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Any race to colonize Mars is a delusion. Mars is an unbelievably hostile environment. People can’t live on Mars. And why would you even want to? Compared to ea

Any race to colonize Mars is a delusion. Mars is an unbelievably hostile environment. People can’t live on Mars. And why would you even want to? Compared to earth it’s a dusty hell. Do some research on how livable Mars is. It really isn’t. Humans will never travel to the stars - that’s a hundred billion times less likely than traveling to Mars. Actually not even that…. interstellar travel is impossible. I loved the science fiction of traveling to the stars until I understood that the nearest star is so far it would take hundreds of thousands of years to get there using technology even vaguely within our grasp - and really there’s no such technology. If mega wealthy man boys like Musk want to waste money in boys own adventure science fiction instead of making real change here in earth well that’s their decision.

tough 4y ago
They will be richer doesn't really matter if we get to mars or it's useful or not. The man knows how to sell, sadly. I don't get it either Maybe it's all just bullshit to cover for some high grade military space program, like space is the next frontier, and the US wants to rule there too.
- deleted 4y ago
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bluescrn 4y ago
> If mega wealthy man boys like Musk want to waste money in boys own adventure science fiction instead of making real change here in earth well that’s their decision. If the really big problems here on Earth could be fixed by throwing a few tens of billions at them, they'd have been fixed already by governments.
- andrewstuart 4y ago
  Bill Gates works full time in spending money on projects with social good like vaccinations and searching for solutions to things like mosquitoes, disease, clean water, education, poverty, woman’s health, energy, sewerage, reducing methane emissions from livestock. Musk does fart jokes.
  - bluescrn 4y ago
    Musk defends freedom of speech. In his own flawed way, but better than many. And that makes a lot of people incredibly angry/scared.
    - SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
      We've already seen him banning accounts of people who were saying things he didn't agree with so I really don't think we can say he defends freedom of speech. What Musk seems to want to do is make money off of attracting and offering to signal boost what would be otherwise unpopular speech. He's monetizing speech, not making it free.
      - jqpabc123 4y ago
        The only "freedom" Musk has defended is his own to suppress anything he doesn't like. He has displayed all the "media bias" he accused others of having --- just in an opposite and arguably more extreme manner.
    - sharemywin 4y ago
      unless it conflicts with his agenda: https://www.techdirt.com/2023/04/07/elon-musk-blocks-likes-and-replies-to-tweets-that-link-to-substack-in-a-pique-of-pettiness/ https://www.techdirt.com/2023/04/07/elon-musk-blocks-likes-a... https://www.npr.org/2022/12/15/1143291081/twitter-suspends-journalists-elon-musk-jet https://www.npr.org/2022/12/15/1143291081/twitter-suspends-j... more examples here: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/04/elon-musk-twitter-free-speech-matt-taibbi-substack/673698/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/04/elon-musk-...
    - fleetwoodsnack 4y ago
      In many ways the false expert is more harmful than the do-nothing layman.
    - tucosan 4y ago
      This is such a boring take. Musk could "defend free speech" (as if that is something that was ever substantially contested - Trump the shit talker par excellence has been president of the US of A), and still actually improve the world for everyone by funding medical research or the conservation of the rain forests. But yeah, let's drink some more of the Kool aid that the super rich like Musk and Trump are sticking it to the man.
- brindy 4y ago
  What problems do you think living on Mars solves? You’ll never have the environment we have here (even in its currently declining state). Do you think society will be better on Mars living in indentured servitude for generations? As Lennon said, “war is over, if you want it”. It’s the same with the problems we have down here.
  - bluescrn 4y ago
    Mars isn't the end goal. It's a step on the way to going even further, beyond our solar system.
    - taylodl 4y ago
      We're not going beyond our solar system. Ever. The nearest star is 4 light-years away. Assuming you could even travel at the speed of light, which you can't, it takes 1 year to reach the speed of light while accelerating at a comfortable 1G. But, as I said, we're not ever traveling at the speed of light. 20% of the speed of light is about the best we'll realistically ever be able to do - but that still makes the nearest star over 20 years of travel away! How do you propose to travel for over 20 years? It's clear then that robots will be exploring the solar system, not us. Even then it's going to take several centuries just to travel to, collect data from, and send back to earth just from the local stars we can see with the unaided eye. When they say space is big, space is BIG.
      - inawarminister 4y ago
        There are people that will be willing to lose decades of subjective time getting iced. Or if we can't do that (which would be weird since many complex mammals can hibernate already) then generation ships are possible. It'll probably be only done by culturally crazy groups, but hey! They're still counted as humans, and their expanding human habitats into new systems is still a win to us all.
      - bluescrn 4y ago
        > We're not going beyond our solar system. Ever. We're not going within my lifetime, but we don't know what currently-unimaginable technologies could be developed in the future (if we don't destroy our civilization within the next few decades) Significantly extending the lifespan of humans seems inevitable at some point. Robotics and AI will continue to improve. We may master fusion, or discover new ways to store energy. We'll probably mine asteroids and master construction in space. Robots will lead the way, but humans are unlikely to lose the urge to explore.
- archagon 4y ago
  Well, as they say, “wherever you go, there you are.”
- Turing_Machine 4y ago
  > they'd have been fixed already by governments. Governments don't exist to "fix problems". Governments exist to perpetuate problems so that tax money can be funneled to cronies under the guise of "fixing" problems.
unsupp0rted 4y ago
If god had meant for man to live on Mars, He'd have given us... I dunno, rockets and the science to terraform a planet, or something I guess.
jiggywiggy 4y ago
It's a super exciting idea to get to Mars. And if we indeed manage, we will jumper further and farther. Only 100 years ago, there were no planes. No planes are like ants. Unimaginable. Indeed have to take care of our home. And we can do much better. But it feels silly when people shame people for wild and excitement dreams. Are we not allowed to have fun? Everyone not working on cancer research should be shamed? It might even serve some purpose one day, but for now it's just exciting and thats important in its own right.
- deleted 4y ago
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deleted 4y ago
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dgrin91 4y ago
The same is true for the moon, yet we did that and it lead to important growth & discovery for humanity. Your 100% right that living on Mars right now is going to suck. A lot. As the "man boy" said before, there is a good chance that the first people on Mars will just die. If they don't die they will have a very hard life. If they manage to survive and get back they will probably have lasting health effects. And the next several expeditions to Mars will likely be the same. The _hope_ is that after X number of expeditions we will start to build something that resembles hospitability. Eventually that might even lead to growth. Will we success? Who knows. But if we take your "man boy" approach then we'll for sure be stuck here forever until we get hit by an asteroid or something else.
- croutonwagon 4y ago
  The Moon though is 4 days away at any time. Bailout/emergency evac is much easier. And there are resources on the moon that may be viable for next gen tech(ie: Helium-3) Mars is like 7-9 months away on the best pork chop plot. And even if you have something like an Aldrin cycler that may be able to cut that down at certain point to a few months, theres still a lot that can go wrong in that time. The average time to communicate to mars is something like 15 minutes as well. Its a totally different ballgame of "they are on their own". Even if you compare that to say....Christopher Columbus or others (that did similar for the time, but also knew there was a good chance they had the resources needed to survive) Mars has some water and basic elements (O2, N2, H2O) but not much else otherwise. ANy food, probably drinks, shielding, and technology to make long term viability possible will have to be towed along. Mars does seem like an option for expansion at some point. I am just not sure it will be in any of our lifetimes though.
- bayesian_horse 4y ago
  I don't think the conditions on Mars will kill the first few people going there. The transportation, including the landing, is much more dangerous. And those people won't even stay there. A couple of years at most for any one person. Then with time the stays will be extended.
- lapcat 4y ago
  > The same is true for the moon, yet we did that Did what? We put a few people on the Moon during the Cold War, then we ignored it for 50 years. Now there's another war with Russia, and we're talking about putting people on the Moon again. It's all about nationalistic nonsense. Not to mention that the Moon is a heck of a lot closer to the Earth than Mars.
RobotToaster 4y ago
I don't believe it's the end goal of Musk and the other mega wealthy for them to live on mars. It's their goal to force the peasants to live there so they can keep the earth to themselves. Like how masses were exported by the (mostly false) promise of potential riches, or by force, to America and Australia from Europe.
bayesian_horse 4y ago
Starship is immensely useful, even much closer to home. Financially, going to Mars is not the justification for Starship (no matter how often Musk says). Starship will enable us to bring much more mass into orbit. Communication satellites mostly. The JWST would have been easier and cheaper to construct with the payload diameter of Starship. You could even launch much larger telescopes. Commercial space stations aren't really viable yet, and there's not that much to do for Humans in LEO. That's going to change. On top of all that, there are ideas to use Starship as a point-to-point transportation system for destinations on Earth.
kcplate 4y ago
Yes it is, but so much tech developed over the course of history that we rely on was developed by people trying to solve a “hostile environment” problem. I don’t buy the argument that we shouldn’t do it because it’s difficult. Everything is difficult at first. We need to do it because it’s difficult because the tech we develop to get and live there will also help here.
ryandvm 4y ago
> If mega wealthy man boys like Musk want to waste money in boys own adventure science fiction instead of making real change here in earth well that’s their decision. The problem is that the space boys aren't bankrolling this Mars delusion personally. They're counting on incredibly lucratice US federal and later international governmental contracts. Basically, whether we make it to Mars or not, there's going to be a lot of money going to Musk et al during the process and I don't think that's by accident.
Turing_Machine 4y ago
> Mars is an unbelievably hostile environment. So is Southern California. Some of the early missions founded by the Spaniards starved to death. Modern life there is absolutely dependent on technology. Take away the electricity, gasoline, and water and millions would die in short order. > interstellar travel is impossible. Not with multi-generation starships, it isn't.

tough 4y ago

They will be richer doesn't really matter if we get to mars or it's useful or not. The man knows how to sell, sadly. I don't get it either Maybe it's all just bullshit to cover for some high grade military space program, like space is the next frontier, and the US wants to rule there too.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

bluescrn 4y ago

> If mega wealthy man boys like Musk want to waste money in boys own adventure science fiction instead of making real change here in earth well that’s their decision. If the really big problems here on Earth could be fixed by throwing a few tens of billions at them, they'd have been fixed already by governments.

andrewstuart 4y ago
Bill Gates works full time in spending money on projects with social good like vaccinations and searching for solutions to things like mosquitoes, disease, clean water, education, poverty, woman’s health, energy, sewerage, reducing methane emissions from livestock. Musk does fart jokes.
- bluescrn 4y ago
  Musk defends freedom of speech. In his own flawed way, but better than many. And that makes a lot of people incredibly angry/scared.
  - SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
    We've already seen him banning accounts of people who were saying things he didn't agree with so I really don't think we can say he defends freedom of speech. What Musk seems to want to do is make money off of attracting and offering to signal boost what would be otherwise unpopular speech. He's monetizing speech, not making it free.
    - jqpabc123 4y ago
      The only "freedom" Musk has defended is his own to suppress anything he doesn't like. He has displayed all the "media bias" he accused others of having --- just in an opposite and arguably more extreme manner.
  - sharemywin 4y ago
    unless it conflicts with his agenda: https://www.techdirt.com/2023/04/07/elon-musk-blocks-likes-and-replies-to-tweets-that-link-to-substack-in-a-pique-of-pettiness/ https://www.techdirt.com/2023/04/07/elon-musk-blocks-likes-a... https://www.npr.org/2022/12/15/1143291081/twitter-suspends-journalists-elon-musk-jet https://www.npr.org/2022/12/15/1143291081/twitter-suspends-j... more examples here: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/04/elon-musk-twitter-free-speech-matt-taibbi-substack/673698/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/04/elon-musk-...
  - fleetwoodsnack 4y ago
    In many ways the false expert is more harmful than the do-nothing layman.
  - tucosan 4y ago
    This is such a boring take. Musk could "defend free speech" (as if that is something that was ever substantially contested - Trump the shit talker par excellence has been president of the US of A), and still actually improve the world for everyone by funding medical research or the conservation of the rain forests. But yeah, let's drink some more of the Kool aid that the super rich like Musk and Trump are sticking it to the man.
brindy 4y ago
What problems do you think living on Mars solves? You’ll never have the environment we have here (even in its currently declining state). Do you think society will be better on Mars living in indentured servitude for generations? As Lennon said, “war is over, if you want it”. It’s the same with the problems we have down here.
- bluescrn 4y ago
  Mars isn't the end goal. It's a step on the way to going even further, beyond our solar system.
  - taylodl 4y ago
    We're not going beyond our solar system. Ever. The nearest star is 4 light-years away. Assuming you could even travel at the speed of light, which you can't, it takes 1 year to reach the speed of light while accelerating at a comfortable 1G. But, as I said, we're not ever traveling at the speed of light. 20% of the speed of light is about the best we'll realistically ever be able to do - but that still makes the nearest star over 20 years of travel away! How do you propose to travel for over 20 years? It's clear then that robots will be exploring the solar system, not us. Even then it's going to take several centuries just to travel to, collect data from, and send back to earth just from the local stars we can see with the unaided eye. When they say space is big, space is BIG.
    - inawarminister 4y ago
      There are people that will be willing to lose decades of subjective time getting iced. Or if we can't do that (which would be weird since many complex mammals can hibernate already) then generation ships are possible. It'll probably be only done by culturally crazy groups, but hey! They're still counted as humans, and their expanding human habitats into new systems is still a win to us all.
    - bluescrn 4y ago
      > We're not going beyond our solar system. Ever. We're not going within my lifetime, but we don't know what currently-unimaginable technologies could be developed in the future (if we don't destroy our civilization within the next few decades) Significantly extending the lifespan of humans seems inevitable at some point. Robotics and AI will continue to improve. We may master fusion, or discover new ways to store energy. We'll probably mine asteroids and master construction in space. Robots will lead the way, but humans are unlikely to lose the urge to explore.
archagon 4y ago
Well, as they say, “wherever you go, there you are.”
Turing_Machine 4y ago
> they'd have been fixed already by governments. Governments don't exist to "fix problems". Governments exist to perpetuate problems so that tax money can be funneled to cronies under the guise of "fixing" problems.

unsupp0rted 4y ago

If god had meant for man to live on Mars, He'd have given us... I dunno, rockets and the science to terraform a planet, or something I guess.

jiggywiggy 4y ago

It's a super exciting idea to get to Mars. And if we indeed manage, we will jumper further and farther. Only 100 years ago, there were no planes. No planes are like ants. Unimaginable. Indeed have to take care of our home. And we can do much better. But it feels silly when people shame people for wild and excitement dreams. Are we not allowed to have fun? Everyone not working on cancer research should be shamed? It might even serve some purpose one day, but for now it's just exciting and thats important in its own right.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

dgrin91 4y ago

The same is true for the moon, yet we did that and it lead to important growth & discovery for humanity. Your 100% right that living on Mars right now is going to suck. A lot. As the "man boy" said before, there is a good chance that the first people on Mars will just die. If they don't die they will have a very hard life. If they manage to survive and get back they will probably have lasting health effects. And the next several expeditions to Mars will likely be the same. The _hope_ is that after X number of expeditions we will start to build something that resembles hospitability. Eventually that might even lead to growth. Will we success? Who knows. But if we take your "man boy" approach then we'll for sure be stuck here forever until we get hit by an asteroid or something else.

croutonwagon 4y ago
The Moon though is 4 days away at any time. Bailout/emergency evac is much easier. And there are resources on the moon that may be viable for next gen tech(ie: Helium-3) Mars is like 7-9 months away on the best pork chop plot. And even if you have something like an Aldrin cycler that may be able to cut that down at certain point to a few months, theres still a lot that can go wrong in that time. The average time to communicate to mars is something like 15 minutes as well. Its a totally different ballgame of "they are on their own". Even if you compare that to say....Christopher Columbus or others (that did similar for the time, but also knew there was a good chance they had the resources needed to survive) Mars has some water and basic elements (O2, N2, H2O) but not much else otherwise. ANy food, probably drinks, shielding, and technology to make long term viability possible will have to be towed along. Mars does seem like an option for expansion at some point. I am just not sure it will be in any of our lifetimes though.
bayesian_horse 4y ago
I don't think the conditions on Mars will kill the first few people going there. The transportation, including the landing, is much more dangerous. And those people won't even stay there. A couple of years at most for any one person. Then with time the stays will be extended.
lapcat 4y ago
> The same is true for the moon, yet we did that Did what? We put a few people on the Moon during the Cold War, then we ignored it for 50 years. Now there's another war with Russia, and we're talking about putting people on the Moon again. It's all about nationalistic nonsense. Not to mention that the Moon is a heck of a lot closer to the Earth than Mars.

RobotToaster 4y ago

I don't believe it's the end goal of Musk and the other mega wealthy for them to live on mars. It's their goal to force the peasants to live there so they can keep the earth to themselves. Like how masses were exported by the (mostly false) promise of potential riches, or by force, to America and Australia from Europe.

bayesian_horse 4y ago

Starship is immensely useful, even much closer to home. Financially, going to Mars is not the justification for Starship (no matter how often Musk says). Starship will enable us to bring much more mass into orbit. Communication satellites mostly. The JWST would have been easier and cheaper to construct with the payload diameter of Starship. You could even launch much larger telescopes. Commercial space stations aren't really viable yet, and there's not that much to do for Humans in LEO. That's going to change. On top of all that, there are ideas to use Starship as a point-to-point transportation system for destinations on Earth.

kcplate 4y ago

Yes it is, but so much tech developed over the course of history that we rely on was developed by people trying to solve a “hostile environment” problem. I don’t buy the argument that we shouldn’t do it because it’s difficult. Everything is difficult at first. We need to do it because it’s difficult because the tech we develop to get and live there will also help here.

ryandvm 4y ago

> If mega wealthy man boys like Musk want to waste money in boys own adventure science fiction instead of making real change here in earth well that’s their decision. The problem is that the space boys aren't bankrolling this Mars delusion personally. They're counting on incredibly lucratice US federal and later international governmental contracts. Basically, whether we make it to Mars or not, there's going to be a lot of money going to Musk et al during the process and I don't think that's by accident.

Turing_Machine 4y ago

> Mars is an unbelievably hostile environment. So is Southern California. Some of the early missions founded by the Spaniards starved to death. Modern life there is absolutely dependent on technology. Take away the electricity, gasoline, and water and millions would die in short order. > interstellar travel is impossible. Not with multi-generation starships, it isn't.