michael_nielsen

I agree we're many decades out from earnestly colonizing Mars. We'll have to get much wealthier, where "wealth" = new innovations in human wellbeing *and* reduced scarcity of those we have. But: the light bulb is <150 years old. There are people alive today born before penicillinhttps://twitter.com/KevinSimler/status/1142923685809938432 …

This is a project that is exactly as many decades away as we want it to be.

When/how would living on Mars ever be anything but a net drain on energy/money from Earth? Mars isn't full of energy sources, because it hasn't had life forms that spent hundreds of millions of years capturing and storing the Sun's energy.

Mars has no knowledge sources. Yet. Knowledge/wealth/civilisation aren't produced by energy sources, but vice versa.

Seems mutual. It took knowledge to exploit coal, oil, etc., but greater energy usage created an explosion of wealth/knowledge (I.e., people could specialize in knowledge rather than having to farm/hunt by hand, which is energy-inefficient.)

Easy low gravity is an absolutely gigantic benefit for Mars, the Moon, and space in general. The challenges of living there will (a) cost a huge amount in the short term; and (b) produce trillion dollar industries over the long term.

Do I know this to be true? No. But that's why it's exploration, not betting on certainties. Unknown unknowns dominate. My guess is that betting on Mars is a 100x bet... with a significant probability of 0x outcome.