Recommended: At Defector, Albert Burneko writes about the fundamental and unfixable flaw with any plan to colonize Mars: "Mars does not have a magnetosphere. Any discussion of humans ever settling the red planet can stop right there."
Humankind will never establish a permanent human settlement on Mars. Ever. Moreover there is no need to try to come up with some way to build one there.
The doomsday scenarios that science-fiction writersāand their contemptible counterparts, futuristsāhave imagined would necessitate an escape from Earth can be broken down into two categories. First there are the ones that would not come close to making Earth as hellish and inhospitable as Mars. These include global nuclear wars, food-chain collapses, extermination-level pandemics, and eugenic boogeymen like "overpopulation." None of these present a scenario in which Earth all at once completely ceases having breathable oxygen, for example, or suddenly no longer enjoys a magnetosphere. In the aftermath of even the worst of these scenarios, if you were picking one of the two planets to engineer into habitability, the Earth would remain the infinitely superior option. For planning purposes, the planet to prepare for use as a base of survival in an apocalyptic event is the one where you're reading this blog.
More to the point, Burneko points to the inherent destructiveness of the mere attempt. "The effort to colonize Mars will help ensure nobody survives long enough to live in that colony. That makes the idea of trying to build that colony morally reprehensible."
Read it at Defector.
Neither Elon Musk Nor Anybody Else Will Ever Colonize Mars | Defector
Mars does not have a magnetosphere. Any discussion of humans ever settling the red planet can stop right there, but of course it never does. Do you have a low-cost plan for, uh, creating a gigantic active dynamo at Marsās dead core? No? Well. Itās fine. Iām sure you have some other workable, sustainable plan [ā¦]
Albert Burneko
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