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Earth could take a big ol' comet strike or a nuclear war—or probably both—and still be better able to support human life than Mars is. You could build a bunch o

Earth could take a big ol' comet strike or a nuclear war—or probably both—and still be better able to support human life than Mars is. You could build a bunch of super-hardened bunkers and pay people to live in them in shifts, cheaper than you could build a Martian colony and move people there. It's less sexy but it gets the job done cheaper, if anyone cares to do it. As for any other reason to live on Mars aside from temporarily in the name of science—I'm not seeing it.

cryptoz 7y ago
> As for any other reason to live on Mars aside from temporarily in the name of science—I'm not seeing it. Why don't you see the human desire to move to new places? It's a simple matter of wanting to go. No other reason should be required to explain why humans will go live on Mars. It's going to happen simply because people want it to happen.
- PhasmaFelis 7y ago
  That explains why humans want to live on Mars, certainly. But "we really want to" is not, on its own, a compelling reason to spend billions of dollars.
- paulryanrogers 7y ago
  > It's going to happen simply because people want it to happen. This sounds a lot like the religious arguments for supernatural healing, just have to believe and try. Human willpower is limited by the laws of physics. Barring some fundamental breakthroughs in resource utilization, like cold fusion, I don't see it happening--no matter the desire to do so. And if the cost is making Earth uninhabitable then it'd a be foolish to pursue blindly.
- shantly 7y ago
  It's an incredibly difficult place to live? It's probably not much easier than living on the Moon, really. A little more gravity but that's about the only useful thing it's got that the Moon doesn't—not enough atmosphere to be much help. That for a months-long travel time, versus days. It'd be like living on top of Everest, but a solid 100x worse in just about every way. It's wicked inhospitable. It's a romantic notion for some because we've got over a century of science fiction about Mars behind us, but it'd be a pretty miserable (and extremely expensive) existence. People'll probably go there at some point. A long-term colony? I really doubt it. It'd be a colossal waste of money more or less doomed to failure.
georgeecollins 7y ago
Agree. Antarctica is incredibly more livable for humans than Mars. It's warmer, gets more sunlight, better gravity, has an acceptable atmospheric pressure, and much less radiation. There is almost certainly a lot of valuable resources we would discover under the surface if we lived there. Transporting anything to and from Antarctica is incredibly cheaper. Yet few seem to want to live there.
gambiting 7y ago
I keep saying this - a colony on the bottom of the ocean would be absolutely invulnerable to almost any catastrophe, maybe except a direct asteroid impact. The surface could be engulfed in nuclear fire or wiped by a comet, and nothing will happen to a colony few kilometers below the ocean surface. But of course like you said - it's not as sexy as talking about space exploration.
- DuskStar 7y ago
  > a colony on the bottom of the ocean would be absolutely invulnerable to almost any catastrophe, maybe except a direct asteroid impact. Any NATURAL catastrophe. As soon as someone knows you're there (and they will, because building things like that is both literally and metaphorically noisy), and that you have food and shelter while they don't... Well, your invulnerability is going to be put to the test.
  - carapace 7y ago
    That's one aspect of the (truly stunning IMO) world of "Low". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_(comics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_(comics) > The series is set billions of years in the future of the Earth after the start of the sun's expansion into a red giant has made the surface uninhabitable. It follows the lives of the two million survivors in the underwater city of Salus; its helmsmen, the Caine family; and its pirate enemies. The protagonists of the first issues are Stel Caine, who searches for life-supporting planets with robotic probes, her husband Johl, and their children. Remender summarized the story as being about "one woman's optimism in the face of inevitable and true doom".

cryptoz 7y ago

> As for any other reason to live on Mars aside from temporarily in the name of science—I'm not seeing it. Why don't you see the human desire to move to new places? It's a simple matter of wanting to go. No other reason should be required to explain why humans will go live on Mars. It's going to happen simply because people want it to happen.

PhasmaFelis 7y ago
That explains why humans want to live on Mars, certainly. But "we really want to" is not, on its own, a compelling reason to spend billions of dollars.
paulryanrogers 7y ago
> It's going to happen simply because people want it to happen. This sounds a lot like the religious arguments for supernatural healing, just have to believe and try. Human willpower is limited by the laws of physics. Barring some fundamental breakthroughs in resource utilization, like cold fusion, I don't see it happening--no matter the desire to do so. And if the cost is making Earth uninhabitable then it'd a be foolish to pursue blindly.
shantly 7y ago
It's an incredibly difficult place to live? It's probably not much easier than living on the Moon, really. A little more gravity but that's about the only useful thing it's got that the Moon doesn't—not enough atmosphere to be much help. That for a months-long travel time, versus days. It'd be like living on top of Everest, but a solid 100x worse in just about every way. It's wicked inhospitable. It's a romantic notion for some because we've got over a century of science fiction about Mars behind us, but it'd be a pretty miserable (and extremely expensive) existence. People'll probably go there at some point. A long-term colony? I really doubt it. It'd be a colossal waste of money more or less doomed to failure.

georgeecollins 7y ago

Agree. Antarctica is incredibly more livable for humans than Mars. It's warmer, gets more sunlight, better gravity, has an acceptable atmospheric pressure, and much less radiation. There is almost certainly a lot of valuable resources we would discover under the surface if we lived there. Transporting anything to and from Antarctica is incredibly cheaper. Yet few seem to want to live there.

gambiting 7y ago

I keep saying this - a colony on the bottom of the ocean would be absolutely invulnerable to almost any catastrophe, maybe except a direct asteroid impact. The surface could be engulfed in nuclear fire or wiped by a comet, and nothing will happen to a colony few kilometers below the ocean surface. But of course like you said - it's not as sexy as talking about space exploration.

DuskStar 7y ago
> a colony on the bottom of the ocean would be absolutely invulnerable to almost any catastrophe, maybe except a direct asteroid impact. Any NATURAL catastrophe. As soon as someone knows you're there (and they will, because building things like that is both literally and metaphorically noisy), and that you have food and shelter while they don't... Well, your invulnerability is going to be put to the test.
- carapace 7y ago
  That's one aspect of the (truly stunning IMO) world of "Low". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_(comics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_(comics) > The series is set billions of years in the future of the Earth after the start of the sun's expansion into a red giant has made the surface uninhabitable. It follows the lives of the two million survivors in the underwater city of Salus; its helmsmen, the Caine family; and its pirate enemies. The protagonists of the first issues are Stel Caine, who searches for life-supporting planets with robotic probes, her husband Johl, and their children. Remender summarized the story as being about "one woman's optimism in the face of inevitable and true doom".