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Comment by Retric | Hacker News Reader

I was talking to nerds in the 90’s and going to Mars seemed like a silly waste of resources to most of us back then. Building a net positive fusion reactor seemed like a similar amount of work with a much larger payoff. I’d still rather send people on a fly by of Jupiter than land on Mars.

Your social circle may have been different, but that says more about them than the 90’s.

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Your arguments would work just as well against going to the moon. For being nerds it sounds like your friend circle was more on the finance side thinking in terms of projected returns rather than exploratory adventures.

We really wanted to actually visit other stars. Fusion, asteroid mining, and zero g manufacturing were all major components of that. Planting a flag on Mars just isn’t.

Figuring out how to live on Mars mostly involves solving Mars specific problems. It’s close enough to the sun you can just use solar panels, enough gravity to avoid most zero g problems, there’s an actual atmosphere to extract oxygen and carbon from, minimal need for deltaV, etc etc.

America went to the moon, because if they didn't then the Soviet would be there first. That's the real reason, and that explains why nobody ever went back since. (Why bother, when you are not number one? It's hard to justify the bills when you show it to people.)

I believe eventually we will be on the moon again, and on Mars, but it will require a lot more technical progress before the cost-benefit analysis makes sense. Or maybe all we need is a second cold war, with murderous dictators propped up around the world, CIA toppling governments, proxy wars killing millions, that kind of thing. Choose your pick.

Why do you think if human finally settle on Mars, there won't be any war on Mars? Are they not human anymore when they settle on Mars?

Umm, I think you misunderstood. I didn't say going to Mars would end wars, I was speculating on what conditions should be met on Earth, before someone lands on Mars.

Just as silly as crossing an ocean to find out what’s on the other side at the risk of death.

Hardly, land on earth has huge value. Wind and waves let you cheaply transport vast amounts of goods to and from remote locations etc.

I’m all for learning to mine asteroids and actually live in space, but Mars is a literal and figurative dead end.

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