Spending any resources trying to colonize another fucking planet, while we continue to render ours uninhabitable is so fucking stupid. How about we re-learn how to live in balance with natural systems here, and then try and terraform another planet from scratch?
Trying to raise a child before retiring is stupid for the same reason. Yet here we are not waiting to organize our lives into serial convenience.
I once met someone who said that it’s a pipe dream to think we could have equality between races before we had equality within the same race, and that we should make sure that there aren’t any poor white people before we start worrying about PoC.
These two projects build on each other. Furthermore, each has a minimum time that no amount of researchers working together can push us below. To say we shouldn’t do one because we haven’t done another only serves to reveal your ignorance.
Hey I like SciFi too, but we have pressing issues right here on the only planet we know for a fact that can support life. If we get that fixed, we have until the sun explodes to figure out terraforming other planets. The bottom line is that one issue has a looming deadline, and the other does not. It’s a misallocation of resources to entertain the latter before solving the former. Reminds me of a Vonnegut quote I read the other day: “another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build, and nobody wants to do maintenance.”
Of all the resource- wasting human activities, why should we cut spacefaring? Can’t we start by dismantling AI, cosmetics, golf courses,… and then if some last minute precious resources are needed we can talk about not going to space?
I am always happy to see people that haven’t lost hope. I hope you enjoy your life 💜💜. No sarcasm.
The same argument existed since the beginning of space exploration, if we, as a species would have heard those arguments, we wouldn’t have satellite today, and all the other advances space exploration brought.
We haven’t tried to colonize anywhere though, and arguments against colonization are still relevant. The advances you mention all happened without attempting to colonize anywhere.
To me, colonizing another planet is not about expanding or moving the human race somewhere else. It’s a backup plan. Right now, our entire species exists all on this one planet. There is a non-zero chance that we could all be eradicated in an instant by a sufficiently large asteroid or comet, or by nuclear war. There is no backup for the human race or any other species on earth. Once we have a colony, we greatly increase our likelihood of surviving the end of the world. I think that’s worth investing in, and we should bring as many species with us as possible. For all we know our planet may be the only oasis of life in the galaxy or even the universe. Didn’t you think we should have a backup?
Do we actually know how to build a self-sustaining colony? Last I heard, we still had fundamental science and engineering questions to be solved even if we suddenly had an unlimited budget.
Things that come to mind include building a sustainable closed ecosystem, figuring out a long-term power source (is there uranium on Mars? Nuclear reactors run for a long time, but we can’t rely on fresh fuel rods being shipped from Earth), and planning for enough industrial base that things like mining the necessary uranium, digging tunnels, housing construction, etc aren’t colony-ending problems.
Gee… it’s almost like all the overmoneyed people who tried convincing us that “colonizing” space was (somehow) a “logical” thing for humanity to do is far, far too privileged and spoilt to realize just how ridiculously fragile humans are outside of the ecosphere we spent millions of years evolving to survive in.
But hey - I still say we should fire a few billionaires off in a spacecan on a one-way trip to Mars just to be sure…
Make sure to first redistribute their money to people who actually deserve it.
how about the “non kidney” part, especially on male?
There are dozens of astronauts who’ve spent years in the space station. Granted that’s across multiple missions, but the gravity on Mars might end up being enough to mitigate the damage.
I’m more concerned with the “artist’s impression of a Mars colony” being a few low res shapes placed on top of what is very obviously a close up of a few square feet of Martian surface. Have they already outsourced chat GPT’s image gen to even cheaper models?
Did you read the article? The research states that based on their findings the astronauts would need dialysis on the way back. How would mars gravity help with that if the damage is already done to the kidney when you get there?
This. I don’t know how anyone tied gravity to the kidney problem. This is a radiation poisoning problem. And this is just the damage done while inside Earth’s magnetosphere. In open space between Earth and Mars, and on the surface of Mars, which has no magnetosphere, the damage would be much, much worse.
Dozen(s) is not a large enough sample size for long term space impact. Even less, as you’ve noted, because there are even fewer consecutive streaks.
If you are interested in a sober discussion of some of the known and unknowns surrounding colonizing mars, I would recommend A City on Mars by the Wienersmiths.
Why not send a bunch of pigs to the moon and see if they adapt to microgravity after a few generations then see if any adaptations are usable.
I don’t know that Law Enforcement possess the skill and know how to establish a settlement on their own but I like your thinking, friend!
