There really isn't a comparison between engineers figuring out how to build a sustainable biosphere on Mars, and the problems that we're presumably discussing on Earth, like climate change and pollution, which are political problems inasmuch as billion dollar business models are benefiting from them, and actively fighting your efforts to interfere.
I like how you try to extricate getting to Mars as it’s own thing despite the industrial effort to do so exacerbating climate problems that are political problems.
Please, go on. I want to hear more about how thermodynamics can be waved away for “just an engineering project.”
This is what I mean. Obsession and success with engineering has titillated people to the point of blind faith. Externalities do not exist in their conceptual void. It’s become akin to unfalsifiable religious belief.
> I like how you try to extricate getting to Mars as it’s own thing despite the industrial effort to do so exacerbating climate problems that are political problems.
If humanity doesn't spend the resources on spreading humanity throughout the universe, then the resources will be spent on disposable plastic toys that fill landfills. It's not as if an edenic utopia is being despoiled for this boondoggle. Our environment isn't in its precarious state because of too much space travel. We're debating over the disposition of a tiny fraction of our dwindling material resources, negligible in the grand scheme.
> I want to hear more about how thermodynamics can be waved away for “just an engineering project.”
If we have a limited period before climate doomsday, then we'd better get cracking on space travel before it's too late.
