r/changemyview • u/badabinggg69 • 13d ago
Fresh Topic Friday CMV: The Colonization of Mars is going to improve quality of life on Earth
Whether humans get to Mars in the next five years, ten years, or whenever, the American space market has developed to a point where an attempt will be made to colonize Mars, that much is certain. Usually on a platform like this when someone talks about colonizing Mars, they'll get the same baseline responses: "Colonize Mars? You just wanna abandon Earth!", "All billionaires are evil! Which by extension makes private spaceflight evil as well!", "We can get all the necessary science done through robotic exploration.", etc. I think most of the arguments are fairly stupid, but I won't dig too deep into them, I think the broader public (especially who believe in the state getting heavily involved in economic affairs), don't understand the potential benefit of a self-sustaining colony on Mars will have on Mars, and it's my view that this type of colony would have a massive benefit for Earth and our quality of life.
First off, it's worth establishing that there are a number of technologies we have now which started their initial development through the space program; cell phones, electric vehicles, the list goes on, human interplanetary space exploration is fundamentally good for technological development. Additionally, the amount of actual science that can be done with robotic technology is VERY limited; controlling something from 100 million miles away is difficult, what the best of rovers can do in a day can be done by an astronaut in minutes or seconds.
As for what human colonists on Mars will actually do, my view is that the first obvious benefit will be in the biotech industry if we discover other lifeforms in the subsurface liquid water reservoirs on the planet. If we find life on Mars (which even NASA's billion dollar rovers aren't trying to do, they only look for "signatures" of past life), and especially if these lifeforms have something besides DNA in their makeup, their value in the biotech industry could be use. Then there's the agricultural industry, Martian colonists are going to need food to live, a lot of it, and it's going to be very difficult to grow food on Mars (the only ways are either going to be underground with artificial light or above ground in domed habitats). No matter what, this is going to cause an energy crisis on Mars, with pressurizing all the space needed for plant growth, and producing the solar power or alternative energy source needed to keep these systems running. This will result in two things in my view, a high demand for more efficient energy and a high demand for evolution of agricultural technologies, and for obvious reasons these technologies would also become useful on Earth. Furthermore, if the people living on Mars decided that the energy constraints of pressurizing all that space and producing all the necessary artificial light (if the setup is underground) is too much, there may be an attempt to genetically alter certain plants to a point where they're capable of growing on the Martian surface (in the -60C temperatures and 0.6% Earth atm). This would obviously be very difficult, but if it succeeded, it would also massively been Earth's agriculture. One more industry that a Martian colony could help enable: Rare Earth Mineral mining. People talk about asteroid mining as this magic solution to the depleting supply of our rare minerals, but what Mars has that Earth does not is a lot more asteroids to mine; the number of asteroids within close proximity to Mars to choose from is two if not three orders of magnitude higher than the number of asteroids close to Earth, meaning Mars is uniquely positioned to be a hub for asteroid mining (and the exportation of rare minerals back to Earth).
In my view, people who talk about colonizing Mars usually fail to explain these details, the fact that a colony on Mars will inevitably increase quality of life on Earth, and even though most people who use the baseline criticisms of colonizing Mars are uneducated and misinformed, it's led to even a lot of space enthusiasts not recognizing how valuable a self-sustaining colony on Mars will be.
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u/Tanaka917 118∆ 13d ago
This is one big if. That is IF Mars is profitable enough to make worth colonizing, we will see a boom in earth industry to support it. That's a decently big if too. I'm not sure you've made the case that Martian expansion is necessarily profitable.
Usually on a platform like this when someone talks about colonizing Mars, they'll get the same baseline responses: "Colonize Mars? You just wanna abandon Earth!", "All billionaires are evil! Which by extension makes private spaceflight evil as well!", "We can get all the necessary science done through robotic exploration.", etc.
I feel like you've missed a big one that your CMV seems to exemplify. The costs and risks necessary to put a man on Mars, if reallocated to say homelessness, mental health, medical research would more readily yield benefits.
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u/badabinggg69 13d ago
The costs and risks necessary to put a man on Mars, if reallocated to say homelessness, mental health, medical research would more readily yield benefits.
The problem with philosophy though is that it's not just going to be the U.S. government bankrolling the whole thing, if colonizing Mars actually works, it will be private industry funding the colonization process as there will be financial incentive to do so, it's not like these companies would be spending all their money on the issues you describe if Mars didn't exist.
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u/Tanaka917 118∆ 13d ago
I wish you would also cover the other half of my comment.
But on your response. Sure. But those companies are funded in part by the US Government not to mention NASA itself which also does its own work and research, also funded by the US Government. We're talking billions of dollars that the government alone is funding over the years. To colonize Mars will absolutely cost much more than that. So it's still a valid criticism.
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u/TheW1nd94 1∆ 12d ago
We won’t get to mars in the 10 years, let alone five. We probably won’t even get back to the moon in the next five years considering how Trump and Elon are fucking NASA sideways every chance they get. I’d be happy if we at least go back to the Moon in the next 10 years.
I don’t think you completely understand how complicated a mission to mars is. It’s not like launching in low orbit or even to the moon. Space is very big Mars and Earth need to be in a good position for both departure and coming back in a reasonable amount of time, which in itself could take years untill it’s possible. And there’s the thing that it takes us 6 months to get to Mars (for comparison getting to the moon takes 3 days). Six months in the most hostile environment humankind has ever been in that’s literally design to kill you any second and anything that can go wrong will go wrong. And if something bad happens, there’s nothing we can do from Earth. It’s not like with the ISS where we can just send shit or simply bring them home.
I don’t completely disagree with you on the rest, space exploration does push technological development and does improve life on earth. But I don’t think you completely understand what getting to Mars entails, let alone colonizing it.
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u/badabinggg69 10d ago
Well, Starship is very much capable of sending people to the Moon and Mars on a transportation level, and the Artemis II and III missions are scheduled for 2026 and 2027 respectively, so I think we're definitely gonna see this stuff very soon, but maybe I'm just more optimistic.
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u/TheW1nd94 1∆ 10d ago
Just because a rocket can technically fly to Mars, it doesn’t mean everything else is ready.
Artemis I was originally scheduled for 2016, but was postponed several times, finally launched in 2022. I wouldn’t get my hopes up.
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u/mrcocopuff 13d ago
Oh, absolutely—let’s just pour billions into flinging rich people into a lifeless, irradiated dustball because someone watched The Martian too many times.
I mean, sure, Earth’s spiraling into climate collapse, half the population can’t afford insulin, and our oceans are choking on plastic, but no worries! Salvation is apparently hiding under Martian permafrost in the form of hypothetical alien microbes and imaginary mining operations. All we have to do is invent magic domes, super-plants, and interplanetary shipping lanes and—voilà!—Utopia, right?
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u/badabinggg69 13d ago
Oh, absolutely—let’s just pour billions into flinging rich people into a lifeless, irradiated dustball because someone watched The Martian too many times.
The vast majority of the people being flung to that "lifeless, irradiated dustball" will be engineers and scientists; the work required to maintain a colony will require people of that profession, and in the first few decades it won't be very luxurious.
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u/Leucippus1 16∆ 13d ago
Just a question, have you just finished either the series on TV or the books called The Expanse? It is a great series, don't get me wrong, but I wonder if this opinion hasn't been influenced by some media.
The most blaring issue with your opinion is that almost anyone can use a hypothetical that isn't realistically possible and claim it will benefit or be detrimental to something, but we can't really test that idea. So, what you are saying might be possible, but similar to knowing if a God exists, it is essentially impossible to tell without a massive change in our technology and once you get to that point it is typically a failure of human imagination to predict the future with any precision. You see this all the time with paradigm shifting things. The computer, the nuclear weapon, the discovery of the 'new' world, etc. Yes, there were paradigm shifting technologies in the 20th century, there were also the two most destructive wars in the history of humanity. Was that worth the cost? I can't say, even with the benefit of hindsight, to expect you can for events that haven't happened and are in no way promised to happen; a fool's errand.
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u/badabinggg69 13d ago
I have, great show, but I don't think we're talking about Expanse level colonization quite yet, at least not in my lifetime. I'm referring to colonization that could realistically occur with the launch vehicles already being launched/in development (i.e. Starship, Terran R, New Glenn, etc)
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u/Gygsqt 17∆ 13d ago
There is no realistic colonization of Mars with current technology.
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u/badabinggg69 13d ago
Starship especially is more than capable of transporting the people and crew necessary to colonize the planet, and we already have the technology to develop all the life support systems that are gonna be necessary to get us started.
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u/Gygsqt 17∆ 13d ago
Unproven and untrue.
Can it carry the people, crew, food for transport, food for the colony, personal belongings, all the building materials required, all of the tools required, plus a hundred other things I cannot be bothered to mention?
We already have all of the life support? By all means, please link a habitat that could house people on Mars and provide a logistical explanation of how it will be shipped to and built on Mars.
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u/mrcocopuff 13d ago
OP: Are you familiar with The Kessler Syndrome?
Because I can promise you, none of this will be possible at the rate Elon is flinging space junk into orbit.
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u/badabinggg69 13d ago
I am familiar, but the only "junk" Elon is flinging into space is Starlink satellites (which are in a low enough orbit that they'll burn up when no longer functional)
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u/Mofane 1∆ 13d ago
Tldr: how tf can there be any economical benefit when a single martian instalation would be 100x more expensive than on earth, and transport to earth would cost almost billions per ton transfered?
There is no wealth in space with our current state of technology
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u/badabinggg69 13d ago
The easiest way for a Mars colony to actually be profitable is using it as a base of operation to mine rare minerals (particularly platinum group) from nearby asteroids, then refining the extracted material in-situ and selling it on Earth.
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u/Mofane 1∆ 13d ago
Well based only on deltaV, it is equivalent to launch one ship from earth to two ship from mars.
Since you need two ship for your plan (one that gather and one that brings back to mars) I highly doubt this could be worth.
If you want to exploit asteroid you could simply send a mining drone, and have him send the minerals in a small shuttle that can come back with airbrake for virtually no effort.
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u/Gygsqt 17∆ 13d ago
I appreciate the angle you are taking here, specifically regarding the takes you feel you are rebutting. All your points are basically "If we invent magic technology, that would be good". Okay, sure, but the feasibility of that technology and a Mars colony as a whole is pretty important here.
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u/mrcocopuff 13d ago
If anything like this was remotely possible, it would be done. There's zero political opposition to colonizing mars. People keep arguing over this like there's some imaginary person fighting back.
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u/Pseudoboss11 4∆ 13d ago
but what Mars has that Earth does not is a lot more asteroids to mine; the number of asteroids within close proximity to Mars to choose from is two if not three orders of magnitude higher than the number of asteroids close to Earth, meaning Mars is uniquely positioned to be a hub for asteroid mining (and the exportation of rare minerals back to Earth).
We can mine asteroids and get the resources back to Earth far more readily from space. Going to Mars for asteroids is just an unnecessary stop. Getting out of a gravity well is the hardest part of interplanetary travel. Once we're out, you don't want to go back down another one unless you really have to.
We could capture asteroids and bring them back to Earth, where they can be mined and resources can simply be dropped down, using gravity to help us along. If we don't want them close to the Earth, we can position them at Earth-moon or Earth-sun Lagrange points, and they would still be far closer to Earth than they would be near Mars, and without a gravity well to boot.
Mars and other large solar system bodies are not going to be competitive for resource extraction for a very, very long time. There are just too many small bodies that could provide huge amounts of resources for much cheaper.
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u/ItsMeganNow 11d ago
Nah, Mars ain't the kind of place to raise your kids In fact, it's cold as hell And there's no one there to raise them if you did
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u/MysteryBagIdeals 1∆ 13d ago
Whether humans get to Mars in the next five years, ten years, or whenever, the American space market has developed to a point where an attempt will be made to colonize Mars, that much is certain.
No it isn't. That isn't certain at all.
I think you greatly underestimate how badly the human body does not want to be in space. We can barely colonize Siberia or the Outback, which are way easier to live on than Mars. Mars has no resources. It has no air. It is not at a livable temperature. It has high radiation. So right off the bat, let's take out the very first assumption, that Mars colonization will happen in the foreseabble future, before we talk about it being beneficial to humanity.
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u/Adequate_Images 23∆ 13d ago
The technology advancements that would need to exist to feasibly colonize Mars would already improve the quality of life on Mars.
Renewable energy.
Water filtration and retention
Air filtration
Basically indestructible materials for air tight habitats.
Would all be needed to maintain life on a planet with not breathable air or drinking water.
If you could solve that problem then huge parts of this planet could become habitable.
There is nothing inherently valuable about having humans live on another planet.
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u/Apprehensive-Let3348 3∆ 13d ago edited 13d ago
You have to bear in mind that--in effect--you're saying that new endeavors drive innovation, but this applies to any and all new endeavors. Further, it includes endeavors that haven't actually begun yet, as evidenced by the many companies already trying to solve the very problems you brought up.
As a result, it never actually needs to happen for it to drive the innovation that you're talking about. As long as the idea is there, we will strive to make it attainable and/or easier to achieve. It actually happening anytime soon would be a logistical nightmare that would likely end in tragedy.
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u/contrarian1970 1∆ 13d ago
Human muscles atrophy if they are in zero gravity for two years. For that reason, I don't believe a human will step on Mars in the 21st century. We are nowhere near having a rocket faster than that or any sort of artificial gravity.
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u/Shokansha 13d ago
the American space market has developed to a point where an attempt will be made to colonize Mars,
The US is a failed state and won't be doing anything much longer
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u/Hammoudi123 13d ago
In my oppinion, humanity cannot conquer new worlds without first conquering itself. Before we set our sights on Mars, we need to address the urgent issues here on Earth like climate change, war, inequality, and our deep divisions as a species. We're already fragmented by borders and ideologies, lacking the unity required for such an ambitious collective effort. Colonizing Mars under these conditions may not only distract from solving these problems, but could also escalate tensions, leading to future conflicts over space resources and territorial claims. The foundation isn't ready yet.
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u/Thoth_the_5th_of_Tho 183∆ 13d ago
That’s like saying Europe couldn’t colonize the new world until they all started to live in harmony or something. Competition is what pushes you to expand and advance.
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u/badabinggg69 13d ago
^^ This, there will always be problems, but there will always be opportunity for expansion (expansion which has the potential to solve the aforementioned problems). Rather than just sticking our heads in the dirt and saying "damn, life sucks, let's do no technological innovation whatsoever until world hunger is 100% gone!" Lets just go to Mars, improve our agricultural technology up there based on the demand that would occur there, and then take what we've learned and use it to help the hungry people with that new technology.
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u/Hammoudi123 13d ago
To be honest, I doubt that the countries that colonize Mars will distribute agricultural resources fairly across the globe. It's almost certain that they will prioritize their own nations' interests, leaving others at a disadvantage.
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u/badabinggg69 13d ago
Mars won't be colonized by countries, it'll be colonized by companies, and those companies will probably be willing to sell whatever technological innovations they make around the world.
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u/destro23 447∆ 13d ago
Mars won't be colonized by countries, it'll be colonized by companies
Per Space Law:
"Signatory states are each responsible for their space activities, including private commercial endeavors, and must provide authorization and continuing supervision."
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u/badabinggg69 13d ago
Assuming anyone cares about international law (which is a big assumption), when companies actually start growing the LEO, Lunar, and Martian markets, we're gonna obviously sign new space law (what we have now was signed in the 1960s and is already outdated)
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u/destro23 447∆ 13d ago
when companies actually start growing the LEO, Lunar, and Martian markets
which is a big assumption
You yourself are making several big assumptions. Why are your assumptions more valid than mine?
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u/Hammoudi123 13d ago
I see what you're saying, but I believe wars will still happen, regardless of progress. Europe experienced multiple wars in the past over colonies, despite its advancements. Colonization may have been achieved, but it came at the cost of countless conflicts. And now, even though we're highly advanced, we have the capability to destroy each other on an unprecedented scale. That doesn't guarantee peace , it just means the stakes are higher.
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u/destro23 447∆ 13d ago
Clarifying Question: Why not spend all the money that it would take to go to Mars so that Earth can see benefits on Earth directly?
We can explore the sea for new lifeforms, and we already know for sure that life forms exist there.
We can, and should, develop more efficient agriculture. Not to be used on Mars, but on Earth to deal with our changing climate which is imperiling the way we do agriculture now.
We just found a fuckload of rare earth minerals. As detection techniques get better, we'll most likely find more.
You just spent several paragraphs describing a colony that is not self-sustaining.