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.
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.