A City on Mars: Reality kills space settlement dreams
arstechnica.com
A book review on the latest Weinersmith creation. It’s true, there is so much we don’t know.
Just throwing this out there on this forum because missing technology is the problem that kills the dream of Mars, according to the authors.
You are viewing a single comment
It's not missing technology that kills the (pretty silly) idea of "Mars colonization" - it's missing ecology.
They can't even maintain functioning civilization in Antarctica... yet they "dream" of doing so in a place that's hundreds of times more hostile to human life.
One of the things standing in the way of an"civilization" on Antarctica is that it's illegal to build a civilization on Antarctica. We could absolutely do it, assuming we were willing to fight a war and the resources were worth it
Doesn’t the outer space treaty place similar restrictions on mars?
AFAIK it only prevents weaponization of space.
It also prohibits countries from claiming sovereignty, and it actually used the Antarctic treaty for inspiration.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty
Which is not to say that it’s exactly the same situation as Antarctica, but the treaties are more similar than you might assume.
It prohibits countries from claiming sovereignty over territory beyond Earth, but the colonies themselves can still be sovereign. Assuming the treaty continues as it is it just means that countries won't be able to draw borders around vast lifeless regions on Mars or the Moon and claim jurisdiction over them, they'll still be able to build cities there and the cities will be theirs to control.
Treaties like these lapse or get amended over time as the realities of life make them obsolete, though. I expect that once there are cities on Mars there'll be borders as well.
Yeah it's just that the sheer scale of planetary colonization kind of makes this a problem for the year 4,000 or so.
Oh, right... that is what has stopped the Phony Starks from building capitalist Utopia in Antartica - it has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that it's utterly inhospitable to human civilization at all.
That and lack of exploitable resources, meaning a lack of capital. There's no shortage of capital for the modern space age.
Yeah... because Antarctica lacks water. And wind energy. And some of the most protein-rich waters on the planet.
Poor, poor Phony Starks... imagine being held back by legislation they could easily bribe into non-existence if they wanted!
We're not exactly hurting for water
This doesn't require building a civilization of any sort
Oh really?
I guess you're the kind of fantasist that believe they invent food at the supermarket, eh?
California is a localized problem, as all water shortages are, because we live on a fucking water planet.
Fishing does not require supermarkets. It requires driving a boat to where fish are, then driving home.
So... not like Mars?
And the boat will be useful on Mars because...?
You're talking about Antarctica. Pick a topic.
Soooo... you agree that Antarctica has tons of resources which Mars doesn't.
Remind me... which one is your hero Phony Stark planning to build his capitalist Utopia in again?
That’s a good point. There is at least as much to learn from Antarctica as from Mars. Maybe less maybe more, but certainly more relevant since it’s on Earth. Plus easier to get to than Mars. Yet we can’t scrounge up enough to keep a larger presence there.
Sometimes I can’t shake the feeling that we are living in another dark age. We need a real renaissance to shake it.
One of the mandatory precursors to that is a major Hundred Years war that kills lots of people and displaces even more.
Luckily, that's one field where we've made a lot of progress, we won't need even close to one hundred years.
I've been hearing this "we need a new renaissance" spiel since the 80s. It really sounds like "I've got no ideas, so I'll distract with mentioning a time that is revered for it." to me nowadays.
"We need a new renaissance" is a dog whistle for "we need a white culture (Rome was a good example) to dominate and destroy the societies adjacent to it again, so that while they are recuperating, rebuilding and repopulating, we will assert our white cultural dominance and leverage that to impose our ideals and religion into every facet of other cultures and then call it a renaissance".
Notice how you never read about the Islamic renaissance or anything from India, Asia or Africa, or even South American native cultures when "renaissance" is mentioned?
Give me a break.
Maybe some use as dog whistle but I am not. The color or creed of the people who were around during periods of progress is irrelevant to me. I care about the progress.
And Rome had more people of color in positions of power and influence than we can even dream of today. However they did have slaves. Lots of white, Germanic slaves. Google it and chew on that while you think about your accusations of racism.