5 ms·

Are you arguing that the surface area is too small or too inhospitable? What does the development of those areas have to do with Mars?

Animats 5y ago
That, even if successful, it's not worth it.
- _Microft 5y ago
  Comparing Siberia, Sahara, Antarctica or the Australian outback to Mars seems flawed because there are many places that are a lot better suited for human activities and settlement on Earth. We would not want to go there unless other options are ruled out. So emphasis is "on Earth". Mars might not have regions that are better suited than these inhospitable parts of Earth but it has the feature of "not being Earth". Consider it a backup/fallback for the "single point of failure" that Earth currently is not just for humanity but for all of life in the universe that we know of. Now that we are developing the technical abilities to be able to remove this possible failure point and to finally add some redundancy for life, I think we are almost morally obligated to do so.
  - tsimionescu 5y ago
    > See it as backup/fallback for the "single point of failure" that Earth currently is (not just for humanity but) for all of life in the universe that we know of. What could happen to the Earth that would make it even close to as inhospitable as Mars?
    - FredPret 5y ago
      A nuclear conflict would do it. You don’t even need that many nukes to kick up enough dust to doom us all
      - tsimionescu 5y ago
        If we were able to build self-sustaining colonies on Mars, surviving on a nuke-ravaged earth would be easy as pie. Sure, temperatures would go down (but nowhere near as cold as Mars) and it would be hard to harvest plants, but we would still have fossil fuels to generate electricity for grow rooms, and we would still have earth soils that are ultra-rich in nutrients. The surface would be nowhere near as radioactive, so people could still work outside, allowing mines and so on to keep operating as today. Overall, while it would be a huge tragedy, kill billions, and destroy our civilization as we know it, it would still leave the Earth as an absolute paradise compared to Mars.
    - bryanlarsen 5y ago
      Very little, if anything. Which means that it'll be a lot easier to resettle Earth from Mars if something cataclysmic happens to civilization here than it was to settle Mars in the first place. It hardly matters that the apocalyptic Earth is more hospitable to human life than Mars currently is if we don't have any humans left to resettle Earth.
      - tsimionescu 5y ago
        What could kill all humans on Earth, while leaving it hospitable and re-settleable from Mars? Even if a huge asteroid hit, we could almost certainly build shelters where more people could survive the initial impact than we can settle on Mars in the foreseeable future.
        datameta 5y ago
        Even a partial ecosystem collapse would make it a tremendously difficult multi-generational effort to return to modern levels of technology. An analogy: a bunch of important files become corrupt (cataclysmic event) and the domain expert is no longer with the company (loss of knowledge and industry). It is much easier to move forward if one has a way of contacting a subject matter expert (Mars colony) to restore or rebuild what has been lost.
        tsimionescu 5y ago
        What would make Mars more suited for housing such expertise, that couldn't as easily be stored in an artificial environment somewhere on Earth?
        datameta 5y ago
        Even if we distribute such library and manufacturing vaults and ensure they are staffed by those who can use them - the world that arises post-cataclysm may not be one of great cooperation. I can foresee scenarios in which such valuables are used as tokens of power to subdue neighboring factions. I believe we also need a colony to hold on to seeds of civilization in the very sense of the word.
    - _Microft 5y ago
      It does not take an event that makes Earth as inhospitable as Mars. It only needs to be bad enough to remove our capability to go beyond Earth to doom life to be limited to Earth itself. If life should persist in the long run, we need to start spreading it beyond Earth. We might not colonize a neighbouring star system in the near or medium term future but I am convinced that if we do not start moving out into the solar system, we never will go anywhere else either.
      - tsimionescu 5y ago
        I still don't understand what kind of event could make the Earth so inhospitable that we lose the ability to leave it, but it would leave Mars with this ability intact. Mars has no fossil fuels, so that can't be it. Minerals cant really be destroyed or exhausted. Technological knowledge is much easier to preserve from cataclysmic events on Earth than it is on Mars (if we fall under some kind of technophobic super empire that seeks to destroy this type of technology, that will as easily spread to Mars as to the rest of the Earth).
        8note 5y ago
        Specifically preventing us from leaving earth? If our low earth orbit space gets too full of debris, we become stuck until we can find ways to clear it out.
        tsimionescu 5y ago
        That seems much more doable than having a completely self-sustaining space industry on Mars (from mining to chip manufacturing and everything in between, all life support functions intact, all underground or in heavily radiation-shielded buildings, and no fossil fuel plastics, all spanning the Martian globe to actually get access to the various minerals).
        zabzonk 5y ago
        Quite. What I would like to hear from all these gung-ho types, is how we go about producing quantities of a simple 2-core power cable, on Mars, or in the asteroids or the Moon. But no doubt they will say: use broadcast power.
  - giantrobot 5y ago
    The point where Mars could be some sort of viable backup of anything on Earth is centuries and trillions of dollars away. Up until a Mars colony(ies) has enough local infrastructure and industry to be entirely self-sufficient it's survival will require access to Earth's infrastructure and industry. Mars also has fewer natural protections than Earth: a thinner atmosphere, no magnetic field to speak of, and no giant moon that deflects or absorbs at least some percentage of objects that would otherwise impact Earth. So Mars is more susceptible to dangerous radiation and object impacts than Earth. For the same cost outlay (or way less) as trying to make Mars an effective backup for Earth Earth could be made more robust and dedicated purpose-built backups could be created. Mars as a backup of Earth is like a cheap eBay thumbdrive hanging from a wind chime on your patio is a backup for your data.
    - _Microft 5y ago
      I would take a cheap eBay thumbdrive hanging from a wind chime on my patio over "no backup at all" any time.
- pie420 5y ago
  Having your name be immortalized forever in history is something that appeals to a lot of people, especially billionaires who have run out of things to buy.
lancesells 5y ago
I believe they are saying that the Mars landscape is akin to the regions he listed and that these native locations are far easier to develop or live on than going to another planet.
yborg 5y ago
I think he's pointing out that we have cold and arid environments with a standard atmosphere and surface gravity, and a magnetosphere to deflect cosmic rays that we don't colonize right here on Earth. Traveling millions of miles at huge expense to try this on Mars doesn't seem like a sensible endeavor right now regardless of its feasibility.
tsimionescu 5y ago
They are hundreds of times easier to settle than Mars, and probably richer in resources, so settling them would seem like a good first step before thinking of cities on Mars.
- OmicronCeti 5y ago
  This piece from the NYT suggests that Siberia may be the new frontier: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/12/16/magazine/russia-climate-migration-crisis.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/12/16/magazine/russ...
  - kergonath 5y ago
    It gets easier by the day, whilst the permafrost melts away.

Animats 5y ago

That, even if successful, it's not worth it.

_Microft 5y ago
Comparing Siberia, Sahara, Antarctica or the Australian outback to Mars seems flawed because there are many places that are a lot better suited for human activities and settlement on Earth. We would not want to go there unless other options are ruled out. So emphasis is "on Earth". Mars might not have regions that are better suited than these inhospitable parts of Earth but it has the feature of "not being Earth". Consider it a backup/fallback for the "single point of failure" that Earth currently is not just for humanity but for all of life in the universe that we know of. Now that we are developing the technical abilities to be able to remove this possible failure point and to finally add some redundancy for life, I think we are almost morally obligated to do so.
- tsimionescu 5y ago
  > See it as backup/fallback for the "single point of failure" that Earth currently is (not just for humanity but) for all of life in the universe that we know of. What could happen to the Earth that would make it even close to as inhospitable as Mars?
  - FredPret 5y ago
    A nuclear conflict would do it. You don’t even need that many nukes to kick up enough dust to doom us all
    - tsimionescu 5y ago
      If we were able to build self-sustaining colonies on Mars, surviving on a nuke-ravaged earth would be easy as pie. Sure, temperatures would go down (but nowhere near as cold as Mars) and it would be hard to harvest plants, but we would still have fossil fuels to generate electricity for grow rooms, and we would still have earth soils that are ultra-rich in nutrients. The surface would be nowhere near as radioactive, so people could still work outside, allowing mines and so on to keep operating as today. Overall, while it would be a huge tragedy, kill billions, and destroy our civilization as we know it, it would still leave the Earth as an absolute paradise compared to Mars.
  - bryanlarsen 5y ago
    Very little, if anything. Which means that it'll be a lot easier to resettle Earth from Mars if something cataclysmic happens to civilization here than it was to settle Mars in the first place. It hardly matters that the apocalyptic Earth is more hospitable to human life than Mars currently is if we don't have any humans left to resettle Earth.
    - tsimionescu 5y ago
      What could kill all humans on Earth, while leaving it hospitable and re-settleable from Mars? Even if a huge asteroid hit, we could almost certainly build shelters where more people could survive the initial impact than we can settle on Mars in the foreseeable future.
      - datameta 5y ago
        Even a partial ecosystem collapse would make it a tremendously difficult multi-generational effort to return to modern levels of technology. An analogy: a bunch of important files become corrupt (cataclysmic event) and the domain expert is no longer with the company (loss of knowledge and industry). It is much easier to move forward if one has a way of contacting a subject matter expert (Mars colony) to restore or rebuild what has been lost.
        tsimionescu 5y ago
        What would make Mars more suited for housing such expertise, that couldn't as easily be stored in an artificial environment somewhere on Earth?
        datameta 5y ago
        Even if we distribute such library and manufacturing vaults and ensure they are staffed by those who can use them - the world that arises post-cataclysm may not be one of great cooperation. I can foresee scenarios in which such valuables are used as tokens of power to subdue neighboring factions. I believe we also need a colony to hold on to seeds of civilization in the very sense of the word.
  - _Microft 5y ago
    It does not take an event that makes Earth as inhospitable as Mars. It only needs to be bad enough to remove our capability to go beyond Earth to doom life to be limited to Earth itself. If life should persist in the long run, we need to start spreading it beyond Earth. We might not colonize a neighbouring star system in the near or medium term future but I am convinced that if we do not start moving out into the solar system, we never will go anywhere else either.
    - tsimionescu 5y ago
      I still don't understand what kind of event could make the Earth so inhospitable that we lose the ability to leave it, but it would leave Mars with this ability intact. Mars has no fossil fuels, so that can't be it. Minerals cant really be destroyed or exhausted. Technological knowledge is much easier to preserve from cataclysmic events on Earth than it is on Mars (if we fall under some kind of technophobic super empire that seeks to destroy this type of technology, that will as easily spread to Mars as to the rest of the Earth).
      - 8note 5y ago
        Specifically preventing us from leaving earth? If our low earth orbit space gets too full of debris, we become stuck until we can find ways to clear it out.
        tsimionescu 5y ago
        That seems much more doable than having a completely self-sustaining space industry on Mars (from mining to chip manufacturing and everything in between, all life support functions intact, all underground or in heavily radiation-shielded buildings, and no fossil fuel plastics, all spanning the Martian globe to actually get access to the various minerals).
        zabzonk 5y ago
        Quite. What I would like to hear from all these gung-ho types, is how we go about producing quantities of a simple 2-core power cable, on Mars, or in the asteroids or the Moon. But no doubt they will say: use broadcast power.
- giantrobot 5y ago
  The point where Mars could be some sort of viable backup of anything on Earth is centuries and trillions of dollars away. Up until a Mars colony(ies) has enough local infrastructure and industry to be entirely self-sufficient it's survival will require access to Earth's infrastructure and industry. Mars also has fewer natural protections than Earth: a thinner atmosphere, no magnetic field to speak of, and no giant moon that deflects or absorbs at least some percentage of objects that would otherwise impact Earth. So Mars is more susceptible to dangerous radiation and object impacts than Earth. For the same cost outlay (or way less) as trying to make Mars an effective backup for Earth Earth could be made more robust and dedicated purpose-built backups could be created. Mars as a backup of Earth is like a cheap eBay thumbdrive hanging from a wind chime on your patio is a backup for your data.
  - _Microft 5y ago
    I would take a cheap eBay thumbdrive hanging from a wind chime on my patio over "no backup at all" any time.
pie420 5y ago
Having your name be immortalized forever in history is something that appeals to a lot of people, especially billionaires who have run out of things to buy.

lancesells 5y ago

I believe they are saying that the Mars landscape is akin to the regions he listed and that these native locations are far easier to develop or live on than going to another planet.

yborg 5y ago

I think he's pointing out that we have cold and arid environments with a standard atmosphere and surface gravity, and a magnetosphere to deflect cosmic rays that we don't colonize right here on Earth. Traveling millions of miles at huge expense to try this on Mars doesn't seem like a sensible endeavor right now regardless of its feasibility.

tsimionescu 5y ago

They are hundreds of times easier to settle than Mars, and probably richer in resources, so settling them would seem like a good first step before thinking of cities on Mars.

OmicronCeti 5y ago
This piece from the NYT suggests that Siberia may be the new frontier: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/12/16/magazine/russia-climate-migration-crisis.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/12/16/magazine/russ...
- kergonath 5y ago
  It gets easier by the day, whilst the permafrost melts away.