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

[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. :)