Schrödinger's PratSep 11, 2024

The student approached the Master and said "He wants to put a million people on Mars by 2040! That's so amazing!"

The Master replied. "I have a better plan. I will put a million people on Antarctica by 2040."

"But that sounds fucking insane. Why would you want to do something that stupid? It's a barren wasteland that's difficult to populate and would provide us with absolutely nothing!"

At that moment, the student was enlightened.

Show thread[email protected]Sep 11, 2024
@Rhodium103 That's what I've been wondering about, too.
While it may make sense to have autonomous human colonies on other planets in case of an impact, earth still seems an easier place to live on even after that because it has proper gravity, atmospheric pressure and lots of water.
I'm wondering what it would take to make earth less attractive than mars.
Show threadMichael BuschSep 13, 2024

@chris @Rhodium103 We have the technology to stop asteroids from impacting Earth.

Also, Mars gets hit by asteroids too (even more so than Earth does).

I have lost patience for people using the impact hazard as a pretext for imaginary space colonization.

Show thread[email protected]Sep 13, 2024
@michael_w_busch @Rhodium103 We may have some of the technology to deflect asteroids we detect but we don’t have a system.
It’s unlikely that Mars and Earth are hit by civilization ending events at the same time, so there’s a point in the idea of mankind putting their eggs into multiple baskets.
But one of the baskets is a wooden stick in the distance and the other basket is burning. We don’t extinguish it because we can build so many baskets in the future.
Show threadMichael BuschSep 13, 2024

@chris @Rhodium103 It has now been 2 years since the #DARTMission demonstrated asteroid deflection: https://dart.jhuapl.edu/ , and the follow-up #HeraMission is being packed up at Canaveral right now to launch next month (there is also an independent CNSA asteroid deflection demonstration).

And no asteroids larger than 1 km that can impact Earth in the next several hundred years. There is one potential impact in 2880 that cannot yet quite be ruled out.

The impact hazard is being addressed.

DART

NASA's First Planetary Defense Test Mission

Show threadsn 🐦‍⬛
@michael_w_busch @chris @Rhodium103 we can't see asteroids coming from the direction of the sun, why ignore this problem?
Sep 13, 2024 at 5:03pmWeb
Show thread[email protected]Sep 13, 2024

@sn @michael_w_busch @Rhodium103 It does not seem to be ignored, but it does not exactly seem a done thing, either. 2030 for NEOMIR still is in the future, however a LOT more realistic than building a self sufficient colony on mars.
I don’t see any plausible path to a human presence on Mars. They all have a huge plot hole between “here’s a bunch of scientists” and “here’s human society #2”.

https://spacenews.com/prize-winner-wants-to-detect-asteroids-coming-from-suns-direction/

Prize winner wants to detect asteroids coming from sun's direction

Ground-based telescopes ignore “a huge swath” of the inner solar system because the sky is simply too bright.

SpaceNews