The Mars Delusion: Why the Red Planet May Be a Death Sentence
Space advocates have long dreamed of settling Mars as a lifeboat for humanity. But after decades of hype, the reality is grim: Mars is an uncompromisingly hostile world, and establishing a human presence there could leave pioneers irradiated, sick, and dead. This essay traces the dream's origins—from a mistranslation of 'canali' to Elon Musk's shifting timelines—and asks whether the obsession is worth the cost.
Mars is an uncompromisingly hostile planet and a dreadful place to be a living organism.
- cosmic_cheese
This topic is a bit of a sore spot for me.
I would agree that any notion of a large martian settlement (much less a comfortable one that people actually want to live in) on any shorter timeframe is not realistic and that Mars cannot be treated as a "plan B" in the case of climate change making Earth uninhabitable, but total dismissal of the idea (as well as the idea that humans will forever [and potentially should] be permanently Earth-bound) rubs me the wrong way.
Yes, it's an unfathomably difficult and complex project that should not be in any way underestimated. Realistically, it will take many decades at minimum and probably in excess of a century. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be attempted however, and it's not as if any of it will magically get easier in all the time spent not trying. This could wind up being a self-fulfilling prophecy sort of situation if it's allowed to be.
- hackeraccount
I liked‘A City On Mars’. That said I think it didn't have the right sense of scale. The Weinersmith's offered up a bunch of reasons why the eponymous city would never be possible but I think the most important bit - which they would concede I think - is that it's not Never but rather not any time soon.
200 years? 300? Timescales like that are going to create solutions to all the problems they listed. It's why they spend time knocking people suggesting we'll have boots on the moon in 50 years.
The modest stuff being done now - say setting up something equivalent to the various Antarctic bases on the moon seem like a reasonable step today towards something in the future.
- jodrellblank
See also Idlewords’ essays “Why not Mars” and “The shape of a Mars mission”
https://idlewords.com/2023/1/why_not_mars.htm
https://idlewords.com/2025/02/the_shape_of_a_mars_mission.ht...
““”Twenty years of tinkering with the much simpler systems on the space station have brought them no closer to reliability. And yet to get a crew to Mars, we’d need to get this stuff working like a Swiss watch. Humanity does not need a billion dollar shit dehydrator that can work for three years in zero gravity, but a Mars mission can’t leave Earth without it.“””
and his article l’affair siloxane:
https://mceglowski.substack.com/p/laffaire-siloxane
And Charles Stross’ “The High Frontier Redux” (2007)
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2007/06/the-high...
“”” Mars is ... well, the phrase "tourist resort" springs to mind, and is promptly filed in the same corner as "Gobi desert". As Bruce Sterling has puts it: "I'll believe in people settling Mars at about the same time I see people settling the Gobi Desert. The Gobi Desert is about a thousand times as hospitable as Mars and five hundred times cheaper and easier to reach. Nobody ever writes "Gobi Desert Opera" because, well, it's just kind of plonkingly obvious that there's no good reason to go there and live.””””
- gumby
I am extremely excited and supportive of the exploration of our solar system and beyond.
But what’s with the obsession of sending humans?? Robots already do the important space science (at least the data collection parts) and are well adapted to working in space, unlike humans who have to drag a chunk of Earth around with them everywhere. Robots are leaving the solar system, while no human would be interested in such a journey, no matter how interested they are in the data.
Frankly, the people who act as if it’s important to have humans in space, as rather embarrassing.
On the other hand, I’m perfectly supportive of human spaceflight for tourism and recreation. But let’s not pretend that humans should be involved in the important work out there, except from Earth.
Never send a human to do a machine’s job.
- EA-3167
It’s an interesting article, but my advice is to skip the middleman and get a copy of the book discussed, ‘A City On Mars’. It’s entertaining, informative and well researched/cited. It’s also my go-to recommendation for people coming at this from a layperson/enthusiast perspective because the reasons why “colonize Mars anytime soon” is comical and an obvious lie once you dig in are complex. Unfortunately said reasons are multidisciplinary to the extreme so an overview in digestible form can be helpful for people who’ve been emotionally invested in this fantasy.