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why not start with, say, underwater cities on Earth? Because they don't want to live on underwater cities on Earth. They want to live on Mars.
by danielweber 12y ago
why not start with, say, underwater cities on Earth?
Because they don't want to live on underwater cities on Earth. They want to live on Mars.
- philwelch 12y agoWho wants to live on Mars?
- novalis78 12y agoI want to live on Mars
- dasmoth 12y ago"I think it would be great to be born on Earth and to die on Mars. Just hopefully not at the point of impact." http://shitelonsays.com/transcript/elon-musk-and-the-giving-pledge-2012-05-21#quote_-304447912 http://shitelonsays.com/transcript/elon-musk-and-the-giving-...
- kibwen 12y agoThis is a legitimate question, so I don't think downvotes are warranted. Elon Musk may want to live on Mars (and in fact I have at least one friend who would abandon everything and take a one-way ticket to Mars in a heartbeat), but the sentiment expressed here of using a Martian population as insurance against an Earthborne cataclysm requires a functioning, self-sufficient civilization composed of more than just a cadre of explorers and thrill-seekers. You'll need to find a way entice doctors, farmers, miners, and other specialized professions to leave everything behind and consign themselves to death on a dark and barren rock. Historically, colonists have been motivated to such lengths for religious and political reasons. For example, perhaps libertarians will flock to Mars for freedom from oppressive governments. (Hey Bioshock developers: hint hint.)
- baddox 12y agoThere's a big difference between insisting that you want to live on Mars, and actually wanting to live on Mars.
- seanflyon 12y agoWhat percentage of your friends want to live on Mars? If it's more than a ten of one percent then that sounds like there are plenty of people who want to live there.
- philwelch 12y agoThe relative unpopularity of colonizing places like Alaska says a lot though. If you don't want to be hassled over your political or religious beliefs and are willing to go a year between supply runs, there are entire towns in Alaska that are perfect for you, or you could found your own. Curiously, few people do this.
- waterlesscloud 12y agoAlaska isn't another planet, and therefore lacks the allure that living on another planet has for many people. It really is that simple.
- nemo 12y agoAlaska is relatively inhospitable, cold, distant from main human cultural centers. Mars is vastly more so. While science fiction might give an imaginary fantasy of life on Mars appeal, if there were somehow a fact rather than a fantasy of some kind of habitation being possible there, the reality wouldn't be pretty. I'd imagine we'd use the planet as a penal colony for the dregs of society if it were a reality rather than a fantasy. Also, I wonder how your version of "many people" compares to the population of Alaska.
- waterlesscloud 12y agoSo people only think they'd like to live on Mars, but you know they really don't?
- nemo 12y agoNo, I don't know, just imagine it would be different than how they imagine it. I don't see living there through the lens of science fiction so much as biology.
- DonHopkins 12y agoThere are people I think should live on Mars, who wouldn't agree.
- general_failure 12y agoI hardly doubt Elon Musk would want to live in Mars his remaining life time.
- astrodust 12y agoThat's speculation. What if there were significant mineral resources, attractive tax rules, a large, highly motivated labor pool, and a lot of solar energy that could be harvested to drive that economy? Could be a playground he couldn't pass up.
- jessaustin 12y agoOf course, he might just be pushed out the airlock as soon as he annoys "the labor pool". Idealists who create remote colonies are in for disappointment. It were ever thus.
- jacinda 12y agoMe, for one. I've wanted to since I was a kid, and was quite vocal about it before StartX even existed. Friends of mine know that if I only had myself to consider, I'd take a one-way ticket in a heartbeat and live there the rest of my life. Factors such as a significant other mean that I don't just have myself to consider anymore, but I would still love to live there.
- thaumaturgy 12y agoI do. I've wanted to get off of Earth and into space for as long as I can remember. I would grab a one-way ticket to Mars with only the merest moment's hesitation. I also have zero interest in an underwater city.
- Houshalter 12y agoFinding people to inhabit the doomsday refuge is the least of the problems with building it.
- vorg 12y agoAgreed. For people to survive on Mars, earthlings would have to build the sealed cities there using drone technology, then trial them out by first populating them with animals controlled with that same technology. Earthlings would need the experience learnt by doing it on the Moon first, with its more workable one-second response time to drone commands. The sealed cities would be built like new Chinese cities today, the drone operators having learnt their skills on actual huge building sites like Luozhangmen. If there's nuclear devastation in the Mideast or annihilation by disease in Africa in the near future, such remote drone operation skills will likely be learnt by many competing players in those places. The encryption technology used in the droning must be unbreakable, so players must design and manufacture their own chips. And the people who do inhabit such cities on the Moon and Mars will probably have been specially bred in a country not subject to the restrictive laws governing biological innovation prevalent nowadays in the U.S. and Europe.
- dalke 12y agoWho is this "they"? Jacques Cousteau would have loved to live underwater, and built the Conshelfs in part to experiment with the possibility. I've watched documentaries about marine biologists who visit one of the undersea labs, and want to be able to live there. A quick search even finds http://underseacolony.com/prime/mainhub_revA.html http://underseacolony.com/prime/mainhub_revA.html , of people who want to establish an undersea colony.