Comment by empressplay
6 hours ago
> We have to solve the problems we’ve created here before going anywhere off planet will become even slightly relevant.
Which is a fair point, but the other points (about soil toxicity, cosmic rays and lower gravity) are all things that can be mitigated. Yes, it would be extravagantly expensive in per-human terms to house people on Mars. But the main reason for doing so -- that should something cataclysmic happen to the Earth it would behoove us to have a credible backup plan -- stands.
The list of potential cataclysms on Earth for which being on Mars would be preferable to still being on Earth despite the cataclysm is pretty short. Mostly amounts to whole-crust-liquifying (way, way worse than the K-T event) asteroids. For just about everything else, earthbound bunkers would be better.
Mars is so bad that you have to turn all of the Earth's surface to lava before it's worse than Mars, basically.
> that should something cataclysmic happen to the Earth it would behoove us to have a credible backup plan -- stands.
The day after the asteroid hit Earth would still be better than the best day on Mars.
We have never, even as a proof of concept, been able to develop a closed system capable of supporting mammalian life separate from earth's ecosystems. We assume it's possible based on no particularly rigorous evidence and in spite of our numerous failures to even come close. "Mars as backup" is not a credible plan based on science within even our optimistic grasp.
The technology & social systems capable of doing this would be incredibly valuable long before any permanent mars settlement became feasible so if we can do it we should and then we can see.
They did a year in the moon base simulator Yuegong-1, apparently.
Peaked at about half the food produced internally iirc and it’s like three people. It’s a good and necessary start but shows just how incredibly far we are from the real deal.
> We have to solve the problems we’ve created here before going anywhere off planet will become even slightly relevant.
No, it is not a relevant point, at all. There are close to 9 billion people on Earth, more than enough for some of them to focus on expanding human life out into the solar system no matter how small the chance of success. Others can work on the problems 'we created here'. If our predecessors thought like that we'd never have explored the oceans, found new continents, developed industry, took to the skies, made the first tentative jumps into space. Let those who have the means and capabilities to do so explore and 'conquer' those 'new frontiers'. If you insist on solving problems here on earth I'd say get crackin'. If you succeed we'll raise a statue for you and place it next to the ones we made for those who conquered Mars or built that giant wheel in the sky or whatever.