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> We have places on Earth, which are probably 10x if not 100x or 1000x more habitable than Mars, which we still do not and cannot inhabit long term with more t

> We have places on Earth, which are probably 10x if not 100x or 1000x more habitable than Mars, which we still do not and cannot inhabit long term with more than a handful of people. That’s because there are places on Earth that similarly better than e.g. Antarctica or some desert. The main reason for Mars is that it is not on Earth. Make „not on Earth“ a requirement that cannot be dropped and suddenly Mars makes a lot of sense.

woodruffw 4y ago
I'm not following the reasoning here: we should explore Mars because, unlike the Mars-like places on Earth, we stand no chance of rescuing explorers on another planet? The GP's point, as I understood it, is that we haven't even figured out how to make missions 1/1000th as complex as a Mars mission on our own planet viable.
- spiderice 4y ago
  The reason people want to colonize Mars is because it solves the problem of an extinction event on earth wiping out all of humanity (assuming the Mars colony eventually becomes self sustaining). Populating Antarctica doesn't solve that problem. From what I can tell people are talking about two different things here. Group 1 is talking about how we prevent humans from going extinct in the long term by setting up a Mars colony. Group 2 is talking about doing something easier before we jump to something harder (Antarctica -> LEO -> Moon -> Mars). I don't know why these two groups always feel so at odds with each other online, as it seems like both philosophies end up in the same place. Group 3 are the people who think we should save Earth INSTEAD of going to Mars, and I think they miss the point entirely.
  - kibwen 4y ago
    It's difficult to think of extinction events that satisfy both of the following criteria: 1. An event that affects the Earth without affecting Mars. 2. An event that leaves the Earth more uninhabitable than Mars, even temporarily. A gamma ray burst or rogue star that destroys the Earth would just as easily destroy Mars. Meanwhile, even a colossal meteor strike such as the one that killed the dinosaurs, despite leaving the Earth a shattered ruin for millenia, would still result in a planet that is more habitable than Mars. The bottom line is that Mars is an awful backup for life.
    - omgwtfbyobbq 4y ago
      My impression is that underground human settlements on another planet would better handle a GRB than the status quo on Earth.
      - threeseed 4y ago
        But we have ~8 billion people on Earth. So even if a very low percentage survive within underground settlements here it would be far better situation than being on Mars.
        omgwtfbyobbq 4y ago
        Definitely, assuming we build underground settlements here. The difference is that on Mars, we're for the most part forced to build underground. On Earth we have to choose to do so, and we haven't done enough of that so far.
        a2800276 4y ago
        > and we haven't done enough of that so far. Yet we still have infinitely more underground settlements on earth than we can conceivably have on Mars in any imaginable future...
        omgwtfbyobbq 4y ago
        We had infinitely more non-reusable rockets than we had reusable rockets several years ago. That doesn't mean not trying to do something is a great idea.
    - mikea1 4y ago
      > The bottom line is that Mars is an awful backup for life. In the near term, absolutely. But the long term goal is to colonize multiple planets/moons. Eventually, Mars will be one of many worlds on which life finds a foothold, which is perhaps the best backup for life that humanity can currently deliver. But we still need to take that first step.
  - Barrin92 4y ago
    I never bought that argument. It's like some secularized version of America as a City Upon a Hill. The isolationism works for like 50 years or something, but afterwards the entire system is just going to be integrated, just like any new settlement on Earth was that served as a temporary refuge. Distance that seemed to provide safety is going to go from large to small to non-existent very quickly as technology develops, and probably much faster than in the past. Any global extinction event is then just going to be a solar-system extinction event, Expanse style. To save enough humans from extinction in case of catastrophy probably some vaults are enough.
  - lapcat 4y ago
    > The reason people want to colonize Mars is because it solves the problem of an extinction event on earth wiping out all of humanity (assuming the Mars colony eventually becomes self sustaining). Life on Earth survived the mass extinction event 66 million years ago, obviously, otherwise we wouldn't be here now. The dinosaurs were wiped out, but the dinosaurs had nowhere to hide and were completely unprepared for the asteroid impact. It's important to keep in mind that the Earth after the asteroid hit was still vastly more livable and conducive to life than Mars is now. Mars is more hostile to life than a big asteroid impact, because Mars has no habitat to start with. Mars has no benefit whatsoever to humans as far as Earth disaster survival is concerned, except for the fact that Mars is not Earth. A much better plan to avoid extinction is multifold: (1) Stop destroying our own environment, duh. (2) Get rid of nuclear weapons. (3) Stop killing each other in general. (4) Invest in asteroid detection and deflection. (5) Build shelters on Earth capable of surviving disaster, such as underground. It also wouldn't hurt to (6) Stop being afraid of vaccination. We've got everything we need here already: normal gravity, breathable atmosphere, food, water, raw materials, people. It would be sooooooo much easier to build disaster shelters on Earth than to permanently populate Mars. The difference in difficulty level makes Mars a total joke in comparison. As a species, if we can't even get our shit together on Earth enough to stop polluting, stop killing, stop the threat of nuclear war, and vaccinate against contagious diseases, then we have no hope of long-term survival anywhere, because of our own stupidity. You can forget living on Mars, a massively hostile environment, if we can't do it right here on Earth, which was practically made for us.
    - dento 4y ago
      Colonizing Mars is going to be easier than solving tragedy of the commons.
      - lapcat 4y ago
        How can you bring humans to Mars without also bringing human nature, i.e., human flaws? We'll wreck Mars quicker than Earth, because Mars is already a wreck.
        4y ago
  - wheelerof4te 4y ago
    Chance of an asteroid hitting Mars is tens or even hundreds times greater than it hitting Earth. Not to mention that Mars has barely any atmosphere, so even a relatively small meteor (5-15 meters across) will be able to penetrate it and cause chaos. If we have to terraform anything, why not first learn to do it here on Earth? Plenty of inhospitable space that we can turn green, no need to go to Mars. Doing that will almost double the amount of living space for the human population. Earth is a big planet. There is also ample space deeper underground. Why not make entire high-tech undergound cities? Doing it will allow us to plan similar projects on Mars, or even some day, on Titan. Conditions underground on very cold planets should be much more "habitable", than those on freezing surface. While we are at it, even the Moon has cave systems where various research can be made and where people can get shelter from radiation.
    - m4rtink 4y ago
      >Chance of an asteroid hitting Mars is tens or even hundreds times greater than it hitting Earth. Not to mention that Mars has barely any atmosphere, so even a relatively small meteor (5-15 meters across) will be able to penetrate it and cause chaos With no ocean and barely any atmosphere the damage would also be much more localized. Most of the damage from the Chelyabinsk meteor was caused by the shock wave as it exploded high in the atmosphere: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelyabinsk_meteor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelyabinsk_meteor
  - freejazz 4y ago
    "The reason people want to colonize Mars is because it solves the problem of an extinction event on earth wiping out all of humanity (assuming the Mars colony eventually becomes self sustaining). Populating Antarctica doesn't solve that problem." It doesn't.
willis936 4y ago
Being possible for us to make a habitat is also a requirement. You can't just drop that requirement because being somewhere other than Earth sounds nice. A successful Mars colony attempt is centuries away.
titzer 4y ago
The Moon is 100X closer. And orbit is 100X closer than that.
Dalewyn 4y ago
The Moon or even something in LEO make several orders of magnitudes more sense than Mars given our current technological and geopolitical capabilities. I get it, colonizing other planets is romantic and awesome. I love science fiction too. But we are in the realm of reality, not fiction, and we have to learn how to crawl before we can walk, let alone run. Let's figure out how to get permanent LEO human habitation going first, then figure out how to do that on the Moon. Then we can talk about colonizing other planets. So far we've gotten short-term LEO habitation figured out, albeit with issues concerning expenses and trying to justify it all to the taxpayers.
- randallsquared 4y ago
  Permanent (self-sufficient) LEO human habitation doesn't make sense because there's no source of material there. Mars has the major benefit that we know that there are raw materials and enough sunlight to turn those materials into various required inputs like methane. LEO definitely doesn't have that, and it's less clear whether anyplace on the Moon has that than it is Mars. Mars is further away in travel time, but not much further in fuel costs, and it's far better than the Moon for living off the land.
  - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
    If you break you neck in LEO you could be in a real hospital in a few hours. From the moon it's a couple days, comparable to like an arctic base dueing a storm. From Mars your family will only get ashes because your body will have been deconposing for months. There is steel, aluminium and oxygen on the moon,'it can host heavy indstry and peoduce ships, space stations, equipment. It can host a space elevator today,'made of normal kevlar. You could build an aircraft carrier and lift it into orbit.
    - drevil-v2 4y ago
      > You could build an aircraft carrier and lift it into orbit No you can’t. You still need to spend the same amount of energy per ton to escape earth’s gravity. An elevator does not magically violate laws of physics Edit: As pointed out below I probably misunderstood the comment I was replying too. My bad
aivisol 4y ago
> The main reason for Mars is that it is not on Earth. Make „not on Earth“ a requirement that cannot be dropped and suddenly Mars makes a lot of sense. Reading the article I think the author tries to figure why this requirement cannot be dropped and gets no rational answer.
- neuronic 4y ago
  The author gives a rational answer at length, it's just the cultists are refusing to accept it.
mannykannot 4y ago
Declaring "not on Earth" to be a requirement is certainly an effective way to avoid considering all the arguments against it being a good goal at this time. It is known as begging the question.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- rfrey 4y ago
  But it is the primary requirement of Mars colony advocates, so it cannot be dropped. It is perfectly legit to argue that their goals are useless and terrible and wasteful, if you want, but arguing "there are more habitable spots on Earth" isn't on point. Their goal is not to colonize "some difficult, hostile environment" - their goal is to colonize another planet.
  - mannykannot 4y ago
    The argument here is, at least in part, that achieving it on Earth would likely increase the chances of succeeding on Mars. To rule that out on the basis that one's goal is to colonize another planet (as opposed to, for example, showing that achieving it on Earth would not help with the ultimate goal) is a way to avoid considering that argument, not a refutation of it.
  - TchoBeer 4y ago
    1) many Mars advocates want to colonize Mars to provide more resources and land to alleviate overpopulation. In that regard, it being of Earth does not matter. 2) even if it does, the point of GP's counterargument is not "if you want to colonize a hostile environment we have those here on earth" it's "your goal is extremely far outside of our current technological capabilities. We can't even colonize hostile environments in our own backyard."
espadrine 4y ago
> The main reason for Mars is that it is not on Earth The main reason cited is usually one of species resilience. “Not Earth” is an arbitrary requirement bolted on. The main risk is that of an extinction-level event, such as large meteor impacts, substantial tectonic activity, or a worldwide nuclear disaster. All of those would likely have minimal impact on an autonomous underground city with a complete, mostly hermetic air filtering system, with three redundant power sources (say, nuclear, solar, and geothermal). That would also be substantially easier to build than a >1K self-sustaining Martian base.
- scotty79 4y ago
  Yeah. We should build one of those too. I think enough people would pay good money to live there.
- moffkalast 4y ago
  Not to mention the most important reason for colonizing a planet: Because it's there.
  - dwaltrip 4y ago
    Why did the mountaineer climb the mountain? Because it was there.
justapassenger 4y ago
You need to learn how to crawl, and few other steps before you go win marathon at the Olympic Games.

woodruffw 4y ago

I'm not following the reasoning here: we should explore Mars because, unlike the Mars-like places on Earth, we stand no chance of rescuing explorers on another planet? The GP's point, as I understood it, is that we haven't even figured out how to make missions 1/1000th as complex as a Mars mission on our own planet viable.

spiderice 4y ago
The reason people want to colonize Mars is because it solves the problem of an extinction event on earth wiping out all of humanity (assuming the Mars colony eventually becomes self sustaining). Populating Antarctica doesn't solve that problem. From what I can tell people are talking about two different things here. Group 1 is talking about how we prevent humans from going extinct in the long term by setting up a Mars colony. Group 2 is talking about doing something easier before we jump to something harder (Antarctica -> LEO -> Moon -> Mars). I don't know why these two groups always feel so at odds with each other online, as it seems like both philosophies end up in the same place. Group 3 are the people who think we should save Earth INSTEAD of going to Mars, and I think they miss the point entirely.
- kibwen 4y ago
  It's difficult to think of extinction events that satisfy both of the following criteria: 1. An event that affects the Earth without affecting Mars. 2. An event that leaves the Earth more uninhabitable than Mars, even temporarily. A gamma ray burst or rogue star that destroys the Earth would just as easily destroy Mars. Meanwhile, even a colossal meteor strike such as the one that killed the dinosaurs, despite leaving the Earth a shattered ruin for millenia, would still result in a planet that is more habitable than Mars. The bottom line is that Mars is an awful backup for life.
  - omgwtfbyobbq 4y ago
    My impression is that underground human settlements on another planet would better handle a GRB than the status quo on Earth.
    - threeseed 4y ago
      But we have ~8 billion people on Earth. So even if a very low percentage survive within underground settlements here it would be far better situation than being on Mars.
      - omgwtfbyobbq 4y ago
        Definitely, assuming we build underground settlements here. The difference is that on Mars, we're for the most part forced to build underground. On Earth we have to choose to do so, and we haven't done enough of that so far.
        a2800276 4y ago
        > and we haven't done enough of that so far. Yet we still have infinitely more underground settlements on earth than we can conceivably have on Mars in any imaginable future...
        omgwtfbyobbq 4y ago
        We had infinitely more non-reusable rockets than we had reusable rockets several years ago. That doesn't mean not trying to do something is a great idea.
  - mikea1 4y ago
    > The bottom line is that Mars is an awful backup for life. In the near term, absolutely. But the long term goal is to colonize multiple planets/moons. Eventually, Mars will be one of many worlds on which life finds a foothold, which is perhaps the best backup for life that humanity can currently deliver. But we still need to take that first step.
- Barrin92 4y ago
  I never bought that argument. It's like some secularized version of America as a City Upon a Hill. The isolationism works for like 50 years or something, but afterwards the entire system is just going to be integrated, just like any new settlement on Earth was that served as a temporary refuge. Distance that seemed to provide safety is going to go from large to small to non-existent very quickly as technology develops, and probably much faster than in the past. Any global extinction event is then just going to be a solar-system extinction event, Expanse style. To save enough humans from extinction in case of catastrophy probably some vaults are enough.
- lapcat 4y ago
  > The reason people want to colonize Mars is because it solves the problem of an extinction event on earth wiping out all of humanity (assuming the Mars colony eventually becomes self sustaining). Life on Earth survived the mass extinction event 66 million years ago, obviously, otherwise we wouldn't be here now. The dinosaurs were wiped out, but the dinosaurs had nowhere to hide and were completely unprepared for the asteroid impact. It's important to keep in mind that the Earth after the asteroid hit was still vastly more livable and conducive to life than Mars is now. Mars is more hostile to life than a big asteroid impact, because Mars has no habitat to start with. Mars has no benefit whatsoever to humans as far as Earth disaster survival is concerned, except for the fact that Mars is not Earth. A much better plan to avoid extinction is multifold: (1) Stop destroying our own environment, duh. (2) Get rid of nuclear weapons. (3) Stop killing each other in general. (4) Invest in asteroid detection and deflection. (5) Build shelters on Earth capable of surviving disaster, such as underground. It also wouldn't hurt to (6) Stop being afraid of vaccination. We've got everything we need here already: normal gravity, breathable atmosphere, food, water, raw materials, people. It would be sooooooo much easier to build disaster shelters on Earth than to permanently populate Mars. The difference in difficulty level makes Mars a total joke in comparison. As a species, if we can't even get our shit together on Earth enough to stop polluting, stop killing, stop the threat of nuclear war, and vaccinate against contagious diseases, then we have no hope of long-term survival anywhere, because of our own stupidity. You can forget living on Mars, a massively hostile environment, if we can't do it right here on Earth, which was practically made for us.
  - dento 4y ago
    Colonizing Mars is going to be easier than solving tragedy of the commons.
    - lapcat 4y ago
      How can you bring humans to Mars without also bringing human nature, i.e., human flaws? We'll wreck Mars quicker than Earth, because Mars is already a wreck.
      - 4y ago
- wheelerof4te 4y ago
  Chance of an asteroid hitting Mars is tens or even hundreds times greater than it hitting Earth. Not to mention that Mars has barely any atmosphere, so even a relatively small meteor (5-15 meters across) will be able to penetrate it and cause chaos. If we have to terraform anything, why not first learn to do it here on Earth? Plenty of inhospitable space that we can turn green, no need to go to Mars. Doing that will almost double the amount of living space for the human population. Earth is a big planet. There is also ample space deeper underground. Why not make entire high-tech undergound cities? Doing it will allow us to plan similar projects on Mars, or even some day, on Titan. Conditions underground on very cold planets should be much more "habitable", than those on freezing surface. While we are at it, even the Moon has cave systems where various research can be made and where people can get shelter from radiation.
  - m4rtink 4y ago
    >Chance of an asteroid hitting Mars is tens or even hundreds times greater than it hitting Earth. Not to mention that Mars has barely any atmosphere, so even a relatively small meteor (5-15 meters across) will be able to penetrate it and cause chaos With no ocean and barely any atmosphere the damage would also be much more localized. Most of the damage from the Chelyabinsk meteor was caused by the shock wave as it exploded high in the atmosphere: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelyabinsk_meteor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelyabinsk_meteor
- freejazz 4y ago
  "The reason people want to colonize Mars is because it solves the problem of an extinction event on earth wiping out all of humanity (assuming the Mars colony eventually becomes self sustaining). Populating Antarctica doesn't solve that problem." It doesn't.

willis936 4y ago

Being possible for us to make a habitat is also a requirement. You can't just drop that requirement because being somewhere other than Earth sounds nice. A successful Mars colony attempt is centuries away.

titzer 4y ago

The Moon is 100X closer. And orbit is 100X closer than that.

Dalewyn 4y ago

The Moon or even something in LEO make several orders of magnitudes more sense than Mars given our current technological and geopolitical capabilities. I get it, colonizing other planets is romantic and awesome. I love science fiction too. But we are in the realm of reality, not fiction, and we have to learn how to crawl before we can walk, let alone run. Let's figure out how to get permanent LEO human habitation going first, then figure out how to do that on the Moon. Then we can talk about colonizing other planets. So far we've gotten short-term LEO habitation figured out, albeit with issues concerning expenses and trying to justify it all to the taxpayers.

randallsquared 4y ago
Permanent (self-sufficient) LEO human habitation doesn't make sense because there's no source of material there. Mars has the major benefit that we know that there are raw materials and enough sunlight to turn those materials into various required inputs like methane. LEO definitely doesn't have that, and it's less clear whether anyplace on the Moon has that than it is Mars. Mars is further away in travel time, but not much further in fuel costs, and it's far better than the Moon for living off the land.
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  If you break you neck in LEO you could be in a real hospital in a few hours. From the moon it's a couple days, comparable to like an arctic base dueing a storm. From Mars your family will only get ashes because your body will have been deconposing for months. There is steel, aluminium and oxygen on the moon,'it can host heavy indstry and peoduce ships, space stations, equipment. It can host a space elevator today,'made of normal kevlar. You could build an aircraft carrier and lift it into orbit.
  - drevil-v2 4y ago
    > You could build an aircraft carrier and lift it into orbit No you can’t. You still need to spend the same amount of energy per ton to escape earth’s gravity. An elevator does not magically violate laws of physics Edit: As pointed out below I probably misunderstood the comment I was replying too. My bad

aivisol 4y ago

> The main reason for Mars is that it is not on Earth. Make „not on Earth“ a requirement that cannot be dropped and suddenly Mars makes a lot of sense. Reading the article I think the author tries to figure why this requirement cannot be dropped and gets no rational answer.

neuronic 4y ago
The author gives a rational answer at length, it's just the cultists are refusing to accept it.

mannykannot 4y ago

Declaring "not on Earth" to be a requirement is certainly an effective way to avoid considering all the arguments against it being a good goal at this time. It is known as begging the question.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
rfrey 4y ago
But it is the primary requirement of Mars colony advocates, so it cannot be dropped. It is perfectly legit to argue that their goals are useless and terrible and wasteful, if you want, but arguing "there are more habitable spots on Earth" isn't on point. Their goal is not to colonize "some difficult, hostile environment" - their goal is to colonize another planet.
- mannykannot 4y ago
  The argument here is, at least in part, that achieving it on Earth would likely increase the chances of succeeding on Mars. To rule that out on the basis that one's goal is to colonize another planet (as opposed to, for example, showing that achieving it on Earth would not help with the ultimate goal) is a way to avoid considering that argument, not a refutation of it.
- TchoBeer 4y ago
  1) many Mars advocates want to colonize Mars to provide more resources and land to alleviate overpopulation. In that regard, it being of Earth does not matter. 2) even if it does, the point of GP's counterargument is not "if you want to colonize a hostile environment we have those here on earth" it's "your goal is extremely far outside of our current technological capabilities. We can't even colonize hostile environments in our own backyard."

espadrine 4y ago

> The main reason for Mars is that it is not on Earth The main reason cited is usually one of species resilience. “Not Earth” is an arbitrary requirement bolted on. The main risk is that of an extinction-level event, such as large meteor impacts, substantial tectonic activity, or a worldwide nuclear disaster. All of those would likely have minimal impact on an autonomous underground city with a complete, mostly hermetic air filtering system, with three redundant power sources (say, nuclear, solar, and geothermal). That would also be substantially easier to build than a >1K self-sustaining Martian base.

scotty79 4y ago
Yeah. We should build one of those too. I think enough people would pay good money to live there.
moffkalast 4y ago
Not to mention the most important reason for colonizing a planet: Because it's there.
- dwaltrip 4y ago
  Why did the mountaineer climb the mountain? Because it was there.

justapassenger 4y ago

You need to learn how to crawl, and few other steps before you go win marathon at the Olympic Games.