Mars is not a promise. It is a warning. And those who squander the wealth of nations to chase its sterile embrace are not visionaries but architects of despair.
Whether Mars colonization is a good idea or not, the argument that scientific knowledge and exploration shouldn't be pursued because poor people exist has been made since the inception of the space program and still isn't very convincing.
That may be true, but this is not my argument. No, I do not shake my fist at the heavens, decrying the thirst for knowledge simply because men still starve in the streets of cities whose infrastructure crumbles. What I reject is not the pursuit of knowledge or exploration per se, but the calculated evasion of responsibility masquerading as destiny, the blind, orgiastic plunge into the void. Hubris is not science. We need no extropian messiahs.
We choose to do these things... not because they are easy, but because they are hard. Columbus faced the same doom sayers, as did the Apollo program. Extropians don't have a monopoly on exploration and discovery.
Ah yes, the old "Columbus = Mars" rhetorical sleight of hand. Columbus, whatever else one might say about him, at least had the good sense to plant his boot somewhere terrestrial. Sure, he sailed into the unknown, but it was the unknown Earth, a place still bound by the rules of air, water, and gravity that sustain human life. He risked starvation, shipwreck, mutiny—but not the absolute certainty of suffocating in a vacuum or having his circulatory system freeze-dry in real-time. That’s the crucial distinction. A terrestrial unknown, as opposed to a cosmic one where the only certainty is your own unceremonious demise.
The men who crossed oceans balanced courage with prudence. They set sail with the knowledge that they might not return, yes—but might is a galaxy away from will not, under any physically conceivable circumstances, survive more than a few minutes outside your flimsy metal canister. Mars is not the next undiscovered continent. It is an airless, radiation-bathed void that has spent 4.5 billion years being spectacularly uninhabitable. And yet, here come the newfangled Extropian snake oil peddlers, charging a cool million per ticket for a first-class seat on the doomed caravan to Nowhere, peddling their vision not as a sober, methodical step in human progress but as a full-blown eschatology—a salvation narrative for those who have given up on their own planet and now spin fantasies of off-world manifest destiny.
Exploration? Please. There are infinitely more “hard things” to be done right here, in the gravity-well we can actually inhabit. Mastering fusion. Resurrecting dead rivers. Keeping civilization intact through a century of technological and political upheaval. But no, why bother with any of that when you can vaporize a billionaire’s net worth on the certifiably pointless endeavor of turning humans into popsicles on the Martian tundra? Do we really want to place a blind bet on humanity’s ability to cheat physics. The difference between prudence and hubris is the difference between stepping onto an uncharted shore and stepping out of an airlock onto the dead sands of an alien world, hoping against hope that the vacuum somehow forgets to kill you.
Elon Musk is a narcissistic blowhard. Most scientists agree that terraforming Mars is not possible with current technologies. Exploration of Mars holds promise for significant scientific learning and technological advancement (for example, see the advances that came as a result of the space race), but not for the purpose of creating a future home. This is why efforts to combat climate change are so critical. We have only this one planet.
You note that "the intellectual effort wasted on algae-powered oxygen farms for some hermetic space colony could ensure clean drinking water for every last person on Earth." This, of course, requires us to be willing to share this technology with those who need it - to, dare I say it, be a "global citizen." The reality is that these programs exist but are currently being defunded. Kyrie eleison.
I find myself dumbfounded that these things need at all be said.
Agreed!
We already have a very nice home, earth, let’s focus on our current home. It’s got a lot of potential!
Whether Mars colonization is a good idea or not, the argument that scientific knowledge and exploration shouldn't be pursued because poor people exist has been made since the inception of the space program and still isn't very convincing.
That may be true, but this is not my argument. No, I do not shake my fist at the heavens, decrying the thirst for knowledge simply because men still starve in the streets of cities whose infrastructure crumbles. What I reject is not the pursuit of knowledge or exploration per se, but the calculated evasion of responsibility masquerading as destiny, the blind, orgiastic plunge into the void. Hubris is not science. We need no extropian messiahs.
We choose to do these things... not because they are easy, but because they are hard. Columbus faced the same doom sayers, as did the Apollo program. Extropians don't have a monopoly on exploration and discovery.
Ah yes, the old "Columbus = Mars" rhetorical sleight of hand. Columbus, whatever else one might say about him, at least had the good sense to plant his boot somewhere terrestrial. Sure, he sailed into the unknown, but it was the unknown Earth, a place still bound by the rules of air, water, and gravity that sustain human life. He risked starvation, shipwreck, mutiny—but not the absolute certainty of suffocating in a vacuum or having his circulatory system freeze-dry in real-time. That’s the crucial distinction. A terrestrial unknown, as opposed to a cosmic one where the only certainty is your own unceremonious demise.
The men who crossed oceans balanced courage with prudence. They set sail with the knowledge that they might not return, yes—but might is a galaxy away from will not, under any physically conceivable circumstances, survive more than a few minutes outside your flimsy metal canister. Mars is not the next undiscovered continent. It is an airless, radiation-bathed void that has spent 4.5 billion years being spectacularly uninhabitable. And yet, here come the newfangled Extropian snake oil peddlers, charging a cool million per ticket for a first-class seat on the doomed caravan to Nowhere, peddling their vision not as a sober, methodical step in human progress but as a full-blown eschatology—a salvation narrative for those who have given up on their own planet and now spin fantasies of off-world manifest destiny.
Exploration? Please. There are infinitely more “hard things” to be done right here, in the gravity-well we can actually inhabit. Mastering fusion. Resurrecting dead rivers. Keeping civilization intact through a century of technological and political upheaval. But no, why bother with any of that when you can vaporize a billionaire’s net worth on the certifiably pointless endeavor of turning humans into popsicles on the Martian tundra? Do we really want to place a blind bet on humanity’s ability to cheat physics. The difference between prudence and hubris is the difference between stepping onto an uncharted shore and stepping out of an airlock onto the dead sands of an alien world, hoping against hope that the vacuum somehow forgets to kill you.
Elon Musk is a narcissistic blowhard. Most scientists agree that terraforming Mars is not possible with current technologies. Exploration of Mars holds promise for significant scientific learning and technological advancement (for example, see the advances that came as a result of the space race), but not for the purpose of creating a future home. This is why efforts to combat climate change are so critical. We have only this one planet.
You note that "the intellectual effort wasted on algae-powered oxygen farms for some hermetic space colony could ensure clean drinking water for every last person on Earth." This, of course, requires us to be willing to share this technology with those who need it - to, dare I say it, be a "global citizen." The reality is that these programs exist but are currently being defunded. Kyrie eleison.
Paying for some politician’s dreams with mandatory taxation is a fraudulent scam.