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If we can't rejuvenate the ecosystem of the Earth it's pointless to think about settling Mars. Every technology required to settle Mars is indefinitely easier

If we can't rejuvenate the ecosystem of the Earth it's pointless to think about settling Mars. Every technology required to settle Mars is indefinitely easier to prototype on the Earth, particularly soil enrichment.

Meerax 6y ago
Would you mind elaborating on your first sentence a bit more? I personally feel that the tools we create and lessons we learn to be able to live on Mars could be a tremendous benefit to us and Earth.
- gambiting 6y ago
  Not OP, but I feel similar way - these lessons can be learned here on earth(colony on the bottom of the ocean?) Or simply on the moon, without going all the way to mars. It looks like due to radiation anyone living in mars would have to live underground anyway, so what's the difference between that and a habitat on the moon? Except for the moon being infinitely easier to get to and back.
  - iso1210 6y ago
    By all means put your money and effort into a colony on the moon or on the bottom of the sea (very different problem due to pressure)
    - gambiting 6y ago
      Habitat design wise, sure. But a lot of problems would be similar, especially if you were aiming to make it self sustainable. Growing food, living in close proximity to other people, only occasional resupplies....and benefits would be similar too. Technologies to maintain life in an environment absolutely deadly to humans, whatever tech we come up with to combat loneliness and proper nutrition..... My point is - I feel like fixating on Mars is doing more harm than good in terms of our progress as a species. But you're right - it's not my money being spent.
  - JumpCrisscross 6y ago
    > what's the difference between that and a habitat on the moon? Gravity and the hope of terraforming. You’re underestimating the power of inspiration. Saving the planet is dreary business. Colonising a new one is exciting. Those callings motivate different people in different ways. Constraining us to one problem means those who might have been inspired to study chemistry to terraform Mars find it more attractive to go into finance.
    - Robotbeat 6y ago
      Not only that but Mars has vastly more resources and protection than the Moon.
  - caf 6y ago
    I don't know if the Moon is really "infinitely" easier to get to and back - in a real sense the Moon is "most of the way there" - getting to Mars surface is only 25% more delta-v than the Moon, and that's without considering that aero-braking is available when you're landing on Mars. The round trip is harder, sure, but we're talking maybe a factor of 10 rather than infinity.
  - Robotbeat 6y ago
    >Not OP, but I feel similar way - these lessons can be learned here on earth(colony on the bottom of the ocean?) Except we DIDN'T learn them. We've only developed these technologies when necessary and not before. Look at space power sources. Sure, Earth could have been using solar power for longer than it has (and we could've started the process cost improvement curve much earlier), but we didn't. We pretty much used fossil fuels. But for space, we've been using almost exclusively solar power nearly from the beginning. Space provided a critical early demand for improving solar power. Also, Mars has a CO2 atmosphere that (at likely altitude) shields from all micrometeorites and virtually all solar flare radiation. At Curiosity's site, an astronaut could spend 35 hours a week unshielded on the surface (which is much more than a typical American spends outside in a week) without exceeding terrestrial radiation limits. Mars also has lots of free iron in the form of iron nickel meteorites spotted by rovers and just sitting on the surface. It has water all over the surface in the soil and even in the air (not to mention vast glaciers). And the air provides CO2, which can be split into Oxygen plus CO fuel. In addition, the atmosphere provides nitrogen and Argon. The geology of Mars has been greatly impacted by hydrology, like on Earth, so you have similar concentrations of ores. And the gravity is significantly higher. So there are all sorts of advantages of Mars over the Moon.
- bordercases 6y ago
  Living in space is not fun, it is not natural, it is physically and mentally demanding which is why so much training goes into creating professionals which do it full time - there is no leisure, it is at best eustress, and I think space gets romanticized by the individual in ways which don't track with the actual work required to get us to be a species with two homes. And the act of terraforming Mars to be Earth-like is nothing less than a titanic feat. The ways in which our world are fine-tuned to be bountiful would take more than several decades worth of missions - at least! - to even be mostly tractable on small segments of Mars, even with internal habitation. There will be failures. We will occasionally overextend like we do in every large project on Earth. What resources these projects? What's our buffer when they fail, even temporarily? Meanwhile the physical means exist now to regenerate the Earth's environment and live sustainable yet happy lives. But the move from here to there requires decades long initiatives with little in the way of immediate profit. Things like safe nuclear power, permaculture and forest farms plus directed soil renewal, scalable water filtering, plastic substitutes; or scaling back conspicuous consumption and eliminating planned obsolescence in favor of efficient use of existing products along with the repair and maintenance of older ones. Yet the reason why these problems are intractable is collective action, not unknown means. Dealing with Mars is both a longer term project than rejuvenating the Earth, and its perceived tractability stems from the way it looks conceptually simpler from a coordination standpoint if you ignore the civilization that makes it possible - just NASA and Elon right?
iso1210 6y ago
And technology used to settle Mars will be able to be used to fix problems on earth. Rich people seem to be happy to pump money into the idea of breaking free from Earth, and that's great. I'd rather have Musk and Bezos than Buffet and Ellison
- KineticLensman 6y ago
  > And technology used to settle Mars will be able to be used to fix problems on earth. Which technologies, and which problems, specifically? If Earth reaches a point where we require Martian survival habs to stay alive - on Earth - then it is essentially game over for the massively interconnected ecosystems that make Earth our unique and precious home.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - Robotbeat 6y ago
    Well for one, EVERY source of energy we could use is carbon emission free. If you want rocket fuel (with carbon emissions), you basically have to FIND carbon dioxide to make the oxygen to burn with and the fuel. MOXIE is doing this on Perseverance. That’s why SpaceX/Elon are doing carbon capture funding: it’s necessary in order to get your rockets and people back from Mars. Essential to make it viable to figure out how to not rely on our biosphere as there isn’t one there. All probes designed to last longer than a few hours HAVE to use solar or nuclear. No point bringing fossil fuels with if there is no oxygen to burn it with. It also forces a sort economy of resources. Every attempt is made to recycle air and water, packaging, even from human waste.
    - KineticLensman 6y ago
      > figure out how to not rely on our biosphere as there isn’t one there. These types of technologies may be very valuable in supporting us in the future on Earth. My concern is that if people think we (or the billionaires that care) can solve environmental problems just be throwing future tech at them, then they aren’t motivated to cut their resource consumption in the first place. This is why ‘reduce’ is a higher priority than ‘recycle’. > All probes designed to last longer than a few hours HAVE to use solar or nuclear. No point bringing fossil fuels with if there is no oxygen to burn it with. Developments in renewables (solar and otherwise) are not being driven by a desire for planetary exploration / colonization. Perseverance is powered by Plutonium-238, which is not a good model for terrestrial nuclear power at scale. > It also forces a sort economy of resources. Every attempt is made to recycle air and water, packaging, even from human waste. This I do agree with – if we treat Earth and its resources as things to value rather than as things to consume and exploit, we stand a much better chance of achieving a future where our children and their descendants can enjoy them as well. Which is sort of the point of the original Spaceship Earth concept :-)
hownottowrite 6y ago
Yes, but Mars has better zoning.
roughly 6y ago
I think it was Mika McKinnon who once noted that the idea of us terraforming Mars was a bit rich considering we're actively de-terraforming Earth
- Robotbeat 6y ago
  It’s only rich if you think addressing climate change is a particularly hard technical problem (it’s not).
theamk 6y ago
Earth has lots of humans with opinions, as well as established societies with the laws. This makes prototyping some technologies -- like heavily genetically-modified plants and nuclear power -- very hard.

Meerax 6y ago

Would you mind elaborating on your first sentence a bit more? I personally feel that the tools we create and lessons we learn to be able to live on Mars could be a tremendous benefit to us and Earth.

gambiting 6y ago
Not OP, but I feel similar way - these lessons can be learned here on earth(colony on the bottom of the ocean?) Or simply on the moon, without going all the way to mars. It looks like due to radiation anyone living in mars would have to live underground anyway, so what's the difference between that and a habitat on the moon? Except for the moon being infinitely easier to get to and back.
- iso1210 6y ago
  By all means put your money and effort into a colony on the moon or on the bottom of the sea (very different problem due to pressure)
  - gambiting 6y ago
    Habitat design wise, sure. But a lot of problems would be similar, especially if you were aiming to make it self sustainable. Growing food, living in close proximity to other people, only occasional resupplies....and benefits would be similar too. Technologies to maintain life in an environment absolutely deadly to humans, whatever tech we come up with to combat loneliness and proper nutrition..... My point is - I feel like fixating on Mars is doing more harm than good in terms of our progress as a species. But you're right - it's not my money being spent.
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago
  > what's the difference between that and a habitat on the moon? Gravity and the hope of terraforming. You’re underestimating the power of inspiration. Saving the planet is dreary business. Colonising a new one is exciting. Those callings motivate different people in different ways. Constraining us to one problem means those who might have been inspired to study chemistry to terraform Mars find it more attractive to go into finance.
  - Robotbeat 6y ago
    Not only that but Mars has vastly more resources and protection than the Moon.
- caf 6y ago
  I don't know if the Moon is really "infinitely" easier to get to and back - in a real sense the Moon is "most of the way there" - getting to Mars surface is only 25% more delta-v than the Moon, and that's without considering that aero-braking is available when you're landing on Mars. The round trip is harder, sure, but we're talking maybe a factor of 10 rather than infinity.
- Robotbeat 6y ago
  >Not OP, but I feel similar way - these lessons can be learned here on earth(colony on the bottom of the ocean?) Except we DIDN'T learn them. We've only developed these technologies when necessary and not before. Look at space power sources. Sure, Earth could have been using solar power for longer than it has (and we could've started the process cost improvement curve much earlier), but we didn't. We pretty much used fossil fuels. But for space, we've been using almost exclusively solar power nearly from the beginning. Space provided a critical early demand for improving solar power. Also, Mars has a CO2 atmosphere that (at likely altitude) shields from all micrometeorites and virtually all solar flare radiation. At Curiosity's site, an astronaut could spend 35 hours a week unshielded on the surface (which is much more than a typical American spends outside in a week) without exceeding terrestrial radiation limits. Mars also has lots of free iron in the form of iron nickel meteorites spotted by rovers and just sitting on the surface. It has water all over the surface in the soil and even in the air (not to mention vast glaciers). And the air provides CO2, which can be split into Oxygen plus CO fuel. In addition, the atmosphere provides nitrogen and Argon. The geology of Mars has been greatly impacted by hydrology, like on Earth, so you have similar concentrations of ores. And the gravity is significantly higher. So there are all sorts of advantages of Mars over the Moon.
bordercases 6y ago
Living in space is not fun, it is not natural, it is physically and mentally demanding which is why so much training goes into creating professionals which do it full time - there is no leisure, it is at best eustress, and I think space gets romanticized by the individual in ways which don't track with the actual work required to get us to be a species with two homes. And the act of terraforming Mars to be Earth-like is nothing less than a titanic feat. The ways in which our world are fine-tuned to be bountiful would take more than several decades worth of missions - at least! - to even be mostly tractable on small segments of Mars, even with internal habitation. There will be failures. We will occasionally overextend like we do in every large project on Earth. What resources these projects? What's our buffer when they fail, even temporarily? Meanwhile the physical means exist now to regenerate the Earth's environment and live sustainable yet happy lives. But the move from here to there requires decades long initiatives with little in the way of immediate profit. Things like safe nuclear power, permaculture and forest farms plus directed soil renewal, scalable water filtering, plastic substitutes; or scaling back conspicuous consumption and eliminating planned obsolescence in favor of efficient use of existing products along with the repair and maintenance of older ones. Yet the reason why these problems are intractable is collective action, not unknown means. Dealing with Mars is both a longer term project than rejuvenating the Earth, and its perceived tractability stems from the way it looks conceptually simpler from a coordination standpoint if you ignore the civilization that makes it possible - just NASA and Elon right?

iso1210 6y ago

And technology used to settle Mars will be able to be used to fix problems on earth. Rich people seem to be happy to pump money into the idea of breaking free from Earth, and that's great. I'd rather have Musk and Bezos than Buffet and Ellison

KineticLensman 6y ago
> And technology used to settle Mars will be able to be used to fix problems on earth. Which technologies, and which problems, specifically? If Earth reaches a point where we require Martian survival habs to stay alive - on Earth - then it is essentially game over for the massively interconnected ecosystems that make Earth our unique and precious home.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- Robotbeat 6y ago
  Well for one, EVERY source of energy we could use is carbon emission free. If you want rocket fuel (with carbon emissions), you basically have to FIND carbon dioxide to make the oxygen to burn with and the fuel. MOXIE is doing this on Perseverance. That’s why SpaceX/Elon are doing carbon capture funding: it’s necessary in order to get your rockets and people back from Mars. Essential to make it viable to figure out how to not rely on our biosphere as there isn’t one there. All probes designed to last longer than a few hours HAVE to use solar or nuclear. No point bringing fossil fuels with if there is no oxygen to burn it with. It also forces a sort economy of resources. Every attempt is made to recycle air and water, packaging, even from human waste.
  - KineticLensman 6y ago
    > figure out how to not rely on our biosphere as there isn’t one there. These types of technologies may be very valuable in supporting us in the future on Earth. My concern is that if people think we (or the billionaires that care) can solve environmental problems just be throwing future tech at them, then they aren’t motivated to cut their resource consumption in the first place. This is why ‘reduce’ is a higher priority than ‘recycle’. > All probes designed to last longer than a few hours HAVE to use solar or nuclear. No point bringing fossil fuels with if there is no oxygen to burn it with. Developments in renewables (solar and otherwise) are not being driven by a desire for planetary exploration / colonization. Perseverance is powered by Plutonium-238, which is not a good model for terrestrial nuclear power at scale. > It also forces a sort economy of resources. Every attempt is made to recycle air and water, packaging, even from human waste. This I do agree with – if we treat Earth and its resources as things to value rather than as things to consume and exploit, we stand a much better chance of achieving a future where our children and their descendants can enjoy them as well. Which is sort of the point of the original Spaceship Earth concept :-)

hownottowrite 6y ago

Yes, but Mars has better zoning.

roughly 6y ago

I think it was Mika McKinnon who once noted that the idea of us terraforming Mars was a bit rich considering we're actively de-terraforming Earth

Robotbeat 6y ago
It’s only rich if you think addressing climate change is a particularly hard technical problem (it’s not).

theamk 6y ago

Earth has lots of humans with opinions, as well as established societies with the laws. This makes prototyping some technologies -- like heavily genetically-modified plants and nuclear power -- very hard.