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Because if an asteroid destroys earth, your volcano base ain't gonna save life as we know it. Because any such project is going to require herculean effort on

Because if an asteroid destroys earth, your volcano base ain't gonna save life as we know it. Because any such project is going to require herculean effort on the part of many humans, and many humans are interested in colonizing Mars but not so many are interested in colonizing volcanoes. Your question is basically: why do people care about this thing I don't care about and instead care about this thing that neither I nor they care about.

sfblah 5y ago
I guess you’ve never read about Xenu. Some people believe volcanoes are pretty important.
- elkos 5y ago
  And DC-9s if I remember correctly
sangnoir 5y ago
> Because if an asteroid destroys earth, your volcano base ain't gonna save life as we know it If an asteroid destroys earth, your Mars base won't save life as we know it either. There's a lot of handwaving in this thread on the technologies required to bridge the gap between Starship existing and self-sustaining life on Mars. Paradoxically, self-sustaining space manufacture/Mars colony will obviate the need for frequent heavy-lift rocket launches.
- fastball 5y ago
  How is that paradoxical? Bootstrapping a self-sustaining colony on Mars will require getting a massive amount of payload to the red planet. Once bootstrapped, yes that will no longer be required. Nobody is arguing that Starship is sufficient, just that it is necessary.
  - sangnoir 5y ago
    > Nobody is arguing that Starship is sufficient, just that it is necessary. No, it's the yet-to-be-invented tech that is necessary. Your unstated prior is that this non-existent tech will in turn require heavy-lift capacity, and there is no evidence for that. Maybe we can bootstrap space manufacturing off 2 Arianne 5 launches, or 50 starship launches, nobody knows because it's all make-believe atm. What Starship is good for, is frequent supply runs to a dependant Mars base, with today's technology - but that's nor what people are saying because that's not sexy.

sfblah 5y ago

I guess you’ve never read about Xenu. Some people believe volcanoes are pretty important.

elkos 5y ago
And DC-9s if I remember correctly

sangnoir 5y ago

> Because if an asteroid destroys earth, your volcano base ain't gonna save life as we know it If an asteroid destroys earth, your Mars base won't save life as we know it either. There's a lot of handwaving in this thread on the technologies required to bridge the gap between Starship existing and self-sustaining life on Mars. Paradoxically, self-sustaining space manufacture/Mars colony will obviate the need for frequent heavy-lift rocket launches.

fastball 5y ago
How is that paradoxical? Bootstrapping a self-sustaining colony on Mars will require getting a massive amount of payload to the red planet. Once bootstrapped, yes that will no longer be required. Nobody is arguing that Starship is sufficient, just that it is necessary.
- sangnoir 5y ago
  > Nobody is arguing that Starship is sufficient, just that it is necessary. No, it's the yet-to-be-invented tech that is necessary. Your unstated prior is that this non-existent tech will in turn require heavy-lift capacity, and there is no evidence for that. Maybe we can bootstrap space manufacturing off 2 Arianne 5 launches, or 50 starship launches, nobody knows because it's all make-believe atm. What Starship is good for, is frequent supply runs to a dependant Mars base, with today's technology - but that's nor what people are saying because that's not sexy.