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Comment by ncmncm | Hacker News Reader

Yet, for all that, it is way more appealing than Mars.

As a tourist destination, perhaps. As a self sustaining colony absolutely not. Since you have to float in the atmosphere to survive, mass is at an enormous premium. On-world industry would be nearly impossible.

If your goal is to build an exotic resort for billionaires go to Venus. If you're trying to ensure the survival of humanity in the event of a planet-scale catastrophe go to Mars.

Going to Mars would contribute exactly nothing to the survival of humanity, because everybody on Mars would remain absolutely dependent upon frequent shipments from Earth.

Any attempted Mars colony would die out not long after the last shipment, as materials necessary to its continued survival remain unobtainable there.

Furthermore, Starship is anyway wholly inadequate to establish a continued presence on Mars. If it works fully l as well as promised, it might suffice to maintain a Lunar outpost.

Anyone who hopes to establish a sustainable presence off-Earth must look to O'Neill Cans.

The same could've been said about the ISS when it was planned, but we've learned a heck of a lot from that.

Yes, similarly to Mars, anyone living on the ISS would die not long after the last shipment from Earth arrives. Except for this similarity, I'm not sure what you mean.

That is not true. The tech required to maintain long-term living on Mars would be extremely valuable here on earth. It is directly relevant to many of our current goals for more sustainable lifestyles.

Much like the moon missions, the side-effect benefits that it encourages will likely end up making such a mission worthwhile for the tech alone.

I don't understand your criticism of starship though, would you clarify why you think it's not suitable?

Maintaining an adequate technological basis for continued survival on Mars requires, simply, many, many times more people than Mars could support. So, all the more tricky components and chemicals have to come from Earth. When those stop, the technological basis soon declines below the level that can support the population living there.

All the choices after that become very unpleasant, of questions about who gets to continue living. The supportable number declines inexorably to zero.

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