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There’s no planet B

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Re: There’s no planet B

#41

Post by roryisok »

mabbo wrote: post #32

Let's set aside the part that making a planet where we could live is hard. Just presume we did that, to start. Let's talk Logistics . Presume there are only 1 billion people left on Earth when we decide it's time to go. How do you get them there ? The gravity well holding us here (and holding the air down so we can breath it) is pretty darn strong. Today we're hoping to get cost-to-orbit down to around $100/kg. I wei…

The idea of finding another Earth is not so much about moving everyone from Earth to somewhere else, but rather about "backing up" our species and civilisation in additional places. If an asteroid is going to wipe out Earth, we can't evacuate 8 billion people, or even 8 million people. but if we had a few generations of colonists in domes on Mars, or floating in the clouds on Venus, or somewhere else, the species itself would hopefully survive.

We only have one Earth, and its the best home we could hope for. But we're crazy to keep all of our existential eggs in a single basket and hope it all works out.

> If we can make Mars habitable, we can make Earth habitable for far less cost.

That said, I absolutely love this sentence.

Although I would say, the technology we ultimately have to develop to survive on Mars or the moon will certainly help us keep Earth habitable.

Re: There’s no planet B

#42

Post by datavirtue »

Pinegulf wrote: post #7

> The scientific evidence is clear: the only celestial body that can support us is the one we evolved with. I must have missed the evidence. Exactly what were they? Additionally, don't stand in the way of those who wish to boldly go where no-one has gone before.

Pathogens. Find Earth's twin. Land on it. Die a miserable death shortly thereafter.

Re: There’s no planet B

#43

Post by sokoloff »

hattmall wrote: post #31
bulgur wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[dead]

But why would a terraformed mars somehow be better than even a highly polluted earth? The only potentially legitimate reason for a move to Mars would be to get away from other people on earth.

We're well into the realm of arguing ridiculous scenarios, but in that vein: the Earth will 100% become thermally uninhabitable before Mars as the Sun turns towards being a red giant. There will be a period of time when a terraformed Mars would be more temperate than the Earth.

Re: There’s no planet B

#44

Post by m4rtink »

ben_w wrote: post #38
mabbo wrote: post #32

Let's set aside the part that making a planet where we could live is hard. Just presume we did that, to start. Let's talk Logistics . Presume there are only 1 billion people left on Earth when we decide it's time to go. How do you get them there ? The gravity well holding us here (and holding the air down so we can breath it) is pretty darn strong. Today we're hoping to get cost-to-orbit down to around $100/kg. I wei…

If you really want to get a billion off earth quickly, you'd use a non-rocket system like a launch loop ($3/kg) or an orbital loop ($0.05/kg). I kinda agree that most humans won't leave Earth, at least for the foreseeable future, even if those things were magically built this year: even in 2019, international tourism was only 1.466 billion people, less than 20%.

While I don't see that mentioned very often I do think off-Earth settlements could have many benefits even for the Earth population - say research commoning from experience of living in space environments could have application on Earth. Also many asteroid strikes could be much more likely to be detected and averted using in-space instruments and infrastructure.

Even more exotic stuff like dropping first responders from orbit to disaster areas might be useful, but would not ever be doable without infrastructure in place for supporting space operations.

Re: There’s no planet B

#45

Post by adrianN »

mabbo wrote: post #32

Let's set aside the part that making a planet where we could live is hard. Just presume we did that, to start. Let's talk Logistics . Presume there are only 1 billion people left on Earth when we decide it's time to go. How do you get them there ? The gravity well holding us here (and holding the air down so we can breath it) is pretty darn strong. Today we're hoping to get cost-to-orbit down to around $100/kg. I wei…

> Even the most optimistic generation ships would be taking 10s of thousands of years to get there

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propuls...

Nuclear bombs make for pretty good propulsion systems and can propel incredible mass at a decent speed. In a "the planet needs evacuation" type of scenario you don't worry about the fallout either.

Re: There’s no planet B

#46

Post by Cthulhu_ »

mabbo wrote: post #32

Let's set aside the part that making a planet where we could live is hard. Just presume we did that, to start. Let's talk Logistics . Presume there are only 1 billion people left on Earth when we decide it's time to go. How do you get them there ? The gravity well holding us here (and holding the air down so we can breath it) is pretty darn strong. Today we're hoping to get cost-to-orbit down to around $100/kg. I wei…

> If we can make Mars habitable, we can make Earth habitable for far less cost.

I think the main thing there is that Mars is a blank slate, unclaimed and fairly uniform. We can't terraform Earth because we can't get everyone aligned with the same goals. Moving away from fossil fuels means that a lot of individuals, corporations and countries have to make investments and sacrifices, or lose their grounds for existence entirely.

I mean this was only achieved once, when banning CFCs. There's been other agreements - like let's not use cluster bombs or chemical weapons - but those have been ignored without major consequences.

Re: There’s no planet B

#47

Post by adrianN »

api wrote: post #17
Tangurena2 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a "motte & bailey" [0] type of argument. The billionaires talk about "saving humanity" or "making a lifeboat" but when they get questioned, they maneuver the discussion to the motte: "there is no planet B" (or the equivalent). Then, when the attention is elsewhere, back to fantasies of Mars. [0] - https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Motte_and_bailey

This is a straw man. I still don’t hear anyone serious saying humanity will pick up and move to Mars or anywhere else. They say a very small number of humans (relative to the billions of us) may try to go to the Moon or Mars. That is conceivable. In our lifetimes I could picture basically McMurdo station on the Moon and some flights back and forth to Mars. I could picture a mostly autonomous settlement somewhere in 1…

I think autonomy will take longer. We have pretty incredible manufacturing technology but it all requires long supply chains. Think about how difficult it is to make for example a lubed ball bearing and how many different specialties are needed to make it and maintain the infrastructure needed to make it. Replicating that on a different planet will take time.

Re: There’s no planet B

#48

Post by Cthulhu_ »

api wrote: post #17
Tangurena2 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a "motte & bailey" [0] type of argument. The billionaires talk about "saving humanity" or "making a lifeboat" but when they get questioned, they maneuver the discussion to the motte: "there is no planet B" (or the equivalent). Then, when the attention is elsewhere, back to fantasies of Mars. [0] - https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Motte_and_bailey

This is a straw man. I still don’t hear anyone serious saying humanity will pick up and move to Mars or anywhere else. They say a very small number of humans (relative to the billions of us) may try to go to the Moon or Mars. That is conceivable. In our lifetimes I could picture basically McMurdo station on the Moon and some flights back and forth to Mars. I could picture a mostly autonomous settlement somewhere in 1…

The only reason - for now - for people to go to / from Mars and the Moon is for scientific reasons or for money.

I think the only way that trips to the moon or mars that will earn money is space tourism. I don't believe Mars will have any valuable resources, for example. Or even discovering them will require an improbable amount of investments (trillions).

The last reason I can think of is political; the first major force to have a permanent presence on these bodies will have a big say in the future of said body.

Re: There’s no planet B

#49

Post by Cthulhu_ »

chr1 wrote: post #36
mrkeen wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As far as I'm aware, no billionaire has ever said anything about "moving humanity" to Mars or anywhere else; except to dismiss such claims as nonsense. Yes, it's even worse than that. Environmental types want to keep Earth habitable for humans, because Mars as a plan B is infeasible. > "Why are we doing this?" Musk said at the company's February 2022 Starship progress update. "I think this is an incredibly importan…

Well, there is still similar chance of an asteroid hitting Mars instead of Earth so it's not like they are moving to a safe space leaving "the rest of us to die". In fact if you are so worried about going the way of dinosaurs you must support establishment of a colony, because the industry developed for that will be the best way to change the path of an asteroid flying to earth.

Asteroids aside, Mars is inhospitable at the moment and will remain so for thousands of years, forcing any inhabitants to live in similar or worse conditions as the researchers on Antarctica. And at least the people in Antarctica don't have to worry about breatheable air.

Re: There’s no planet B

#50

Post by eloff »

No matter how bad we fuck our planet, it’s still paradise compared to what else is out there.

Elon Musk wants to go to mars, but Antarctica is much more amenable to life and nobody wants to live there. I understand it’s about having a backup plan for humanity. I think we could do it cheaper on Earth. I also don’t think we need one. It would be nearly impossible to make humans extinct at this point. We’re too adaptable and there’s too many of us. Civilization could fail, but humans would endure. We could get slammed by a giant asteroid that could kill 95% of the biomass on the planet, and we’d still survive in little pockets. We could nuke ourselves until the planet flows in the dark, but we’d still survive in places that were spared. Civilization is much more fragile.

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