Loren Pechtel

Originally posted by Kip:
Who, other than the "gee wiz" factor, would we colonize Mars? Simply because we can?

Improved ability of racial survival, for one.

Why must we realize the extreme limits of colonization possibilities?

Mars the extreme limits?! No way! Want something hard, try Mercury.

Surely there are more urgent needs for the many billions of dollars to spend flying and sustaining people on another planet.

Surely there are more urgent needs than sending 3 ships out on a fools errand to India. (And a fools errand it was--Columbus made his trip because of *INCORRECT* information. Had he known the true size of the Earth he wouldn't have gone.)

Colonizing the bottom of the ocean would be just as difficult and silly.

There's much less reason to colonize the ocean floor.

Also consider the exponential growth of technology and the speed of light barrier.

Who knows about lightspeed? Einstien showed that you couldn't accelerate an object above lightspeed. He did *NOT* show that there are no means of travel above lightspeed.

By the time a Mars colony becomes practical or useful, I agree that humanity will probably no longer be living on planetary bodies: we will be spending the majority of our lives in virtual reality connected by the Internet or Internet 2.

A Mars colony is practical today, therefore your conclusion is false.

I do agree about the long-term shift to virtual reality, though. Eventually telepresence will replace physical presence. There will simply be no reason for physical presence.
Consider, in the old days one had to go visit someone. Then along came the letter. Then the telegraph. Then the telephone. We are seeing some use of videophones. The better the means of communication the more people use it in place of physical presence. When it's impossible to distinguish it will completely take over.

And personally, I think the solution to Fermi's paradox is that no advanced civilization survives the misuse of their technological power.

All the more reason to colonize everywhere we can. Maybe not every place will go boom.

HaysooChreesto!

But then the cries of "we can spend billions on an unneccessary trip to a desolate rock, but we can't feed the world". Or something of that nature.
Sorry, but there are too many problems here on Earth to seriously consider the idea of terraforming Mars, which would take hundreds if not thousands of years anyway. I guess we could build big bubbles in which to house the astronauts, but one big hole and...
Or maybe the U.S. could unilaterally disarm, the rogue nations of the world would take note, disarm, and we'd live happily ever after.

Loren Pechtel

Originally posted by Lamma
But then the cries of "we can spend billions on an unneccessary trip to a desolate rock, but we can't feed the world". Or something of that nature.
Sorry, but there are too many problems here on Earth to seriously consider the idea of terraforming Mars, which would take hundreds if not thousands of years anyway. I guess we could build big bubbles in which to house the astronauts, but one big hole and...
Or maybe the U.S. could unilaterally disarm, the rogue nations of the world would take note, disarm, and we'd live happily ever after.

Sure, you can always find some more immediate issue that you consider of higher importance. The same logic applies to just about all scientific endeavours, though.

I don't agree with terraforming, though--it's too far out in the future to be something worth putting major investment into.

Living in big bubbles isn't a problem, though--just pile enough dirt on top and there's no great danger.

Autonemesis

If you could get the whole planet to agree on such a plan, the benefits of carrying that plan out would become moot, since the goal - more unity - would have already been realized.

You're posing a solution to the world's problems that amounts to little more than "Can't we all just get along?" I admire the sentiment, but the plan lacks some substance!

HaysooChreesto!

Don't get me wrong. In a peaceful time, with a boatload of extra money, I'm all for going to places like Mars and Europa-especially Europa. I have this fantasy that if life were discovered there that religion would have to evaporate in the face of facts.

And surely, NASA could probably come up with something that would make survivability on Mars feasible. I think that would be wonderful.
But right now, and in the foreseeable future, there isn't the money and there's certainly not the support it would need to be a success. And it would need massive support. It's not the kind of thing we could go into halfway.

Godbert

Consider yourself served. I grew up in Europa and can attest that it's a lot more lively there than in the US.

Loren Pechtel

As for the cost/benefit of going to Mars--you're describing basically the situation that existed 50 years ago with regard to Earth orbit. The only one I ever heard of seeing any practical use back then was Arthur C. Clarke and his patent wasn't approved because it was considered nuts. These days they have clutter problems up there because there are so many commercial birds up there and there are private companies in the launch business.

I do agree that there isn't the support out there at present.