I'm just guessing, but fixing climate change on Earth seems a whole lot easier/more feasible than colonizing an entirely new planet which, by the way isn't very friendly to our flavor of life.
Climate change is more political, getting to Mars is more technological. If you can get the money and technology to go to Mars together faster than getting the money and political consensus to fix climate change, then going to Mars is more feasible.
What makes you think if any nation or human has the capability to colonize Mars, it wouldn't get downright messy here on Earth ... or on Mars for that matter? If you say that cooperation on climate change is impossible, how will we be able to cooperate on colonizing another planet? Even if the entity that has the capability is relatively small and focused, I'm sure there would be others making it equally difficult.
For some I guess. If your house were on fire, would you risk your life to stay and save the kids, or just jump out the window, go hide in the garage or chill at the neighbors? There's a moral dimension to the issue that can't be dodged.
If I were made of billions of independently movable conscious entities, I would send some of them to the garage and some of them to the neighbors while the mass stayed to save the kids.
Yeah but you are one person. Each of us has to make the decision. That's the root of all sorts of effects, like mob psychology or flash mobs or civilization.
So as a billionaire, do you spend your legacy on abandoning the kids and chilling at the neighbors, or staying and tending to the problems here?
Fixing climate change required people to cooperate together on a huge scale.
Space colonization don't required that much cooperation. All it needs is an environment conductive to launching rockets and currently that is the United States.
"All it needs is an environment conductive to launching rockets and currently that is the United States."
So we just launch a rocket to Mars ... wipe our hands and be done with it? Considering the efforts just to build/launch the ISS, I can't imagine rocket launching capability is high on the list of worries re:colonizing Mars.
So we just launch a rocket to Mars ... wipe our hands and be done with it? Considering the efforts just to build/launch the ISS, I can't imagine rocket launching capability is high on the list of worries re:colonizing Mars.
Colonizing Mars is going to be difficult, but it's going to involved a whole lot less people willing to cooperate and pay for it.
The issue is more technological. The rockets need to be cheaper and carry more payload to allow the feasibility of people paying for their own ticket to Mars.
