We're focusing everything on the easier planet that might not be livable after one year of bad politics. In 100 years your kind of thinking will be considered ludditean and playing russian roulette with 5 in the chamber for no reason.
Nuked Earth that's also climate-changed so bad that only the poles are temperate is still a whole lot better than Mars.
Why is the solution for this "establish a colony somewhere already 100x worse than a multi-catastrophe-stricken Earth would be, and is also very-expensive to get back to Earth from" ? It makes no sense.
Asteroid strike? There are (much) cheaper ways to guard against that—hardened, distributed bunkers with paid inhabitants, increasing asteroid-hunting programs and interception research. Orbital habs or even the Moon if you're worried about a whole-crust-liquifying event that you can't stop in time. And we're not doing those. Why would we do Mars? It's worse than those options in basically every way. It's a really really bad place.
Most the other threats those measures couldn't guard against, would probably also take out Mars.
Going to Mars is cool and romantic and I hope to see it, but I think people trying to pin some practical reason for colonization other than "because it was there" (romantic) are misguided.
There is simply no argument against just not having all your eggs in one basket.
Why? What purpose does a human presence on Mars have? Exploratory activity can, is and should be done by robotic drones. Mars has zero resources Earth doesn't already have in abundance, is inimical to almost every lifeform on earth and confers no advantage as a launch platform for furture space exploration over the moon or a space station.
> We're focusing everything on the easier planet that might not be livable after one year of bad politics.
Fun fact: Even after a full-scale thermonuclear war, Earth would still be a more liveable planet than Mars.
So what policy decisions could possibly make Mars attractive as a living space, or a "backup planet"?
Well, considering that Mars is currently a frozen, low-gravity, toxic, airless, irradiated, soil-less desert with barely any water, no nitrogen to speak of, very few options for energy generation, no protection from cosmic radiation and constantly wrecked by planet-wide duststorms, I honestly cannot imagine how we could possibly make it worse, even if we actively tried.
Things that incentivize lazing away do not incentivize progress.
Primarily, it would be something that forces us to send rocket after rocket of supplies there, wasting countless resources in the process for very little, if any, practical benefit.
Because, no, there is nothing to be gained on Mars that can't be gained much more effectively via robotic probes, and no, a Mars colony will not be self-sufficient.
Investing resources for no good reason, is to me the exact opposite of "focusing on the important".
Robotic probes are irrelevant to colonization. It's like saying why don't Russians stop at just fly drones to Ukraine lol
That would be a good investment, yes.
Unfortunately, a Mars colony doesn't realize that investment. There wont be a self-sustainable colony on a planet, where even the planets gravity well (which we cannot change, unless someone has SG1-Asgard-level technology lying around) prohibits long term survivability of a species that evolved in a gravity well almost three times as strong.
I bet some people said the same about america in 1400s.
You never know what can come from this in the future.
If we can we should.
> So what policy decisions could possibly make Mars attractive as a living space, or a "backup planet"?
Large asteroid impact might destroy us entirely like this: https://youtu.be/02S3_DEaQWA?si=urqC47r14cFxbNjD
Here is what I bet noone said about america in the 1400s:
"Man, it sure would be nice if there was air, arable soil, and building materials in america."
> If we can we should.
Humans can do lots of things that they absolutely shouldn't.
> Large asteroid impact
Ah, so we moved on from policy decisions. Good. Okay, let's talk asteroids.
a) I would be alot more worried about asteroids if I were on Mars. Mars is closer to the asteroid belt after all, and it's thin atmosphere is a lot less of a hurdle to evil space rocks than Earths.
b) Humanity has already proven, that it has the technical capability to alter an asteroids course: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Asteroid_Redirection_Te... So far, humanity has NOT proven that it can build a self-sustaining colony on mars. As a matter of fact, we have not even done so in the Antarctic Dry Valleys, and they would at least have air there. So purely from the perspective of resource-allocation, it seems there are better ways to protect humanity from asteroid impacts, than trying to build a mars-colony.
The point I made is you can never know the benefits.
Asimov, end of eternity is a pretty nice book to see how your point of view might be flawed.
> Humanity has already proven, that it has the technical capability to alter an asteroids course: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Asteroid_Redirection_Te...
Sure... we can barely detect asteroids and you're saying we can deflect them, is the argument in good faith?, do you really believe we can detect and deflect a planet killer?
> So purely from the perspective of resource-allocation, it seems there are better ways to protect humanity from asteroid impacts, than trying to build a mars-colony.
So you don't want humanity to waste resources on space. That is your point of view which I hope is a minority at large. I disagree, but I doubt I can convince you otherwisr.
Yes we can know the benefits, and for the exact example you mentioned, we did. It was pretty clear to every major seafaring nation, that securing as big a piece as possible of that new continent, would be very beneficial in terms of resources, generated taxes, and geopolitical power.
And we also know that there are no benefits for a Mars colony. It would be a giant resource sink, and, based on what we know now, probably never able to sustain itself without constant help from earth, making it useless as a "backup plan" in case of some global catastrophe on Earth. If Earth dies, martian colony dies with it.
> do you really believe we can detect and deflect a planet killer?
I know we successfully tested a method that could, with further refinement and development, have a fighting chance at deflecting one.
> So you don't want humanity to waste resources on space.
Waste? No.
Use for useful projects regarding space exploration and defending Earth against catastrophes? Gladly.
You seem to assume that, I disagree, to quote you: "would be very beneficial in terms of resources, generated taxes, and geopolitical power."
> It would be a giant resource sink
So were english colonies in america at first.
> probably never able to sustain itself without constant help from earth
Again, your assumption, what if you're wrong?, check out 'The Expanse' for what I think we might achieve long term.
> I know we successfully tested a method that could, with further refinement and development, have a fighting chance at deflecting one.
So your answer is no, we cannot right now or near future. You also didn't answer if we can even reliably detect such a threat...
> Use for useful projects regarding space exploration and defending Earth against catastrophes? Gladly.
Sure, let's spend resources on that too. Doesn't seem like we are though, perhaps we might need some inspiration in order to get it?, something like some mars colonies might do?
Your disagreement won't change the fact that there are no resources on Mars that we cannot already collect here on Earth, for a fraction of the cost, and without constant risk of someone dying to explosive decompression.
> check out 'The Expanse'
I watched "Monsters Inc." at least a dozen times. I am still no closer to turning laughter into unlimited clean energy.
> So your answer is no
Nope. My answer is it works in theory and the principle has been successfully tested experimentally. That's alot more than can be said for the establishment of a Mars colony.
> You also didn't answer if we can even reliably detect such a threat...
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroid-watch
> something like some mars colonies might do?
Please, do explain how that interplay would work.
How come you're so confident about this?
> I watched "Monsters Inc." at least a dozen times.
Ah, it's a 'win an internet argument' comment rather then have a discussion and think a bit.
The Expanse shows a possible future where the moon/mars and beyond were colonized, the implications and progress made and its problems, the comment was made to answer your question - what good can we get from it, which you confidently say there's none.
The previous Asimov book is a what if we never reached for the stars, something that seems like what you are advocating.
Both meant to perhaps share other ideas if you were so inclined to entertain.
> Nope. My answer is it works in theory and the principle has been successfully tested experimentally.
Ah, so still no, we cannot defend ourselves, rephrasing won't change the core idea you're expressing here.
> https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroid-watch
That still needs proper funding to achieve good coverage, we still detect asteroids way too late.
> Please, do explain how that interplay would work.
Check out Apollo program for past example.
Because Mars was created from the exact same stellar matter accretion as our own planet, and nothing we ever learned in 63 years of mission-capable Mars-Research gave even the slightest hint at any kind of Unobtainium there?
But hey, you know whos really good at figuring out if I'm wrong about that? Robotic probes on Mars. So let's send more of those that can do more science, instead of sending would-be colonists who can do very little science, because they would be very busy with trying-not-to-die-horribly.
> rather then have a discussion and think a bit.
A discussion about what exactly, the point of using SciFi series as arguments?
> Ah, so still no
I am not going to repeat myself.
> That still needs proper funding to achieve good coverage, we still detect asteroids way too late.
I agree. So how about we pump money into that instead?
> Check out Apollo program and what that did for the world.
Please answer my question. I asked specifically how, likely failing, attempts at building a Mars Colony could further asteroid defense research. Because the only impact I can see is a negative one: We waste billions on Mars, failing attempts with human casualties generate more bad press, public opinion shifts, politicians demand stricter budgets, the fallout drags down other space research in its wake.
But since you mentioned Apollo, here is what it did for the world: It gave 2 superpowers the chance to do their "who-got-the-largest-rocket" contest without blowing up humanity in the process. There is a reason why no human foot has touched the moon since the 70s.
Lest you forget it took 300 years for North America to generate self-sustaining colonies from the first Europeans. And those didn’t require life support for oxygen and water for every second of survival.
But are being worked on. This statement would've been true about landing Falcon 9 stages less than a decade ago.
> The sort of people that advocate otherwise have killed innocent civilians deep in the North Atlantic and are failing to run a previous healthy, if unspectacular, social network.
The differences between SpaceX's approach to safety and how Twitter's being run are pretty stark. Same guy, very different cultures. SpaceX's safety record is good enough for NASA, and they're hardly the #yolo set.
I respect SpaceX, but I also respect the real challenges of responsibly sending a crew to Mars.