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Author of Red Mars calls 'bullshit' on emigrating to the planet
- dsr_ 8mo agoMars is only a few billion dollars of investment away from being quite habitable, and Mr. Musk should make plans to retire there along with his friends and senior execs within the year.
- KaiserPro 8mo agoPerhaps we can organise a kickstarter?
- celticninja 8mo agoI can provide the kicks
- hagbard_c 8mo agoImagine what you would say if they actually did so: invest (more than) a few billions in making part of Mars habitable by, say, building one of those 50's SF domes or something outlandish like that. Move there with their billions locked up in the new colony. Make it work, prove it actually was feasible. Manage to stay alive long enough to make the colony largely self-sustaining. Never mind the how, never mind the likeliness of it happening, just be John Lennon for a second and Imagine. Those fat cats took their billions to create their own colony on planet X while we're left here on a dying Earth Why should those greedy capitalists get their own planet? They should open it up to refugees from Earth! Mars wasn't built by Musk & Co., it was built by $(insert_favourite_group) and belongs to them Etcetera. Same old story, same old song. Quite a tiring one at that. I'd say let them have a go at creating a Mars colony and if they succeed - which is rather unlikely - they get to decide what to do with their settlement.
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- TwoNineA 8mo agoI think Neil DeGrasse Tyson said it best (paraphrasing): It takes less money and effort to fix Earth than to terraform Mars.
- vikingerik 8mo agoI don't remember the source but I also like this quote: Before we worry about terraforming Mars, maybe first we should stop Venusforming Terra.
- wongarsu 8mo agoHowever there are a lot of entrenched interests that would be harmed by any large-scale attempts at fixing earth. Even if you paid for it out of your own pocket and brought your own engineers, your attempt at fixing Earth would face strong opposition. Meanwhile barely anyone would oppose your attempt at improving Mars. The article is however spot on that terraforming Mars looked easier 30 years ago than it looks now, with all the new knowledge we have from Mars rovers. Now any "realistic" plan would be millions of people living in pressurized habitats and venturing out in suits, not billions walking on the surface in t-shirts. Closer to what we see in The Expanse than to what we dreamed up in the 80s and 90s
- browningstreet 8mo agoTerraform Earth!
- blooalien 8mo ago> Terraform Earth! Already in the act of being done; Just not in a way that's friendly to life... :(
- aaron695 8mo ago[dead]
- bananzamba 8mo agoOf course that is true, every Mars enthusiast will agree. Not a single person is saying to leave Earth behind to rot. Agree with Mars proponents or not, but at least don't argue against strawmen. Their actual argument treats Mars as a backup strategy for humanity and a science outpost
- graeme 8mo agoThat is sadly the original title but the article is much better than the title. Authors don't get to write their own headlines.
- HPsquared 8mo agoIt's always going to be easier to live underground or under the sea, and you don't see anyone doing that.
- tombert 8mo agoWell, I seem to recall hearing about this city called "Rapture" under the sea, and it didn't work out very well at all. Would you kindly read up on it?
- jandrese 8mo agoTo be fair many of Rapture's problems were extremely avoidable, except possibly by libertarian idealists.
- wongarsu 8mo ago"To get to our habitat, you take a commercial flight to Bali, then a two-hour trip by boat" just does not have the same ring as "it's a six month trip in a space ship, but in a couple decades it might be as fast as 30 days". Being far away from everything is a major part of the appeal If it's possible to call me back to the SF office for a client meeting the day after tomorrow I'm not going
- deciduously 8mo agoWon't somebody think of the disgruntled misanthropes?
- Balgair 8mo agoOr Antarctica too. Like, pretty much any of those place has 0) Air at not a near vacuum 1) Liquid water 2) not a lot of radiation 3) appropriate gravity Why would you want to even live on Mars? You have to essentially live in a very small pressure bunker at some rad-safe depth. Doing so for a little while would be fun and exciting, sure. Homesteading that life? Every one of your kids would opt to leave (if possible) the second they got a chance.
- aaron695 8mo ago[dead]
- jmclnx 8mo agoI thought this Red Mars was selected for a movie or series a couple of years ago. I guess not, but I think it would make for a good mini-series. But I agree with the author, and I am starting to wonder if the same thing could be applied if we find earth like planets around other stars. I almost think on those planets there could be something in the air or water or dirt that could harm or even kill us if we fond a way there.
- throwway120385 8mo agoWe might not be the only viable biochemistry in the universe.
- jmclnx 8mo agoI was thinking along the lines on those other planets, life evolved to need what ever exists there that can kill us. And vis-a-versa
- glenstein 8mo agoTrue enough, but it's still incumbent on us to understand what other biochemistries are plausible based on what we know. We look for things like organic molecules and planets in habitable zones because we know a lot about the mechanisms that allow them to support life. And we are curious about alternative biochemistries, I think that drives a huge amount of curiosity toward Jupiter's Galilean moons especially Europa. My worry is that people say "well there might be other biochemistries" as a deepity that kind of checks out from looking at any specifics, unfocusing conversations that were actually more focused prior to the emergence of the deepity.
- deadbabe 8mo agoThe point of going to other planets was never really to live there, it is to strip mine them of resources.
- beepbooptheory 8mo agoI really hope they don't make it a movie or TV show, if only because I know deep down they will neuter out all the communism and Islam from it and make it somehow about a group of hot 20 somethings dealing with romance. cf. Netflix's Three Body Problem here.
- empressplay 8mo ago> We have to solve the problems we’ve created here before going anywhere off planet will become even slightly relevant. Which is a fair point, but the other points (about soil toxicity, cosmic rays and lower gravity) are all things that can be mitigated. Yes, it would be extravagantly expensive in per-human terms to house people on Mars. But the main reason for doing so -- that should something cataclysmic happen to the Earth it would behoove us to have a credible backup plan -- stands.
- genthree 8mo agoThe list of potential cataclysms on Earth for which being on Mars would be preferable to still being on Earth despite the cataclysm is pretty short. Mostly amounts to whole-crust-liquifying (way, way worse than the K-T event) asteroids. For just about everything else, earthbound bunkers would be better. Mars is so bad that you have to turn all of the Earth's surface to lava before it's worse than Mars, basically.
- giraffe_lady 8mo agoWe have never, even as a proof of concept, been able to develop a closed system capable of supporting mammalian life separate from earth's ecosystems. We assume it's possible based on no particularly rigorous evidence and in spite of our numerous failures to even come close. "Mars as backup" is not a credible plan based on science within even our optimistic grasp. The technology & social systems capable of doing this would be incredibly valuable long before any permanent mars settlement became feasible so if we can do it we should and then we can see.
- card_zero 8mo agoThey did a year in the moon base simulator Yuegong-1, apparently.
- giraffe_lady 8mo agoPeaked at about half the food produced internally iirc and it’s like three people. It’s a good and necessary start but shows just how incredibly far we are from the real deal.
- browningstreet 8mo agoWhen this topic comes up I always think of this movie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waydowntown https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waydowntown
- jjkaczor 8mo agoThat was a great movie - I lived there, worked downtown and was an avid user of the +15 system when that movie came out...
- browningstreet 8mo agoIt's one of those movies that keeps sneaking into my brain. I might watch it again (I saw it in theaters when it came out, and once soon after) or just leave the mistiness of those brain cycles stay as they are.
- beepbooptheory 8mo agoSmall recommendation here which I saw recently is Werner Herzog's 2016 film Lo and Behold, which features Musk and all his mars stuff quite a lot! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lo_and_Behold,_Reveries_of_the_Connected_World https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lo_and_Behold,_Reveries_of_the...
- legitronics 8mo agohttps://archive.ph/Hp69I https://archive.ph/Hp69I
- triceratops 8mo agoBetween the realism about terraforming Mars and the strong likelihood that faster-than-light travel may never happen, is anyone else feeling a bit melancholic? It feels like a possible future has been taken away from us.
- elil17 8mo agoI think there are a lot of good futures that involve things being better on Earth
- triceratops 8mo agoGood futures, sure. But not as cool. No Tannhauser Gate, no Kessel Run.
- jubilanti 8mo agoYou know what's cool? Lifting a billion people out of poverty on earth. If you don't think so and still are more motivated by space opera fantasies, there is something wrong with your morals.
- triceratops 8mo agoYou don't know me or what motivates me. You're crossing into personal attacks and that's not ok.
- Tadpole9181 8mo agoSure, that would be astoundingly amazing. But the second sentence there is unwarranted. Someone can lament their hopes and dreams dying while still caring about the realistic needs of the world around them.
- elil17 8mo agoare you equally upset that Harry Potter isn’t real? I don’t mean to come across as rude, I just can’t really understand what you mean unless you’re saying that you’re sad magic isn’t real
- inaros 8mo agoFolks...The US is effectively bankrupt with a 40 Trillion dollars debt in case you did not notice. The US Treasury is just a few minutes away from an economic event, that will force the US government to spend more than 70% to 80% of tax revenues on servicing said debt. There is no scientific or economic case to even go to Mars, much less colonize it. And with the current advances in robotics and automation there is nothing astronauts could do that a sophisticated robot team would not do better. Many interesting Scifi stories show, that really advanced civilizations quickly lose interest in extended Space travel, and we should take the hint...
- flenserboy 8mo agobut this is the economic case for it — if things are as dire as you paint them, this is the last chance to get a toehold off-world for at least 3-4 generations, if ever.
- pavel_lishin 8mo agoWould that toe-hold actually survive without constant resupply vessels? There's cheaper ways to doom a dozen people to a slow, inevitable death.
- flenserboy 8mo agonot taking the chance is cowardly & nihilistic, & everyone who went up would know the score when they signed up. better to give it as much of a chance as possible than to give up & just watch the world degrade & rot around us.
- pavel_lishin 8mo agoThat's a fake binary. We could spend the money to prevent the world from degrading and rotting.
- flenserboy 8mo ago
- nutjob2 8mo agoHow about we just commit to fucking up one planet at a time? Arguably humanity is a dangerous invasive species that destroys any environment it inhabits. Until we do better we should treat other planets more like a park than fresh real estate.
- hagbard_c 8mo agoIf this is how you think about your own species I'd hate to learn what you think about other species. Nihilism is really a horrible substitute for religion, all doom and gloom and no salvation in sight.
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- nutjob2 7mo agoI care enough about my species to tell the truth. It might save it from extinction. You should google the word "Nihilism" before you use it again.
- jandrese 8mo agoI mean he had to invent a decent amount of magic technology (the radiation proof tent material for just one example) and purposely not do the math on other parts to make his story work. IMHO the biggest tell that Elon has never been serious about Mars is that he has been completely focused on the rocket and has severely neglected the actual hard part of the problem: The self sustained habitat for the people to live in. There should be experimental habitats dotting the SpaceX campus with engineers and researchers working hand in hand to solve the problem of scaling up a terrarium to people size. It is not easy. Previous attempts have ended in expensive failures. And those efforts didn't have to be launched on a rocket and landed on a low gravity planet with a very thin atmosphere. Until Elon starts to tackle this problem I know that all of the talk of Mars habitats is just blowing smoke up the asses of investors.
- mekdoonggi 8mo agoI'm as big of an Elon-hater as you'll find, but I kind of have to disagree. Working on the habitat before the rocket is cart before horse. The rocket is a prerequisite to even an experimental trip to Mars. If we ever do actually colonize Mars, the progression would look something like: 1. Experimental missions 2. Small but permanent settlement made out of Starships cobbled together 3. New construction with increasing proportion of in-situ resources until fully independent
- hagbard_c 8mo ago> I'm as big of an Elon-hater as you'll find The new "I'm not a racist, but...". Why did you feel the need to add this statement before saying something which might be taken as agreeing with something the man said? Why does it always have to come down to who said something instead of what that person said? Just say you agree with the statement, don't mention who said it. If the knee-jerk-downvote brigade comes to punish you just eat the downvotes in the knowledge that the downvoters just can't cope with dissenting opinions.
- tim333 7mo agoThere are a lot of Elon fanboys who just agree with his ideas without thinking.
- bananzamba 8mo ago"Also, we’ve learned more about the bad effects of lighter-than-Earthly gravity on human bodies," How can he confidently use that argument when we don't have any data between 0g and 1g, other than 12 Apollo astronauts, that spend less than 3 days on the moon? It might very well be that the 0.38g on Mars are sufficient to make many problems go away. The two simple facts of your blood being pulled downward and moving your body around taking effort could already fix a lot of the medical issues astronauts face in 0g.
- keepamovin 8mo agoHumans must expand through the solar system and beyond. Mars is an okay goal, but the moon is a better bet for living quarters for now. Earth is a jewel, but we have to expand and explore. It's our destiny. Ultimately you need to live underground on the Mars to avoid radiation.
- celticninja 8mo agoI mean its a nice idea. But short of FTL/Wormholes there is never going to be a practical need to do this. If the sun goes supernova then perhaps it would happen but even then we would spend centuries in space terraforming planets to make them liveable,
- tim333 7mo agoI don't know about must expand but there are always going to be a few wanting to that.
- glenstein 8mo agoCurrently reading Blue Mars, the third and final book in the trilogy. It's amazingly fascinating but also exhausting. I say with full seriousness it may be best to read this with a very specific high resolution full color map of Mars on your wall somewhere. If anything KSR is not giving himself as much credit as he deserves, as personal AIs show up in ways that are remarkably salient and similar to what we're currently seeing. And he talks about advances in genetics that parallel what we're figuring out with CRISPR at least to some degrees. The biggest "error" is the preoccupation with a Paul Ehrlich-style population boom, but by the same token it reveals that the book is a window into the time it was made. If any ambitious and aspiring science novelists are reading this, I would love for someone to be the Kim Stanley Robinson of Venus and tell the story of colonization there, aspiring to the same bar of technical specificity that KSR had for Red Mars.
- simonbarker87 8mo agoGood on you, exhausting is the right word I’d think. Red Mars was the book that killed my enthusiasm for reading for nearly a year. Something about it bored me to tears and yet, I kept reading (my fault) I think I gave up at 60%. I feel like I should like it, I’ve read everything my Neal Stephenson so I’m not averse to hefty books
- glenstein 8mo agoI think I was in a similar boat and where in doubt, I think I powered through for completionist sake. But it's possible you paused right before some of the most interesting stuff in the whole book. It's not a spoiler to note that the it begins with a flash forward that talks about the fate of a major character. Some of the most interesting stuff starts happening to them and it comes full circle in a way that leads up to that flash forward. And mercifully the constant mentions of regolith lessen the deeper into the series you get.
- inaros 8mo ago"Kim Stanley Robinson: Origins of the Red Mars Trilogy" - https://youtu.be/zn2Van5cZD4 https://youtu.be/zn2Van5cZD4
- AngryData 8mo agoThere is currently and never has yet been a fully self-sufficient and stable artificial human habitat. Until that exists nobody is going to be living on Mars and anyone who says otherwise is talking out of their ass.
- wongarsu 8mo agoIt's a shame Biosphere 2 didn't get more funding. It was supposed to solve exactly this issue, with the tremendous cost advantage of being reachable by car instead of rockets https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosphere_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosphere_2
- tim-tday 8mo ago“Remember this, please, when you see clickbait and pronunciamentos about humans very soon migrating to Mars. I, author of the Mars trilogy, call bullshit on that fatuous fantasy.“
- cowboy7q 8mo ago[dead]