Hubris & Space

[eredien]

This Article seemed fascinating at first. And the discoveries that they've made are truly amazing; there's no getting around that. I mean, they've been speculating that there might be ice on Mars for at least some time now, but they've actually got more scientific evidence now to back up the earlier theories and data. It's exciting. It's fun.

So why am I complaining? The tone - not of the article, but of the scientist they interviewed in it, Jim Bell - was, to me, inexcusable. Since when has Mars, or its resources, been "waiting for" people to come and use it? He uses the phrase twice in the article. And while I applaud him for championing space exploration, I'm getting nasty flashbacks to certain chapters of Bradbury's Martian Chronicles.

Exploration and exploitation can't afford to be confused.

Comments

Re: NASA Incompetent

[eredien]

Well...Earth's tectonic activity is eventually going to slow down, like Mars' did...so we might as well start looking for other places to live now. A cushion of a thousand years or so is nice when making plans about the survival of an entire planet's life.

Re: NASA Incompetent

[theheretic.livejournal.com]

Well, short answer is the earth will never be like Mars. Long answer is earth has the requisite mass and radioactive elements breaking down to maintain our plate tectonics and magnetic field for another 4 billion years. As this is far beyond the likely existence of our species, we don't actually have to terraform. And if it gets really crowded, space habitats are very efficient use of space compared to a planet surface. Think asteroids hollowed out with soil and air inside, mirrors to provide heat, heat sinks for cooling. Frankly, humans need to resolve their problems down here before we bring them Up There. Wars in space are too expensive.