
James Lovelock: 'I Would Not Waste My Fortune on Colonizing Mars' - Tomte
https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/james-lovelock-i-would-not-waste-my-fortune-on-colonizing-mars-a-322a80e0-f768-45f5-b426-f8f32e6e9002
======
keanzu
Perhaps it might have been possible in some long distant past to underestimate
Elon Musk and write him off as a crazy person. That time is gone. If Musk
appears to be doing something crazy you've not understood it.

> It’s crazy, completely crazy. Elon Musk has read too much science fiction.
> He got carried away with it. If I were in his position, I would not waste my
> fortune on colonizing Mars. And all they would learn is how awful it is up
> there: You can't breathe the air, the pressure of the atmosphere is a tiny
> fraction of what we have on Mount Everest.

Instead of straw manning Musk and implying he doesn't know about the
composition of Mar's atmosphere, try steel manning him and trying to figure
out what he's doing.

Musk has captured the imagination of financiers, engineers and the public and
gotten them all pulling in the same direction - into space. Musk is marketing,
that's his core skill. Mars is the sales pitch that drives SpaceX.

~~~
leto_ii
I'm gonna take the risk of being extremely unpopular and I'll say that Musk is
completely overrated.

I think he's nowhere near the level of people that we usually think of as
geniuses. In certain ways he's good at marketing and hyping things up, but a
lot of his ideas, especially the Mars one, are nonsensical.

Just try to think about this: how bad do the conditions on Earth have to get
before it makes sense to try to move to a planet that is essentially
uninhabitable? Where even in the best scenarios we would live really harsh
lives after a long and dangerous voyage.

~~~
CrazyStat
>Just try to think about this: how bad do the conditions on Earth have to get
before it makes sense to try to move to a planet that is essentially
uninhabitable? Where even in the best scenarios we would live really harsh
lives after a long and dangerous voyage.

The point of colonizing Mars (for Musk) is not to move there when Earth
becomes inhabitable. It's too remove the single point of failure for the
species that Earth currently represents.

With a self-sustainable (even if harsh) Mars colony, a nuclear war on Earth no
longer necessarily means the end of humanity.

~~~
rapnie
> With a self-sustainable (even if harsh) Mars colony

How realistic is this self-sustainability? Where any moderately complex spare
parts can be produced on Mars, instead of having to be supplied from Earth
with yet another ultra-expensive supplies mission?

Imho we are talking hundreds of years here. Until then our burning home base
Earth remains a single point of failure. Better douse the fire first.

Until then putting some people on Mars as a symbolic gesture to show humanity
is still capable of grand achievements may be fine, esp. if that gives us hope
we can tackle our other more immediate problems (though for me that is not
needed).

~~~
dwild
> Imho we are talking hundreds of years here.

So we are already hundreds of years late, aren't we? Let's start right now to
make this happen.

> Better douse the fire first.

Here we are again... the good old, well there's something else wrong, lets
just fix that other thing wrong and ignore everything else.

Why not working on both? What stop us from working on both? I would be happy
to be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that you could do more to "douse the fire".
We sadly can't stop doing 100% of what we do to fix everything.

------
silvester23
Most of this reads as "this is how it worked for me so it must work like this
for everyone".

I understand he "enjoys controversy" but it's hard to take someone seriously
who says things like "Oh, politicians should just ignore the protests and keep
their minds straight. It will go away. It always does. They’ll find another
big issue after a little while and switch to something else.", as if protests
have never effected any substantial change.

Or almost worse, that the protests are inconsequential because they are
organized and mostly attended by young people.

~~~
pj_mukh
Another choice quote:

"I've had 10 cancers in the last few years and it hasn't been very bad. They
just appear and grow. If you go to a good oncologist nearby, they'll take it
out. It's just unfortunate for people who let it happen and it grows and grows
until it's inoperable. I mean, nowadays, I think middle class and fairly
wealthy people don't die of cancer."

What in the world?! I understand he is courting controversy, but to do in the
most curmudgeon-y way possibly is new to me.

------
_sbrk
JMS had it right:

Mary Ann Cramer: I have to ask you the same question people back home are
asking about space these days. Is it worth it? Should we just pull back?
Forget the whole thing as a bad idea, and take care of our own problems at
home?

Sinclair: No. We have to stay here. And there's a simple reason why. Ask ten
different scientists about the environment, population control, genetics, and
you'll get ten different answers. But there's one thing every scientist on the
planet agrees on. Whether it happens in a hundred years or a thousand years or
a million years, eventually our Sun will grow cold and go out. When that
happens, it won't just take us. It'll take Marilyn Monroe, and Lao-Tzu, and
Einstein, and Morobuto, and Buddy Holly, and Aristophanes, and all of this…all
of this…was for nothing. Unless we go to the stars.

~~~
staticman2
He has it wrong. The universe will end and it will be for nothing. Going to
the stars does not make life meaningful or preserve anything in the end. Life
has no meaning other than what we invent.

~~~
kamaal
>>The universe will end and it will be for nothing.

Let's solve one problem at a time. The nearest ones are Global warming, war,
disease, asteroids etc.

Once you go to space, you will have new problems. We'll worry about the
universe then.

------
Tepix
I see Mars not so much as a "plan b" or "insurance". That's just a nice side
effect.

Humans venturing out into space and establishing colonies is a big step in
human evolution. It's a bigger step than when animal life left the oceans and
ventured onto land.

If you look at all of life on Earth from far away, there would be only a few
achievements you could see. Rather shortly after life began, it changed
Earth's atmosphere by producing lots of oxygen.

Right now we are changing the atmosphere again (unintendedly).

When we leave the planet and venture out into the solar system we are taking
the first step to establish a presence beyond the planet we started on.

The next big challenges on the same order of magnitude will be to leave the
solar system and spread around the galaxy. And then make the jump to other
galaxies. It's a long way to go. We don't know how long the window of
opportunity remains open. It is open now. We should get moving. That's what
Musk is saying and doing.

~~~
heeen2
I think you underestimate how far apart galaxies are.

~~~
Semaphor
I think once we manage to colonize our entire galaxy, the next galaxy won't be
that far away.

~~~
danw1979
Andromeda ? It's closer than you think !

(to the tune of The Specials' Enjoy Yourself)

------
hising
He may be a smart dude, but this answer is out there:

> "DER SPIEGEL: Cancer is a silent killer that might get diagnosed long after
> the exposure, when it is too late.

> Lovelock: I've had 10 cancers in the last few years and it hasn't been very
> bad. They just appear and grow. If you go to a good oncologist nearby,
> they'll take it out. It's just unfortunate for people who let it happen and
> it grows and grows until it's inoperable. I mean, nowadays, I think middle
> class and fairly wealthy people don't die of cancer."

~~~
sneak
“out there” is a pretty charitable description.

I stopped reading the article there. I am not interested in reading the crazy
ramblings of someone disconnected from reality.

~~~
anonymou2
yes, disconnected from reality, unlike the people that think that we are ever
going to go to Mars.

~~~
sneak
Humans have hardware operating on Mars right now.

~~~
njb311
Sure, and humans have hardware exiting the solar system. A very different
story to put a person there.

------
JshWright
> I mean, nowadays, I think middle class and fairly wealthy people don't die
> of cancer.

Sounds like James Lovelock has been pretty lucky in his experience with
cancer...

~~~
fifnir
And completely out of touch with reality

~~~
grumple
And enjoys universal health care and wealth.

------
Dotnaught
His response to cancer as a possible outcome of radiation exposure following
from a nuclear accident is troubling: "I mean, nowadays, I think middle class
and fairly wealthy people don't die of cancer."

~~~
jcranmer
He _almost_ made the point that the nuclear accident killed far less people
than the tsunami that caused it, but instead went down the route that cancer
isn't a big deal.

The tsunami killed over 15,000 people. The nuclear disaster is estimated to
eventually kill 100-ish people due to excess cancer cases from radioactive
releases.

~~~
luckylion
Don't forget that interviews are usually edited ("for brevity"), and
especially in Der Spiegel of 2020 (as opposed to, say, 1980), I wouldn't be
suprised if they heavily edited it.

~~~
Krasnol
It's not like they put words in his mouth...

~~~
war1025
It's a pretty well documented fact that people get misquoted all the time by
journalists.

Not quite Gell-Mann amnesia, but something close.

~~~
C14L
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claas_Relotius#Fabrication_of_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claas_Relotius#Fabrication_of_stories)

That guy had won several awards for his "reporting".

~~~
Krasnol
Which is more a reason why they wouldn't slip here.

~~~
luckylion
Is it though? If you catch somebody in a lie, will you trust his next
statement more or less? On the one hand, you could argue "he will likely not
lie again, knowing that I've uncovered his previous lie, therefore I can trust
him more", on the other hand, past behavior isn't bad at predicting future
behavior.

~~~
JetSpiegel
> Is it though? If you catch somebody in a lie, will you trust his next
> statement more or less?

Claus Relotius has left Der Spiegel, I don't need to trust him. Would you
trust his boss not to triple check everything after a massive scandal?

------
Dumblydorr
This interview makes Lovelock seem very unwise, is that due to him or the
Spiegel site? Is it a fair interview/transcript, or is Lovelock really that
intellectually uncharismatic?

He sounds like many other elderly folks who are very dismissive and
opinionated, for instance putting climate protests down to kids being kids...
well you're 100, you definitely don't have skin in the game, how can you
comprehend the mind of a 15 year old?

~~~
socialdemocrat
He does, but I would not judge him too harshly. I suspect I will say some odd
things if I ever turn 100.

------
socialdemocrat
All respect for the man, but fortunately we can like and respect somebody
without agreeing with them.

You get set in your ways with age. Some of his responses are a bit too much of
the type "young people these days!"

Young people may get carried away at times but important changes tend to
happen due to young people. Young people led the French revolution and other
revolutions advancing democracy and freedom.

A lot of the good things that has happened through the environmental movement
has happened due to young engaged people. It is not enough to sit in a lab and
invent solutions if nobody listens to you.

Sure I have seen environmental movement ebb and flow ever since the 80s.
However it would be silly to suggest that this somehow invalidates them. These
organizations helped save the ozone layer, whales and other species. They
paved the way for the revolution within renewable energy.

------
Reason077
> _“nowadays, I think middle class and fairly wealthy people don 't die of
> cancer.”_

That’s a pretty crackpot thing to say.

James Lovelock has been lucky, and it’s certainly true that early diagnosis
improves your chances. But the idea that wealthy people don’t die of cancer is
complete nonsense.

------
kaliali
Musk putting his fortune on the line and trying colonize Mars offers a win-win
for everyone.

If people want to keep expanding as well as having more individual freedoms,
we must get ourselves more room and resources.

If environmentalists want to keep planet Earth safe, having a place to send
people and begin colonizing off-planet will in the long-term be best for
Earth.

Lovelock is too close-minded in this case. Staying on Earth forever means the
death of the human race and most likely the Earth's environment.

------
hyperpallium
For typical cataclysms, Earth is still a hell of lot more survivable than
anywhere on Mars.

But for a really big one, the only solution is to be somewhere else when it
happens.

A Mars colony is a first step.

~~~
m4rtink
Also, one thing people often overlook - as you settle more places / build more
habitats, you are unlocking the vast resources of the Solar System.

These might give you a hand if any single of the settlements (including Earth)
get into trouble. This could range from preventing the disaster in the first
place (nearby ship deflecting a potential impactor) to helping the survivors
(medical supplies being dropped from orbit, habitat with failing life support
being evacuated).

Self sustaining off-Earth settlements go way beyond just "oops, Earth is gone,
at least someone is still left".

------
zuno
This brought a smile :)

'Lovelock: You see, when I passed 100, I thought, "What is there to do now?
What is there to look forward to?" I don't have any more duties. I enjoy life
now... When I wake up in the morning I often think: "Oh, it’s a nice world!" I
live here with my wife, we are still in love, what more do I want?'

------
keiferski
I wish governments and society in general would make a serious commitment to
space travel and colonization, not because of some sci-fi fantasy, but because
many of the problems facing Earth are really only problems if we're stuck on
this singular planet.

Overpopulation? The universe is nearly infinite and there will always be new
frontiers to explore. Environmental destruction from mining and use of carbon
as a fuel source? The universe is full of minerals and using fossil fuels in
space doesn't really hurt anyone.

I don't know enough about the current status of space travel technology, but
it doesn't seem farfetched to say that we could be mass-colonizing the moon
and Mars by 2100 _if_ serious percentages of GDP were put toward the project.

------
LinuxBender
This topic comes up a lot and I know it excites investors, but I have yet to
see a viable plan for kick-starting the magnetic field on Mars. No magnetic
field means no way to have an atmosphere, water or life and everyone has to
stay in caves or incredibly durable modules indefinitely. The only O2 and H2O
is what you bring with you or produce in the modules.

The only reason I could see doing this is if we knew of impending extinction
events coming to earth that would pass quickly and then we could return and
re-populate. Is there another reason to colonize a dead planet? Are we trying
to find a root cause for something and need a team to stick around longer than
a regular mission time-frame?

~~~
russdill
A lot of people get fooled into thinking that because Mars lacks an atmosphere
due to a lack of a magnetic field, a magnetic field is required to have an
atmosphere. The atmosphere was stripped away from Mars over hundreds of
millions of years.

If you could somehow restore the atmosphere today, it would remain just fine
over any reasonable human timescales. Giving Mars at atmosphere is of course
very difficult.

~~~
goatlover
The magnetic field is needed to protect life on Mars from radiation. It's one
of the bigger problems in terraforming the planet.

~~~
russdill
The atmosphere is what blocks radiation, not the magnetosphere.

~~~
goatlover
[https://science.nasa.gov/heliophysics/focus-
areas/magnetosph...](https://science.nasa.gov/heliophysics/focus-
areas/magnetosphere-ionosphere)

~~~
russdill
That's a pretty simplistic explanation. If you look at the details, the
magnetosphere is protecting the atmosphere. Take each kind of radiation in
turn.

X-Rays: The magnetosphere has no effect

UV: The magnetosphere has no effect

Cosmic rays: While both the Earth's magnetic field and the sun's magnetic
deflect some cosmic rays, the Earth's atmosphere is mostly opaque to cosmic
rays.

Solar wind/coronal mass ejections: The Earth's magnetic field _does_ block
these, but if it wasn't present, the atmosphere would block them (but of
course be slowly stripped away in the process)

The fact that the magnetosphere does deflect some particles but isn't what
makes life on Earth possible (other than protecting the atmosphere) is made
most clear by the ISS being well within the magnetosphere but still receiving
hundreds of times the amount on Earth.

~~~
srajabi
But if we had the artificial magnetosphere and then populated the atmosphere
we would get similar effects to Earth's protection?

~~~
russdill
You're never going to get the same atmosphere on Mars vs Earth. Not only are
you going to need to make a lot of tradeoffs with respect to gas content (eg,
that much nitrogen is going to be very difficult to find/relocate) but the
same amount of atmospheric pressure is going to take a larger mass of
atmosphere since there is less gravity.

So it really is a hard question to answer since to answer it you'd need to
know what kind of atmosphere Mars would have.

~~~
anticensor
You could replace some of nitrogen by argon to defeat pressure issues.

------
leto_ii
I feel that overall the interview is a mixed bag. Lovelock is unnecessarily
dismissive of some things (e.g. Fridays for Future), understandably dismissive
of some other things (colonization of Mars), but also right on a few counts.

I think it's especially useful to draw attention to the benefits of nuclear
power when it comes to combating climate change and pollution more generally.

I also agree with his observation that the way we teach science (as separate,
independent subjects) is really limiting. This, as a matter of fact, goes for
all other subjects.

------
iEchoic
> I've had 10 cancers in the last few years and it hasn't been very bad. They
> just appear and grow. If you go to a good oncologist nearby, they'll take it
> out. It's just unfortunate for people who let it happen and it grows and
> grows until it's inoperable. I mean, nowadays, I think middle class and
> fairly wealthy people don't die of cancer.

Is this (roughly) true? I've never heard this before, and I want to believe.

~~~
colechristensen
Something on the order of getting every mole removed. We're all full of little
harmless anomalies which if you're rich and your doctor says something
noncommittal, you insist gets removed. Then you follow up with claims about
cancer when instead of finding things early you found things that didn't need
to be found and exposed yourself to the greater risks associated with any
removal procedure.

------
selimnairb
I stopped reading when he said, “eh, cancer’s not so bad” and “rich people
don’t die from cancer anymore, so we shouldn’t worry about.”

------
shadowgovt
Honestly, the moon is a much better goal.

~~~
nixarn
How so? Mars has an atmosphere unlike the moon, it has water in some form and
quantity and has approximately the same length of the day as Earth, plus it
has gravity much closer to Earth than what the moon has.

~~~
zerr
There's the plenty of places on Earth which are uninhabited due to climate
conditions. What makes Mars a better place?

~~~
socialdemocrat
Nobody has EVER suggested we should colonize Mars to save ourselves from
global warming expect people against colonizing Mars.

We can survive global warming for sure. If we can build habitats on Mars we
can do it on Earth. However there are many conditions far worse than global
warming which we cannot protect ourselves from: All out nuclear war. Asteroid
hitting earth etc.

It is stupid to put all eggs in one basket. Colonizing other planets in the
solar system safeguards our future.

You got to start early because it is a very time consuming effort. You cannot
suddenly begin colonizing Mars once you discover an asteroid on collision
course. It will be too late.

It is an effort that will likely take far more than 100 years to complete.

Humanity also risk regression. Global warming while not killing us could cause
such regression in our technological ability and science that we simply loose
the ability to send things into space. We have been in dark ages many times
before in history. It can happen again.

~~~
baroomba
Earth after most disasters short of getting hit by a full-on planetoid that
liquefies the entire crust is still much easier to live on than Mars, and
hardened Earth-based bunkers are a lot cheaper and easier to make than a
Martian colony.

Really, for most planet-wide disasters the thing they do is force us to live
_a little bit_ like we'd have to on non-disaster-stricken Mars.

[EDIT] for the record I'm not against Martian exploration or even a Martian
colony—I'm susceptible both to the "because it was there" and the "we'll come
up with some cool tech in the process" arguments—I'm just very unconvinced
Martian colonization is a good path to better survivability for the human
species.

------
wyldfire
> A sunshade a few hundred miles in diameter on a heliocentric orbit between
> the Earth and the sun could stop global warming completely

Does this need to be put at a lagrange point to be stable?

It's a very interesting idea but seems like this could have enormous
unintended consequences.

~~~
Tepix
Yes, at Lagrange point 1 between the Sun and Earth.

This approach has a big advantage: If it has some unwanted side effects we can
rather quickly stop doing it. That's unlike some other proposed solutions such
as creating clouds by spreading stuff in the upper atmosphere.

------
jackfoxy
Elon is a long way from wasting money on colonizing Mars. Everything SpaceX
has done, and probably will do for the next decade, has immediate value for
exploring and exploiting outer space.

As for actually colonizing Mars, he should perhaps read more Phillip K. Dick.

------
C14L
> _DER SPIEGEL: Would it make sense to colonize Mars as a Plan B, as planned
> by Tesla entrepreneur Elon Musk?_

It was never a "plan B" against global warming. Its a "plan A" in case of a
catastrophic natural event.

------
sailfast
In case folks are wondering what really matters to the man, I found this quote
to be pretty great.

> "Oh, it’s a nice world! I live here with my wife, we are still in love, what
> more do I want?"

------
qaq
if every person being upset with how Elon allocates resources allocated $100
to the "proper cause" it would amount to orders of magnitude more $.

------
Razengan
I had never even heard of a “James Lovelock” before now, and after skimming
the comments here, my desire to know about him went from zero to negative.

On the subject of Mars etc., how are billionaires, especially the older ones,
not already _bored_ with all that Earth has to offer? Surely they must have
experienced everything, natural and manmade, and crave for something more than
the accumulation of wealth by now.

~~~
rsync
"I had never even heard of a “James Lovelock” before now, and after skimming
the comments here, my desire to know about him went from zero to negative."

Although I question the conclusions, I feel that having read his original work
"The Gaia Hypothesis"[1] is required to be broadly literate in our age.

It's a short book.

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

~~~
Razengan
Ah I know of the Gaia Hypothesis, but did not remember Lovelock.

------
natch
He’s stuck in the past. In the timeframe of Mars colonization, “human”
consciousness (really the successor to it) will be hosted in different body
plans that will thrive on Mars.

~~~
steelbird
Interesting idea... can you elaborate or list some references where one can
read more about this?

~~~
natch
Not super aware of literature on this. Maybe transhumanism and future-looking
AI stuff (not current AI challenges). It’s clear if you think about it. I
don’t think the people who are aware of this are talking about it much yet,
because it would freak most people out a bit too much. Note that Elon Musk
does not talk so much lately about spreading humans through the solar
system... he talks about spreading consciousness.

------
Robotbeat
The thing is that Mars settling is not an idea Musk thought up. It's something
that space pioneers have been pursuing since the dawn of the space age or even
slightly before. Tsiolkovsky and the other Russian (and later Soviet)
Cosmists. Robert Goddard and Wernher Von Braun. And it was kind of the
understood backdrop narrative to NASA's foundation and Apollo, why it seemed
to capture everyone's imagination. Yeah, scifi. But scifi is not supposed to
be a synonym for the impossible or fantastic (ala Star Wars). Jules Verne (for
instance) is scifi but powerfully predictive in what technologies ended up
existing (nuclear submarines, space travel in capsules, etc). People EXPECTED
space settlement after people landing on the Moon and were excited about it. I
think the Cold War eventually kind of destroyed that optimism for a while just
due to dread and dystopia becomingfully mainstream in media and scifi.

NASA never gave up human missions to Mars as a goal (and not just supporting
the search for life, but as a goal in and of itself, with permanent presence
as the goal). Apollo was wound down in favor of Shuttle, which was to lay the
groundwork for Mars by lowering launch costs and establishing Space Station
Freedom (which became ISS) as a platform (in part) for building and launching
missions to Mars. The Soviets were pursuing a similar path. After losing the
Moon race, they chose to refine long-duration human spaceflight instead,
developing the Salyut space stations built with logistical support from many
launches (a first for spaceflight, and considered a prerequisite for Mars).
Salyut was considered a kind of precursor to a Mars transfer vehicle. Salyut
expanded to the Mir program, whose spares and follow-ons ended up contributing
to the critical propulsion elements of ISS. But like NASA, the goal was still
eventually Mars and space settlement. (And around this time in the US, there
were also space settling enthusiasts focused on just scaling up space stations
to be large, permanent settlements... a kind of rival for the Mars sect).

In the 1980s and 90s, there were a group of Mars enthusiasts in industry and
NASA that started pushing Mars settlement hardcore after a few decades of
post-Apollo disillusionment. They saw ISS and space stations in general as a
kind of distraction, a needless cost and time tax for missions to Mars. They
were (are) led by Robert Zubrin, who developed an architecture for Mars
exploration called Mars Direct that could do cargo or crew launches to Mars in
just one launch, with rendezvous with the different elements happening on the
surface of Mars, not in orbit. They also did some important work on in situ
resource utilization (ISRU), i.e. the idea of producing the vast majority (or
all) of the fuel, oxidizer, and even consumables like water and air from
resources on Mars (initially relying primarily on Mars' CO2 atmosphere, but
later incorporating surface ice as knowledge about the extent of water on Mars
expanded), convincing NASA to hesitantly baseline ISRU for future missions
(previously had been Apollo-like all-up missions bringing all supplies from
Earth). They were more vocal about permanent settlement on Mars as the end
goal than NASA. Robert Zubrin and his group established The Mars Society in
1997, with permanent settling of Mars as a primary goal. Today, The Mars
Society has Mars analogue research stations around the world where volunteers
dress in mock spacesuits and live in mock space habitats (naturally, modeled
after the ones from Mars Direct) and conduct mock Mars missions, including
studying rock samples from the surrounding area (usually some kind of remote
desert). This has been going on for decades, now.

Elon Musk, shortly after selling Paypal and getting rich, became kind of
converted into this Mars settlement vision. He donated a bunch of money to the
Mars Society (they named a telescope at one of the Mars analogue research
stations after him), and they convinced him to try to send a greenhouse to
Mars to kickstart the public's imagination on Mars, with the goal of
increasing NASA's budget and focusing them on the humans to Mars goal. Long
story short, he tried buying ICBMs from Russia on the cheap, was rebuffed, and
so ended up starting SpaceX (and the ambition has grown tremendously from that
point on).

So I'm not surprised not everyone is on the Mars settlement train. You've got
to catch the Mars bug. It's not for everyone. But it's much bigger than Musk
alone. It's an old dream going back over a century. Here's the Mars Anthem,
with words written by Robert Zubrin, describing in grandiose terms the goals
of the Mars Society:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cj8-NcyULps](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cj8-NcyULps)

------
SEJeff
Elon Musk: I would!

------
shmerl
He can call anyone he wants crazy, talk is cheap. Doing things is not.

------
qaq
Thats the cool thing about it though people can target diff. goals.

------
turk73
It's too bad our technology can't do anything with Venus.

------
ElijahLynn
Musk sees the future, the future where we destroy Earth. Lovelock has an
incorrect understanding of the future.

~~~
root_axis
Mars is not a solution to a destroyed earth. Billionaires living on mars would
suffer a quality of life worse than homeless people living on Earth.

