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"As Bruce Sterling has puts it: "I'll believe in people settling Mars at about the same time I see people settling the Gobi Desert. The Gobi Desert is about a t

"As Bruce Sterling has puts it: "I'll believe in people settling Mars at about the same time I see people settling the Gobi Desert. The Gobi Desert is about a thousand times as hospitable as Mars and five hundred times cheaper and easier to reach." Misses a fairly big point - it's about backup for the species. The same reason people put backup tapes in another building when a walk down to the basement is a pain in the butt already. Backups in the basement don't help when the building burns down.

ryandvm 11y ago
The problem with that line of thinking is that it's a fool's gamble either way. For the people living on Mars, you'll have a quality of life far below that of a prisoner in a second world country. Forever. And for the people staying behind, you get to pay exorbitant sums of money so that people other than you get to survive an asteroid impact in the next few million years. (Unless of course it's Mars that is struck, then you just lit 80 trillion dollars on fire.) Sorry, colonizing Mars just doesn't make sense and it probably never will. At least not until we have progressed to the point that we have the resources to terraform planets at will. And even then, it will probably make more sense to just live in space. Actually, there is one very specific scenario in which colonizing Mars is a great idea: if you're in the business of selling space travel to governments.
- richmarr 11y ago
  From the sounds of it you've made up your mind and post-rationalised some of this. a quality of life far below that of a prisoner in a second world country Quality of life isn't just about food & accomodation. for the people staying behind, you get to pay exorbitant sums of money so that people other than you get to survive an asteroid impact Sure, Homo Economicus might not want to pay for that space mission, but Homo Economicus (a) doesn't exist, and (b) if he existed would be a douche. ...make more sense to just live in space Maybe, maybe not. We don't know that much about the long term effect of living in space, or on Mars, or the Moon. What happens when more people than expected get pregnant in your space colony? At least on a planet you have the opportunity to use mined resources to expand. Or maybe someone will invent a self-printing orbital colony ship. We're stone-agers trying to predict the iron age here. What's the crux of your disagreement? If you dropped all the other arguments, which one would you hold onto?
  - shoo 11y ago
    to cherry-pick a tiny part of your comment: > What happens when more people than expected get pregnant in your space colony? i'm assuming "more than expected" means "too many people to support given the circumstances". the answer of what to do in this situation is pretty obvious if there are no other options -- do a necessary unpleasant thing: abort the pregnancies or have a few other people volunteer to die [0]. people have figured this out in other societies. for example, people on the isolated island of Tikopia developed a society that was able to self-regulate population [1]. to be clear: i do not think this sounds like a wonderful state of affairs. but if you are in such a situation, and there are no other options left, what else can you do? to get back to the more general point -- sure, it seems like a reasonable idea to have a colony on another planet, if we can figure out a way to do that sustainably and resiliently, to reduce risk if we "lose" the Earth somehow. But let's think that through: how hard would it be to establish a colony on another planet that could support itself, and recover/flourish, without external support, in a scenario where the Earth was lost? Probably pretty hard! I guess it depends upon the scenario. If some virus kills off the human population of a planet without otherwise doing too much damage, maybe it is possible to re-settle it, which allows some of the people from your colony a chance at restarting life in a kinder environment. If somehow you lose the whole ecosystem on earth that supports human life, then perhaps resettlement is not an option. Then there are risks that might wipe out both earth and the colony in one hit [2]. [0] edit: or, maybe in this hypothetical future technologically advanced spaceship society people have figured out contraception and family planning and this is situation that will not happen. [1] https://expandyourbrain.wordpress.com/2011/05/23/we-the-tikopia-isolated-island-chiefdom/ https://expandyourbrain.wordpress.com/2011/05/23/we-the-tiko... [2] e.g. a really lucky close shot from a gamma ray burst? some kind of coordinated multi-planet misanthropic terrorist plot?

ryandvm 11y ago

The problem with that line of thinking is that it's a fool's gamble either way. For the people living on Mars, you'll have a quality of life far below that of a prisoner in a second world country. Forever. And for the people staying behind, you get to pay exorbitant sums of money so that people other than you get to survive an asteroid impact in the next few million years. (Unless of course it's Mars that is struck, then you just lit 80 trillion dollars on fire.) Sorry, colonizing Mars just doesn't make sense and it probably never will. At least not until we have progressed to the point that we have the resources to terraform planets at will. And even then, it will probably make more sense to just live in space. Actually, there is one very specific scenario in which colonizing Mars is a great idea: if you're in the business of selling space travel to governments.

richmarr 11y ago
From the sounds of it you've made up your mind and post-rationalised some of this. a quality of life far below that of a prisoner in a second world country Quality of life isn't just about food & accomodation. for the people staying behind, you get to pay exorbitant sums of money so that people other than you get to survive an asteroid impact Sure, Homo Economicus might not want to pay for that space mission, but Homo Economicus (a) doesn't exist, and (b) if he existed would be a douche. ...make more sense to just live in space Maybe, maybe not. We don't know that much about the long term effect of living in space, or on Mars, or the Moon. What happens when more people than expected get pregnant in your space colony? At least on a planet you have the opportunity to use mined resources to expand. Or maybe someone will invent a self-printing orbital colony ship. We're stone-agers trying to predict the iron age here. What's the crux of your disagreement? If you dropped all the other arguments, which one would you hold onto?
- shoo 11y ago
  to cherry-pick a tiny part of your comment: > What happens when more people than expected get pregnant in your space colony? i'm assuming "more than expected" means "too many people to support given the circumstances". the answer of what to do in this situation is pretty obvious if there are no other options -- do a necessary unpleasant thing: abort the pregnancies or have a few other people volunteer to die [0]. people have figured this out in other societies. for example, people on the isolated island of Tikopia developed a society that was able to self-regulate population [1]. to be clear: i do not think this sounds like a wonderful state of affairs. but if you are in such a situation, and there are no other options left, what else can you do? to get back to the more general point -- sure, it seems like a reasonable idea to have a colony on another planet, if we can figure out a way to do that sustainably and resiliently, to reduce risk if we "lose" the Earth somehow. But let's think that through: how hard would it be to establish a colony on another planet that could support itself, and recover/flourish, without external support, in a scenario where the Earth was lost? Probably pretty hard! I guess it depends upon the scenario. If some virus kills off the human population of a planet without otherwise doing too much damage, maybe it is possible to re-settle it, which allows some of the people from your colony a chance at restarting life in a kinder environment. If somehow you lose the whole ecosystem on earth that supports human life, then perhaps resettlement is not an option. Then there are risks that might wipe out both earth and the colony in one hit [2]. [0] edit: or, maybe in this hypothetical future technologically advanced spaceship society people have figured out contraception and family planning and this is situation that will not happen. [1] https://expandyourbrain.wordpress.com/2011/05/23/we-the-tikopia-isolated-island-chiefdom/ https://expandyourbrain.wordpress.com/2011/05/23/we-the-tiko... [2] e.g. a really lucky close shot from a gamma ray burst? some kind of coordinated multi-planet misanthropic terrorist plot?