Re: Space travel is no longer SF

throopw@xxxxxxxxx (Wayne Throop) wrote in
news:1191192950@xxxxxxxxx:
...
Further, it would be far easier to colonize antarctica than
mars, I would think. Yet we don't do it; we support research
outposts, supplied from afar[1].

Though there are political reasons for that as well. A number of
countries have territorial claims on Antarctica, and probably one
of them would try a colony if they thought it would get those
claims recognized. Obviously, if there were a major economic
benefit to doing so, they'd likely go ahead anyway. But at this
point the cost/benefit of ticking off that part of the world that
cares about the Antarctic ecology (growing as the climate change
issue becomes more prominent) makes it not worthwhile.

That's not to say that such a colony would necessarily work out, or
pay for itself. But if Mars were as easy to get to as Antarctica,
while still having no biosphere or potential climate impact on
Earth, I'd say that the odds would be in favor of *someone* trying
to colonize, as a prestige project if nothing else. (Even given
Mars' more hostile environment.) But even LEO isn't as cheap to
get to as Antarctica is.

That *could* be done with
current tech on mars, but that's not a "colony" in the "intrepid
pioneers go and be all self-sufficient[2] and stuff" sense.

For some value of self-sufficient. I'm not sure how many classic
frontier-type settlements, if any, have been self-sufficient in the
sense that they'd likely survive if cut off from all trade with the
outside world. Certainly the European colonies in America and the
American settlements in the West were in regular trade contact with
the rest of civilization. (Whether transportation to Mars can be
made cheap enough for the Wells Fargo wagon to occasionally come
through is an open question.)

Mike

--
Michael S. Schiffer, LHN, FCS
mschiffe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
.

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