A City on Mars: Reality kills space settlement dreams
Let’s not send a few thousand people to Mars as a big experiment in survival.
@arstechnica send? No.
If folks want to participate in a big experiment in survival on Mars, let's go for it. It would be their choice, and there are plenty of people willing to do it.
Framing things like this as sending overlooks agency.
@volkris @arstechnica
Not one single person "willing to do it" can actually go to Mars.
All space flight has always at all times been an endeavour that involved at least thousands (and generally tens to hundreds of thousands) of people operating in concert - a truly human project and never one due any one single person.
If there's ever settlers on Mars, it will be because we, humans, sent them - not one of them would've made it on their own.
@SvenGeier that's like saying I didn't go to the store or I didn't go visit my family, but rather I was sent, on account of other people having built my car or flown the plane I rode to get there.
The point is the agency, the decision being made by the individuals who take the journey.
@SvenGeier ... well right, so same thing here.
@volkris @arstechnica Strangely, people visited their families before cars or airplanes existed. Before bicycles existed. Before horse-drawn carriages existed. It's almost as if visiting ones family doesn't require the development of new technologies, whole new industries, production infrastructures, legal frameworks ... but really only required agency.
Huh. How about that.