Moving to Mars

[andrewducker]

I'll believe in people settling Mars at about the same time I see people setting the Gobi Desert. The Gobi Desert is about a thousand times as hospitable as Mars and five hundred times cheaper and easier to reach. Nobody ever writes "Gobi Desert Opera" because, well, it's just kind of plonkingly obvious that there's no good reason to go there and live. It's ugly, it's inhospitable and there's no way to make it pay. Mars is just the same, really. We just romanticize it because it's so hard to reach.

Says Bruce Sterling, who is right in every way.

Comments

[derumi.livejournal.com]

Eco-terrorists would keep us from settling the Gobi desert. If Mars has no life, settling there should be fine.

Save the Martian bacteria! Say no to Earthlings!

[whiterabbitt.livejournal.com]

Only five hundred times cheaper and easier to reach? At least moving to the Gobi Desert involves an oxygen-rich atmosphere the entire way--not to mention the comparative ease of air travel versus space travel.

[kpollock.livejournal.com]

:-) But seriously, I think that there is some point point to establishing the principle of living on another planet.

Mr Sterling is totally correct as to the practicalities, however.

[happylizardboy.livejournal.com]

Exactly.

I can't remember which British scientist who said it, but during breakfast news sometime during this week he replied to the Mars question quite happily: 'We'll send people to Mars as soon as there is a reason to send people, and not vastly more efficient scientific instruments.'

On the positive side of a manned American mission to Mars: let the president lead the way.

Apologies for cheapness of gag. :)