Mars Attacks: How Elon Musk's plans to colonize Mars threaten Earth.
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They have done zero work on actual habitation. It would make more sense to make life on earth sustainable. If you can’t do that you have zero chance of sustained life on a planet as hostile as Mars.
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for the uninitiated: getting federal money and running away with it.
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The tech you'd need to make living on Mars independent of Earth, like consciousness uploading, self sufficient friendly AI, extensive human/plant bioengineering, terraforming… Well, they're better at solving our problems on Earth anyway.
That sounds like a good argument for a Mars colony.
Not that I think continuousness uploading or AI have anything to do with a Mars colony... Even terraforming is totally unnecessary.
Honestly, I don't think Mars is a great candidate for a space colony, though probably not for the same reasons you're thinking. But I think it is in fact vital that we start colonizing space soon, and I think the technologies developed in pursuit of that goal will absolutely aid us here on earth.
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Recently I watched a video of a content creator in SA with a can of Rhodes beans on her counter on the bg and wondered if it was connected to Cecil... This article reminded me of this and an old sci fi novel about a company recruiting for Martian colonists, who ended up becoming slaves. I can't remember the title or author, but we already see Leon making earth slaves, his family business is earth slaves, so only the poorest informed would go for this, or those who think they are Leon's equals? I'm probably missing something, I ate well and it's nap time.
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Maybe “The Space Merchants”? They sell land on Venus because life really sucks on Earth. But will it be better elsewhere?
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Typical bullshit article that has no idea what it's talking about (the drawings are nice though):
- Outer Space Treaty does not forbid the formation of a nation on Mars. It does not even forbid staking individual land-claims by settlers. What it does forbid is staking big land claims by earth-nations.
Copying from Wikipedia:
Key provisions of the Outer Space Treaty include prohibiting nuclear weapons in space; limiting the use of the Moon and all other celestial bodies to peaceful purposes; establishing that space shall be freely explored and used by all nations; and precluding any country from claiming sovereignty over outer space or any celestial body.
Mars settlement passes all of these checks.
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SpaceX? They got billions to get us to Mars. They never go beyond the super easy part in rocketry, low earth orbit.
okay lol
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My conspiracy is that Musk thinks he'll get to Mars more likely if he aligns with the Republicans, and he acts so super stupid on purpose to get along with them.
... and it has landed him a top position in government so far
the comments about slashing social security are definitely unhinged IMHO (so i'm definitely not supporting that) but i'm european and we have more appreciation for social safety nets i would say. america is more isolationist, so maybe that's just "america being america".
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what i don't get is why people are focusing on the amount of ecosystem that SpaceX displaces while completely ignoring that literally anything else also replaces ecosystem. City? used to be forest? Parking lot? used to be prairie. Suburbs? you guessed it
everything was an ecosystem before modern humans got there. i don't get the particular outrage over SpaceX.
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Eh, none of that is something one casually develops for going to Mars. Is tech that fundamentally transforms the nature of society on Earth and being human, and again, is way more impactful than going to Mars.
Again, the argument I'm trying to make is that, by the time one can settle Mars without supplies from earth, you mind as well get your robotic swarm to make space habitats or something.
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Actually, they have launched deep space NASA missions. The Europa clipper went to Jupiter on a falcon heavy just last year.
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Again, the argument I'm trying to make is that, by the time one can settle Mars without supplies from Earth
Well, that's not exactly the goal. No nation is really self-sufficient in modern society. Everyone engages in trade. So the question is really, when will a space colony become profitable or maintainable? And that's trickier to answer, because it isn't "not for hundreds of years", but it also isn't now, it's somewhere in between.
Cheaper access to space would change the equation immensely. Being cheaper to resupply would mean the colony wouldn't have to be as profitable to be sustainable. In-situ resource utilisation (using water found off of earth for drinking, oxygen and fuel) will also make an enormous difference as it would reduce the amount of supplies needed from earth. (This is incidentally one of the main goals of NASA's Artemis program, to figure out how to utilize water resources on the moon)
It was the same situation when Europeans settled the Americas, at first it was just a money suck. Entire colonies were lost, lots of people died, they weren't really prepared. But then they started to figure out what crops worked there, how to survive harsh winters, etc. Once they figured out how to make the most of this new land, they thrived. Unfortunately, the way they treated the locals was pretty horrific. Fortunately, we're pretty certain there aren't any locals on the moon or Mars.
Truth be told, I think a Mars colony won't happen for quite some time, but I believe a moon colony will certainly happen before 2100. And if we're lucky, maybe since orbital colonies. That's where the future really lies, orbital colonies.
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Well, I would be glad if he would do it in person - and stays there.
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By having an earth that sustains the peasantry and actually working on being able to live on Mars so they can look down on them without suffocating?
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I think the (ideal) future looks more like an accelerated Orion's Arm, where humanity-changing technologies take over.
Again that’s what I’m getting at. We will never be colonizing Mars as squishy humans… We‘ll be augmented, modified, interfaced with mechanized AI, uploaded, maybe even just mechanical intelligences, something like that. We'll be using nuclear propulsion, at least. There will be no need to worry about drinking water or breathing oxygen because that will be irrelevant.
