Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
If everyone felt this way, all of humanity would still be living in a small area of East Africa, afraid to venture over the river because it wouldn't be as comfortable or safe as where they currently are.
However, not everyone feels that way. It's because of the people who don't mind discomfort and hard work that there are humans in all of the hospitable locations on Earth, and some locations that aren't so hospitable.
Hard working people will move to Mars, and the asteroid belt, and any other location that with effort can become hospitable to humans. Once a location is well established, comfortable, and safe, many more people will follow to benefit from the hard work and sacrifice of the people who went first.
You keep making these direct comparisons to things that aren't remotely comparable as a rhetorical way to dismiss my points. No, it's NOT just like being afraid to cross the river.
Planet A:
Versus Planet B:
What kind of fool wants to move from A to B???
Last edited by OutdoorLover; 04-27-2024 at 05:26 PM..
Trying to make these analogies to earlier explorers on earth are just offbase. The polar regions were/are somewhat hostile, but they have considerable life and they have plentiful clean water and a sweet, nurturing atmosphere and they can be approached and left within reasonable time. We know that Mars is a lifeless rock without a nurturing atmosphere and with brutal temperatures (-243F at night) - far worse than at earth's poles; it's a *completely* different level of hostile and it's a very long journey out there and back.
Sure, they're significantly different, but so are our technological capabilities. Antarctic exploration was performed with sailing ships, dogs, and horses. Mars will be settled using electric-powered machines and robots.
Quote:
Originally Posted by OutdoorLover
For all the people who keep arguing what a great idea it is to live on Mars - what exactly is it about life on Mars that would be better than life on earth??? Let's see the list. I've already listed HUGE factors that make it worse. I guess if you fear or hate people you can argue that Mars life would be better because there are no people on it - but I think that "benefit" is ill-considered and in any case, once people start living on it, that's over!
As far as 1/4 of Americans thinking that living on Mars indefinitely would be a positive change - LOL, the average person is not very smart, that's all I will say.
I suppose for most people it's probably the novelty, and the opportunity to create a new society. For some it's scientific discovery. Yes it will be much more challenging than life on Earth, but the challenge level is equivalent to living in space and many people also want to do that. The main difference there is the greater access to resources on the martian surface, and the presence of a surface gravity. Personally I'd rather live in a rotating space station orbiting within the magnetosphere (for radiation protection).
Sure, they're significantly different, but so are our technological capabilities. Antarctic exploration was performed with sailing ships, dogs, and horses. Mars will be settled using electric-powered machines and robots.
I suppose for most people it's probably the novelty, and the opportunity to create a new society. For some it's scientific discovery. Yes it will be much more challenging than life on Earth, but the challenge level is equivalent to living in space and many people also want to do that. The main difference there is the greater access to resources on the martian surface, and the presence of a surface gravity. Personally I'd rather live in a rotating space station orbiting within the magnetosphere (for radiation protection).
To me, it's simply a matter of life being so much worse in nearly any conceivable way imaginable - that's why I say it's completely irrational.
I don't think polls are at all meaningful. Some people might fancy they'd like this, when they're talking crap from their living room sofa. However even on our own, beautiful earth, where people actually go and so we have data based on experience, the reality is that few people want to live in rural places - even though they can readily breathe, there are comfortable temperatures, abundant water and food and wildlife... because they can't readily get good medical care, and there is poor access to internet and cell phone signals, and they feel isolated - and those are such petty, trivial deficiencies compared to life in space or on Mars - not even remotely comparable levels of hardship and depravation to both the body and the spirit.
You keep making these direct comparisons to things that aren't remotely comparable as a rhetorical way to dismiss my points. No, it's NOT just like being afraid to cross the river.
Planet A: [Earth]
Versus Planet B: [Mars]
What kind of fool wants to move from A to B???
Half of the colonists who landed in Plymouth died in less than a year. But people kept coming from safe, well known, "high-tech" United Kingdom to high mortality rate, completely unknown, rudimentary America. What fools did that?
What you're not seeing, or at least not acknowledging, is that not everyone thinks the same way. You're correct that a vast majority of people will not want to go to Mars when it's dangerous, unknown, and lacking many things that people are accustomed to 'just having.' However, a small percentage of people will be just fine with it. With 330 million people in the US, and 8 billion people in the world, a small percentage is a lot of people, and it's more than enough.
The fools that kept coming to America when it was dangerous and rudimentary are the people who made it what it is today, with the strongest economy in the world, and the most opportunity for anyone willing to work. The fools that are willing to settle space will similarly build hard working societies with strong economies and opportunity, because only people willing to work will be willing to go. It's effectively applying a sieve to the human population, and only allowing hard-working, motivated people through. That's who the fools who settle space will be.
So the short answer to your question, "What kind of fool wants to move from A to B???", is people who are more motivated by opportunity than comfort, which I fully acknowledge is a small percentage of the population.
And which is exactly why settling space is so important to human advancement, it will put a stop to the much larger 'comfort / risk-averse' part of the population from holding back the much smaller 'hard-work / opportunity' part of the population. Earth overall will take on the roll of Europe today, and the space settlements will take on the roll of the United States of today (after a century or two).
Half of the colonists who landed in Plymouth died in less than a year. But people kept coming from safe, well known, "high-tech" United Kingdom to high mortality rate, completely unknown, rudimentary America. What fools did that?
What you're not seeing, or at least not acknowledging, is that not everyone thinks the same way. You're correct that a vast majority of people will not want to go to Mars when it's dangerous, unknown, and lacking many things that people are accustomed to 'just having.' However, a small percentage of people will be just fine with it. With 330 million people in the US, and 8 billion people in the world, a small percentage is a lot of people, and it's more than enough.
The fools that kept coming to America when it was dangerous and rudimentary are the people who made it what it is today, with the strongest economy in the world, and the most opportunity for anyone willing to work. The fools that are willing to settle space will similarly build hard working societies with strong economies and opportunity, because only people willing to work will be willing to go. It's effectively applying a sieve to the human population, and only allowing hard-working, motivated people through. That's who the fools who settle space will be.
So the short answer to your question, "What kind of fool wants to move from A to B???", is people who are more motivated by opportunity than comfort, which I fully acknowledge is a small percentage of the population.
And which is exactly why settling space is so important to human advancement, it will put a stop to the much larger 'comfort / risk-averse' part of the population from holding back the much smaller 'hard-work / opportunity' part of the population. Earth overall will take on the roll of Europe today, and the space settlements will take on the roll of the United States of today (after a century or two).
It's nothing like going from Europe to North America a few centuries ago, and there is no opportunity. There is no upside. How can you not see this? I put up pictures of Mars and Earth, side by side, because anyone should be able to understand that. Earth is good, and Mars is unimaginably bad - therefore it's not rational to want to transition from good to unimaginably bad.
We already know that Mars is a lifeless rock with no breathable atmosphere and super hostile temperatures, bombarded by destructive radiation. All the plans for colonizing Mars involve trying to move lots of material from earth - the good planet - the resource-rich, life-giving planet, to Mars, the useless lifeless rock, to try to make it less horrific there - that's just another huge red flag.
If you think life on Mars would be great - it would be no worse to live on any random asteroid, or indeed, to just sit in a cramped spacecraft drifting through the vaccuum of space forever.
Last edited by OutdoorLover; 05-02-2024 at 08:37 PM..
Here are some thoughts from the eminent astronomer, Martin Rees on colonizing Mars. I don't necessarily agree with some of his futuristic predictions, but they are interesting, anyway.
Small steps. Mars is a small step on the journey into the rest of the solar system and the universe beyond.
That remains to be seen. Just landing a man on the Moon was a big enough challenge. Getting a man to Mars is 1000 times more difficult, but it will probably happen at some point. Ever getting a human much beyond that is highly improbable. The distance is just too great.
Space should be explored to the best of our ability, but expectations for anything to come out of it, should not be high. We got to the Moon over 50 years ago. What has come out of that? Not much.
It's nothing like going from Europe to North America a few centuries ago, and there is no opportunity. There is no upside. How can you not see this? I put up pictures of Mars and Earth, side by side, because anyone should be able to understand that. Earth is good, and Mars is unimaginably bad - therefore it's not rational to want to transition from good to unimaginably bad.
We already know that Mars is a lifeless rock with no breathable atmosphere and super hostile temperatures, bombarded by destructive radiation. All the plans for colonizing Mars involve trying to move lots of material from earth - the good planet - the resource-rich, life-giving planet, to Mars, the useless lifeless rock, to try to make it less horrific there - that's just another huge red flag.
If you think life on Mars would be great - it would be no worse to live on any random asteroid, or indeed, to just sit in a cramped spacecraft drifting through the vacuum of space forever.
I don't disagree with most of what you say, but your pictures were extremely cherry picked. A picture of the Arizona desert where people do choose to live looks very similar to that image of the Martian landscape. Since people do want to live in Arizona, I have no doubt there are plenty of people who would love a chance to live on Mars. But the technology to build a life sustaining environment on Mars, simply doesn't exist at this time, and probably won't for the foreseeable future.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
