Hacker News Reader

Comment by huntertwo | Hacker News Reader

Let’s send people to Mars where there’s a million reasons unknown and known they can’t survive so that they are forced to innovate to survive. Or you know, they die. This is a moronic argument for Mars colonization.

They’ll have the same or worse technology we already have on earth. They’ll have far fewer people and far less access to things to solve problems they didn’t plan for. But nah they’ll innovate and make great innovations, more than could ever be done here. I don’t wish to be rude but I honestly cannot understand for the life of me the rationale of this argument.

View on HN

It is a moronic argument. Try building a self-sufficient city on earth first. I think space colonialists will be surprised just how difficult it is.

Solving interplanetary space travel is the most expensive form of procrastination I have ever seen.

If we look at the reasons why people have historically colonised parts of the Earth, many of them would now seem pretty crazy. But craziness was apparently no barrier to entry. Perhaps colonists just are morons?

(Myself I think we'll go when it's easy. The best way to make it easy is to work on relevant technology like nuclear fusion, automated manufacturing, CRISPR, and so on.)

except they didn't truly conquer those places, they just colonized the populations (and sustainabloid life patterns) already present...

What exactly does conquering mean to you?

In support of your parent, I am thinking of the Polynesians. Arguably the most successful colonists ever. They drifted to previously uninhabited islands. Likely most attempts would have resulted in death in open ocean.

They didn't drift. They knew how to sail. How to transport live fruit trees over vast distances. The history of the pacific is really long and complicated.

I don't completely disagree.

There would have been indications in wave pattern. And they knew how to read these, as well as meteorological hints and knowledge of tides.

Nevertheless, in the context of this discussion, landing up on an inhabited island thousands of kilometres from here is a huge shot in the dark, and most hopeful colonists would have missed.

Landing up on an inhabited island thousands of kilometers from here is a huge shot in the dark, but you know you got air and fish, and you can survive even if your seeds don't grow, and you know you can leave if the island is not ideal for survival.

But on Mars, you don't have proper air and you don't have wild life for food. And you cannot easily leave for other better places.

I meant it's most unlikely to successfully reach said island. There'd have been many more who'd tried and died trying.

Once the location is established, regular trade becomes much more feasible.

Yes, there's no guarantee of finding a destination. That's one form of idiocy. Another, from today's point of view, is killing all the inhabitants (if any) upon arrival.

>But on Mars, you don't have proper air and you don't have wild life for food.

Good point. It would make sense to send robots in advance to manufacture huge stockpiles of air and food. Which is of course beyond present technology.

Agree that's it not a good idea .. but the problem is one of investment as much as innovation.

With enough money you could set up 1000s of semi-autonomous robots to mine, mill, farm, .. and make more robots to help.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com