> That is because, under almost any conceivable schema, it takes less energy and resources to sustain an individual for its entire life than it takes to transport that individual to another solar system.
I've thought about this in relation to colonizing other planets in our solar system let alone ones in another one. I'm of the opinion that we'd be better off building orbital habitats similar to the ISS and then iterating on those until they can house more people safely, become more and more self-sufficient, and we have the ability to put them into solar orbits and/or making them self-propelled. I always assumed we would populate earth orbit and bases on the moon first, then expand our infrastructure to be able to mine metals from asteroids and start building larger space stations outside of earth's orbit.
If Mars were more Earth-like I could see pushing for that first but I think we're getting ahead of ourselves. There is solid ground we can build on, but the atmosphere is almost non-existent, the radiation is incredibly high, water is scarce, it's a long way away, and there are two gravity wells to deal with. Unless we're talking about terraforming Mars, which is an even larger project than colonizing it, we're still talking basically people living in the equivalent of tin cans.
In terms of people living off of our home planet it seems to me that we could increase the population much faster in space stations and lunar bases than we would be able to do so on Mars.
If I were a billionaire space tech guy, I'd be working toward O'neil cylinders instead of Mars colonization.
I'm not a space scientist or an engineer, though. Or a billionaire, sadly enough.
> If I were a billionaire space tech guy, I'd be working toward O'neil cylinders instead of Mars colonization.
While I agree with you in the longer term, I don’t think we’re even close to ready to build O'Neill cylinders. First thing I’d go for would be a lunar colony. Lots of useful resources, relatively short trip home in emergencies, a way to get experience working in real vacuum, and non-rocket launch systems could already be built there with current tech.
I've thought about this in relation to colonizing other planets in our solar system let alone ones in another one. I'm of the opinion that we'd be better off building orbital habitats similar to the ISS and then iterating on those until they can house more people safely, become more and more self-sufficient, and we have the ability to put them into solar orbits and/or making them self-propelled. I always assumed we would populate earth orbit and bases on the moon first, then expand our infrastructure to be able to mine metals from asteroids and start building larger space stations outside of earth's orbit.
If Mars were more Earth-like I could see pushing for that first but I think we're getting ahead of ourselves. There is solid ground we can build on, but the atmosphere is almost non-existent, the radiation is incredibly high, water is scarce, it's a long way away, and there are two gravity wells to deal with. Unless we're talking about terraforming Mars, which is an even larger project than colonizing it, we're still talking basically people living in the equivalent of tin cans.
In terms of people living off of our home planet it seems to me that we could increase the population much faster in space stations and lunar bases than we would be able to do so on Mars.
If I were a billionaire space tech guy, I'd be working toward O'neil cylinders instead of Mars colonization.
I'm not a space scientist or an engineer, though. Or a billionaire, sadly enough.