He is obsessed with going to an inhospitable desert planet that could never support human life without substantial depletion of natural resources here on Earth. Just to send supplies necessary for human life to Mars would extract enormous environmental, financial costs here on Earth.
Instead of this obsession about Mars, what could be called an empty Minecraft world, why don't we work on our own environment here on Earth, first? There's no logical argument I've seen that going to Mars would somehow help diversify humanity's risk here on Earth. In fact, it's rather the opposite -- every time we launch a giant rocket, huge environmental tolls are taken. And those are real costs, born today. We have a finite amount of resources to burn before the planet is made uninhabitable.
I agree with you in broad terms but come on, all the care in the world for the environment won't stop external threats. Ask the dinosaurs. Sure the resources can be used to mitigate those threats like NASA DART mission but it is nice to have a plan B just in case.
"Space colony" is a misnomer. Nothing of value to bring there or bring back. No indigenous population. No life at all. That's not how actual colonies work. A Mars base would be dependent on Earth very likely forever. If Earth blows up, the Martians die a few weeks or months later.
I would say that pretty much anything can happen to earth and it will be more survivable to still live on this planet than any other stellar object or orbit at least in medium term. Say couple hundreds of years.
If humanity somehow succeeds in colonizing Mars, it will be through intense political and scientific collaboration, not a moonshot spearheaded by an egomaniac with a messiah complex.
He doesn't care about anyone except himself, and he's willing to sacrifice and humiliate everyone else to fit his warped, utopian, libertarian delusion.
If the _Telegraph_, which supported Liz Truss (you may remember her as the prime minister who lasted all of 50 days, brought down by a proposed budget whose mere existence on paper caused a financial crisis), thinks that your economic plans are a bit extreme, well…
This article about a 2T reduction in the US budget doesn't mention Congress once.
Of all the articles I've seen entertaining this absurdity only two mentioned the obvious:
* Excluding entitlement programs and defense, stuff promised off limits, that's the entire rest of the USA budget. So it makes zero sense on face value.
* Good luck getting congress to pass that budget. Oh, did we all collectively forget what branches do what?!
Instead of this obsession about Mars, what could be called an empty Minecraft world, why don't we work on our own environment here on Earth, first? There's no logical argument I've seen that going to Mars would somehow help diversify humanity's risk here on Earth. In fact, it's rather the opposite -- every time we launch a giant rocket, huge environmental tolls are taken. And those are real costs, born today. We have a finite amount of resources to burn before the planet is made uninhabitable.
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