekianjo 7y ago
  Going to the New World was also silly for Europeans at the time. Everything was going to be more dangerous, more risky and life threatening. But pushing ourselves to go beyond risk is what makes humans progress in the long run. Going to another planet is a huge, difficult step forward. By all means everyone who goes there will be worse off, but think beyond their existence, 300 years in the future. It may become a pretty nice colony once we figure things out.
  • spraak 7y ago
    I think the analogy is poor, because the "New World" was abundant with resources. The new world of Mars is not, and nearly everything would need to be brought there.
    • ekianjo 7y ago
      abundant with resources? How do you explain the first colonies starved to death in several different locations? Its not the resources that matter as much as the ability and capability to extract something from them.
      • spraak 7y ago
        No matter how large the numerator (the ability), divide by zero (lack of resources) is still an error.
        • ekianjo 7y ago
          There is no shortage of chemical matter and minerals on Mars.
• hnzix 7y ago
  > The goal of Mars to me is silly. Mars is already worse off in terms of climate than Earth. Why not work to improve what we have? Earth's biosphere has already had five (5) mass extinctions. Guess what happens to humanity if number six shows up before we colonize another planet? Mars is simply the closest option.
  • halter73 7y ago
    The thing about the last five mass extinctions is they didn't involve a species so good at adapting the environment to serve its own needs that said species could colonize Mars. Of those 5 mass extinctions, did any of them make Earth less habitable than Mars is today? I'm genuinely curious.
    • hnzix 7y ago
      The Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event is theorized to be a massive asteroid strike which "release[d] the equivalent energy of several million nuclear weapons detonating simultaneously" and killed off 75% of extant species. Sure, the preppers will be gleefully LARPing Fallout from their bunkers, and a small percentage of humans would probably pull through. Maybe. If we have a seed colony on Mars, it significantly de-risks human extinction from an asteroid strike. Elon is the ultimate prepper.
• kpU8efre7r 7y ago
  Mars at its best is far less hospitable than the most inhospitable places on Earth. With that said- Earth is still only one planet and it would be wise for us to spread out for survival and resources.
  • spraak 7y ago
    Existentially I don't understand the need to perpetuate our species.
• Causality1 7y ago
  Because being a multi-planet species is required for long term survival. Could be tomorrow or a hundred years from now, sooner or later there will be fifty mile diameter asteroid with our name on it.
• sambull 7y ago
  Personal opinion, Elon believes that the earth is going to be uninhabitable by us in fairly short order. Mars is a fantasy to develop life support tech for earth, knowing full well saving ourselves would have been out of the question.
• DeonPenny 7y ago
  Redundancy. Plus the earth as it's is now is very hard to change and improve.
• gitgud 7y ago
  A good quote I can relate to: I'm perfectly happy with all the people who are walking around and just staring at the clouds and looking at the stars and saying, "I want to go there."But I'm looking at the ground, and I want to fix the pothole that's right in front of me before I fall in. This is the kind of person I am. - Linus Torvalds
  • ineedasername 7y ago
    Sure-- I think it's fair to say that society & civilization as a whole is better off with both types of people.
• ineedasername 7y ago
  The moon might have been seen as similarly silly. US might much more easily have focused on nearer space with a greater ROI on the project itself. But apart from the geopolitical bragging rights, the technical constraints of a moon shot meant the development of all kinds of technologies that rippled outward through society. We see some of the same effects with the LHC. Its direct uses have limited (immediate) practical impact, but the technologies required to build it, harness & process those volumes of data, etc., have spurned on all sorts of more immediately practical innovations.
  • idlewords 7y ago
    Sorry, what's an innovation that came out of the moon program or the LHC that has broader social benefit?
    • ineedasername 7y ago
      Here is a good starting point for the LHC: https://www.quora.com/Could-any-practical-benefits-of-the-Large-Hadron-Collider-ever-justify-its-enormous-cost https://www.quora.com/Could-any-practical-benefits-of-the-La... And here's a good starting point for the Apollo moon missions: https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/80660main_ApolloFS.pdf https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/80660main_ApolloFS....
    • edmundsauto 7y ago
      Quite a few things, to name a few: * improved firefighting protective gear * Athletic shoes * Sports stadiums being able to move the field of play * seismological monitors for everything from trains to trucks * base defibrillator tech * cordless power tools * skin care: "Estee Lauder uses digital image analyzers and software based on NASA lunar research to evaluate cosmetic products." [0] https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/80660main_ApolloFS.pdf https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/80660main_ApolloFS....
      • deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
• kilroy123 7y ago
  I disagree. The technology that will come out of doing so will drastically improve life here on Earth. (Could potentially at least) Just going to the Moon and living in low orbit has resulted in a ton of new technology.
• inamberclad 7y ago
  Do you propose not going to space at all? Or is there somewhere better nearby? The Earth won't support us for much longer.
  • spraak 7y ago
    And yet somehow Mars will [support us]? To me this is like having a car in need of repair (Earth) and instead finding some abandoned junker (Mars) rusting in the forest and saying "yes, I need that one!"
• dahfizz 7y ago
  Why did the aboriginals hollow out a tree and float across the ocean? Why did prehistoric humans walk all the way from Africa to the southern tip of America? We explore. It is literally in our DNA. It's what makes us human. It's also why we outlive the neanderthals, who never left the geographic region they were "born" in.
• megaremote 7y ago
  Asteroid?