4 ms·

My favourite planet is this one.

• zamalek 2y ago
  No fan of Elon, not by a long shot, but he's right on this one: all it takes is is one asteroid, one volcano, or one nuke party for this planet to become everyone's least favorite planet.
  • atwrk 2y ago
    Isn't this exactly the moment where he is wrong? Even if all three of these would happen simultaneously, it would still be easier to ensure human continuity on earth, not on mars. A mars colony would have to be underground to escape the radiation and poisonous atmosphere - but of course you could also build an underground shelter on earth. And have better gravity, easier energy sources, endless amounts of water and so on for free. A mars outpost after a nuke party on earth would simply die, as it is completely unfeasable to both a) develop it so far that it becomes self-sufficient and b) not become a military target along the way simply because of its size.
    • rglynn 2y ago
      That's probably true with our current technology and understanding of a Mars colony. The idea would be to get to a point where we have (at least) a self-sufficient colony as a backup. As others have pointed out, it doesn't have to be Mars, it just needs to be not Earth. Long term we obviously need to escape the solar system too.
    • zamalek 2y ago
      You have fewer options without redundancy, no matter how ineffective the backup site is. The odds of getting many humans to collaborate on reaching a second planet is also greater than the odds of getting all humans to collaborate on saving this one (which, to be clear, is absolutely no chance at all).