Ask HN: How bad Earth would have to be for terraforming Mars to make sense?

1•soneca•32m ago

Ok, this might be more of a Reddit question or an xkcd’s “What if”, but let’s try here first.

When people talk about investing in tech so that, if Earth gets bad enough, we have a plan B in colonizing Mars, I think we most agree that it’s nonsense. But it seems like a good thought experiment.

What would have to happen to Earth so that, given we have developed the technology, terraforming Mars and moving some people there is a sensible option?

Mars having no water, no atmosphere, and no organic matter make it a high bar.

I believe global nuclear war or the worst predictions of climate change won’t cut it. A meteor, not if it is the same size the one that already hit Earth and wasn’t enough to kill all life, much less remove atmosphere or water.

So, what is this scenario where putting the resources (again, given we have the tech) to create a colony on Mars make sense?

Comments

subject4056•23m ago

Mars doesn't make a ton of sense as a backup earth because gravity there is too weak to carry a fetus to term. If we had the tech and the urgency to terraform mars, it would probably make more sense to put those resources into space stations where we could control the environment better (and less risk from losing any one station). Mars in this scenario is sort of like an offshore oil rig that people work on for some months at a time and then go back to their life in space (again provided we can't live on earth for some reason).

Zambyte•14m ago

> gravity there is too weak to carry a fetus to term

This seems way down in the list of reasons Mars is hard. Possibly not on the list at all. Interested in your source on such a confident claim.

subject4056•3m ago

You know I took the wrong conclusions from frog/rat developmental studies in space. As far as I can tell low gravity isn't known to be a killer, just that the whole process hasn't been studied (no mammal recorded to give birth in space).

As to whether or not that makes Mars hard, I think it doesn't matter how well you can control the climate if you can't have a second generation of people to live there.

ttimebomb•17m ago

I literally can't imagine a realistic scenario where we are better off on Mars.

Earth would have to lose its orbit and be falling into the sun or spinning off into deep space for that to make sense. It would probably be easier to deflect a meteor the size of earth that is headed for earth than to terraform Mars.

If terraforming becomes unbelievably easy then that would change the calculus - but then Venus might seem like a better candidate at that point.

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