81–90 of 153 posts
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
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I didn't attack anyone. You might want to re-read what I wrote. I can be glad to have a truth but also dislike that truth.
Well that's how I read "has been taken away from us." When you use the language of theft, what else am I supposed to think? You are asserting a damage has been caused by calling BS and not by the BSers.
I think Neil DeGrasse Tyson said it best (paraphrasing): It takes less money and effort to fix Earth than to terraform Mars.
Classic Neil, always something smart-sounding to say about the wrong thing. It's more about discovery and adventure than fleeing a dying planet. To quote someone that I'm sure is Neil's intellectual superior, "¿Por qué no los dos?"
How about we just commit to fucking up one planet at a time? Arguably humanity is a dangerous invasive species that destroys any environment it inhabits. Until we do better we should treat other planets more like a park than fresh real estate.
If this is how you think about your own species I'd hate to learn what you think about other species. Nihilism is really a horrible substitute for religion, all doom and gloom and no salvation in sight.
I mean he had to invent a decent amount of magic technology (the radiation proof tent material for just one example) and purposely not do the math on other parts to make his story work. IMHO the biggest tell that Elon has never been serious about Mars is that he has been completely focused on the rocket and has severely neglected the actual hard part of the problem: The self sustained habitat for the people to live i…
If we ever do actually colonize Mars, the progression would look something like: 1. Experimental missions 2. Small but permanent settlement made out of Starships cobbled together 3. New construction with increasing proportion of in-situ resources until fully independent
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Agreed. At a bare minimum it's a hedge against terrestrial existential risks. And if Mars itself sucks, then, well, rotating space stations with simulated G, same principle. One terrible thing wrought by billionaire Mars fantasies is a backlash that I think has become too sweeping. It's wrongheaded for a million reasons, but it's nevertheless true that hedging against terrestrial existential risks is something we sho…
Sorry, I'd love to hear exactly how a mars habitat with a half dozen people or a space station are "hedges against terrestrial existential risks"? Those are both "unfriendly" environments that lack the resources required to sustain themselves for any appreciable amount of time. And certainly don't have the number of people required to repopulate.
So if the version of the idea that you're engaging with is one that doomed to fail, doesn't have the resources or technology or population to succeed... maybe assume that's not the version I'm talking about?
There are contexts where I love to get into these kinds of details (there was an amazing conversation on HN from a few months ago [1] about what would be involved in sending a bunch of voyager-style space probes to alpha centauri), but you have to want to try.
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Good futures, sure. But not as cool . No Tannhauser Gate, no Kessel Run.
You know what's cool? Lifting a billion people out of poverty on earth. If you don't think so and still are more motivated by space opera fantasies, there is something wrong with your morals.
But the second sentence there is unwarranted. Someone can lament their hopes and dreams dying while still caring about the realistic needs of the world around them.
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but this is the economic case for it — if things are as dire as you paint them, this is the last chance to get a toehold off-world for at least 3-4 generations, if ever.
Would that toe-hold actually survive without constant resupply vessels? There's cheaper ways to doom a dozen people to a slow, inevitable death.
There is currently and never has yet been a fully self-sufficient and stable artificial human habitat. Until that exists nobody is going to be living on Mars and anyone who says otherwise is talking out of their ass.
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not taking the chance is cowardly & nihilistic, & everyone who went up would know the score when they signed up. better to give it as much of a chance as possible than to give up & just watch the world degrade & rot around us.
That's a fake binary. We could spend the money to prevent the world from degrading and rotting.
without an eye on advancing things for the future, & keeping the wheel spinning with activity & forward movement, with optimism that things can get better, all we're looking at is a controlled demolition of what has been built up.