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 thread[email protected]Sep 13, 2024
@michael_w_busch @Rhodium103 From a scientific perspective you are right (of course, your turf), that is reassuring, but we don't have the technology **in place** and what I've seen in the last decade politically makes me expect a 'don't look up' scenario if we need it.
But then, we definitely don't have the tech and motivation for an autonomous mars colony to reseed the planet, either. Not at all by far. We don't even put enough effort into saving this basket, which is a lot easier and closer.
Show thread[email protected]Sep 13, 2024

@michael_w_busch @Rhodium103 Maybe curiosity and science are the only plausible reasons for mankind to go to space.
But that will give us no autonomous colonies we dream about in a lot of science fiction.

I'm realizing the pain a lot of speculative fiction about IT gives to me, what SciFi located in space do you personally enjoy?

Show threadBarry Schwartz 🫖Sep 13, 2024

@chris @michael_w_busch @Rhodium103 The worst thing about the asteroid impact scenario has nothing to do with the feasibility of a Mars colony. It is that suggesting saving the category "human species" matters is what matters is a DEPRAVED point of view.

The "human species" is not a living thing. It is a BINOMIAL NOMENCLATURE, "Homo sapiens". It is WORDS. What happens to it DOES NOT MATTER.

What MATTERS is the lives of ACTUAL HUMAN BEINGS. THAT is what asteroid deflection saves.

Show threadBarry Schwartz 🫖Sep 13, 2024
@chris @michael_w_busch @Rhodium103 Every time someone like Neil de Grasse Tyson pushes the Mars colony as savior of a binomial nomenclature scenario, a lovable puppy dies.
Show threadBarry Schwartz 🫖Sep 13, 2024

@chris @michael_w_busch @Rhodium103 BTW it is likely easier to build a viable colony in space. After all, you can give it a centripetal acceleration of 1G, whereas Mars (despite all the naysaying I get) will kill off the colony by having inadequate gravity.

"Terraforming" is a distraction, as is the magnetosphere. You build the colony in a tin can with hydroponics, etc. We have never succeeded at this, but presumably it could be done. You use radiation shielding...

Show threadBarry Schwartz 🫖Sep 13, 2024
@chris @michael_w_busch @Rhodium103 Not that the Elon Musk's of the world are trying to develop even centripetal acceleration. The most recent centripetal acceleration experiments I know of were in Project Gemini!
Show threadBarry Schwartz 🫖

@chris @michael_w_busch @Rhodium103 People sometimes say people will "evolve" for the low gravity, but they are thinking Star Trek evolution that is driven by Final Cause—towards the goal of fitting a niche.

Actual evolution is driven by natural selection. That means evolution for low gravity would have to be achieved by throwing millions of people at the colony and keeping those few who survived healthily.

Generation after generation.

Which would be depraved.

Sep 13, 2024 at 7:47pmWeb