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A comment on Mars is, at best, no less risky a place than Earth. Parent comment

Re:Mars is, at best, no less risky a place than Earth by kevin_thibedeau on Thursday July 16, 2020 @08:44PM (#23865697)
Earth would have to turn into a lava planet for Mars to be a better option. Antarctica is more habitable than Mars and nobody's planning to set up self-sustaining colonies there. Every technology needed to survive on Mars could be implemented far easier here no matter how bad it gets.
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Re:Mars is, at best, no less risky a place than Earth by natch on Thursday July 16, 2020 @09:01PM (#23865819)
As long as it’s on the same planet, it’s still all our eggs in one basket.
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Re:Mars is, at best, no less risky a place than Earth by jhanschoo on Thursday July 16, 2020 @09:29PM (#23866009)
What kind of failure scenario would have a Mars shelter better than any post-apocalypse Earth shelter?
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Re:Mars is, at best, no less risky a place than Earth by manicdee on Friday July 17, 2020 @04:15AM (#23868344)
Mass political unrest, another pandemic, combined with overpopulation leading to complete collapse of food systems.
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Re:Mars is, at best, no less risky a place than Earth by Can_Not on Friday July 17, 2020 @09:00PM (#23877951)
All of those scenarios combined are much more manageable than Mars.
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Re:Mars is, at best, no less risky a place than Earth by manicdee on Sunday July 26, 2020 @11:10PM (#23961924)
All the problems on Mars are resolved through engineering.

The problems on Earth are the result of humans thinking their egoes are more important than the life support system of the spaceship they live on.

Eventually the people problems will ruin civilisation on Mars, but that will come after the “common foe” of simply surviving on Mars has been sufficiently cowed.

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Re:Mars is, at best, no less risky a place than Earth by natch on Thursday July 16, 2020 @10:53PM (#23866495)
“any”? Just what did you have in mind?
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Re:Mars is, at best, no less risky a place than Earth by Ericson2314 on Thursday July 16, 2020 @08:46PM (#23865719)
There is a treaty prohibiting antarctic colonies that expires soon. We'll see then.
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Re:Mars is, at best, no less risky a place than Earth by variaga on Thursday July 16, 2020 @08:58PM (#23865802)
The reason nations were willing to sign a treaty agreeing not to colonize the antarctic is that none of them wanted to do it anyway.

Prior to the treaty, humans had already colonized every other continent, and had the means to travel to Antarctica for _thousands_ of years.

If colonizing Antarctica was in any way worthwhile, someone would have done it 100s (or 1000s, or 10,000s) of years ago.

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Re:Mars is, at best, no less risky a place than Earth by rbanffy on Friday July 17, 2020 @11:24AM (#23871516)
The reason countries sign such treaties is that they don't want to spend money in a race to colonize the place (and a war to decide who owns it) that has no obvious economic return.
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Re:Mars is, at best, no less risky a place than Earth by smegger001 on Thursday July 16, 2020 @09:03PM (#23865830)
>If colonizing Antarctica was in any way worthwhile, someone would have done it 100s (or 1000s, or 10,000s) of years ago.

except technology has advanced since then.

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Re:Mars is, at best, no less risky a place than Earth by Ericson2314 on Friday July 17, 2020 @01:25PM (#23873015)
And the global warming directly cuts costs regardless of technology level.
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Re:Mars is, at best, no less risky a place than Earth by dleslie on Thursday July 16, 2020 @09:04PM (#23865832)
We've had the means and ability to colonize it since the end of WW2. Chile and Argentina have civilian towns there, since the 50s&60s. Very teeny tiny towns, but they exist.
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Re:Mars is, at best, no less risky a place than Earth by LargoLasskhyfv on Friday July 17, 2020 @07:41PM (#23877360)
As I understand it colonization in this context means self sufficiency. Are they without delivery of food and other essentials by ship and plane? Could they grow their food there in greenhouses?
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Re:Mars is, at best, no less risky a place than Earth by xmprt on Thursday July 16, 2020 @09:04PM (#23865831)
Maybe that's why everyone signed the treaty in the first place. They didn't have the tech but now that they do, it's worth giving it another shot.
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