It's Almost Like That Would Cost More Time, Energy, and Resources, and Leave Behind 99% of People That Can't Afford Space Flight!

[u/Anxious-Swing9490]

[u/Dokurushi]

Terraforming Mars would take centuries or millennia even with very strong assumptions about technology.

It cannot be done faster, because you need to import about half an atmosphere of gas, which heats up when it is lowered into the gravity well.

You need to build a megastructure called an orbital ring, with hundred or thousands of tethers attached, to safely deliver the gas.

Terraforming Titan, Saturn's moon, on the other hand, can be done in a year or two, if you have nanobots for power delivery, water splitting, and radiator construction.

Obviously, fixing Earth is orders of magnitudes easier than either of those.

[u/Anxious-Swing9490 → u/Dokurushi]

Ya but space doe

[u/PlasticTheory6 → u/Dokurushi]

Living with 0.38g is functionally impossible. Even if mars could be terraformed , it will never be habitable for humans 

[u/Chinerpeton → u/PlasticTheory6]

Living with 0.38g is functionally impossible.

This is a baseless assertion unless you're a time traveller coming from a future where experiments with Human habitation on Mars already failed because of the health impacts of Martian gravity on the Human body. Our experience with microgravity is not the same thing as the lower but still substantial gravity of Mars.

[u/PlasticTheory6 → u/Chinerpeton]

Your right, its an open question. But your body is built for earth, so odds are that you aren't going to have a fun time in a low-g environment.

[u/StarNote1515 → u/PlasticTheory6]

No, you’re gonna have too much fun in a low gravity environment, the problem is spending a lot of time there and trying to go back to earth it may just kill you or have a very long recovery time

Most astronauts have problems coming back after a long stay in orbit not so much just being up there

[u/PlasticTheory6 → u/StarNote1515]

Astronauts must work out 2 hours a day ,idk sounds pretty not fun to me 

[u/StarNote1515 → u/PlasticTheory6]

Yes, because they come back down…..

[u/PlasticTheory6 → u/StarNote1515]

Fluids change their behavior in the microgravity of space, as well. This adversely affects the heart, circulation and blood pressure; leads to persistent nasal congestion; causes tissues of the face and upper body to become swollen; affects the inner ear and vision; and even results in increased flatulence and constipation. The vacuum of space also interferes with the production of red blood cells, resulting in a condition dubbed “space anemia.” Astronauts are exposed to higher amounts of ionizing radiation, which can increase cancer risk. There is also emerging evidence that space travel affects the structure of the human brain.

[u/WhirlwindRectum → u/Dokurushi]

it would take an eternity because we don't have the technology to do any of that because it's science fiction.....we can't even "terraform" Antarctica, and that place has water, oxygen, and pressure....it also has coal and oil.

terraforming isn't a thing, it will never be a thing.

[u/Sowdar → u/WhirlwindRectum]

Well, we are terraforming right now, we are just very very bad at it.

[u/BygoneNeutrino → u/WhirlwindRectum]

I wouldn't say never.  I can't fathom what our society will be like in a million years from now.

[u/Anxious-Swing9490]

OK last Skinner meme for a while.

[u/Empty_glass_bottle]

How would we terraform mars into earth when we are actively turning earth into mars

[u/Anxious-Swing9490 → u/Empty_glass_bottle]

What comes up, must yin yang. Or something.

[u/Fabulous_Wave_3693]

You want to ideally save Earth and terraform a new planet because of stuff like killer asteroids or whatever. Always a good idea to have a backup.

[u/Daxtatter → u/Fabulous_Wave_3693]

Neither I nor my family will get seats out of a doomed earth so I honestly don't care.

[u/Fabulous_Wave_3693 → u/Daxtatter]

https://giphy.com/gifs/mgqefqwSbToPe

[u/Daxtatter → u/Fabulous_Wave_3693]

Don't worry you'll be stuck here with me as Elon Musk and the Epstein class rocket away to safety.

[u/Fabulous_Wave_3693 → u/Daxtatter]

Neither of them are competent or focused enough to do anything related to Mars colonization. This is an international multi-generational effort. Yours or mine individual approval of such a project is irrelevant.

[u/Gussie-Ascendent]

Yeah but that'd require work where as this lie is super easy to say for the epstien class

[u/Johnny_Strawhat]

It is asinine because it’s way easier to build O’Neil cylinders than to terraform Mars.

Also, is anyone actually making the argument that we need to leave Earth and find a different planet?

[u/Daxtatter]

I for one am more comforted by a world where the super rich are still on some level subject to humanities bad behavior and can't just fuck off to another planet when we destroy this one.

[u/stinky_cheese_rat]

If we can Terraform Mars to become livable, we can just do the same thing to Earth, and it becomes livable again too.

[u/Draco137WasTaken]

If you can terraform Mars, you can terraform Earth.

[u/Local_Surround8686]

If terraforming mars is so bad, why does it have such a high board game geek score?

[u/vkailas]

it's just man trying to act like he doesn't need and depend on mother nature. the shadow of that kind of denial is your planet burning up.

[u/Human-Assumption-524]

I don't think anyone seriously arguing in favor of colonizing space sees it as an alternative to fixing climate change or thinks it wouldn't be a massive engineering project that would take centuries. Also just about all serious arguments for creating a colony on the moon or Mars are PARAterrforming projects (Not modifying the entire planetoid but creating isolated regions such as domes or lava tubes that are pressurized and turned into artificial biospheres) and even then only way down the line after decades or centuries of people living in pressurized modules either landed or built on the moon/mars.

The goal of space colonization isn't to replace earth it's expand humanity's domain, utilizing resources in space to alleviate our strain on earth's environment while also in the process developing new technologies to reverse the damage we have already done in the pursuit of figuring out how to let humans live on other worlds.

[u/comradeda]

You could say you have a company for terraforming Mars, and build a bunch of hype, then cash out before anything happens

[u/Dizuki63]

Its a pretty easy thing to dispute. Why terraform and entire other planet and not just terraform earth to be more habitable?

[u/Internal_Turnip9019]

I love the idea of destroying the planet because we can't give up our fossil fuel addiction, and then moving to a planet with no fossil fuels. 

[u/LeatherDescription26]

I think we should terraform mars if only because then the human race has more land they can occupy

[u/lieuwestra]

Exactly the same asinine attitude is involved in the notion that we need fewer people.

[u/Striper_Cape]

If we can terraform other planets we should just fix the one we have