this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2023
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theres no actual reason more than curiosity. dont get me started on colonization of other planets
GPS? Weather satellites?
The massive return on investment of the ISS?
Oh, please do, I'm curious.
its basically impossible to sustain a reasonably sized population on mars. like antarctica, except it takes like 18 months or something to get there. i dont believe that anything as dramatic as terraforming is practical or even possible. who will be allowed to go to mars? most likely only the rich. why dont we invest more money and resources into fixing our current planet? overpopulation can be avoided if we plan cities better, advocate contraception, etc. certainly more believable than sending a large portion of people to another whole planet. even if we could: should we? it would create a massive social divide. and who is running this whole thing? so far it seems like elon musk is the most mainstream advocator of this idea. would you like if your entire planet was owned by him. good luck forming a union on sector 7 of the oxygen plantation.
Living on Mars would be miserable. If colonization ever happens, it'll be because there's money to be made, and it'll be poor people who are send to die in the Mars mines or whatever.
yeah true
And it has less than half of Earth's gravity and no magnetosphere. Anyone who lived there long time will have their muscles atrophy and be irradiated.
I'd also like to add that the amount you'd need to terraphorm Mars you could just... do to Earth. I think a lot of the points you made are valid, but some of those questions are pretty hypothetical.
Idk, I think it'd be neat for humanity to go off planet and extrasolar. Even if it's not a priority, you can't really do that unless you're working towards it. Doesn't really matter to me regardless, I'll be long dead before it happens.
exactly. but spacex d***riders who believe mars is the future are retarded
I have no disagreement beyond your description of them. I agree that they're sycophantic dipshits.
Like, Mars doesn't have a magnetosphere. How the fuck do you make one of those? How do you make the gravity stronger?
Right click on Mars and edit properties. Gosh it's like you've never played Universe Sandbox.
Asteroid mining would mean no more mining on our planet, which is one of the most polluting things on here right now.
what are they mining?
metals
wow that narrows it down to only 2/3 of elements
yes? that is the point?
They can mine whatever we need, one of the first targets is titanium because it's very abundant up there, scarce down here, and incredibly useful for all sorts of chemistry and manufacturing
Pretty sure that except for the ones that we have to make in a particle accelerator, we could get the full list.
what do you even live for if curiosity is not enough of a reason to do something
maybe bc there are more important things to worry about on earth
put your phone down and start working the fields. you do not deserve anything that came out of space programs.
You know there is a thing called division of labour right?
We can have people working on multiple problems at the same time and various efforts might overlap and have a larger effect.
You are now aware of this concept.
Going to space can help us solve a lot of the problems we have on earth
Colonization, if ever possible, definitely is a good reason
Other good reasons are simply science. There are too many advancements made that would not have happened without going to space. Having satellites is a requirement now to monitor the earth and -if still possible- save it.
Of course there are bullshit projects like star link, dumping hundreds, thousands of tiny shit satellites up on the sky even though it's completely unnecessary... but that is a rich asshole problem more than a space problem
Satellite imagery is incredibly useful, especially for those looking to help the planet.