I don't know if I agree. Creating a self-sustainable colony on Mars will take a very long time and even if we manage to do it can we really afford to "lose" the earth? Mars is an inhospitable hell for humans and practical terraforming technology is still in the realm of science fiction. Maybe if we manage to destroy earth completely out of selfishness and hate we don't really deserve to spread the virus throughout the galaxy?

And running away won't solve our problems. How long until our current earthly political and environmental issues are reproduced on Mars? We have "human" issues, not "earth" issues, simply moving the problem is not a solution. If we can't sustain our development in a civilized manner on a lush and hospitable planet I don't think we'll fare much better on Dune.

Not that I'm against colonizing Mars but I'd prefer if we did it out of a shared dream of a trans-planetary humanity rather than out of fear of self-destruction.

Very unlikely that we could do anything on Earth that would make Mars look like a better place to live.

"Very unlikely that we could do anything on Earth that would make Mars look like a better place to live. "

Humanity: Hold my beer....

Runaway global warming or global thermonuclear war will still leave many parts of the Earth far more habitable then Mars.

Even if the biosphere were to go to hell, it would still have an atmosphere, and a magnetic field. Fantasists have wildly impractical ideas for fixing the former on Mars, but nothing for the latter.

There is a solution to both, and it's not impractical: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13796364

The universe is full of planet destroying events, why single ourselves out and say we are a virus?

Sure, we need to be better stewards of our environment, but I fail to see how our species is inherently worse then a meteor destroying a planet.

>If we can't sustain our development in a civilized manner on a lush and hospitable planet I don't think we'll fare much better on Dune.

Arrakis at least had an oxygen and nitrogen rich atmosphere.

And a valuable natural resource to make the whole colonization thing worth it.

Well, heh, when you look at the events that unfold afterwards, "worth it" is debatable.

True. I didn't read that series far after the first book, so I will not presume to debate you on that. :)

I agree about self-created problems, but what about annihilation through any other "natural" mass extinction event? I'd argue that to be a good motivating factor.

That's an interesting proposition, but how realistic is it really?

If we're talking about something like a huge asteroid colliding with the earth and/or a huge volcanic episode that would trigger a mass instinction, wouldn't the pale blue dot still be more hospitable than Mars? We have access to technology the dinosaurs didn't have, our chances of survival would probably be much better overall.

Even in case of man-made devastation, such as mass pollution or a nuclear winter I think it's safe to assume that Earth would still be more habitable than Mars.

How about something even more destructive? Maybe something like a gamma ray burst? Well then Mars is probably not far away to put it out of harm's way, although maybe they would be more likely to be unaffected by it if it hit the other side of the planet due to its very thin atmosphere? I'm not sure.

If an event happened that caused the Earth's atmosphere to not be breatheable in a number of hours, would anyone survive? We may have the technology but do there already exist any artificial independent self-sustaining human habitats on Earth that would survive? We could try to build such habitats now -- it would probably be cheaper than going to Mars -- but I think we would have trouble forcing ourselves to spend the money and effort on it and have trouble keeping it honest (avoiding any cheats where it's mostly independent but still dependent on the Earth's ecosystem for some specific uses) without a separate goal (being on another planet) and a hard forcing factor (an environment that doesn't allow any cheats).

The fear of self-destruction (or phrased as its complement, the drive for survival) is one of the most potent motivators that humans have.

The argument could be made that Martian humans would be supremely motivated to move the environmental parameters there toward a survivable state for lightly-outfitted humans.

Contrast this with Earth, where space exploration is a four-order or fifth-order concern for most people, and long-term environmental issues are treated as abstract exercises in reducing economic externalities. This is because Earthlings have (mostly) had it easy. We're biologically evolved and culturally adapted to survive here, and thus don't have a strong intrinsic motivation (yet) to maintain the long-term health of the biosphere.

If we could terraform a planet as barren as Mars, wouldn't fixing earth be significantly easier?

No, because Earth is still covered with humans that can obstruct your plan for irrational reasons.

Yes, which is exactly why we should terraform Mars: as a test run of a severe-case rebuilding scenario. If we can handle Mars even at its best (let alone its worst), then we can handle Earth in all but the most catastrophic events.

I personally feel that having a "fallback" in case something literally Earth shattering happens is compelling enough a reason to colonize other bodies in our solar system, Mars included.

I just dont get it why we have to go down another gravity well.. why is it such a unpopular idea, to put some tents up inside a asteroid?

I don't disagree. Ceres ain't that much further, and it's literally a giant ball of water and hydrocarbons.

That said, it's possible that even Mars' relatively low gravity is enough to stave off the health problems associated with prolonged microgravity/freefall, so that might be good motivation. If there's some lower bound on how high g needs to be in order for our bones to not become brittle, and Mars is above it while - say - the Moon is below it - then Mars is really the only option besides the moons of the gas/ice giants (and their respectively-giant gravity wells) or Venus (with its Earth-like gravity well and its hellscape of a surface).

So there's another scientific motivation: to measure the effects of low but existing gravity on human health.

Yes, it would be.

The biggest problem to fixing earth is the people with politics that fly in the face of reality. Mars Doesn't have republicans, so I think it would be easier to terraform than earth.

Unless you're building better humans, we're going to have the exact same political problems on Mars that we do on Earth. Except in an environment where any small thing going wrong has the potential to kill everyone.

>Unless you're building better humans, we're going to have the exact same political problems on Mars that we do on Earth.

No, not immediately.

This isn't much different from other colonization missions in human history: humans from one place got sick of the people living there, and went somewhere (relatively) uninhabited so they could live the way they wanted without the political problems they had back home. Eventually, there were new political problems of course, but that took generations; for the initial travelers, it was a sensible move. And the political problems that came were likely different, as so much time had passed.

Doesn't that already describe Earth?

We could accidentally fire nukes, accidentally let a GM smallpox strain out, accidentally start WW3, we could do so much as it is. That is beside the point anyway.

Presumably the first people to go to Mars are going to be vetted for some level of education and skill. This will likely prevent the fear mongering, demagoguery and other forms of lying that allow some successful politicians argue against singularly true facts, at least for a little while. Likely until the mars colony is self sufficient.

Even then it seems unlikely you will get an anti-global warming lobby on Mars, because it is good for every business (presuming breathable air is government utility/service).