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”All our Earth analogies are much weaker than the conditions that are present on Mars,” says Friedmann. “Mars is much drier, much colder, with much more intense
by p1esk 3y ago
”All our Earth analogies are much weaker than the conditions that are present on Mars,” says Friedmann. “Mars is much drier, much colder, with much more intense UV radiation.”
Why do people want to go to Mars? Seems like no matter how bad it could ever get here on Earth, climate wise, it would still be much better than Mars.
- chiefalchemist 3y agoMars is a stepping stone to going further. If you aspire to leave the solar system, Mars is the proof of concept, the MVP.
- p1esk 3y agoWhy is Mars a good stepping stone to leave the solar system? The moon seems like a much better choice: much closer to Earth and much lower gravity to launch from.
- chiefalchemist 3y agoWe've been to the moon. That's doable. Mars is the next notch up. Moon == 13.1. Mars == 26.2.
- audunw 3y agoClimate isn't going to be very nice if an astroid hits.. If we see it coming I think a very small population of humans could survive. But it's still nice to have a "backup" planet in case of such civilization ending catastrophes. And then there's .. you know .. because it's something to aspire to, and there's probably a bunch of interesting science we could do there. Especially with regards to life on other planets
- GCA10 3y agoEven after an asteroid impact (or major nuclear war), planet Earth would still be a much more welcoming place for human life. Air quality on Earth would go down a bit, but there would still be air. Food supplies would be chaotic, but some crops somewhere should survive. As for severe temperature swings on a post-apocalyptic Earth, they'd probably still be easier to handle than what NASA calculates on Mars as nightly lows of -128 C. I realize that colonizing far away places is what Earthlings do. (Columbus, Cecil Rhodes, etc.) But the lets-go-to-Mars crowd strikes me as an extreme manifestation of Dunning-Kruger
- a_gnostic 3y agoPlus Mars' atmosphere has tons of CO2. Think of the carbon credits!
- bagels 3y agoLiterally, but not figuratively. The atmosphere is not very dense.
- defrost 3y agoCecil Rhodes, while problematic, was born in England 200 years after the colonizing of the Dutch Cape Colony in South Africa. When he arrived in Africa, sent out for his health, in his early teens he landed on an established albeit failing cotton farm. His wealth arose from snowballing into a monopoly the purchase of Kimberley diamond leases from other European settlers over 17 years with backers money and then his own. For that matter Columbus was in truth a failed navigator and accidental colonizer. His intent was sail to the already colonised spice islands of the Dutch East Indies ... but he'd made a boo boo wrt the circumference of the Earth.
- GCA10 3y agoThanks for the extra context on Rhodes in South Africa, which is an accurate and valuable addition to the conversation. I'd still nominate him as an example of a rapacious colonist, based on the skirmishes, one-sided "treaties" and general land grabs that he made in the 1890s, stretching vastly farther north from Britain's initial presence in the South African Cape Colony. These fueled Britain's colonial era claims to what became known as Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia). Columbus ended up in 1496 as Spain's colonial administrator for what's now the Dominican Republic. He did that role badly, too, but what's more important is that he did it -- creating a colonial pathway that kept widening for centuries.
- bumby 3y agoI don’t know, it seems like planning on mitigating/averting an asteroid is a much easier engineering problem to solve compared to establishing a self-sustaining civilization on an otherwise inhospitable planet.
- zamadatix 3y agoWe definitely shouldn't give up on averting the catastrophes we know just because we've got a plan B but at the same time we shouldn't give up on a plan B just because we think we can avert a particular catastrophe. At the end of the day "self-sustaining civilization in an already inhospitable and isolated place" is probably more about showing we've already managed to find a way to eek out under pretty much any situation than it is particularly about Mars itself. To be honest life on Mars would be significantly crappier for probably decades upon decades - but at least we'd prove out the floor and our ability to raise it over time instead of assuming we'll figure things out before our assumption where we are will always be supportive to us falls through for whatever reason.
- wombatpm 3y agoWhen you don’t fund plan A, plan B becomes plan A
- rad_gruchalski 3y agoEarth will itself become inhospitable, assuming that we can survive on this planet as a species for so long.
- ianburrell 3y agoThe day after the asteroid impact that killed the dinosaurs, when everything was on fire, Earth was way more habitable than Mars. Earth has the advantage that can live on it without support, after apocalypse some survivors can continue with rocks. Mars has the problem of being self-sufficient without Earth. In the near-term, if Earth dies, Mars dies because there is something like chips or biologics that they can’t make. If we have technology to survive on Mars or make them self-sufficient with only millions, then that can be used on Earth to maintain civilization on Earth for any disaster. The money spent on Mars colony pays for a lot of bunkers.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- dillydogg 3y agoI have to agree with you. I don't understand the obsession with Mars either. We evolved for millions of years to live right where we are now, if we don't mess it up first. If all of these people only had that much passion for making Earth more habitable for the long term!
- killerstorm 3y agoDinosaurs also evolved for millions of years, you know...
- dukeyukey 3y agoWe evolved for millions of years to live in East Africa. Then we spread south and west. After that, a few enterprising groups crossed the Sinai and/or the Red Sea and went to to colonise Europe and Asia. After that, more groups went to Australia and the Americas. No shit that when we see a far-away land we want to go there! It's pretty much baked into our temperament.
- defrost 3y agoWhat you've described is hundreds of thousands of years of incremental expansion from settled places to a habitable horizon not that far away. We're not walking to Mars or floating a boat across a strait for a couple of days with a bag of apples that can be planted to grow while we fish.
- jtxx 3y agoThe scale at which we've traveled has also advanced with our technology, and the technology has also advanced with it - and it's increase with a pace that matches the overall progress of technology. Columbus took 5 weeks to travel across the Atlantic with zero actual idea how long it would take. The longest journey at sea without stops has been roughly 3 years. We have people out on the ISS for 6m - 1y at a time. Who knows how long it'll take for us to get to that point, but if we can survive the great filter, it's not unreasonable to think it'll take less than 1000 years to get to Mars based on the current trajectory. Probably a lot less.
- rayiner 3y ago> Why do people want to go to Mars? Seems like no matter how bad it could ever get here on Earth, climate wise, it would still be much better than Mars. I’m curious about the sociological forces that have made this sentiment common. In the 1990s, people would talk about going to Mars and the “why” question wouldn’t even come up. Obviously it’s the next milestone of human civilization.
- Pigalowda 3y agoThe only thing reason is to be the first to reach Mars and the first to die on Mars. It’s a dead planet that’s too far away to be useful. The only economy it would have is research and robot prostitutes that eventually rebel. No utility at all. Just make a moon base and be content.
- irrational 3y agoI honestly think this is Musks ultimate goal - to be the first man on Mars. Guaranteed place in all future history books. Even if he dies there.
- Retric 3y agoI was talking to nerds in the 90’s and going to Mars seemed like a silly waste of resources to most of us back then. Building a net positive fusion reactor seemed like a similar amount of work with a much larger payoff. I’d still rather send people on a fly by of Jupiter than land on Mars. Your social circle may have been different, but that says more about them than the 90’s.
- huytersd 3y agoJust as silly as crossing an ocean to find out what’s on the other side at the risk of death.
- Retric 3y agoHardly, land on earth has huge value. Wind and waves let you cheaply transport vast amounts of goods to and from remote locations etc. I’m all for learning to mine asteroids and actually live in space, but Mars is a literal and figurative dead end.
- jxf 3y agoAll life seeks to explore, because adaptation is essential to continued survival. Mars is a laboratory for us to see if we can thrive outside our home world. If there's two things the universe teaches us, it's that (1) our little corner is cosmologically not very special, and (2) extremely terrible and instantly fatal disasters are not rare on long enough timescales — rogue planets, asteroid impacts, gamma ray bursts, and so on. These are all happening _somewhere_ and it's only a matter of time before it happens to us. It doesn't mean that terrestrial concerns (wage inequality, the housing crisis, racism, war, et cetera) aren't important to address. It means we need to take _both_ timescales into account.
- AnonC 3y ago> If there's two things the universe teaches us, it's that (1) our little corner is cosmologically not very special, and (2) extremely terrible and instantly fatal disasters are not rare on long enough timescales — rogue planets, asteroid impacts, gamma ray bursts, and so on. While I agree with the second point, I don’t agree with the first one completely right. Our little corner is very special in one way, which has resulted in life arising and existing for billions of years. Leave aside whether the human species will last or not. It’s still special considering the numerous factors that have enabled and protected the possibility of life (I’m not saying this from a divine or religious perspective).
- antisthenes 3y ago> If there's two things the universe teaches us, it's that (1) our little corner is cosmologically not very special, and (2) extremely terrible and instantly fatal disasters are not rare on long enough timescales — rogue planets, asteroid impacts, gamma ray bursts, and so on. I hope you re-read this and see the contradiction. If instantly-fatal disasters are not rare, then our little corner isn't just special, it's incredibly, mind-blowing improbability special. There may be a lot of stars with planets, but how many planets have such large satellites formed as a result of an immense planetary collision? What about ones with such an abundance of water? And a strong magnetic field? And ones that somehow dodged instantly fatal disasters for almost 3.5 billion years - and have such a mind-blowing variety of conditions to lead to increasingly complex life forms? > Mars is a laboratory for us to see if we can thrive outside our home world. Survive? Yes. Thrive. Never. Even on a geological scale. We don't even thrive on Earth outside of very narrow temperate bands and massive technological adaptations.
- a_gnostic 3y ago> Why do people want to go to Mars? Because cool giant robots and flying cars are more feasible under lower gravity.
- dukeyukey 3y agoTemperamentally, we are nomadic animals. While we were still in our Stone Age we spread out to pretty much everywhere across Earth (some isolated islands excepted). Not many, maybe any, other land animals did that. So when we see a far-away land, of _course_ we want to go there!
- Ma8ee 3y ago> Temperamentally, we are nomadic animals. Well fed and prosperous people tend to stay in place. I’d say it has been hunger that has been driving people all over the globe rather than temperament.
- AnonC 3y agoIf the human species somehow manages to continue, it will have to find a new home outside this planet. It’s just a matter of time before this planet “dies out” in terms of the ability to support current life forms.
- antisthenes 3y agoIf you have access to the kind of energy that enables interstellar travel, you also by definition have enough energy to terraform your own planet and keep recycling resources indefinitely. If you have infinite energy, your planet never "dies out", because you can terraform it at will.
- autoexec 3y agoNo amount of terraforming will save the Earth when the sun dies and takes out half the solar system with it. There are other dangers too that make it irresponsible to leave all of humanity on one planet. Our survival as a species depends on us being able to survive on multiple worlds in multiple solar systems, or at the very least being able to sustain ourselves on interstellar ships.
- tomrod 3y agoEggs and basket analogy. We only know of one planet with life. The number of things that can wipe out life on a planet is high.
- bagels 3y agoI've definitely been flamed on here for expressing the same. If we globally warm earth 10C, it's still going to be a lot more liveable than Mars. Terrible place to try to live, but I'm all for exploring and visiting.
- nitwit005 3y ago> Why do people want to go to Mars? Mostly, they don't. Most people don't even want to move far from their place of birth. There's a lot of romance around the idea of exploring the other worlds, but most people want someone else to do it.
- rakejake 3y agoHaha. Very true.A person who has a solid community has no reason to uproot him/herself and go through a risky venture. You could argue a healthy civilization needs a tribe of lonely rootless people to maximize their risk-taking abilities.
- CatWChainsaw 3y agoBecause even though humanity has sapience, it never conquered the biological imperative to "keep growing", and our current planetary Petri dish is getting crowded and full of our own waste that we can't process. Obviously the only solution is to jump to a new one. There's also a nostalgia and romanticism to the idea of the frontier, and now that we don't have "anywhere" left to go on the planet I think there's a hole in techbros' hearts that they are neurotic about filling, even with bad ideas.