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“A new life awaits you in the Off-world colonies. The chance to begin again in a golden land of opportunity and adventure.” Add it to the long list of things B

“A new life awaits you in the Off-world colonies. The chance to begin again in a golden land of opportunity and adventure.” Add it to the long list of things Blade Runner got so right about the future. I stopped reading this article because in all the rocket talk, nowhere did it acknowledge just how completely inhospitable Mars will be once you finally get it there. Every single aspect of the planet is not conducive to life. I don’t doubt that one day extremely rich people will (very far in the future, far past Elon Musk’s lifespan) live there and the toil of humans here will fund the exotic ways they deal with the massive radiation there etc. Just so they can not be around the poor serfs back on the planet custom made for life.

Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
> nowhere did it acknowledge just how completely inhospitable Mars will be once you finally get it there And you really legitimately think that they did not know about this piece of information from the children's book about space? They don't mention it because it is so ubiquitous and common sense that they assume everyone knows it, not because they managed to "miss the memo" about Mars. The idea is that we terraform Mars with technology to make it liveable, not that we just go there and try to build a hut from dirt and call it a day.
DennisP 7y ago
The author didn't write about that in this particular article because, as mentioned and linked in the first line, he has a whole series of space articles. Here's his article about radiation on Mars: https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2019/10/20/omg-space-is-full-of-radiation-and-why-im-not-worried/ https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2019/10/20/omg-space-is-f... And here, on terraforming Mars: https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2018/08/05/atmospheres-and-terraforming/ https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2018/08/05/atmospheres-an... And on the immense infrastructure we'd need for a sustainable colony: https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2020/01/20/what-would-it-be-like-to-work-on-mars/ https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2020/01/20/what-would-it-...

Erlich_Bachman 7y ago

> nowhere did it acknowledge just how completely inhospitable Mars will be once you finally get it there And you really legitimately think that they did not know about this piece of information from the children's book about space? They don't mention it because it is so ubiquitous and common sense that they assume everyone knows it, not because they managed to "miss the memo" about Mars. The idea is that we terraform Mars with technology to make it liveable, not that we just go there and try to build a hut from dirt and call it a day.

DennisP 7y ago

The author didn't write about that in this particular article because, as mentioned and linked in the first line, he has a whole series of space articles. Here's his article about radiation on Mars: https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2019/10/20/omg-space-is-full-of-radiation-and-why-im-not-worried/ https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2019/10/20/omg-space-is-f... And here, on terraforming Mars: https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2018/08/05/atmospheres-and-terraforming/ https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2018/08/05/atmospheres-an... And on the immense infrastructure we'd need for a sustainable colony: https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2020/01/20/what-would-it-be-like-to-work-on-mars/ https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2020/01/20/what-would-it-...