The value of manned space flight?

[Kichwas]

If you can make Mars habitable, you can definitely make Earth habitable for a lot less money. And while climate change is bad, and has the potential for massive consequences worldwide, it’s not going to make Earth less viable than Mars.

I'm dubious that will ever manage to make Mars habitable. But in trying, we might figure out fixing Earth.

 

[The Firebird]

I'm dubious that will ever manage to make Mars habitable. But in trying, we might figure out fixing Earth.

Why not just spend the money working on earth? The technologies, in many cases, are opposites. Earth needs to be cooler. Mars warmer.

 

[Professor Murder]

Up to a point.

Go into space in general? Yes. Plenty to learn and accomplish that ahs direct benefits here for us back on Earth.

Pushing at this time for colonizing other worlds? Pure arrogance. We can't even successfully live on the planet we come from. Spending billions to allow a handful of exemplary astronauts to ultimately briefly live on Mars before returning is a mistake.

Until we can prove as a species we can exist on our home planet, we are proving we can't do so elsewhere. We lack the maturity.

 

[payn]

Space stations, probably in the belt are more likely than Mars.

 

[Morrus]

In other news, Artemis launches in a couple of hours! I plan to stay up late and watch it.

 

[Ryujin]

Colonizing Mars or another body in our solar system, or beyond, is not happening before unchecked climate change risks our extinction. Not even space station colonies. Colonizing the solar system will not save us.

The research, the exploration, the knowledge gained has value and can help us with our problems here. But our problems will not be solved by leaving Earth, all of us or just some of us.

Well, except for the techbro oligarchs. I'm supportive of them all emigrating to Mars, post haste.

I can think of at least one thing, that is within our grasp, that could help in many ways. Orbital crystal growth. Creating flawless crystals, on even a small scale, helps with communications, clocks, and the production of measuring devices. It could help with developing the next level of electronics, that are more power efficient. Knowing what is happening is the first step in correcting it.

EDIT - And I'll help build the orbital oligarch trebuchet, if they'll have me.

 

[Clint_L]

Oh good lord.

Of course, not all who support funding space programs wish to "abandon" Earth.

But looking at the colonization of other bodies as a way to "save" humanity is not only a theme in sci-fi stories, but a belief many hold . . . including a not small percentage of the oligarchs who control so much of our modern society.

That's the thing - it's a cop out. It's a way of passing the buck instead of actually acknowledging and fixing the harm they are doing right now.

 

[Ryujin]

Why not just spend the money working on earth? The technologies, in many cases, are opposites. Earth needs to be cooler. Mars warmer.

I don't think that we're going to get to terraforming anytime soon but as an IT guy and student of pop culture, two things immediately occur to me.

The first is the IT practice that you never test something in "production."

The second is:

 

[Dire Bare]

Look, folks, NASA is 0.35% of the Federal budget. A fractuon of one percent. You can't solve major world problems by scraping funds out of NASA.

Plus, as previously noted, NASA is a net positive, economically. It pays for itself a couple times over, creates jobs, and all that. Cutting it without a specific, really good plan would make economic problems worse, not better.

Not what I'm arguing.

 

[MarkB]

You're kidding me, right?

Are you playing semantics? That the Earth itself isn't dying and will survive whatever humanity throws at it? Which is true, Earth will survive. We may not.

If you are denying the reality or severity of human-caused climate change . . . .

Yes, climate change is an issue. But it's an issue we can solve more easily than we can colonise space or other worlds. Ultimately, the easiest planet to terraform is our own.