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A comment on Inventory of CO2 available for terraforming Mars. Parent comment

Re:Inventory of CO2 available for terraforming Mars by apatters on Tuesday July 31, 2018 @01:19AM (#17650721)
If the justification for becoming a multiplanetary civilization is that it will mitigate the threat of extremely infrequent catastrophes (as in, they happen once over the course of thousands or even millions of years), doesn't that suggest we can afford to wait a bit?

I think colonizing Antarctica and colonizing Mars are two totally different solutions, colonizing Mars solves problems that happen on geological timescales, I can't think of any problem offhand that colonizing Antarctica solves.

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Re:Inventory of CO2 available for terraforming Mars by vkou on Wednesday August 01, 2018 @12:03AM (#17659549)
> I can't think of any problem offhand that colonizing Antarctica solves.

It solves the problem of building a sustainable biosphere in an incredibly inhospitable environment. That's a very similar problem to building a Mars colony, that doesn't require you to actually go to Mars.

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