Far far smarter writers and philosophers than me have written on this topic. I think the general pitch was that terraforming a planet like mars was basically a new westward expansion and would kind of...maybe not "solve" but at least delay a lot of the problems we have at home.
It would be so, so, so much more expensive to terraform Mars than literally every project the entirety of humanity has ever undertaken combined. The whole point of stealing land on earth, like Manifest Destiny, is that it was an extremely cheap source of resources. There is not a single resource Mars could provide more cheaply than our home planet.
Mars itself maybe not but there's definitely significant mineral deposits in the solar system that could be extracted, no? I don't disagree it would be more expensive and difficult to terraform mars than anything else in the history of our species and the idea that we could do so under current conditions is hardly rational...but ultimately the system we live under requires and demands perpetual unending growth so that's a circle you've got to square somehow.
Mars itself maybe not but there's definitely significant mineral deposits in the solar system that could be extracted, no?
Are we short on mineral resources on Earth? It's a big planet made of a whole bunch of minerals. What sort of enormous input of mineral resources would be required to effectively extract minerals from space? Certainly enough to make it an inviable approach.
You're right that the system demands perpetual growth, but the reality is that's a physical impossibility and space travel is too expensive to solve it. That's going to be the key catalyst of system collapse that will end capitalism. Historically, the ecological limits of given techno-social regimes (not the planet as a whole, but specific means of organizing humanity and nature) are the cause of major systemic change. It's simply a material inevitability that the current capitalist growth model will end. And then it's just a matter of socialism or barbarism here on earth.
Far far smarter writers and philosophers than me have written on this topic. I think the general pitch was that terraforming a planet like mars was basically a new westward expansion and would kind of...maybe not "solve" but at least delay a lot of the problems we have at home.
It would be so, so, so much more expensive to terraform Mars than literally every project the entirety of humanity has ever undertaken combined. The whole point of stealing land on earth, like Manifest Destiny, is that it was an extremely cheap source of resources. There is not a single resource Mars could provide more cheaply than our home planet.
Mars itself maybe not but there's definitely significant mineral deposits in the solar system that could be extracted, no? I don't disagree it would be more expensive and difficult to terraform mars than anything else in the history of our species and the idea that we could do so under current conditions is hardly rational...but ultimately the system we live under requires and demands perpetual unending growth so that's a circle you've got to square somehow.
Are we short on mineral resources on Earth? It's a big planet made of a whole bunch of minerals. What sort of enormous input of mineral resources would be required to effectively extract minerals from space? Certainly enough to make it an inviable approach.
You're right that the system demands perpetual growth, but the reality is that's a physical impossibility and space travel is too expensive to solve it. That's going to be the key catalyst of system collapse that will end capitalism. Historically, the ecological limits of given techno-social regimes (not the planet as a whole, but specific means of organizing humanity and nature) are the cause of major systemic change. It's simply a material inevitability that the current capitalist growth model will end. And then it's just a matter of socialism or barbarism here on earth.