Elon Musk and the Value of Localism-What We Should Do Instead of Going to Mars

I'll have to give it a closer read later, but after skimming through, two things are on my mind:

1. This doesn't have to be and shouldn't be an either/or sort of thing. There should be lots of people trying lots of different things, mars colonies included. Derailing people from what drives them is at best fruitless and at worst destructive.

2. The writer is too caught up on Mars specifically. The point is to kickstart spacefaring so we do it often enough to elevate our mastery to the same level we've achieved with so many other things. Mars is just the most reasonable vehicle for that.

The mastery mentioned in #2 will eventually bring settlements and industry to dot the entire solar system, which reduces risk of extinction in the near-medium term to near zero and does a lot to prepare humanity for even further disasterproofing (e.g. construction of colossal generation ships and the like becomes feasible).

If the only reason for going to Mars was to reduce risk of our species being wiped out, this might make sense. But there are a lot more reasons such as scientific research, tourism, living space, stepping stone to other planets and he stars, that are all just as compelling, and none of which can be done deep underground in a NORAD shelter.

The whole Mars thing is just the high tech version of being a prepper, and it's pretty emblematic of the doomsday-ism that's prevalent among American tech billionaires who have somehow disconnected from humanity. Just like they're building themselves bunkers or buying cottages in New Zealand this is I guess just the next logical step.

It's pretty present in all of Musks products. He was once asked why instead of digging expensive tunnels for cars one should not simply invest in public transit, and his response was[1]:

"And there’s like a bunch of random strangers, one of who might be a serial killer"

AI is gonna kill us all, instead of fixing our planet we just ought to run to the next one (how we're escaping whatever made us screw up the first one I don't understand yet), and the trains are full of murderers. Whoever supports this and doesn't happen to be among the super-rich, just remember, you're not going to be on the rocket to Mars, and the climate refugees from the third world aren't going to be there either.

[1]https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-awkward-dislike-mass-t...

IMO Mars settlement is an aspirational "badge" of space economic development.

The real value of interplanetary manned transport is asteroid mining. That should payoff the whole enterprise in the short run, and hopefully enable banks orbital habitats and pulse nuclear planetary and interstellar ships (you can't launch them in gravity wells or magnetic shells of earth or the fallout gets guided back to the surface).

The AI grey goo threat is a little weird as a massive danger. Really all the mitigations are bunkers. But a near independent space economy would be a fantastic backup. It's easy to drop people back to Earth for repopulation, and drop in asteroid mined resources as needed.

So the issue is that all the prepper stuff the guy advocates is basically "bunkers", but it's just a sunk insurance cost.

SpaceX/space development gets you so many more bonuses and upside.

I feel we should probably build massive rotating space stations first, instead of going to Mars.

At least with rotating space stations, we can generate 1 g of gravity, to simulate the Earth’s gravity.

And you’re still close to home, for when you get space sick.

I think if the Mars trip ends in the premature deaths of its inhabitants, because of reduced gravity, then this alone will cause the economic failure of the program.

But, alternatively, maybe the solution is to build a centrifuge on Mars, that will spin you around at 1 Earth Gravity. And maybe you need to sit inside this device for 1 hour a day, in order to get your Earth gravity needs.

Interesting take, but Rockets to Mars are Sexier :-)

Does anyone know why the probability of climate change is only ~1 in 1000? As far as I know, there is a consensus of very real threat is already happening and at a high pace.

The one I'm kind of worried about that isn't quite extinction but, some kind of mass genocide where the wealthiest hoard resources to the point most of humanity dies from a lack of resources. It gets much worse than it is today if you factor in some kind of technology that replaces large swaths of the work force. And they create a military machine largely with out humans.