[mathsmath]

It doesn’t really make sense, but some childhood part of me likes to imagine us as a species of explorers.

There are tons of things humans do that don’t make sense. IMO, the original moon landings didn’t make a lot of sense. We did end up benefitting in unforeseen ways from the technology developed by doing so.

If people want to sign up to fly to Mars or send hardware there to terraform, why should we stop them? I take lots of unnecessary risks mountaineering, because it’s what fills my cup.

You make great points about orbitals, and I do agree from a logical standpoint. Maybe Mars proves too impractical, but the technology developed leads us in that direction instead. I’m excited for the future either way.

[arrowsmith]

Suppose it was possible to travel to Mars and survive on its surface. Even if no-one ever moves there permanently, I'm sure that many people would visit, just like people currently seek adventure in remote and inhospitable locations on Earth.

Maybe we'll even get a version of the show Alone that's set on Mars. "We dropped ten astronauts off in isolated locations on the Martian surface. Let's see who can survive the longest!" I'd tune in to that.

[dwighttk]

Very expensive snuff film

[cletus]

> IMO, the original moon landings didn’t make a lot of sense

The Space Race made perfect sense. It was a political exercise. a proxy for war between nuclear powers. As long as civilizations have existed they've built monuments and undertaken massive tasks as a political exercise.

> ... why should we stop them?

Who said anything about stopping them? My argument is it won't happen because the costs are so high and there's no hope of a return from that.

People like to bring up human exploration as some kind of argument but every aspect of human exploration has been an economic activity. In the Middle Ages, European colonialism was pure exploitation. Columbus's famous journey West was to find a faster way to India... for exploitation.

There is literally nothing we could produce or extract on Mars that would make economic sense to bring back to Earth.

[api]

Life doesn't make sense. It's a fantastic tower of complexity fighting against entropy. Just let hydrocarbon goo sit peacefully like it apparently does on other bodies in the universe and stop this self-replication and evolution madness.

[devbent]

> complexity fighting against entropy.

Life helps entropy along! Humans are great at taking organized things and reducing their energy states.

There's actually an argument that says life is inevitable as a result of it the universe trying to heat death itself sooner.