WHY WOULD ANYONE WANT TO LIVE ON MARS OR ON THE MOON?

The death toll for Category 4 Hurricane Helene is now up to 64.  Surprisingly enough, South Carolina is up to 23, with Florida at 11, with 10 of them from the Tampa Bay area.  Perry and Tallahassee had none.  Note that the dangerous quadrant is to the northeast (0 to 90 degrees).  These numbers are expected to further rise.  There is particular worry about North Carolina.  4.8 million lost power.  Notice how the eye of Helene has circled back to Tennessee.

I read an article by John Crisp on Live on Mars? How about life on Earth?

• What should be the priority of NASA?  Send people to the Moon and Mars?  Or minimize mammoth expenses by focusing on telescopic explorations to find life in our solar system and beyond?
• I once worked on the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence at the NASA Ames Research Center, and eight years ago Harry Jones, who works there, speculated that the cost of the first human mission to Mars would be $500 billion.

• 
  When President G.W. Bush in 2004 announced his vision for Space Exploration, which was about going to Mars, the estimated cost was close to a trillion dollars (value in 2024).
• In comparison, the Manhattan Project would today have cost maybe $50 billion, or 5% of a future Mars Project.
• The entire Apollo Project to land on the Moon cost $280 billion in current dollars.

• 
  The American Interstate Highway system cost $500 billion.
• The value of New York City land is around $1.4 trillion, while the global real estate value is $217 trillion and investment in derivatives somewhere between $544 trillion to $12 quadrillion.
• The Gross Domestic Product of the USA is $25.5 trillion.
• 
  There are advocates for the colonization of Mars, like Elon Musk (left), Richard Branson and Robert Zubrin (right, former chairman of the National Space Society).
• Mars has all the raw materials to support life.
• Will be a power-rich economy based on the availability of deuterium fuel for fusion reactors.

• 
  Musk guessed it would cost between $100 billion and $10 trillion to build a new Mars city.  Further, he thought a round trip trip to Mars and back might cost $200,000.  His goal?  1 million on Mars by 2050.

So about the colonization of Moon and Mars:

• In 1492, the motivation of Columbus was to find a shorter route to India, China, Japan and the Spice Islands.  The attraction was to trade in silks and spices.

• 
  In 1961 President John F. Kennedy asked Congress to dedicate $7-$9 billion for the moon project.  The Soviet Union had a month before sent Yuri Gagarin into space, and the race to the Moon became the a goal of significance.  This gamble worked, for space helped bankrupt the USSR into collapse in 1991.

• 
  What is the motivation to colonize the Moon?
• First no nation can claim anything on the Moon, but that Moon Agreement has not been signed by any exploitive nation.
• There is an Outer Space Treaty that has mostly been ratified to prohibit space wars, but hints that the use of outer space should be for the common benefit.
• Any product developed would cost too much to return to Earth.
• The Moon would mostly be useful as a more efficient site to get to Mars.
• Why colonize Mars now?
• From Wikipedia:

Justifications and motivations for colonizing Mars include technological curiosity, the opportunity to conduct in-depth observational research, the possibility that the settlement of other planets could decrease the probability of human extinction, the interest in establishing a colony independent of Earth and in economic exploitation of its resources.

Settlement of Mars would depend on permanent migration of humans to the planet and the exploitation of local resources. Both are demanding, with large investments needed and people to be ready for life threatening conditions, since the planet is hostile to human life. Its barren surface is subject to intense ionizing radiation and is covered by fine, toxic dust, making the surface more toxic than Earth after a hypothetical nuclear war.^[5] Mars has an atmosphere that is unbreathable and thin, with surface temperatures fluctuating between −70 and 0 °C (−94 and 32 °F). While Mars has frozen sub-surface water and other resources, windand solar conditions are weak for electricity generation, and resources for nuclear power are poor. Mars' orbitis relatively close to Earth's orbit, though far enough from Earth that the distance would present a serious limitation on importing goods and people to travel.

• 
  The Martian day is 24 hours, 39 minutes and 35 seconds.
• Atmosphere of 0.16% oxygen, versus 21% in the atmosphere of Earth.
• The surface temperatures ranges from 70 F to -225 F.  If you stand on the surface of the planet at noon, your feet would will be at 75 F and your head at 32 F (water freezes at that temperature).  Why this difference?  The atmosphere is so thin.
• Sunlight is too weak to grow crops.
• 
  Robotic cameras haven't seen water, and none has been measured, but there is speculation that liquid water should be available in the outer crust of the planet.  But this verification relates to seismic signals from Mars quakes.
• Natural radiation is high.
• Communication with Earth will take from 3 to 21 minutes (speed of light).
• The total volume of Mars is 15% of Earth.  The Moon is 2% the volume of Earth.
• 
  Bill Nye on Forbes says it makes no sense to colonize Mars now.  Watch this video.
• No one goes to Antarctica to raise a family.
• Plus, there are no trees, not enough air, there will be dust storms for months, and it's far too cold at night.
• You can't compare going to Mars with the Mayflower, because the colonists had air to breathe, heat from the sun and things to kill and eat.
• No gold or diamonds to mine.
• 
  Human colonization?  Maybe robotic precursors would make more sense for now.
• My view is, sure, someday we might need to find another place to live.  Then we must go.  But not now, and probably not for centuries to come.

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