[dsign]

>> I think it's one of the reasons we have to be self sustaining on other heavenly bodies.

This is not a joke. But every time anybody brings it up a mob shows up saying that we must make it work here on Earth, and we should all go to hell if we can't. But we only need a few madmen in power for the rest of us to not matter.

[fifilura]

I imagine that if you can colonize other planets you can also target them with nuclear weapons.

It is like saying that the solution to all problems is colonizing Antarctica.

[Manabu-eo]

It's much easier to intercept said nuclear weapon because instead of minutes you would have months to do it. And attacking Mars outside the few months every two years that have the most favorable transfer windows would also be much more difficult. It's a non-trivial advantage.

Of course, if you have nuclear weapons already on Mars that can be remotely triggered from Earth this doesn't apply, but hopefully we can avoid that...

[fifilura]

TBH I think this whole discussion - that fixing Mars should be easier than fixing Earth - is some proof that a lot of hacker news commenters are already aliens from Mars.

[cynicalpeace]

Yes- but raises an interesting problem of nuclear energy. Might be very important/useful in space.

The book series "The Expanse" does an amazing job of showing what a war in space would look like, and the role of nuclear energy.

Interestingly, nukes become small fry compared to slinging asteroids at planets.

[layer8]

The point is that making it work on Earth is orders of magnitude easier than making it work on Mars (or wherever). And by that I don’t mean that it’s easy by any stretch, but that establishing a self-sustaining colony on another planet is so much harder. In addition to the extremely challenging extraterrestrial environment (much more challenging than anything we have on Earth, including in the case of terrestrial nuclear catastrophe), all the problems that we have on Earth due to human nature will travel with us to any other planet if we don’t manage to solve them here.

[dsign]

>> The point is that making it work on Earth is orders of magnitude easier than making it work on Mars (or wherever)

I disagree.

There are folk who know the physics and the engineering of putting a colony in, say, the Moon. That knowledge is theoretical to an extent, since we haven't done it before. But we don't need any new physics or even radically new engineering. So, you get a bunch of engineers, give them 10% of the West's budget, and you are good to go. It should be said that whatever it costs to put a self-sustaining colony outside of Earth will be an investment. Even if, for whatever reason, you can't trade heavy commodities with that settlement, you are creating a blueprint. Next time somebody wants to spend $XXXXXXX in weapons or a trade war, they may consider to instead use your blueprint and go somewhere where they can live the way they want.

Now think about some other problem, like say, avoiding a nuclear war with Putin. You could give him Europe or a chunk of it an hope he would be sated. Or you could try to forcibly remove Putin from power. If you succeed, you would have turned his entire nation into a decided enemy of the West for at least a century, not less willing to use nuclear weapons. You could invade Russia--again, risking nuclear annihilation in the process--, occupy the country and destroy their nuclear stock. That's going to be 30% of the West's budget at least, and a huge human toll. The reconstruction effort will be 20% of the West's budget for many decades, and you will need to rebuild that country or their resentment will cost you dearly. What about China and Taiwan, and a few decades from now, China vs Australia and China vs India? What about global warming and ecological collapse?

I think you are failing to see the staggering complexity of "making it work on Earth", and the fact that we only need to fail once.

[defrost]

> I disagree.

Of course you do, you've followed that with

Yet Another Hand Waving Away Challenges Of Self Sustaining Off Earth Colonies.

Even if there was a self sufficient colony on Mars, it's tiny and all the other problems remain; non European colonies on Earth didn't eliminate issues at home and they were vastly simpler to establish than off planet colonies for a host of reasons you've skimmed over.

[timeon]

Point is that if we can not behave on Earth how can we do it in other place.

[addaon]

> Point is that if we can not behave on Earth how can we do it in other place.

If we have a 90% chance of behaving in any given century, we are doomed on earth. If we have a 10% chance of behaving in any given century, a continuous heritage is possible in a galaxy (re-)populated by slowships.

[palata]

Except that the current state of physics says that we just can't possibly reach another galaxy. Period.

[addaon]

> Except that the current state of physics says that we just can't possibly reach another galaxy. Period.

Yes, that's exactly why my comment limited itself to discussion of population of /this/ galaxy.

[palata]

The next star is already way too far for our theory. You may as well study telekinesis.

[fragmede]

it's an open question as to how interplanetary politics will actually go. it's possible that ancient squabbles between countries will carryover, but hopefully they won't, which means that a terrorist's nuclear bomb causing MAD on Earth wouldn't necessarily carryover to MAD on a terraformed Mars and Lunar colonies, as we saw with the Russians who boarded the ISS in blue and yellow. But even if it doesn't, Earth being hit by an asteroid is another scenario that being a multi-planetary species would prevent our extinction in.

[protomolecule]

>as we saw with the Russians who boarded the ISS in blue and yellow

That's just the colors of one of the top Russian universities from which all three cosmonauts had graduated. [0]

[0] https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Московский_государственный_тех...

[throw0101c]

> it's possible that ancient squabbles between countries

Don't forget with-in countries.

If another planet becomes another 'country', they'll have internal disagreements.

[palata]

> But every time anybody brings it up a mob shows up saying that we must make it work here on Earth

Yeah, we must. As in: it's not rational to even consider that becoming self-sustaining on other heavenly bodies is an alternative.

It's fun, it's interesting, it's many things. But it's not an alternative.

[kortilla]

Of course it’s an alternative. A self sustaining colony could be the only thing that survives a massive pandemic.

[palata]

Well if it was possible, it would be an alternative. But it's not, period. Counting on it happening in your life time is simply preposterous. But you know what might collapse during your lifetime? Our civilization. Pretty likely.

[kortilla]

> But it's not, period.

Said every dipshit Luddite 50 years ago about basically everything we enjoy on a day to day basis.

[palata]

Says everyone who actually checks what 4.25 light-years means and understands that this is actually the closest star.

But I'm always happy to be classified as "disphit" by people who apparently replace their lack of physic knowledge with some kind of faith.

[hollerith]

You mean 50 years ago when many were proclaiming that there would be whole cities in space by now? You mean that 50 years ago?

(Even more were proclaiming it 70 years ago.)