4 ms·

sending people to Mars is, surely, hedging against climate change?

• AndrewKemendo 12y ago
  What? The landscape of Mars is actively hostile to human biology. Even the absolute worst case scenario of climate change on earth is infinitely better for human life than Mars.
  • tehwalrus 12y ago
    ...assuming the humans have a balloon and some plants, and as many solar panels as they can carry, I wouldn't rate their chances too low. I wouldn't give good odds on earth remaining inhabitable for more than a couple of hundred years, at the rate we're going (assuming I'd live long enough to pay out.)
    • TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
      Terraforming your own planet to make it less habitable while trying to terraform a hostile planet to make it more habitable seems like an odd way to do things. It doesn't have to be either/or. But politically, the odds of an unsuccessful Earth creating a viable Mars colony are somewhere very near zero.
      • tehwalrus 12y ago
        Didn't say anything about terraforming; I said they'd live in a balloon, a mini-biosphere.
        • Paradigma11 12y ago
          Why not do the same thing on earth without all this rocket stuff?
          • tehwalrus 12y ago
            That's a remarkably good suggestion. Only answer I can come up with: It'd be really really hard to declare independence from whatever nation's land the bubble was sat on. Float & anchor it in international waters? Problem solved!
• deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]