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

dsr_

Mars is only a few billion dollars of investment away from being quite habitable, and Mr. Musk should make plans to retire there along with his friends and senior execs within the year.

TwoNineA

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

graeme

That is sadly the original title but the article is much better than the title. Authors don't get to write their own headlines.

HPsquared

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

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.

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.

browningstreet

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

beepbooptheory

Small recommendation here which I saw recently is Werner Herzog's 2016 film Lo and Behold , which features Musk and all his mars stuff quite a lot! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lo_and_Behold,_Reveries_of_the...

legitronics

https://archive.ph/Hp69I

triceratops

Between the realism about terraforming Mars and the strong likelihood 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.

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...

nutjob2

How about we just commit to fucking up one planet at a time? Arguably humanity is a dangerous invasive species that destroys any environment it inhabits. Until we do better we should treat other planets more like a park than fresh real estate.

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.

bananzamba

"Also, we’ve learned more about the bad effects of lighter-than-Earthly gravity on human bodies," How can he confidently use that argument when we don't have any data between 0g and 1g, other than 12 Apollo astronauts, that spend less than 3 days on the moon? It might very well be that the 0.38g on Mars are sufficient to make many problems go away. The two simple facts of your blood being pulled downward and moving your body around taking effort could already fix a lot of the medical issues astronauts face in 0g.

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.

glenstein

Currently reading Blue Mars, the third and final book in the trilogy. It's amazingly fascinating but also exhausting. I say with full seriousness it may be best to read this with a very specific high resolution full color map of Mars on your wall somewhere. If anything KSR is not giving himself as much credit as he deserves, as personal AIs show up in ways that are remarkably salient and similar to what we're currently seeing. And he talks about advances in genetics that parallel what we're figuring out with CRISPR at least to some degrees. The biggest "error" is the preoccupation with a Paul Ehrlich-style population boom, but by the same token it reveals that the book is a window into the time it was made. If any ambitious and aspiring science novelists are reading this, I would love for someone to be the Kim Stanley Robinson of Venus and tell the story of colonization there, aspiring to the same bar of technical specificity that KSR had for Red Mars.

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.

tim-tday

“Remember this, please, when you see clickbait and pronunciamentos about humans very soon migrating to Mars. I, author of the Mars trilogy, call bullshit on that fatuous fantasy.“