Discussion

Author of Red Mars calls 'bullshit' on emigrating to the planet

jmclnx: I thought this Red Mars was selected for a movie or series a couple of years ago. I guess not, but I think it would make for a good mini-series.But I agree with the author, and I am starting to wonder if the same thing could be applied if we find earth like planets around other stars.I almost think on those planets there could be something in the air or water or dirt that could harm or even kill us if we fond a way there.

throwway120385: We might not be the only viable biochemistry in the universe.

jmclnx: I was thinking along the lines on those other planets, life evolved to need what ever exists there that can kill us. And vis-a-versa

HPsquared: It's always going to be easier to live underground or under the sea, and you don't see anyone doing that.

browningstreet: When this topic comes up I always think of this movie:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waydowntown

beepbooptheory: [delayed]

TwoNineA: I think Neil DeGrasse Tyson said it best (paraphrasing): It takes less money and effort to fix Earth than to terraform Mars.

browningstreet: Terraform Earth!

triceratops: Between the realism about Mars terraforming and the strong probability that faster-than-light travel may never happen, is anyone else feeling a bit melancholic? It feels like a possible future has been taken away from us.

elil17: I think there are a lot of good futures that involve things being better on Earth

jandrese: I mean he had to invent a decent amount of magic technology (the radiation proof tent material for just one example) and purposely not do the math on other parts to make his story work.IMHO the biggest tell that Elon has never been serious about Mars is that he has been completely focused on the rocket and has severely neglected the actual hard part of the problem: The self sustained habitat for the people to live in. There should be experimental habitats dotting the SpaceX campus with engineers and researchers working hand in hand to solve the problem of scaling up a terrarium to people size. It is not easy. Previous attempts have ended in expensive failures. And those efforts didn't have to be launched on a rocket and landed on a low gravity planet with a very thin atmosphere. Until Elon starts to tackle this problem I know that all of the talk of Mars habitats is just blowing smoke up the asses of investors.

stronglikedan: Classic Neil, always something smart-sounding to say about the wrong thing. It's more about discovery and adventure than fleeing a dying planet. To quote someone that I'm sure is Neil's intellectual superior, "¿Por qué no los dos?"

CalRobert: Because at this rate we'll be lucky to get enough funding and cooperation just to prevent Earth from warming by 4+C, and we need all hands on deck for that.

glenstein: True enough, but it's still incumbent on us to understand what other biochemistries are plausible based on what we know. We look for things like organic molecules and planets in habitable zones because we know a lot about the mechanisms that allow them to support life.And we are curious about alternative biochemistries, I think that drives a huge amount of curiosity toward Jupiter's Galilean moons especially Europa. My worry is that people say "well there might be other biochemistries" as a deepity that kind of checks out from looking at any specifics, unfocusing conversations that were actually more focused prior to the emergence of the deepity.

empressplay: > 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.

giraffe_lady: 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.

vikingerik: I don't remember the source but I also like this quote: Before we worry about terraforming Mars, maybe first we should stop Venusforming Terra.

genthree: 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.

inaros: Folks...The US is effectively bankrupt with a 40 Trillion dollars debt in case you did not notice. The US Treasury is just a few minutes away from an economic event, that will force the US government to spend more than 70% to 80% of tax revenues on servicing said debt.There is no scientific or economic case to even go to Mars, much less colonize it. And with the current advances in robotics and automation there is nothing astronauts could do that a sophisticated robot team would not do better.Many interesting Scifi stories show, that really advanced civilizations quickly lose interest in extended Space travel, and we should take the hint...

flenserboy: but this is the economic case for it — if things are as dire as you paint them, this is the last chance to get a toehold off-world for at least 3-4 generations, if ever.

pavel_lishin: Would that toe-hold actually survive without constant resupply vessels?There's cheaper ways to doom a dozen people to a slow, inevitable death.

flenserboy: not taking the chance is cowardly & nihilistic, & everyone who went up would know the score when they signed up. better to give it as much of a chance as possible than to give up & just watch the world degrade & rot around us.

b112: There is no scientific or economic case to even go to MarsNonsense. Just going to Mars with humans creates economic activity, and the R&D to do so, adds to scientific knowledge.If you want to argue against going into further debt to do so, well, that's a different argument. One I agree with.

inaros: >> Nonsense. Just going to Mars with humans creates economic activity, and the R&D to do so.Ok layout here your scientific or economic case...please. Because so far, the only trickle economic effects, where geriatric billionaires creating sub 100 km space rides to impress their Silicone Sally girlfriends...

wongarsu: "To get to our habitat, you take a commercial flight to Bali, then a two-hour trip by boat" just does not have the same ring as "it's a six month trip in a space ship, but in a couple decades it might be as fast as 30 days". Being far away from everything is a major part of the appealIf it's possible to call me back to the SF office for a client meeting the day after tomorrow I'm not going

deciduously: Won't somebody think of the disgruntled misanthropes?

doublerabbit: The future was taken away from us in 1997. That's when my teenage life turned from fun to depressing. Web 2.0 ended up stinking because of Facebook.Whatever the Y2K bug was suppose to be never happened and we're stuck in the general era of 1997. We should of had "LLMs" back in 2006 but we had war instead.

keepamovin: Humans must expand through the solar system and beyond. Mars is an okay goal, but the moon is a better bet for living quarters for now.Earth is a jewel, but we have to expand and explore. It's our destiny.Ultimately you need to live underground on the Mars to avoid radiation.

celticninja: I mean its a nice idea. But short of FTL/Wormholes there is never going to be a practical need to do this. If the sun goes supernova then perhaps it would happen but even then we would spend centuries in space terraforming planets to make them liveable,

jubilanti: An improbable future was sold to you as probable. Why attack the people calling BS for taking away a BS fantasy? If you actually admire science and not science fiction, you should be glad when you are confronted with overwhelming reasons why your priors are wrong.Why is improving life on earth for the billions here in poverty not a worthwhile fantasy? Why does that noble goal not sustain you in the way space operas do?

triceratops: Good futures, sure. But not as cool. No Tannhauser Gate, no Kessel Run.

AngryData: There is currently and never has yet been a fully self-sufficient and stable artificial human habitat. Until that exists nobody is going to be living on Mars and anyone who says otherwise is talking out of their ass.

AlotOfReading: Unlike FTL, cryosleep and generation ships aren't known to violate any laws of physics. We can still explore the galaxy as soon as we solve the equally difficult engineering problems there.

glenstein: Agreed. At a bare minimum it's a hedge against terrestrial existential risks. And if Mars itself sucks, then, well, rotating space stations with simulated G, same principle.One terrible thing wrought by billionaire Mars fantasies is a backlash that I think has become too sweeping. It's wrongheaded for a million reasons, but it's nevertheless true that hedging against terrestrial existential risks is something we should have an interest in.

Tadpole9181: Sorry, I'd love to hear exactly how a mars habitat with a half dozen people or a space station are "hedges against terrestrial existential risks"? Those are both "unfriendly" environments that lack the resources required to sustain themselves for any appreciable amount of time. And certainly don't have the number of people required to repopulate.

glenstein: I'd love to see you make more of an effort to try and understand the idea you're engaging in than just engaging in an emotionally charged dismissal. I try to profess the principle of charity here from time to time, which means tackling the version of an idea that credits it with making the most sense.So if the version of the idea that you're engaging with is one that doomed to fail, doesn't have the resources or technology or population to succeed... maybe assume that's not the version I'm talking about?There are contexts where I love to get into these kinds of details (There was an amazing converation on HN from a few months ago about what would be involved in sending a bunch of voyager-style space probes to alpha centauri), but you have to want to try.

mekdoonggi: I'm as big of an Elon-hater as you'll find, but I kind of have to disagree. Working on the habitat before the rocket is cart before horse. The rocket is a prerequisite to even an experimental trip to Mars.If we ever do actually colonize Mars, the progression would look something like: 1. Experimental missions 2. Small but permanent settlement made out of Starships cobbled together 3. New construction with increasing proportion of in-situ resources until fully independent

IAmBroom: Because colonizing Mars is only slightly more realistic than breeding unicorns.

triceratops: I didn't attack anyone. You might want to re-read what I wrote.I can be glad to have a truth but also dislike that truth.

jubilanti: Well that's how I read "has been taken away from us." When you use the language of theft, what else am I supposed to think? You are asserting a damage has been caused by calling BS and not by the BSers.

triceratops: You seem primed to read everything as an "attack" or an insult. Let it go.

skeeter2020: >> not taking the chance is cowardly & nihilisticIt seems reasonable to argue that giving up on a planet where everyone but a handful of people will be for the long-term future is the cowardly path.

Tadpole9181: You know those people would rely on endless, constant resupply missions for the rest of their lives with no hope of ever being returned home, right?How important is this to you? Are you willing to personally act as executioner and press the button than sends these people to their deaths, knowing we could just stop being able to send food and replacement equipment in a few years?We can't even keep our society stable and our people taken care and our home world clean. You think we are even close to terraforming or creating a society on Mars? Other than as some token of nerd approval, what does this extremely expensive and dangerous mission accomplish?

flenserboy: this rhymes with the arguments for pullback at the end of Apollo, with the decades of stagnation that followed. doing things, & doing them at scale, is worth it if for no other reason than we can't know what spinoffs & useful developments will come of this. giving capable, motivated minds something to actually do, giving them a chance to explore & engage in trying things, is always preferable to keeping them tied down & hoping that they'll devote themselves to tossing away their dreams in order to make a beancounter happy.

wongarsu: Our Mars robots are awesome, but they take years to accomplish what astronauts could do in days. Our latest and greatest model (Perseverance) has traveled 40km (25mi) in 5 years, with the support of a scout helicopter. Which is more than what Curiosity managed in 13 years. But that's approximately what they did in Apollo 17 in five hours. Granted, Apollo 17 didn't make quite as many stops to analyze rocks, but it should give you an idea of the speed difference between our Mars robots and humans. Even just a tiny temporarily occupied Mars science outpost would be a tremendous boost to our understanding of the planet

skeeter2020: >> Our Mars robots are awesome, but they take years to accomplish what astronauts could do in days.What? The unmanned space program has been beyond the edges of our solar system. Meanwhile humans have been day tourists in space. I don't know how you can come to this conclusion that "humans > robots" when humans have never even been close to the surface of Mars.>> Even just a tiny temporarily occupied Mars science outpost would be a tremendous boost to our understanding of the planetHow many robots could we land with the equivalent resources, or telescope satellites, or autonomous probes?

inaros: I know deGrasse is apparently in private, a bit of a ahole, but in this case he is completely correct: https://youtu.be/t0Yqy_-PCfY

wongarsu: That's a very bad-faith take of Musk's stated plans. Which is great for sound bites, but there is enough wrong with a good-faith interpretation of his plans that this is entirely unnecessary. He is not arguing in good faith here

inaros: And you are going to explain why instead of just stating an opinion...since an opinion is not an argument...right?

inaros: We are not in a meeting at SpaceX trying to please Elon. I dont think you realize what you are up against...Do you know what radiation does to humans?For example Suni Williams went to the ISS and got stuck for 9 months. Come back white haired, with bone loss, muscle wasting, and vision damage. She retired from NASA within months. And the ISS is inside Earth magnetosphere...FYI Mars has no magnetic field and almost no atmosphere. The Curiosity radiation detector measured the following:Mars surface: 0.67 mSv/day (that is about 70x Earth surface)In Deep space transit: 1.8 mSv/dayfor example the ISS in low Earth orbit: 0.5–1.0 mSv/dayEven with VERY optimistic 3 month transits you are looking at a total for an astronaut of about 700 mSv if you have 450 to 500 day surface stay . That is well over NASA entire career radiation limit for astronauts in a single trip. A major solar particle event could add hundreds more in hours...And if you say they would live underground, then you have sent humans 225 million km to live in a bunker...Every EVA would accumulate 0.67 mSv/day with zero medical infrastructure...And by the way aluminum shielding on the Martian surface actually increases dose due to secondary neutron production, you need meters of regolith or water to make a real difference. Meanwhile, Curiosity has radiation hardened hardware, and after 13 years is still going.Send lots of robots...

card_zero: They did a year in the moon base simulator Yuegong-1, apparently.

jjkaczor: That was a great movie - I lived there, worked downtown and was an avid user of the +15 system when that movie came out...

browningstreet: It's one of those movies that keeps sneaking into my brain. I might watch it again (I saw it in theaters when it came out, and once soon after) or just leave the mistiness of those brain cycles stay as they are.

elil17: are you equally upset that Harry Potter isn’t real?I don’t mean to come across as rude, I just can’t really understand what you mean unless you’re saying that you’re sad magic isn’t real

Balgair: A late uncle of mine did his thesis at Arizona on the practical limitations of interstellar travel.The TLDR of it is that teenagers suck.They assumed the physics of those days (mostly unchanged) and no faster than light travel [0] and that you can't reasonably cryo-sleep a human or grow them on site[1].From that, you follow the logic and if you want to run a ship out to some star, it's going to take a long ass time. So much so that you have to have kids, a 'generation' ship. And that's where the trouble starts. Because teenagers are going to teenager, they just will not trust you when you say that the outside of their very little world is deadly. And then when you get there, it's going to take a lot of convincing to reprogram them to jump out and start colonizing.The only solution is to build a really big spaceship. He reasoned that it's usable surface area needed to be about that of Japan [2]. So you get to a Stanford Torus or the like. That's when you can finally 'trust' that the people living on this thing wont blow up halfway there and can remain 'stable' enough over the (possibly) millennia of travel.The issue, of course, is that you'd just build all these things for use in the Sol system anyway - why bother traveling?Something something new lands something exploration something.Okay, so, like, the end result is that putting human on a new planet in another system is just not happening when you really take a look. That was the essential conclusion to the thesis.It's too hard, teenagers suck too much, and the 'cheaper' alternatives are too good.[0] He made a great point that you should not assume that our modern understanding of physics should remain the same when doing really long term calculations like this. We have advanced so much in our knowledge and likely the understandings of other fields will compound much faster in the future.[1] Same for biology, but they had to start somewhere.[2] this assumption is a bit much for me even today, but the steps he takes are sound. You can argue them down a lot though, I feel.

dmix: SpaceX already shifted to focus on a Moon base and away from Mars.The original plan was to send a few self-financed Starships to Mars as a first step which sounded reasonable as an experiment.Nothing wrong with dreaming about solving hard problems like radiation and how to manage logistics at such a distance. Even if a human base ends up not making sense most of that stuff would still support a robotic base doing most of the exploration, with some temporary human visitors helping set things up.

ithkuil: The only advantage of terraforming Mars is that if you do it wrong you're not making it worse for anybody that lives there. It could be a good test bench if it wasn't for the elephant in the room: it takes a very long time to terraform a planet

Tadpole9181: There's also the tiny detail that we are technologically incapable at the moment.

ithkuil: Well, that's why it's a good idea to have a place to try things out, so we can learn.But of course, doing that is highly impractical for many other reasons.