Since I was a kid the space program has been an object of my fascination, and even as an adult I’ve been captured by the heroics of NASA and other organizations launching probes and telescopes into the far reaches of space.
But something has never sat quite right with me about the recently renewed interest in human space travel, especially from CEOs of private companies like Musk and Bezos.
I think it’s always been a combination of two things:
- There are so many problems here on Earth, many of which could be solved with the resources being invested into sending humans to another world.
- Colonizing another planet is… still colonization.
I’d really never given it too much thought until this week when Maciej Cegłowski made his blogging return for the first time since 2020:
Wherever you stand on the matter, whether you’re a Musk fanboy, an unaligned Mars obsessive, or just biplanetary/curious, I invite you to come imagine with me what it would take, and what it would really mean, for people to go put their footprints in the Martian sand.
Maciej does a great job explaining just how bad and nonsensical of an idea it is to send humans to Mars.
As much as I love media about humans traveling to the red planet (The Martian and For All Mankind come to mind), perhaps it’s best that fantasy lives on solely as part of our imagination for now.