8 ms·

I still wonder why many people think colonizing Mars is doable, when we can't even colonize Antarctica. I mean, weather might be slightly better, but the lack

by bserge 6y ago

I still wonder why many people think colonizing Mars is doable, when we can't even colonize Antarctica. I mean, weather might be slightly better, but the lack of breathable air, water and the distance from Earth far outweigh that. Neither Mars nor Antarctica offer anything of real use, even asteroid capture and mining seems like a more viable idea.

daveslash 6y ago
Not to mention Mars' lack of protective magnetic fields....
- Robotbeat 6y ago
  It really is not that important. Solve the atmosphere problem, and the surface radiation levels would be plenty low enough. Additionally, even without a magnetic field, it’d take on the order of 100 million years for Mars to lose an atmosphere if it were terraformed. Earth, due to Sun increasing in temperature, may become uninhabitable in about ~250-500 million years without active measures as well.
  - analbumcover 6y ago
    Humans will be long extinct in 500 million years. That's not really something we need be planning for.
    - Robotbeat 6y ago
      But our ancestors need not be. Also, that's something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. In order to be a long-lived civilization, species, or even biosphere, we must learn to think and plan far beyond one's own lifespan. Anyway, you're proving my original point about the (lack of a) "need" for a magnetic field. It isn't necessary (on any kind of reasonable timescale), provided you have sufficient atmosphere. On Earth as well, the atmosphere is much more important than the magnetic field for shielding us from space radiation. EDIT:Which isn't to say we couldn't build one. In fact, building a magnetic field for Mars (say, by many parallel superconducting cables around the equator) may be easier than making enough atmospheric pressure.
      - analbumcover 6y ago
        Creating an atmosphere and magnetic field for Mars should be easily doable, although I don't think either is necessary for human life on Mars, by comparison to ensuring our species survives for 500 million years. Only a handful of simple species have survived that long, e.g. sponges and jellyfish. I don't see why you think humans could do the same. But assuming we are at most .04% into our species lifetime seems ridiculous. Feel free to calculate the probability that a randomly selected species will survive 2500 times longer than they have to present.
        Robotbeat 6y ago
        Why would we randomly select the species? We have agency, here... We can foresee hundreds of millions of years into the future in ways that literally no other species can (as far as we can tell, we're the only species that has developed the mathematical abstractions to even contemplate such numbers). Anyway, the point isn't humans as a species, unchanging and eternal. But humans as the progenitors of future intelligent lifeforms that may indeed be around for 500 million years or whatever. Stasis isn't a requirement or even desired. ...by CHOOSING to contemplate survival on such timescales and making decisions based on that contemplation, we are, in fact, changing the odds of surviving that long. So a random selection is not appropriate...
        analbumcover 6y ago
        You are assuming that abilities potentially unique to humans make us, or our progeny, more likely to survive long-term than a randomly selected species. I don't think that is well supported. Also, why do you think that we have agency? That seems another unsupported assumption. I could see a general AI, if one is ever developed, being more likely to survive that long, given we even consider it alive to begin with. But a hominin descendant seems incredibly unlikely. I guess I don't see why you think contemplating long-term survival would be correlated with longer survival rates.
        Robotbeat 6y ago
thecopy 6y ago
>Neither Mars nor Antarctica offer anything of real use What about experience and knowledge?
- duxup 6y ago
  At least as far as colonization goes, I feel like we're getting really close to not needing to colonize a place to learn a great deal.
  - avmich 6y ago
    How would you judge what you could learn being close to a place for extended, uninterrupted periods of time? How would you get incentivised to invent something out of this world because you're in another one? Unique experiences are something which you can't have otherwise. So you're missing them if you're not close. Why to have such a disadvantage, maybe not for everything, but for something?
    - duxup 6y ago
      I just wonder if the scale of effort to colonize and support humans really provides a net benefit considering how successful remote programs have been. There's so much you don't need to do if you're not sending humans.
  - valuearb 6y ago
    The first astronauts will explore more of Mars in their first few days than rovers have done in 50 years. Mars likely had life and we won’t be really sure of what kind and it’s history until we get boots on the ground. Robots are great for very limited tasks, but take decades and billions to design, build and deliver to do what a scientist can do in an afternoon. Right now we have one rover that bern failing to dig a hole fir nearly two years.
    - duxup 6y ago
      Considering the volume of resources expended to get people to mars and host them there and return them... I'm not sure that it is a fair comparison.
mLuby 6y ago
> There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation may never come again… We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win, and the others, too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_choose_to_go_to_the_Moon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_choose_to_go_to_the_Moon
capdeck 6y ago
Look and compare the military and space budgets of all countries... it doesn't matter really what we do - it will always be better than what we are doing now.
Koshkin 6y ago
> weather might be slightly better On a hot day there will be around 25 degrees Celsius, tops; the following night, minus 100.
Torkel 6y ago
It's about the 'why'. The thing that Mars has to offer that Antarctica does not is "backup solution for humankind". An asteroid impact can make earth uninhabitable. With a self sustaining backup on Mars we can keep humans around even after that. Asteroids are interesting too, but more far fetched than Mars. I recommend watching the Elon Musk presentations on Mars / making life multiplanetary.
- Koshkin 6y ago
  > An asteroid impact I wonder whether this is more likely to happen on Mars (due to its relative proximity to the asteroid belt).
  - najarvg 6y ago
    This is a very valid question and we should all be asking this. Mars has approximately 200 estimated asteroid impacts per year (https://www.space.com/21198-mars-asteroid-strikes-common.html https://www.space.com/21198-mars-asteroid-strikes-common.htm... - a bit dated) while earth has about 10-12, most hitting water. The vast majority disintegrate in our atmosphere (https://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/impact.html https://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/impact.html). While I understand the need for us to look to the stars and dream big, if catastrophic destruction is the primary driver for looking for settling on Mars, we should ask if Antarctica might be a better first choice.
  - ed_balls 6y ago
    average person on Mars would be much better prepared to the impact.
    - Koshkin 6y ago
      While the environmental impact would be minimal (primarily because there's not much environment to speak of to begin with), no one can possibly prepare for a direct hit on the head.
      - 6y ago
ceejayoz 6y ago
> I still wonder why many people think colonizing Mars is doable, when we can't even colonize Antarctica. I think it's highly likely we could colonize Antarctica on a technological level, but various treaties prevent it.
dekhn 6y ago
We have colonized Antartica- multiple nations overwinter there.
- jcranmer 6y ago
  They are not self-sustaining, and self-sustaining colonies are what is entailed in the justification of colonizing Mars to provide a backup for Earth.
  - uncoder0 6y ago
    Why would we invest the resources? Mars provides a huge benefit to humanity Antarctica unless just used as a testing ground for Mars doesn't have the same benefits to justify the expense.
  - dekhn 6y ago
    Yes, I agree, but strictly speaking, colonization doesn't require self-sustainment.
  - Robotbeat 6y ago
    Of course, then it is illegal to “colonize” Antarctica by that definition since mining is prohibited by treaty (and many other activities are constrained by treaty as well). Not prohibited on Mars. Cannot realistically be self-sustaining without mining. And of course, basically no country on earth is self-sustaining, although almost any country COULD be (if your population is reduced and willing to sustain a low enough quality of life). Additionally, a self-sustaining and independent settlement on Mars is by definition NOT a colony!
AtlasBarfed 6y ago
If only there were some way to modify the axis of rotation of the earth. If we could get antarctica into temperate zones we'd add a major continent for settling.
lm28469 6y ago
Because if you believe in it gives you the comfort of not having to care about long term sustainability on earth. It's one of the many facets of the "tech will fix everything" people. What life do you want to live, the "we're slowly fucking up the only hospitable place humanity will ever step foot on" or the "we'll be sipping UBI financed mojitos with Musk on Mars by 2050" ?
- keymone 6y ago
  Your argument is severely undermined by the fact that mars is already fucked up and we need to employ lots of tech to fix it. We can then use that tech to solve some of the issues on earth.
contrarianmop 6y ago
A planet colonised and dependent solely on high tech for its own survival is a potential catalyst for radical innovation and trade. We could turn it into a place free or our earthly issues. Antarctica is just a cold place which we may colonise once it melts, start a few wars over it maybe, destroy it, exterminate its tiny wildlife and so on. Mars is already dead, hopefully not stimulating enough for our primitive instincts and will let us focus solely on tech advancement.

by bserge 6y ago

daveslash 6y ago

Not to mention Mars' lack of protective magnetic fields....

Robotbeat 6y ago
It really is not that important. Solve the atmosphere problem, and the surface radiation levels would be plenty low enough. Additionally, even without a magnetic field, it’d take on the order of 100 million years for Mars to lose an atmosphere if it were terraformed. Earth, due to Sun increasing in temperature, may become uninhabitable in about ~250-500 million years without active measures as well.
- analbumcover 6y ago
  Humans will be long extinct in 500 million years. That's not really something we need be planning for.
  - Robotbeat 6y ago
    But our ancestors need not be. Also, that's something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. In order to be a long-lived civilization, species, or even biosphere, we must learn to think and plan far beyond one's own lifespan. Anyway, you're proving my original point about the (lack of a) "need" for a magnetic field. It isn't necessary (on any kind of reasonable timescale), provided you have sufficient atmosphere. On Earth as well, the atmosphere is much more important than the magnetic field for shielding us from space radiation. EDIT:Which isn't to say we couldn't build one. In fact, building a magnetic field for Mars (say, by many parallel superconducting cables around the equator) may be easier than making enough atmospheric pressure.
    - analbumcover 6y ago
      Creating an atmosphere and magnetic field for Mars should be easily doable, although I don't think either is necessary for human life on Mars, by comparison to ensuring our species survives for 500 million years. Only a handful of simple species have survived that long, e.g. sponges and jellyfish. I don't see why you think humans could do the same. But assuming we are at most .04% into our species lifetime seems ridiculous. Feel free to calculate the probability that a randomly selected species will survive 2500 times longer than they have to present.
      - Robotbeat 6y ago
        Why would we randomly select the species? We have agency, here... We can foresee hundreds of millions of years into the future in ways that literally no other species can (as far as we can tell, we're the only species that has developed the mathematical abstractions to even contemplate such numbers). Anyway, the point isn't humans as a species, unchanging and eternal. But humans as the progenitors of future intelligent lifeforms that may indeed be around for 500 million years or whatever. Stasis isn't a requirement or even desired. ...by CHOOSING to contemplate survival on such timescales and making decisions based on that contemplation, we are, in fact, changing the odds of surviving that long. So a random selection is not appropriate...
        analbumcover 6y ago
        You are assuming that abilities potentially unique to humans make us, or our progeny, more likely to survive long-term than a randomly selected species. I don't think that is well supported. Also, why do you think that we have agency? That seems another unsupported assumption. I could see a general AI, if one is ever developed, being more likely to survive that long, given we even consider it alive to begin with. But a hominin descendant seems incredibly unlikely. I guess I don't see why you think contemplating long-term survival would be correlated with longer survival rates.
        Robotbeat 6y ago

thecopy 6y ago

>Neither Mars nor Antarctica offer anything of real use What about experience and knowledge?

duxup 6y ago
At least as far as colonization goes, I feel like we're getting really close to not needing to colonize a place to learn a great deal.
- avmich 6y ago
  How would you judge what you could learn being close to a place for extended, uninterrupted periods of time? How would you get incentivised to invent something out of this world because you're in another one? Unique experiences are something which you can't have otherwise. So you're missing them if you're not close. Why to have such a disadvantage, maybe not for everything, but for something?
  - duxup 6y ago
    I just wonder if the scale of effort to colonize and support humans really provides a net benefit considering how successful remote programs have been. There's so much you don't need to do if you're not sending humans.
- valuearb 6y ago
  The first astronauts will explore more of Mars in their first few days than rovers have done in 50 years. Mars likely had life and we won’t be really sure of what kind and it’s history until we get boots on the ground. Robots are great for very limited tasks, but take decades and billions to design, build and deliver to do what a scientist can do in an afternoon. Right now we have one rover that bern failing to dig a hole fir nearly two years.
  - duxup 6y ago
    Considering the volume of resources expended to get people to mars and host them there and return them... I'm not sure that it is a fair comparison.

mLuby 6y ago

> There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation may never come again… We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win, and the others, too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_choose_to_go_to_the_Moon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_choose_to_go_to_the_Moon

capdeck 6y ago

Look and compare the military and space budgets of all countries... it doesn't matter really what we do - it will always be better than what we are doing now.

Koshkin 6y ago

> weather might be slightly better On a hot day there will be around 25 degrees Celsius, tops; the following night, minus 100.

Torkel 6y ago

It's about the 'why'. The thing that Mars has to offer that Antarctica does not is "backup solution for humankind". An asteroid impact can make earth uninhabitable. With a self sustaining backup on Mars we can keep humans around even after that. Asteroids are interesting too, but more far fetched than Mars. I recommend watching the Elon Musk presentations on Mars / making life multiplanetary.

Koshkin 6y ago
> An asteroid impact I wonder whether this is more likely to happen on Mars (due to its relative proximity to the asteroid belt).
- najarvg 6y ago
  This is a very valid question and we should all be asking this. Mars has approximately 200 estimated asteroid impacts per year (https://www.space.com/21198-mars-asteroid-strikes-common.html https://www.space.com/21198-mars-asteroid-strikes-common.htm... - a bit dated) while earth has about 10-12, most hitting water. The vast majority disintegrate in our atmosphere (https://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/impact.html https://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/impact.html). While I understand the need for us to look to the stars and dream big, if catastrophic destruction is the primary driver for looking for settling on Mars, we should ask if Antarctica might be a better first choice.
- ed_balls 6y ago
  average person on Mars would be much better prepared to the impact.
  - Koshkin 6y ago
    While the environmental impact would be minimal (primarily because there's not much environment to speak of to begin with), no one can possibly prepare for a direct hit on the head.
    - 6y ago

ceejayoz 6y ago

> I still wonder why many people think colonizing Mars is doable, when we can't even colonize Antarctica. I think it's highly likely we could colonize Antarctica on a technological level, but various treaties prevent it.

dekhn 6y ago

We have colonized Antartica- multiple nations overwinter there.

jcranmer 6y ago
They are not self-sustaining, and self-sustaining colonies are what is entailed in the justification of colonizing Mars to provide a backup for Earth.
- uncoder0 6y ago
  Why would we invest the resources? Mars provides a huge benefit to humanity Antarctica unless just used as a testing ground for Mars doesn't have the same benefits to justify the expense.
- dekhn 6y ago
  Yes, I agree, but strictly speaking, colonization doesn't require self-sustainment.
- Robotbeat 6y ago
  Of course, then it is illegal to “colonize” Antarctica by that definition since mining is prohibited by treaty (and many other activities are constrained by treaty as well). Not prohibited on Mars. Cannot realistically be self-sustaining without mining. And of course, basically no country on earth is self-sustaining, although almost any country COULD be (if your population is reduced and willing to sustain a low enough quality of life). Additionally, a self-sustaining and independent settlement on Mars is by definition NOT a colony!

AtlasBarfed 6y ago

If only there were some way to modify the axis of rotation of the earth. If we could get antarctica into temperate zones we'd add a major continent for settling.

lm28469 6y ago

Because if you believe in it gives you the comfort of not having to care about long term sustainability on earth. It's one of the many facets of the "tech will fix everything" people. What life do you want to live, the "we're slowly fucking up the only hospitable place humanity will ever step foot on" or the "we'll be sipping UBI financed mojitos with Musk on Mars by 2050" ?

keymone 6y ago
Your argument is severely undermined by the fact that mars is already fucked up and we need to employ lots of tech to fix it. We can then use that tech to solve some of the issues on earth.

contrarianmop 6y ago

A planet colonised and dependent solely on high tech for its own survival is a potential catalyst for radical innovation and trade. We could turn it into a place free or our earthly issues. Antarctica is just a cold place which we may colonise once it melts, start a few wars over it maybe, destroy it, exterminate its tiny wildlife and so on. Mars is already dead, hopefully not stimulating enough for our primitive instincts and will let us focus solely on tech advancement.