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.

[–] Serdan@lemm.ee 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

who will be allowed to go to mars? most likely only the rich.

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.

[–] darcy@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 year ago

yeah true

[–] flucksy_bango@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] flucksy_bango@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I dont believe that anything as dramatic as terraforming is practical or even possible.

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.

[–] darcy@sh.itjust.works -4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

you could just... do to Earth

exactly. but spacex d***riders who believe mars is the future are retarded

[–] flucksy_bango@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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?

[–] TheBat@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Right click on Mars and edit properties. Gosh it's like you've never played Universe Sandbox.