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I agree, but it isn't really related to Elon Musk's goal. He is specifically worried about anything that might wipe us off the planet at some point. Moving to y

I agree, but it isn't really related to Elon Musk's goal. He is specifically worried about anything that might wipe us off the planet at some point. Moving to yet uninhabited places on earth won't do nearly as much to protect us from that. That said, if we do follow your advice, we'll likely learn a lot in the process that can help us get to Mars.

chc 12y ago
But the thing is, most things that we say will "wipe us off the planet" actually leave Earth still more habitable than Mars is today. It's just that when we talk about those scenarios, we acknowledge that we have no way to survive such utter deprivation, while with Mars we wave our hands and say "Oh, we'll figure it out." Being able to survive on Mars means being able to survive under totally inhospitable conditions. That alone takes a lot of doomsday scenarios off the table even if we never go to Mars. I'm not arguing for underwater cities or against going to Mars. I'm just saying that the cost and effort of getting everything to Mars is the easy part, and is not the part that will actually ensure humanity's survival.
- millettjon 12y ago
  That's true. However, being on Mars would allows us to re colonize Earth N years after a cataclysmic event.
  - chc 12y ago
    What cataclysm do you envision destroying life on Earth if we have the technology to survive on Mars? Surviving on Mars means that we can survive in freezing temperatures, with deadly levels of radiation, without a breathable atmosphere, without fertile soil, with little to no liquid water, and with no source of power but sunlight that's 60% weaker than on Earth.
    - seanflyon 12y ago
      A sufficiently large impact.
      - chc 12y ago
        Sufficiently large to do what?
        seanflyon 12y ago
        Destroy life on earth. I phrased it as a tautology to be humorous, but very large impacts are possible. I doubt life would survive an impact such as the one we hypothesized to have created the moon. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_impact_hypothesis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_impact_hypothesis "collision between the Earth and an astronomical body the size of Mars"
- AndrewKemendo 12y ago
  But the thing is, most things that we say will "wipe us off the planet" actually leave Earth still more habitable than Mars is today. Exactly right, how this escapes people I am unsure. The absolute worst climate predictions, asteroid impacts or seismic events wouldn't be nearly as hard to recover from than trying to get to and then live for a single day on Mars.
  - ezegolub 12y ago
    Yes, but in Mars you're ,in theory, prepared to live and maybe thrive in that harsh enviroment, and it might actually help earth population to know how to survive an enviromental disaster. Short term, i agree it makes little sense to try to colonize other planet, but looking at it as a long term survival of the species type of affair, it makes a lot of sense.
  - thaumaturgy 12y ago
    Because most people probably are looking a little beyond the first day on Mars. Fifty years of successful Martian colonization would be a good start towards self-sufficiency on that planet.
    - dalke 12y ago
      There's over 50 years of colonization of Antarctica, and that's not self-sufficient. Tristan da Cunha, one of the most inaccessible permanently occupied places on the Earth, depends on the UK for support when there are major infrastructure failures. These are successful, by at least some definitions, but are not self-sufficient. Why are you more optimistic about a Mars colony than our experience with places on Earth which are much less inaccessible and more inhabitable might suggest?
      - thaumaturgy 12y ago
        It depends on the goals of the project I guess. I don't think of Antarctica as a colonization effort so much as a research outpost. There are people living there year 'round, but there hasn't been an effort to move people out there en masse. If future Mars missions are launched with the goals of establishing a research station, then yeah, I don't expect it to become self-sufficient. But, if future Mars missions are launched with the expressed goal of establishing an independent colony, then I think there's at least a chance it might work. Certainly there are a lot of challenges. We probably don't even know what all of the challenges are yet. For all we know, Mars could be host to a deadly microorganism, some extremophile we've never seen before. It could go the way of the Roanoke colony, with a total loss of the whole colony. I would still go anyway though. Because maybe, after fifty years of chipping away at it, we would have learned enough and developed enough new technology as a result of the effort to have made it all worthwhile. It is a huge risk for a potentially huge payoff. I'm always amazed when HN, of all places, doesn't see it that way.
- lmm 12y ago
  Like with computer backups, it's a good idea to test that ability to survive under totally inhospitable conditions before we have to do it "for real".
nemo 12y ago
Martian colonies would in all likelihood be dependent on Earth for a very, very long time, if not forever. There are a lot of Earth resources they'd never have access to. If life on Earth was wiped, there would be a fair chance than the colonists on Mars would slowly perish after the first blight took out their crops, or what have you.
- seanflyon 12y ago
  It would certainly be difficult to build a self sufficient Mars colony, but I don't think it's impossible. I agree that there would be a long time between the first landing and a self sufficient colony.
  - nemo 12y ago
    I'm not so certain self-sufficiency is possible. Humans are an animal in an ecosystem that sustains it, no matter how much we might kid ourselves otherwise. We aren't self-sufficient on Earth, but deeply dependent on our environment. There is a distinct chance we'd always need things from it. Besides biodiversity that couldn't exist on Mars, there are many natural resources that are a product of that ecosystem that Mars would never have. The needs for food, raw materials that are the basis for most medicines, natural materials for daily life (like wood, paper), and the loss of access to a biodiversity that has been central to human survival are something that I don't think there's any guarantee could be ever be replaced on Mars, though since I don't think there's any possibility of humans surviving there ever, it's kind of peripheral.
    - seanflyon 12y ago
      The longest a group of humans have gone without depending on earth's biosphere is 2 years [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosphere_2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosphere_2], so I suppose you are allowed to be skeptical. I am not skeptical, let me explain why. In the biosphere 2 experiment the 8 subjects lost weight the first year as they figured out how to manage an ecosystem, but they gained weight the second year. They could have kept going for significantly longer if they wanted to. The first step would be a colony that can produce and clean its own air and water and some of its food. This seem achievable in the near term. The second step is a full ecosystem (needs almost no nutrients from earth), which is much harder but I think biosphere 2 is a good proof of concept. Mars is much colder with less sunlight so it is a much harder problem on Mars. The finial step is an independent industrial base. You mentioned medicine, but I'm more concerned with the microprocessors to keep the automation running. Humanity can survive without medicine, and with a few easy things like penicillin we can do quite well (we can also avoid bringing the majority of diseases to Mars in the first place). Without automation I don't think one person can produce enough resource to sustain themselves in such a hostile environment. Self-sufficiency is hard and I think a million people is a good estimation of how large a Mars colony would be before it became truly self sufficient.

chc 12y ago

But the thing is, most things that we say will "wipe us off the planet" actually leave Earth still more habitable than Mars is today. It's just that when we talk about those scenarios, we acknowledge that we have no way to survive such utter deprivation, while with Mars we wave our hands and say "Oh, we'll figure it out." Being able to survive on Mars means being able to survive under totally inhospitable conditions. That alone takes a lot of doomsday scenarios off the table even if we never go to Mars. I'm not arguing for underwater cities or against going to Mars. I'm just saying that the cost and effort of getting everything to Mars is the easy part, and is not the part that will actually ensure humanity's survival.

millettjon 12y ago
That's true. However, being on Mars would allows us to re colonize Earth N years after a cataclysmic event.
- chc 12y ago
  What cataclysm do you envision destroying life on Earth if we have the technology to survive on Mars? Surviving on Mars means that we can survive in freezing temperatures, with deadly levels of radiation, without a breathable atmosphere, without fertile soil, with little to no liquid water, and with no source of power but sunlight that's 60% weaker than on Earth.
  - seanflyon 12y ago
    A sufficiently large impact.
    - chc 12y ago
      Sufficiently large to do what?
      - seanflyon 12y ago
        Destroy life on earth. I phrased it as a tautology to be humorous, but very large impacts are possible. I doubt life would survive an impact such as the one we hypothesized to have created the moon. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_impact_hypothesis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_impact_hypothesis "collision between the Earth and an astronomical body the size of Mars"
AndrewKemendo 12y ago
But the thing is, most things that we say will "wipe us off the planet" actually leave Earth still more habitable than Mars is today. Exactly right, how this escapes people I am unsure. The absolute worst climate predictions, asteroid impacts or seismic events wouldn't be nearly as hard to recover from than trying to get to and then live for a single day on Mars.
- ezegolub 12y ago
  Yes, but in Mars you're ,in theory, prepared to live and maybe thrive in that harsh enviroment, and it might actually help earth population to know how to survive an enviromental disaster. Short term, i agree it makes little sense to try to colonize other planet, but looking at it as a long term survival of the species type of affair, it makes a lot of sense.
- thaumaturgy 12y ago
  Because most people probably are looking a little beyond the first day on Mars. Fifty years of successful Martian colonization would be a good start towards self-sufficiency on that planet.
  - dalke 12y ago
    There's over 50 years of colonization of Antarctica, and that's not self-sufficient. Tristan da Cunha, one of the most inaccessible permanently occupied places on the Earth, depends on the UK for support when there are major infrastructure failures. These are successful, by at least some definitions, but are not self-sufficient. Why are you more optimistic about a Mars colony than our experience with places on Earth which are much less inaccessible and more inhabitable might suggest?
    - thaumaturgy 12y ago
      It depends on the goals of the project I guess. I don't think of Antarctica as a colonization effort so much as a research outpost. There are people living there year 'round, but there hasn't been an effort to move people out there en masse. If future Mars missions are launched with the goals of establishing a research station, then yeah, I don't expect it to become self-sufficient. But, if future Mars missions are launched with the expressed goal of establishing an independent colony, then I think there's at least a chance it might work. Certainly there are a lot of challenges. We probably don't even know what all of the challenges are yet. For all we know, Mars could be host to a deadly microorganism, some extremophile we've never seen before. It could go the way of the Roanoke colony, with a total loss of the whole colony. I would still go anyway though. Because maybe, after fifty years of chipping away at it, we would have learned enough and developed enough new technology as a result of the effort to have made it all worthwhile. It is a huge risk for a potentially huge payoff. I'm always amazed when HN, of all places, doesn't see it that way.
lmm 12y ago
Like with computer backups, it's a good idea to test that ability to survive under totally inhospitable conditions before we have to do it "for real".

nemo 12y ago

Martian colonies would in all likelihood be dependent on Earth for a very, very long time, if not forever. There are a lot of Earth resources they'd never have access to. If life on Earth was wiped, there would be a fair chance than the colonists on Mars would slowly perish after the first blight took out their crops, or what have you.

seanflyon 12y ago
It would certainly be difficult to build a self sufficient Mars colony, but I don't think it's impossible. I agree that there would be a long time between the first landing and a self sufficient colony.
- nemo 12y ago
  I'm not so certain self-sufficiency is possible. Humans are an animal in an ecosystem that sustains it, no matter how much we might kid ourselves otherwise. We aren't self-sufficient on Earth, but deeply dependent on our environment. There is a distinct chance we'd always need things from it. Besides biodiversity that couldn't exist on Mars, there are many natural resources that are a product of that ecosystem that Mars would never have. The needs for food, raw materials that are the basis for most medicines, natural materials for daily life (like wood, paper), and the loss of access to a biodiversity that has been central to human survival are something that I don't think there's any guarantee could be ever be replaced on Mars, though since I don't think there's any possibility of humans surviving there ever, it's kind of peripheral.
  - seanflyon 12y ago
    The longest a group of humans have gone without depending on earth's biosphere is 2 years [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosphere_2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosphere_2], so I suppose you are allowed to be skeptical. I am not skeptical, let me explain why. In the biosphere 2 experiment the 8 subjects lost weight the first year as they figured out how to manage an ecosystem, but they gained weight the second year. They could have kept going for significantly longer if they wanted to. The first step would be a colony that can produce and clean its own air and water and some of its food. This seem achievable in the near term. The second step is a full ecosystem (needs almost no nutrients from earth), which is much harder but I think biosphere 2 is a good proof of concept. Mars is much colder with less sunlight so it is a much harder problem on Mars. The finial step is an independent industrial base. You mentioned medicine, but I'm more concerned with the microprocessors to keep the automation running. Humanity can survive without medicine, and with a few easy things like penicillin we can do quite well (we can also avoid bringing the majority of diseases to Mars in the first place). Without automation I don't think one person can produce enough resource to sustain themselves in such a hostile environment. Self-sufficiency is hard and I think a million people is a good estimation of how large a Mars colony would be before it became truly self sufficient.