“The marginal cost of every action is death.”
I’m not sure if that’s exactly how economist Tyler Cowen put it. I was out walking in Victoria Park in London during the middle of the pandemic when I heard it. But I clearly remember the sentiment he expressed about the prospects of human colonisation of Mars.
Albert Burneko, in his piece Neither Elon Musk Nor Anybody Else Will Ever Colonize Mars, puts it even more bluntly:
“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 Mars’s dead core? No? Well. It’s fine. I’m sure you have some other workable, sustainable plan for shielding live Mars inhabitants from deadly solar and cosmic radiation, forever. No? Huh.”
If we ever manage to get a sizeable number of humans to Mars, they will basically be sheltering in place, waiting to die. Going outside for any length of time will never be safe. The ability to grow food will always be extremely limited. Any mistake will be instantly fatal.
No part of that vision feels like a path to human flourishing. It is all so sub-human.
And even that scenario is hopelessly optimistic. There’s a real chance we simply don’t have the resources to do it – unless we’re willing to ruin this planet to get there.
That alone should be reason enough to reconsider our current missions to Mars or claims about the prospects of colonisation.
The ecological consequences of massive rocket launches are already evident. Not just the endless stream of exploding SpaceX missiles that repeatedly shut down major transport routes, but also the ecological and environmental damage caused by all the debris.
This isn’t a screed against space exploration. I had a boyhood love affair with NASA. Rockets were cool. I even have the NASA design handbook and leaf through it whenever I can. I also loved sci-fi. My imagination was shaped by everything from Forbidden Planet to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
There’s a reasonable case for further exploration – and possibly even mining – of the Moon. There are good scientific reasons to send more probes into the outer reaches of our solar system, especially to some of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. There’s a lot of space-based knowledge to acquire. Lots of science to be done.
And there is also the small but real risk that an asteroid or comet could one day hit Earth with devastating effect. So it makes sense to develop the technology that might one day avert that kind of disaster.
But I’m only ever going to call planet Earth home. And I love this planet.
Earth is beautiful. And rare. Possibly the only option we will ever have to sustain our species.
It is within our ability to protect and preserve this planet. It’s big enough for us as a species. The human population has exploded in recent history. But that population growth will plateau soon. It may have already done so. Population decline is the pattern in most developed countries and in just about all of Asia.
We can also share Earth with all the other life forms that call this planet home and make our life here so wonderful. Whatever the vision of those who fantasise about colonising Mars, it doesn’t include taking cats and dogs and trees and birds with us. It doesn’t involve swimming in an ocean, skiing down a mountain, or lying in a grassy field while a spring breeze blows over your body.
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