[tannhauser23]

This article is full of strawman arguments. I'm not aware of anyone who's arguing for moving billions of humans to another planet or for dedicating the resources of Earth to terraform Mars. It's not like Mars colonization proponents are keeping their plans secret - the authors could easily have googled what the actual propositions are, to wit:

- Use current or near-current tech to send human missions to Mars

- Use existing resources on Mars to the extent possible to support a research station

- Let the settlement grow organically. It will be science-focused at first but may develop economic value over time (Robert Zubrin suggests asteroid mining or deuterium harvesting)

Terraforming, if it happens at all, will be a centuries-long process by the Mars inhabitants, largely using resources available on that planet. No one's suggesting strip-mining Earth to make Mars habitable.

I don't know why some people think that human missions to Mars are incompatible with fixing Earth's problems. We have the resources to do both.

[lapcat]

> It's not like Mars colonization proponents are keeping their plans secret - the authors could easily have googled what the actual propositions are

The word "planning" in "with billionaires planning to move humanity to Mars in the near future" is literally a hyperlink to another article discussing what the actual propositions are, i.e, "Elon Musk argues that we must put a million people on Mars if we are to ensure that humanity has a future". https://aeon.co/essays/elon-musk-puts-his-case-for-a-multi-p...

[QuadmasterXLII]

I wonder how much higher quality internet discourse sould be if million and billion didn't rhyme lol

[bashmelek]

As someone who is generally pro-Mars colonization (and has Zubrin’s book), I feel this. We don’t need to dichotomize this and I welcome advances towards humans going beyond where we have ever been.

At the same time, I realize there is a lot of pain and anxiety down here. The environment is being wrecked. Climate is changing beyond what an evolved ecosystem can handle. At the same time, there are poor nations trying to catch up, who will not like being told to slow down by the developed world. With collective action global poverty could be solved in the next 10 years. The worst of it, anyway. But suddenly the argument becomes that by giving a dollar to space exploration you are depriving a starving person? I simply cannot accept that hardline utilitarianism.

Unfortunately, being just some internet person, I don’t have numbers on how much to spend on space technology. What should it be at this point in time, in comparison to all of our other needs? All I can say is greater than zero.