If the real cost of the rockets is an uninhabitable Earth, and an uninhabitable Mars, then everyone is some combination of unhappy or dead.

Sure, but it's not. Which everyone knows but some people will pretend it is so that they can get the thing they want: the protesting. So we'll just let them say that and pay the increased costs so we can "recognize the contributions of the original habitants of this land: the stripe tailed gecko" and we'll launch the rockets. They'll take the money and buy a bigger office to go after the next target.

And everyone is happy and alive.

> Which everyone knows but some people will pretend it is so that they can get the thing they want: the protesting.

Just want to say what a repugnant and mocking answer this is.

There are real issues here. You can't deal with them, so you resort to rudeness.

This sort of ever-escalating pearl clutching is exactly what I mean. Fine, this is your domain. Enjoy it whole. I shall return to mine.

And when the time comes we'll pay the toll. But we've got work to do, so don't seek too high a rent.

Bad idea. I want us to actually get to Mars.

Protesters are generally sincere about their dislike of whatever they protest about. To echo your own language, they will cost a lot more than mere rent, if you don't talk them down.

I think their sincerity can be handled with inducements. But there's nothing wrong with a multi-pronged approach. Eager to see the outcomes your approach generates.

> the real cost of the rockets is an uninhabitable Earth

I've seen more than one person here express this opinion - what about rocket launches makes you think they will render the Earth uninhabitable? They certainly aren't very clean, but the emissions they produce are dwarfed by commercial aviation and ICEs. Why all the rocket hatred?

To me, this feels more like a waste of resources just for something that is cool. It's completely useless to send people to Mars, just an expensive artistic performance.

Meanwhile life on Earth is dying, because of the human activity. Some things are difficult to change (forcing everyone to use bikes all the time would be a big problem: how do you bring food into cities without trucks?), and others seem very easy: just don't put all those resources into useless Mars, and instead try to save life on Earth.

> just don't put all those resources into useless Mars, and instead try to save life on Earth.

_instead_ is the word I have a problem with. the idea that we must do one or the other. that either we fix climate change OR we go to Mars.

Small note: climate is only part of the problem. The current mass extinction has nothing to do with Climate Change, but is rather due to loss of habitat. Now of course, this will add to the problem big time.

But the other thing is energy. Our entire society depends on fossil fuels, which are not only causing the climate problem, but are also limited. Planning to go to Mars in 50 years assumes that we will have enough energy to live on Earth and to launch rockets. Let's be honest: right now we don't have a replacement for fossil fuels.

We mostly have hope, based on "promising tech" oversold by startups surfing on the green economy idea. Wind/solar is growing a lot, but thanks to fossil fuels. Nuclear plants take a lot of years to get built, and in many places in the world we are more closing them than building new ones.

So it is quite likely that we will have a critical energy problem before we manage to send people to Mars. The climate/energy problem is not something that we can solve later, because we are slowly running out of time. And it feels like all the resources that we put in advanced projects like Mars could be (or even should be, at this point) put somewhere else. Because that's a lot of money and competent people. Also it goes with over-consumption: it's not that one such project in itself is too much, but rather that we should start cutting into many of those superfluous projects, to survive.

> the emissions they produce are dwarfed by commercial aviation and ICE

You're comparing the emission of something that carried few dozen people over 60 years to something that carried 40 millions people in 2019 alone

Politeness costs little. I guess not having an argument makes you resort to rudeness.

If you could go back to your building instead of writing that kind of comments, I would be happy.