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Comment by kbenson | Hacker News Reader

> Also, uh, why don't we just fix Earth? Oh, that's not sexy? No, of course not, because real problems are always more complicated than simple, inspirational ideas or a colony run by a dictator.

Fixing your run down car will never provide the same level of utility and redundancy that having two cars will. Preferably you do both.

If you live in a somewhat remote location, and your wife is pregnant and you know she needs to go to the hospital because of complications, you don't just make sure your somewhat run-down car is in better condition, and gassed up, you also make sure to find someone else in the area that you can rely on for a vehicle because it's that important. When it comes down it it, there are things important enough that you try to reduce thy impact random chance can have on it. Having all humans on Earth is one of those things to many people.

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This argument would have a lot more merit if Earth and Mars were similar, but they're utterly not. The difficulty, expense, and risk of setting up life on Mars absolutely pales in comparison to cleaning-up life on Earth.

Suppose there were a Mars colony. How many years before that colony could go on indefinitely if it didn't have support from Earth?

> This argument would have a lot more merit if Earth and Mars were similar, but they're utterly not.

So where's the better choice for redundancy?

> The difficulty, expense, and risk of setting up life on Mars absolutely pales in comparison to cleaning-up life on Earth.

First, that's irrelevant, as a sustainable colony on Mars provides something that you don't get no matter how much you clean up Earth. It can be pristine, it still doesn't get you redundancy.

Second, I don't think it's true that the price is so far in that direction. Cleaning up Earth is monumentally expensive as well, depending on what you even mean by that.

> Suppose there were a Mars colony. How many years before that colony could go on indefinitely if it didn't have support from Earth?

Sustainable in that it can produce the materials needed for modern living? I very long time, I imagine. Sustainable in that it provides enough food and water that a group of people could survive without having to worry about modern conveniences? Much less, and that's always got to be the first step, so that's what we go for.

Even if people on a mars colony ended up living a more simple existence in the case of the loss of Earth, that's still a chance for them to advance and continue that wouldn't exist with the world ending disaster on Earth.

I don't think your redundancy is in the cards yet, technologically. You'd need a minimum of a few hundred people living on Mars long term and being able to sustain themselves.

That seems ... very far off. I dont necessarily disagree with setting a science mission up on Mars, but i'd strongly disagree with the notion that Mars is even a top priority for a diversification of baskets.

I'm not making any claim we can do this right now. I'm just making a claim that working towards this as a goal is important to many people for what I think are understandable reasons.

Also, the sooner you can get to Mars more reliable and more cheaply with larger payloads, the sooner that becomes a reality. Even if it never happens in my lifetime, that doesn't mean I think it's not worth working towards making all those things more real so it can be a reality at some point in time.

> i'd strongly disagree with the notion that Mars is even a top priority for a diversification of baskets.

Without even knowing specifically what you think would be a better choice, my guess is that cheaper, more reliable launch capabilities with bigger payloads will help that too.

Setting up a self-sustaining colony on Mars is orders of magnitude easier than fixing all the problems on Earth.

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