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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 135892
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| Posted: 23 March 2026 at 4:47pm | IP Logged | 1
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Okay, sad but certain, I have come to the conclusion there is no reason for humans to go to Mars. (And, honestly, it has nothing to do with watching ANGRY RED PLANET last week.)The reality is, there’s no good reason for people to go there. Nothing that can’t be accomplished with robots—and no resources to exploit. Just a big red lump of rock, its surface ravaged by a constant barrage of cosmic rays. Colonization? Nah.
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Brian Acuff
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 26 February 2021
Location: United States
Posts: 281
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| Posted: 23 March 2026 at 7:27pm | IP Logged | 2
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As of our current situation I totally agree. We should be using our resources to fix our world first.
To quote a passage from Pale Blue Dot: "The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand."
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 135892
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| Posted: 23 March 2026 at 7:56pm | IP Logged | 3
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I hope no life (even microbial) is found on Mars. Every time someone says “terraforming” I think don’t get out the smallpox blankets!
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Brian Acuff
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 26 February 2021
Location: United States
Posts: 281
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| Posted: 23 March 2026 at 8:06pm | IP Logged | 4
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If Musk wants to colonize Mars alone, let him. Since his name isn't Matt Damon we are not obligated to retrieve him.
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Petter Myhr Ness
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 02 July 2009
Location: Norway
Posts: 4208
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| Posted: 23 March 2026 at 8:59pm | IP Logged | 5
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I doubt humans will ever be able to thrive on Mars. So I agree in a sense, the only thing we will achieve will be the achievement of going there. But that might actually be necessary, for at one point we'll need to get off this rock if we are to survive as a species.
(Though I doubt that will happen. There's no Planet B waiting for us out there that we can reach.) |
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 135892
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| Posted: 23 March 2026 at 9:06pm | IP Logged | 6
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…at one point we'll need to get off this rock if we are to survive as a species.••• The wrong attitude. As I have come to realize, if we can put together all that is necessary to go to (and survive upon) another world, then we can put those resources to the task of fixing what’s wrong with this planet.
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Dave Kopperman
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 27 December 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 3991
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| Posted: 23 March 2026 at 9:34pm | IP Logged | 7
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In theory, experimenting with terraforming tech on Mars would be pretty useful, just to see how the tech works at scale before we try to implement anything home. But a) the environments and targets are so different it might not provide any truly applicable 1-to-1 data, and b) the timeframe for global change is so far outside the capacity for our short-term minded species and Government/Commercial entities that I can't see it really happening even if the tech and data aspects were sorted out.
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James Woodcock
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 21 September 2007
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 8420
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| Posted: 23 March 2026 at 10:56pm | IP Logged | 8
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So this is where I have been with Mars for quite some years.
Firstly, from what I have read, even if we could sort out an atmosphere for
Mars, it could very well be stripped again.
So we are stuck with domes.
Domes to live in.
Which sounds enchanting and exciting. Because we don’t live in domes.
We can’t even look after a planet without killing its life, over exploiting it.
The very people who want to live in domes live their life to excess. Could
Musk really life on subsistence level of life, in a dome, once the initial
excitement had gone?
This is a man who wants MORE!
Why anyone would give up a world with air, and sea, and forest, and fields,
and desert, and and and and
For a dome.
And to be sure, if the argument is that the earth will eventually be wiped
out, the solution is not Mars - because that will also be gone.
Science fiction is great. But we ain’t getting to another star. Let’s do all we
can to not screw this planet up. Because if we don’t, we will be gone and
the planet will just repair itself now the parasites have died out.
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Peter Hicks
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 30 April 2004
Location: Canada
Posts: 2112
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| Posted: 24 March 2026 at 1:26am | IP Logged | 9
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There is an excellent book called “A City On Mars: Can We, Should We, and Have We Really Thought This Through?” As you might guess from the title, the authors think it is a bad idea. They also evaluate a moon colony and come to similar conclusions. As the astronaut says at the end of The Martian, everything in space is trying to kill you.
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Petter Myhr Ness
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 02 July 2009
Location: Norway
Posts: 4208
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| Posted: 24 March 2026 at 8:44am | IP Logged | 10
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Oh, I'm thinking LONG term, JB! As the Sun gradually expands and gets warmer, there's very little we can do to maintain life on this planet. Millions of years in the future, yes, but still ...
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 135892
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| Posted: 24 March 2026 at 8:58am | IP Logged | 11
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Highly unlikely there will be any human life on Earth millions of years from now. Even thousands of years seems unlikely.
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James Woodcock
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 21 September 2007
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 8420
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| Posted: 24 March 2026 at 11:27am | IP Logged | 12
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I really marvel at people looking to solve a problem that is millions of years
in the future when they won’t solve problems we have now.
I fully accept that today’s problems are multiple, with no easy fixes.
But what makes anyone think we wouldn’t drag those problems with us if
we ever did go anywhere else?
And what makes anyone think they wouldn’t be ignored by people to the
same extent we ignore them now?
Regardless of whether we believe in welfare or not, 200 billion dollars could
go a long way to helping a lot of struggling people. But we would rather
spend that on blowing people up.
That mentality will travel with the human race wherever it goes.
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