this post was submitted on 15 Sep 2023
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[–] [email protected] 57 points 1 year ago (3 children)

just send all the billionaires to mars and the rest of us will have to learn how to survive without them

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

More like Celebrate.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's a common misspelling of "thrive".

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What makes you guys think they can't rule over you from Mars? On the other hand, that would just make them out of reach of any protests or riots and even more immune from consequences.

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[–] [email protected] 44 points 1 year ago (1 children)

both are not mutually exclusive

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago

Yep. People definitely want to colonize the first one. The only thing keeping apartments off that location is strict governmental regulation of space like that. The desire is definitely there though.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I don't think space travel is inherently a bad idea. But I don't think it'd be the billionaires to get us there, especially not someone like Elon.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

SpaceX is a rocket ship manufacturer, NASA outsourced that like the US military outsources aircraft manufacturing to Boeing or Lockheed Martin.

Elon is not going to/was never going to "get us there" he's just the guy who owns the company that makes the vehicles. Idk what this huge miscommunication is and how people got to the idea that he's personally going to be the one who pushes humanity to mars, he doesn't even have a say in the operations NASA uses his spacecraft for.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Elon used to say he was going to found a Mars colony. I don't pay much attention to him so maybe he doesn't talk about it anymore, but it was a big thing maybe fifteen years ago.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

He very definitely would pull the same shit as the bad guys in Total Recall while pretending he's a hero

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The poor moon, it gets skipped over. Doesn't it deserve to be colonized too? Maybe we could put an amusement park there or something.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Ooh! It could have animatronics that sing songs about what it was like being a whaler on the moon!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Or farming space beetles on the half of the planet your family owns

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Shhhh!!! 🤫 This the best chance we have to get rid of a bunch of them all at once

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I don't think anyone deserves to be a space slave to Musk.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Nah, he can take his simps. They won't be missed. Half of thrm are fascists anyways.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Me (a sysadmin): We need an off-site backup. Preferably in a completely different "availability zone".

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

I love the thought of being one of the only programmers on Mars. Being able to say: "I'm gonna do it my way. What are you gonna do, travel to Mars?", when some comes up with a stupid request, would be absolutely priceless.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Okay, but The Planet Crafter is really cool for exactly that reason. You slowly but surely make a barren wasteland livable, it's extremely rewarding

Edit: I may have misunderstood the intention of this meme, but I still stand behind Planet Crafter being a fun game

[–] [email protected] 45 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Meanwhile on earth we are slowly but surely making a livable planet a barren wasteland

For money

For like 400 massive douchebags

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yeah, pretty much. What was the name of that movie? Oh yeah, Elysium. That's probably what's going to happen, isn't it

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Bet Elongated Husk will be the one to build the Elysium.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I'm all for it. With his ability to fuck things up, he'd actually do us a favour for once

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Let him. Hopefully someone will then hack into Space Force network and nuke it.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Can't eat the rich if we can't reach the rich.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (7 children)

It's not about prime real estate, it's about increasing the redundancy of humanity's survival. Two planets are better than one.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

There seems to be a large amount of overlap between people who say things like "It's hubris to think that humans can change the atmosphere of the earth enough to make a noticeable difference in 400 years" and "we can make Mars inhabitable by humans in 50 years"

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (2 children)

What the fuck, no there isn't. Are you actually implying most people that are interested in a mars colony are climate change deniers?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

More the other way around, I know a surprising amount of climate change deniers that think we need to colonize Mars to save the human race.

I'm not trying to say it can't or it shouldn't be done, but it has to be both. We have to find a way to live sustainably and also expand.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It's also not about Terraforming! That's a goal for a few thousand years down the line. For now, just spreading out our habitats is a good idea.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (4 children)

In order to colonize mars, having a good space station in orbit would help out immensely. We're talking big enough to stretch out and hold a few hundred people.
The station would need to grow crops and have minor but flexible manufacturing.
At that point, why would you colonize mars vs just make more stations?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

For real, resource extraction is a big one. Finding ice means they can make, besides water, oxygen and rocket fuel. Not to mention that shelters for radiation are incredibly hard to make without a huge amount of mass, which we cannot efficiently get into orbit without a space elevator. Hence being able to extract it from the location of the colony, say dig into the ground or build thick walls with bricks made from soil, is necessary for long term survival of the inhabitants. I think it is cool that due to these reasons having air balloons over Venus might even be a better option due to it having a protective atmosphere.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You can make a radiation field by running a large motor that would save you from the solar radiation.
In space you always have access to the sun. A cheap form of power. You need a lot more batteries if you're on the planet.

Venus is a much better idea over mars.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Didn't know that it was feasible to create a radiation field by running a large motor. Not that I doubt you, but if you have a source I would be very happy to read more about it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I heard about it on one of Isaac Arthur's videos. I can't remember which one, but the analogy he used was that earth's magnetosphere is essentially a big motor created by earth's metal core spinning. (Oversimplified) So you should be able to build a motor that would shield a station

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Sure, and theoretically we could do a lot of shit. Isaac Arthur isnt a scientist he's a edutainment YouTuber.

Creating our own magnetosphere is a little more complex or we'd have already done it, plus what happens if it fails? Where's your backup? You just gonna die when it shuts down?

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Space stations don't produce raw materials, even if they could self sustain their human populations with food grown onboard they'd require the resources of earth to build and expand, so they're still dependent on Earth.

A space station wouldn't make anything inherently easier, unless it was attached via space elevator just having a chunk of metal in orbit doesn't change how much energy you need to get things out of the gravity well.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Mining is a big reason. And radiation shielding, as others have said.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Space colonies are cool but we're nowhere close to being able to make a self-sustaining colony

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's Kirkjufell in Iceland

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

You could have just slapped any combination of letters together in that name as long as there's a J and I'd still believe this sentence.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Lol so true.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Villia Starlight strikes again.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I wouldn't mind leaving a lot of Earth's natural beauty alone, as much as SpaceX's mission doesn't resonate with me very much

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