Re:Elon Musk argues that putting a million people on Mars en...
by dalke on Wednesday October 01, 2014 @10:04AM
(#8394361)
That's a very different argument. That's "we will colonize Mars because it's our dream", not "we will colonize Mars because the benefits in technology payoff are worth it."
People climb Everest because it's their dream, because the intangibles are worth the tens of thousands of dollars to them. Chile and Argentina subsidize their colonies on Antarctica because of dreams of land.
But even Denmark hasn't figured out how to make Greenland profitable. It continues to subsidize life on that island. That's about 60,000 people who would love to be self-sufficient. Is the problem only that they are insufficiently excited? Or that there aren't enough people there? How many more do you need?
People climb Everest because it's their dream, because the intangibles are worth the tens of thousands of dollars to them. Chile and Argentina subsidize their colonies on Antarctica because of dreams of land.
But even Denmark hasn't figured out how to make Greenland profitable. It continues to subsidize life on that island. That's about 60,000 people who would love to be self-sufficient. Is the problem only that they are insufficiently excited? Or that there aren't enough people there? How many more do you need?