5 ms·

Mars has more fresh water than Earth does. Most of it is frozen, but thawing it shouldn't prove impossible. > Are there really millions of people who would sig

by cryptoz 15y ago

Mars has more fresh water than Earth does. Most of it is frozen, but thawing it shouldn't prove impossible. > Are there really millions of people who would sign up for the world's most expensive method of committing suicide? I don't understand this. Are you committing suicide right now, by living out your life on Earth? You're here on Earth and you're going to die here. Does that mean you've committed suicide? How is that any different from people living indoors on Mars? Sure, they may die there. But people die here too. It's not suicide, it's a way of life that people will choose. Also, you are incorrect in your silly assumption that life will be harsh for the millions that arrive - it seems much more likely that we could send robots to build the infrastructure while the first few land, making small cities, etc, and otherwise preparing for the mass arrival. Yes, there are millions that would want to go. I've been thinking about this for more than a decade and I am desperate to go live on Mars when it becomes possible.

chc 15y ago
Antarctica has more fresh water than the rest of Earth too, and on top of that it's twice as warm as the Martian poles, far more accessible and even has a breathable atmosphere — but there aren't millions of people there either, and it's still considered a very harsh environment. In fact, even the people who live in Antarctica tend to avoid it in the winter. > Also, you are incorrect in your silly assumption that life will be harsh for the millions that arrive - it seems much more likely that we could send robots to build the infrastructure while the first few land, making small cities, etc, and otherwise preparing for the mass arrival. AFAIK, this is not literally impossible, but is way beyond our technological ability right now. If you mean a couple of centuries from now, yeah, maybe. But do we even have any proof-of-concept cities built entirely by robots on earth? (And keep in mind that to really reflect Martian conditions, they'd have to be thermally insulated cities that produce their own energy without any geothermal or hydraulic input and very little solar input and which have independent air supplies — but any cities built by robots would surprise me.)
- trafficlight 15y ago
  You're right. We should just stop trying now.
  - chc 15y ago
    Your comment is singularly unenlightening. I'm just saying that Musk's comments create unreasonable expectations. If you materially disagree, this kind of sarcasm does nothing to express what you think is wrong. If you don't actually disagree, then you're just kind of being rude, aren't you?
- nickik 15y ago
  Antarctica is not on a diffrent Plant. Lifing there will not earn you a place in human history. I think a lot of stuff can be send to mars in the beginning. It should not be to hard to build a big house in a couple of parts and stick them together on mars. I for one am not jet sure if I would go to mars.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - chc 15y ago
    Even if we assume that you can send a whole house to Mars for free, your house needs to solidly insulated from the cold and the radiation, it needs to somehow produce air and it needs to somehow produce energy without most of the energy sources we use on Earth (fossil fuels, solar, geothermal, hydro, wind). The latter two are very hard problems. If you can sustainably create breathable air and energy practically ex nihilo, that is a much bigger achievement than getting to Mars.
    - nickik 15y ago
      I was making a general point. I didn't agree with the 50 years thing. It probebly want be posible in 50 years but then again if we are not going to trie we can be sure it want work in 50 years. Just like with the 10 years to the moon thing.
  - Cushman 15y ago
    Um, the first few people to explore Antarctica became pretty famous. Still ain't a city there.
    - stretchwithme 15y ago
      oh, you just haven't looked hard enough.
- cr4zy 15y ago
  The advantage of Mars IMO is that it gets all our eggs out of the Earth basket. I'm not pessimistic about our future, but it would definitely be nice to not be living on a single point of failure in the event of a nuclear war, asteroid impact, pandemic, et al. This, I believe is Elon's reasoning as well. However, I don't understand as yet why he's choosing Mars over the Moon. I've heard him say both are good candidates but he's obviously shooting for the former. I suppose the nuclear doomsday scenario would a little more possible to take out both the Moon and Earth. Also life on Earth depends on the Moon for the tides etc... I wonder if he's trying to distance the baskets so to speak.
  - chc 15y ago
    I definitely agree in principle, but on the other hand, it's really hard to imagine an event that would render Earth less hospitable than Mars. In general, these catastrophes would just make Earth more like Mars. Nuclear war? Mars is a desolate wasteland that's bombarded with ionizing radiation from space (because it lacks both a sufficient atmosphere and a magnetic field to protect it). Asteroid impact? Unless it eliminates all of our atmospheric oxygen, ozone, hydrogen and nitrogen and drops the average surface temperature to -55°C, we're still better off here. Pandemic? If we can protect a colony from the environment of Mars, we should be able to keep at least that many people safe from a pandemic. (Just stick your Mars-bubble in Antarctica if nothing else. It's a lot like Mars except it has better temperatures, an atmosphere that you can breathe if you need to and the water is more readily available.)
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
    - politician 15y ago
      Methane asphyxiation due to global thawing of permafrost.
      - Retric 15y ago
        You could replace 98% of the earths atmosphere with Methane and it would still be more habitable than Mars. (The only way methane would make it worse is if you turned the atmosphere into a fuel air bomb and a few weeks after the detonation it would one again be more habitable.)
- InclinedPlane 15y ago
  It's essentially impossible to own property in Antarctica, and very difficult to set up any sort of business there. Despite that thousands of people still visit Antarctica every year.
- GigabyteCoin 15y ago
  >there aren't millions of people [in Antarctica] either, and it's still considered a very harsh environment Why would anybody live on Antarctica and thaw ice when we have freshwater lakes in other parts of the world? I believe the premise of his statement was "if we have to, we could do it". As a Canadian, I support this statement.

by cryptoz 15y ago

chc 15y ago

Antarctica has more fresh water than the rest of Earth too, and on top of that it's twice as warm as the Martian poles, far more accessible and even has a breathable atmosphere — but there aren't millions of people there either, and it's still considered a very harsh environment. In fact, even the people who live in Antarctica tend to avoid it in the winter. > Also, you are incorrect in your silly assumption that life will be harsh for the millions that arrive - it seems much more likely that we could send robots to build the infrastructure while the first few land, making small cities, etc, and otherwise preparing for the mass arrival. AFAIK, this is not literally impossible, but is way beyond our technological ability right now. If you mean a couple of centuries from now, yeah, maybe. But do we even have any proof-of-concept cities built entirely by robots on earth? (And keep in mind that to really reflect Martian conditions, they'd have to be thermally insulated cities that produce their own energy without any geothermal or hydraulic input and very little solar input and which have independent air supplies — but any cities built by robots would surprise me.)

trafficlight 15y ago
You're right. We should just stop trying now.
- chc 15y ago
  Your comment is singularly unenlightening. I'm just saying that Musk's comments create unreasonable expectations. If you materially disagree, this kind of sarcasm does nothing to express what you think is wrong. If you don't actually disagree, then you're just kind of being rude, aren't you?
nickik 15y ago
Antarctica is not on a diffrent Plant. Lifing there will not earn you a place in human history. I think a lot of stuff can be send to mars in the beginning. It should not be to hard to build a big house in a couple of parts and stick them together on mars. I for one am not jet sure if I would go to mars.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- chc 15y ago
  Even if we assume that you can send a whole house to Mars for free, your house needs to solidly insulated from the cold and the radiation, it needs to somehow produce air and it needs to somehow produce energy without most of the energy sources we use on Earth (fossil fuels, solar, geothermal, hydro, wind). The latter two are very hard problems. If you can sustainably create breathable air and energy practically ex nihilo, that is a much bigger achievement than getting to Mars.
  - nickik 15y ago
    I was making a general point. I didn't agree with the 50 years thing. It probebly want be posible in 50 years but then again if we are not going to trie we can be sure it want work in 50 years. Just like with the 10 years to the moon thing.
- Cushman 15y ago
  Um, the first few people to explore Antarctica became pretty famous. Still ain't a city there.
  - stretchwithme 15y ago
    oh, you just haven't looked hard enough.
cr4zy 15y ago
The advantage of Mars IMO is that it gets all our eggs out of the Earth basket. I'm not pessimistic about our future, but it would definitely be nice to not be living on a single point of failure in the event of a nuclear war, asteroid impact, pandemic, et al. This, I believe is Elon's reasoning as well. However, I don't understand as yet why he's choosing Mars over the Moon. I've heard him say both are good candidates but he's obviously shooting for the former. I suppose the nuclear doomsday scenario would a little more possible to take out both the Moon and Earth. Also life on Earth depends on the Moon for the tides etc... I wonder if he's trying to distance the baskets so to speak.
- chc 15y ago
  I definitely agree in principle, but on the other hand, it's really hard to imagine an event that would render Earth less hospitable than Mars. In general, these catastrophes would just make Earth more like Mars. Nuclear war? Mars is a desolate wasteland that's bombarded with ionizing radiation from space (because it lacks both a sufficient atmosphere and a magnetic field to protect it). Asteroid impact? Unless it eliminates all of our atmospheric oxygen, ozone, hydrogen and nitrogen and drops the average surface temperature to -55°C, we're still better off here. Pandemic? If we can protect a colony from the environment of Mars, we should be able to keep at least that many people safe from a pandemic. (Just stick your Mars-bubble in Antarctica if nothing else. It's a lot like Mars except it has better temperatures, an atmosphere that you can breathe if you need to and the water is more readily available.)
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - politician 15y ago
    Methane asphyxiation due to global thawing of permafrost.
    - Retric 15y ago
      You could replace 98% of the earths atmosphere with Methane and it would still be more habitable than Mars. (The only way methane would make it worse is if you turned the atmosphere into a fuel air bomb and a few weeks after the detonation it would one again be more habitable.)
InclinedPlane 15y ago
It's essentially impossible to own property in Antarctica, and very difficult to set up any sort of business there. Despite that thousands of people still visit Antarctica every year.
GigabyteCoin 15y ago
>there aren't millions of people [in Antarctica] either, and it's still considered a very harsh environment Why would anybody live on Antarctica and thaw ice when we have freshwater lakes in other parts of the world? I believe the premise of his statement was "if we have to, we could do it". As a Canadian, I support this statement.