4 ms·

The motivations are secondary to our capabilities. The truth is we're not ready to set up shop on a more hostile planet. We'd need to be able to spend 10x the

The motivations are secondary to our capabilities. The truth is we're not ready to set up shop on a more hostile planet. We'd need to be able to spend 10x the resources our current total society can afford to properly seed a Mars colony. Any actual attempts made this century will lead to horrific failure. I can't imagine future generations will have a good taste in their mouth about colonizing Mars when they remember what happened to the first colony. Colonizing Mars an important avenue for the continuing legacy of intelligent life in the universe. It must be taken seriously. Such half-assed attempts that are being discussed by Musk and NASA today only reduce the prospects of humans surviving past Earth. We need to become masters of Earth before we could ever hope to take on a bigger challenge.

musicale 4y ago
> We need to become masters of Earth before we could ever hope to take on a bigger challenge Wasn't the same argument made against going to the moon?
- willis936 4y ago
  Notice we have no moon colony. Visiting is trivial compared to independently thriving.
  - yamtaddle 4y ago
    We also need, like, a reason. Even if we can... why? (and "survive the apocalypse" is a pretty bad reason since there are zero other bodies in our star system that are better for humans to live on than even a nuked, climate-changed Earth—anything short of a crust-melting impact would be easier and cheaper to survive with Earthbound bunkers, excepting things that would also wreck other bodies in our star system) Which reasons, as for 99% of everything else like that humans have ever done, will likely be economic or military. When it makes dollar-sense to do it, we'll go. Not sooner. Not really, and not for the long haul. I'm doubting we'll do large-scale human colonization of space for a long, long time, if ever. We might do mostly-robotic asteroid mining within the next 100 years, and a couple visits to e.g. Mars might be made, but nothing serious.
- revolvingocelot 4y ago
  Was the moon landing, or even the entire space race, about a "challenge" or pantsing the Soviets? Despite all the mythologizing we now do about the last century's dabbling in manned space missions, we sure seem to have abandoned the concept now that there's no geopolitical dickwaving to accomplish. On a slightly different tangent, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress [0] suggests that whosoever sets up the lunar catapult first will likely become "masters of Earth". I think I'm going to start learning Chinese! [1] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moon_Is_a_Harsh_Mistress https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moon_Is_a_Harsh_Mistress [1] https://spectrum.ieee.org/china-aims-for-a-permanent-moon-base-in-the-2030s https://spectrum.ieee.org/china-aims-for-a-permanent-moon-ba...
- morelisp 4y ago
  > Wasn't the same argument made against going to the moon? Was the argument wrong? If it was wrong, are the reasons it was wrong applicable to the current situation?
morelisp 4y ago
> masters of Earth I think this is unfortunate phrasing closer to the problem than the solution.

musicale 4y ago

> We need to become masters of Earth before we could ever hope to take on a bigger challenge Wasn't the same argument made against going to the moon?

willis936 4y ago
Notice we have no moon colony. Visiting is trivial compared to independently thriving.
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  We also need, like, a reason. Even if we can... why? (and "survive the apocalypse" is a pretty bad reason since there are zero other bodies in our star system that are better for humans to live on than even a nuked, climate-changed Earth—anything short of a crust-melting impact would be easier and cheaper to survive with Earthbound bunkers, excepting things that would also wreck other bodies in our star system) Which reasons, as for 99% of everything else like that humans have ever done, will likely be economic or military. When it makes dollar-sense to do it, we'll go. Not sooner. Not really, and not for the long haul. I'm doubting we'll do large-scale human colonization of space for a long, long time, if ever. We might do mostly-robotic asteroid mining within the next 100 years, and a couple visits to e.g. Mars might be made, but nothing serious.
revolvingocelot 4y ago
Was the moon landing, or even the entire space race, about a "challenge" or pantsing the Soviets? Despite all the mythologizing we now do about the last century's dabbling in manned space missions, we sure seem to have abandoned the concept now that there's no geopolitical dickwaving to accomplish. On a slightly different tangent, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress [0] suggests that whosoever sets up the lunar catapult first will likely become "masters of Earth". I think I'm going to start learning Chinese! [1] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moon_Is_a_Harsh_Mistress https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moon_Is_a_Harsh_Mistress [1] https://spectrum.ieee.org/china-aims-for-a-permanent-moon-base-in-the-2030s https://spectrum.ieee.org/china-aims-for-a-permanent-moon-ba...
morelisp 4y ago
> Wasn't the same argument made against going to the moon? Was the argument wrong? If it was wrong, are the reasons it was wrong applicable to the current situation?

morelisp 4y ago

> masters of Earth I think this is unfortunate phrasing closer to the problem than the solution.