Re:Elon Musk Publishes Plans for Colonizing Mars
by yellowapple on Friday June 16, 2017 @05:30PM
(#14572790)
To expand on that first reason, being able to live on Mars (and/or other worlds; I'd personally prefer Ceres or Enceladus, or maybe Pluto when we actually have the technology to perform an orbital insertion there) gives us an opportunity to evacuate Earth and let it recover from the injuries it's sustained during the Industrial Age.
- No life or ecosystems to disrupt; Mars would be ours to build on, dig up, pollute, irradiate, etc. without wiping out any native species. The only thing to spoil would be the views and landscapes, but we'd be the only ones able to appreciate them anyway.
- Not being stuck on this rock. Mars and the Moon are first steps. In a few centuries, maybe the clouds of Venus, tunnels on Mercury, etc. would be viable. Such colonies aren't "backups" in case of disaster on Earth, any more than people live in Europe as a backup in case of disaster in Africa.
Antarctica doesn't fulfil any of my reasons to live on Mars. In fact, Antarctica is the only place on Earth we've agreed to avoid exploiting! If anything, colonising Antarctica would be a backwards move.