Hacker News Reader

I think the only thing we will prove with a Martian colony is that humans can go extinct on two planets instead of one.

Very pessimistic thinking. We might as well never try anything. Always stay in our comfort zones

Just because you can make air on another planet doesn’t mean you can live to breathe it.

If we can’t get life right here, our technical ability won’t mean much on another planet once human nature takes over.

“Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you’ll deplete the worlds fisheries in three generations.”

While that old saw has a bit of truth, the nice thing about mars is that there is no ecology to disturb

Subsistence isn’t the actual threat to a Martian colony, and that is what is so maddening about it. We can go and we can figure out the technical hurdles. But even with those magical capabilities we cannot eliminate ourselves from the equation. The danger for a Martian colony will not be from Mars, but from the “Martians” (just as it is on Earth).

Oh yea people still suck anywhere they go

Reply on news.ycombinator.com