36 minutes ago, birdguy said:

But on Mars probably everyone in the dome will be wiped out.  But on earth enough humans would survive to start over again; and they wouldn't have to build a dome over their heads.

The domes look as if they would provide quite a lot of protection against anything other than a direct strike. I don't think the buildings here on Earth would give as much protection. I think it has been said that, if humans had existed at the time of the dinosaurs, they would also be extinct, so there's no guarantee that we would survive such a catastrophe today.

29 minutes ago, Luke said:

Are you suggesting that people who attempt to resign from Tesla or SpaceX are murdered?

Not at all.  But all this talk about a Mars colony with a population of a million and all the water and air you need will be provided by technology 100 or 500 years from now is from those mezmermized by Elon.  Why not fix Earth before colonizing Mars?

Noel

12 minutes ago, dmwalker said:

so there's no guarantee that we would survive such a catastrophe today.

Nor is there a guarantee that the Mars colony would survive.  Perhaps less of a chance than those on Earth with all that red dirt being spread across a smaller planet.

I think given the warning perhaps a year ahead of time that a large asteroid would hit would give people a chance to build shelters.  And we have technology to rebuild.  If there were people in the time of the dinosaurs they would have been living in caves or huts covered with dinosuar skins.

The world was much different back then than it is now.  People have a better chance now.

I'm not against scientific trips to Mars but not colonies.  Put the technology, time, and money that's going to be spent for a colony to house a fraction of the people on earth on repairing the damage we have done.  We can restore our own planet with less time, effort and money.

Noel

6 minutes ago, birdguy said:

Why not fix Earth before colonizing Mars?

Why not do both? We have the resources and ability to do so. Nothing is stopping you from going and working towards fixing the problems here on Earth while Elon and many others work on colonizing Mars.

The idea of colonizing Mars has been around long before Elon came on the scene, and many were already working towards that goal. It was just moving at a glacial pace and becoming bogged down with bureaucracy and politics. Elon is the first to actually make something happen. I suspect that most of us in favour of colonizing Mars do also support efforts to fix things here on Earth too. Trying to devalue our arguments by claiming we've been sucked into a cult is very disingenuous.

32 minutes ago, birdguy said:

I think given the warning perhaps a year ahead of time that a large asteroid would hit would give people a chance to build shelters.

You're assuming we would have a large warning. Asteroids coming from the direction of the Sun, for example, are nearly impossible to spot right now and we may literally have no warning at all. And if it was an asteroid or comet similar to the one that finished off the dinosaurs, I don't think there is much we could do to survive here on Earth.

https://earthsky.org/space/asteroid-2021-sg-closest-to-earth-sep21-2021/

There are also many other threats to that having a colony elsewhere would protect against.

Edited February 22, 20224 yr by goates

1 minute ago, goates said:

Why not do both? We have the resources and ability to do so.

But do we have the money and the will to do both? We seem to be struggling to come to terms with just protecting our environment. 

19 minutes ago, birdguy said:

We can restore our own planet with less time, effort and money.

That's not going too well right now, nor is there any indication that it ever will.

There are too many disincentives for the powerful.

Perhaps we can do better elsewhere, especially if from the very start we apply the lessons we've learned from our poor, abused earth.

 

23 minutes ago, dmwalker said:

But do we have the money and the will to do both? We seem to be struggling to come to terms with just protecting our environment. 

There is more than enough money and resources to fix things like poverty, homelessness and environmental problems. The problem very much is the will to do so and our choices on where to use those resources. We are very good at spending money on new ways to kill each other and entertainment (how many billions do professional sports or Hollywood really need?), but bring up putting money into helping the homeless or fixing the environment, and you get more push back than what Noel has shown towards colonizing Mars.

If we put it to a national vote on spending money and effort to go to Mars or to repairing Earth what do you think the results would be?

Noel

 

Why must it be either or?

22 minutes ago, birdguy said:

If we put it to a national vote on spending money and effort to go to Mars or to repairing Earth what do you think the results would be?

Specious argument as most people either don't understand the benefits, disregard the case because it doesn't confer short-term benefits to them, or both.

What is the virtue of the Large Hadron Collider? The James Webb telescope? Space travel?

People always argue for the easy-to-see issues. Help the homeless, help the poor, help the starving, spending more on medical care, allocating more to medical research against cancer, etc.
All noble causes, but ignores that hugely expensive activities like space exploration that occur today, bring incredibly disproportionate benefits to everyday life in the future. Space travel from yesteryear has given us solar panels, implantable heart monitors, cancer therapies, light‐weight construction materials, water‐purification systems, improved computing systems and a global search‐and‐rescue system today.

You can choose to spend on both today's pressing issues and on vastly expensive projects to further humanity. If we don't spend on tomorrow, we don't progress. If we don't progress, we will never rid ourselves of the issues that concern us today.
 

Edited February 22, 20224 yr by F737NG
Added link

23 minutes ago, birdguy said:

If we put it to a national vote on spending money and effort to go to Mars or to repairing Earth what do you think the results would be?

If the vote is between "billionaires spending their money to go to Mars or my taxes going up by a penny to fix the Earth", it wouldn't even be close.

Cheers!

36 minutes ago, birdguy said:

If we put it to a national vote on spending money and effort to go to Mars or to repairing Earth what do you think the results would be?

depends if we can ask people what they think before the propagandists get ahold of the narrative.

23 minutes ago, F737NG said:

Space travel from yesteryear has given us 

As I've said before, I'm not against space travel for scientific purposes.  I support sending scientists to Mars to do what the Rover and other automated machines cannot do.  My problem is building colonies on Mars for very special people to inhabit while neglecting the common people on Earth.

Noel

 

39 minutes ago, birdguy said:

If we put it to a national vote on spending money and effort to go to Mars or to repairing Earth what do you think the results would be?

I'd like to see the cost estimates for both but, even if they cost the same, I am guessing the cost of repairing Earth would end up at twice the estimate and the cost of going to Mars would be three times the estimate. These days, it seems any big construction project ends up costing well over the original estimated budget.