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Author of Red Mars calls 'bullshit' on emigrating to the planet

newscientist.com

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Re: Author of Red Mars calls 'bullshit' on emigrating to the planet

#51

Post by moron4hire »

triceratops wrote: post #23

Between the realism about terraforming Mars and the strong likelihood that faster-than-light travel may never happen, is anyone else feeling a bit melancholic? It feels like a possible future has been taken away from us.

IDK, that feels like being melancholic about not having unicrons and fairies in the world. It wasn't something that someone took from you. It was never going to happen.

But, I think in relation to what you're talking about, I'm more "melancholic" about the concept that something like Star Fleet will never exist. Not that I want to fly around between planets in garishly colored uniforms, but the broader vision of the pursuit of truth, self-betterment, and diplomacy. Not having space travel be a regular thing doesn't have to prevent that, but it does kind of underscore that our society is unlikely to ever develop that :(

Re: Author of Red Mars calls 'bullshit' on emigrating to the planet

#52

Post by wongarsu »

inaros wrote: post #27

Folks...The US is effectively bankrupt with a 40 Trillion dollars debt in case you did not notice. The US Treasury is just a few minutes away from an economic event, that will force the US government to spend more than 70% to 80% of tax revenues on servicing said debt. There is no scientific or economic case to even go to Mars, much less colonize it. And with the current advances in robotics and automation there is n…

Our Mars robots are awesome, but they take years to accomplish what astronauts could do in days. Our latest and greatest model (Perseverance) has traveled 40km (25mi) in 5 years, with the support of a scout helicopter. Which is more than what Curiosity managed in 13 years. But that's approximately what they did in Apollo 17 in five hours. Granted, Apollo 17 didn't make quite as many stops to analyze rocks, but it should give you an idea of the speed difference between our Mars robots and humans. Even just a tiny temporarily occupied Mars science outpost would be a tremendous boost to our understanding of the planet

Re: Author of Red Mars calls 'bullshit' on emigrating to the planet

#53

Post by celticninja »

jmclnx wrote: post #7

I thought this Red Mars was selected for a movie or series a couple of years ago. I guess not, but I think it would make for a good mini-series. But I agree with the author, and I am starting to wonder if the same thing could be applied if we find earth like planets around other stars. I almost think on those planets there could be something in the air or water or dirt that could harm or even kill us if we fond a way…

If the planet is sterile it will need to be terraformed, if it isnt it will likely kill us. Just moving people round this planet caused deaths by the introduction of diseases to new communities.

so we then need to sterilise the planet before terraforming it. There just doesnt seem to be a need for expansion to other planets. Short of our star going supernova everything else is cheaper to fix here.

Re: Author of Red Mars calls 'bullshit' on emigrating to the planet

#54

Post by ithkuil »

TwoNineA wrote: post #3

I think Neil DeGrasse Tyson said it best (paraphrasing): It takes less money and effort to fix Earth than to terraform Mars.

The only advantage of terraforming Mars is that if you do it wrong you're not making it worse for anybody that lives there. It could be a good test bench if it wasn't for the elephant in the room: it takes a very long time to terraform a planet

Re: Author of Red Mars calls 'bullshit' on emigrating to the planet

#55

Post by AlotOfReading »

triceratops wrote: post #23

Between the realism about terraforming Mars and the strong likelihood that faster-than-light travel may never happen, is anyone else feeling a bit melancholic? It feels like a possible future has been taken away from us.

Unlike FTL, cryosleep and generation ships aren't known to violate any laws of physics. We can still explore the galaxy as soon as we solve the equally difficult engineering problems there.

Re: Author of Red Mars calls 'bullshit' on emigrating to the planet

#57

Post by triceratops »

elil17 wrote: post #36
triceratops wrote: post #23

Between the realism about terraforming Mars and the strong likelihood that faster-than-light travel may never happen, is anyone else feeling a bit melancholic? It feels like a possible future has been taken away from us.

I think there are a lot of good futures that involve things being better on Earth

Good futures, sure. But not as cool. No Tannhauser Gate, no Kessel Run.

Re: Author of Red Mars calls 'bullshit' on emigrating to the planet

#58

Post by jubilanti »

triceratops wrote: post #23

Between the realism about terraforming Mars and the strong likelihood that faster-than-light travel may never happen, is anyone else feeling a bit melancholic? It feels like a possible future has been taken away from us.

An improbable future was sold to you as probable. Why attack the people calling BS for taking away a BS fantasy? If you actually admire science and not science fiction, you should be glad when you are confronted with overwhelming reasons why your priors are wrong.

Why is improving life on earth for the billions here in poverty not a worthwhile fantasy? Why does that noble goal not sustain you in the way space operas do?

Re: Author of Red Mars calls 'bullshit' on emigrating to the planet

#59

Post by celticninja »

keepamovin wrote: post #45

Humans must expand through the solar system and beyond. Mars is an okay goal, but the moon is a better bet for living quarters for now. Earth is a jewel, but we have to expand and explore. It's our destiny. Ultimately you need to live underground on the Mars to avoid radiation.

I mean its a nice idea. But short of FTL/Wormholes there is never going to be a practical need to do this. If the sun goes supernova then perhaps it would happen but even then we would spend centuries in space terraforming planets to make them liveable,

Re: Author of Red Mars calls 'bullshit' on emigrating to the planet

#60

Post by doublerabbit »

triceratops wrote: post #23

Between the realism about terraforming Mars and the strong likelihood that faster-than-light travel may never happen, is anyone else feeling a bit melancholic? It feels like a possible future has been taken away from us.

To me the future was taken away from us in 1997. That's when my teenage life turned from fun to depressing. Web 2.0 turned stinking because of Facebook and everything cool turned unified. Apple and Google are both wet teabags that ultimately own the walled gardens we can't escape.

Want to go somewhere else? Take the Cloudflare tunnel. Whatever the Y2K bug was suppose to be never happened and we've been stuck in the general era of 2003.

We should of had "LLMs" back in 2006-2008 but we chose war instead.

We now have all this digital technology but none of the hardware to build it with.

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