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Because Mars doesn't have life to mess up.... Isn't the Terra-forming technology that we will have to develop to make Mars habitable, basically aligned with wh

• howaboutnope 5y ago
  > Because Mars doesn't have life to mess up.... The issue isn't "messing up life", life will be fine. The issue is that we're knocking the supports in the forms of ecosystems out from under ourselves. Not to mention the human cost, e.g. potentially hundreds of millions of refugees. The potential for war, and the possible destructiveness of war, is immense. Besides, starting "afresh" where there are no such supports to begin with, without Earth to be supported by initially is still facing same issues, but worse. Depending on that of all things saving humankind is like hoping a child "might" save their parents from their troubles 5 minutes after being born. > Isn't the Terra-forming technology that we will have to develop to make Mars habitable, basically aligned with what we will have to learn to repair/manage our relationship with the Earth's environment? Here too I see it the other way around: our civilizations not collapsing in massive wars over scraps is what is needed for civil space missions to go on, and the sustainability -- materially, socially individually -- which we would need to avert that from happening is also what we would need for space colonies to both come into grasp and to not turn into the wrong end of Star Trek episodes. You know, where we're not the visiting crew, but said crew shakes their heads in horror at.