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Why does anyone do anything? Some people obviously just got really into the idea of sailing to the islands. Right now there are people in the world that are su

Why does anyone do anything? Some people obviously just got really into the idea of sailing to the islands. Right now there are people in the world that are super into the idea of going to Mars. There’s no reason why anyone has to do it, but they’re into the idea of it and they’ll find whatever rationale they need to explain the desire.

kelseyfrog 3mo ago
We're going to Mars because of rainfall patterns. The anthropologists of the future will peice together clues and come to the same conclusion.
- clickety_clack 3mo ago
  I have been running from rainfall patterns my entire life.
  - gumby 3mo ago
    In fact I’ve never liked the whole Patterns movement and the obsession with the Go5 at all!
RajT88 3mo ago
"Why was there a massive migration to Mars starting in 2050? More importantly why did every wave of settlers die out almost immediately"?
rflrob 3mo ago
There are always going to be people whose reason is “because we can”. Going to Mars has, on the scale of a human lifetime, only recently become vaguely feasible. As someone who works in STEM, I’m generally on the side of new technologies unlocking things, though I don’t doubt that population and environmental shifts in the home territory can tip things over from a few crazy dreamers to a more coordinated expansion.
PyWoody 3mo ago
But why, some say, the Moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask, why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas? We choose to go to the Moon. We choose to go to the Moon... We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win, and the others, too. - JKF, 1962
tanseydavid 3mo ago
> Some people obviously just got really into the idea of sailing to the islands. Not to be argumentative, but why would we think that the Polynesians knew that Hawaii (as one example) was out there in the middle of the vast Pacific. Whereas we know Mars exists and we know how to find it if we want to try to go there. Perhaps they just were willing to gamble that surely there must be other islands out there like the ones they were inhabiting.
gweinberg 3mo ago
Okay, but you not only have the question of why they did it when they did it, but also why they didn't in the previous 1700 years. We haven't been to Mars yet because the technology isn't ready, not because nobody has the hankering. Maybe there is no real reason, at some point the cool kids started doing it and the wanna-be's imitated the cool kids. Or maybe not.
- goalieca 3mo ago
  Mars is more of a cost thing than a technology problem. We could definitely make it work if we dared.
  - alejohausner 3mo ago
    Tom Murphy a "recovering astrophysicist" from UCSD, would beg to differ. His basic thesis is that, in order to build human settlements in other worlds, we would have to construct, from scratch, a large part of the ecosystem on which our life on Earth depends. That ecosystem is huge, interconnected, and largely unknown to us. We can't build it ourselves. You can't just strap on oxygen tanks and take protein pills and expect to live very long, away from this planet. I agree with him that the moon landings and the current batch of people living on the ISS are part of extremely expensive and unsustainable stunts. They're not steps towards living off-world. See https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2025/10/2025-a-space-absurdity/ https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2025/10/2025-a-space-absurdity/
  - IAmBroom 3mo ago
    You've been watching too many movies, and reading too few physics books. The first generation is pretty much guaranteed to die young of cancer. Yay them! There's ZERO way to limit radiation exposure on the trip. I'm not even sure the to-date astronauts have been outside it (the Moon is protected 25% of the time).

kelseyfrog 3mo ago

We're going to Mars because of rainfall patterns. The anthropologists of the future will peice together clues and come to the same conclusion.

clickety_clack 3mo ago
I have been running from rainfall patterns my entire life.
- gumby 3mo ago
  In fact I’ve never liked the whole Patterns movement and the obsession with the Go5 at all!

RajT88 3mo ago

"Why was there a massive migration to Mars starting in 2050? More importantly why did every wave of settlers die out almost immediately"?

rflrob 3mo ago

There are always going to be people whose reason is “because we can”. Going to Mars has, on the scale of a human lifetime, only recently become vaguely feasible. As someone who works in STEM, I’m generally on the side of new technologies unlocking things, though I don’t doubt that population and environmental shifts in the home territory can tip things over from a few crazy dreamers to a more coordinated expansion.

PyWoody 3mo ago

But why, some say, the Moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask, why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas? We choose to go to the Moon. We choose to go to the Moon... We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win, and the others, too. - JKF, 1962

tanseydavid 3mo ago

> Some people obviously just got really into the idea of sailing to the islands. Not to be argumentative, but why would we think that the Polynesians knew that Hawaii (as one example) was out there in the middle of the vast Pacific. Whereas we know Mars exists and we know how to find it if we want to try to go there. Perhaps they just were willing to gamble that surely there must be other islands out there like the ones they were inhabiting.

gweinberg 3mo ago

Okay, but you not only have the question of why they did it when they did it, but also why they didn't in the previous 1700 years. We haven't been to Mars yet because the technology isn't ready, not because nobody has the hankering. Maybe there is no real reason, at some point the cool kids started doing it and the wanna-be's imitated the cool kids. Or maybe not.

goalieca 3mo ago
Mars is more of a cost thing than a technology problem. We could definitely make it work if we dared.
- alejohausner 3mo ago
  Tom Murphy a "recovering astrophysicist" from UCSD, would beg to differ. His basic thesis is that, in order to build human settlements in other worlds, we would have to construct, from scratch, a large part of the ecosystem on which our life on Earth depends. That ecosystem is huge, interconnected, and largely unknown to us. We can't build it ourselves. You can't just strap on oxygen tanks and take protein pills and expect to live very long, away from this planet. I agree with him that the moon landings and the current batch of people living on the ISS are part of extremely expensive and unsustainable stunts. They're not steps towards living off-world. See https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2025/10/2025-a-space-absurdity/ https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2025/10/2025-a-space-absurdity/
- IAmBroom 3mo ago
  You've been watching too many movies, and reading too few physics books. The first generation is pretty much guaranteed to die young of cancer. Yay them! There's ZERO way to limit radiation exposure on the trip. I'm not even sure the to-date astronauts have been outside it (the Moon is protected 25% of the time).