Colonizing Mars

It appears that Elon Musk is serious about colonizing Mars. A few points to be considered, however, many of which have been noted by others:

• If it’s feasible to colonize Mars, it’s feasible to fix the Earth. (Apparently came from Neil DeGrasse Tyson.)

• Wherever we go in the universe, we need a sustainable culture.  We’re actually fairly close to achieving that right here.

• If we tax the multibillionaires and apply the funds to things like decarbonizing our energy and transportation sectors, we’d be even closer.

• Transporting people and materials to Mars would be incredibly difficult and expensive.

• There’s essentially nothing on Mars conducive to supporting human life, in terms of water, atmosphere, temperature, and soil.

• Even if none of the above were true, all we would be accomplishing would be exporting human frailties (greed, tribalism, cruelty, cognitive biases, etc.) elsewhere in the solar system. We wouldn’t have gained a thing.