
Is a mission to Mars morally defensible? - markmassie
https://aeon.co/essays/is-a-mission-to-mars-morally-defensible-given-todays-real-needs
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Arizhel
The same argument could be made about just about any human activity that isn't
obviously beneficial to humanity, the environment, etc.

Is reading a discussion on HN morally defensible? You could be spending that
time helping humanity somehow.

Is working at a tech start-up making mobile apps morally defensible? You could
be working at a soup kitchen instead.

Is playing a video game morally defensible? You could be assisting
volunteering at a shelter instead.

Is having heat in your house morally defensible? You could be turning it off
to save money which you could send to help alleviate poverty, though this will
require you to endure freezing temperatures in your home.

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hot_brick
Is paying for you own cancer treatment morally defensible? You could be paying
for someone else's cancer treatment.

~~~
Arizhel
Exactly. If you're 50 and paying for your own cancer treatment, that's morally
indefensible if there's anyone younger than you who needs cancer treatment!

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dpark
> _Musk wants to innovate and leave Earth, rather than to take care of it, or
> fix it, and stay._

Come on. This is bullshit. Musk is also pushing environmentalism here on Earth
with SolarCity and Tesla. Going to Mars and taking care of Earth are in no way
mutually exclusive.

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huxley
Musk is like an incarnation of Delos D. Harriman [1], if environmentalism gets
him to Mars then he will be an environmentalist.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Sold_the_Moon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Sold_the_Moon)

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shiftpgdn
Love that this opens with "Whitey on Mars." Total trash. Keep this garbage off
of HN please.

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googletazer
Aeon is Tumblrs less popular pseudo-scientific cousin. Trash

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fibo
A mission to Mars is science fiction at least until 2050 or more. We don't
have the technology, we could land a 1 ton spaceship with a robot, but a space
ship with enough food, water and air to let people travel for 6 months would
be too heavy for current technology and crash on landing.

What is not moral is the fact that it is becoming a sort of big brother show
based on no scientific assumptions.

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doikor
I think we do have the technology. Just not the budget it would take to do in
near future with the technology available. To make it economically feasible is
going to take some time.

If US put the same kind of money into NASA they did during the Apollo days (so
4% of federal budged instead of 0.5% for a decade or two without changing the
plan/goal of NASA with every administration change) a lot of stuff would be
possible.

If you had an "infinite" budged you could just build a VERY big space craft in
orbit and use that. But the money isn't there so it isn't happening until
SpaceX or whoever lowers the launch prices further (SpaceX Falcon Heavy and/or
ITS/MCT for example)

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mesozoic
If you care about humanity existing in the far future then definitely yes.

