A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through?

The Moon isn't just sort of a gray Sahara without air. Its surface is made of jagged, electrically charged microscopic glass and stone, which clings to pressure suits and landing vehicles. Nor is Mars just an off-world Death Valley—its soil is laden with toxic chemicals, and its thin carbonic atmosphere whips up worldwide dust storms that blot out the Sun for weeks at a time. And those are the good places to land.

In a room full of animals, the gorilla may not be the wisest, but you probably want to know what’s on its mind.

Space is looking more promising every day. There's no political corruption on Mars, no war on the Moon, no juvenile jokes on Uranus.

We aren’t saying you should give up on the hope for a life off-world—that’s too pretty a dream to part with. What we are saying is that if you do want that dream, you have to see the challenges as they are—real, profound, and present at every level from molecules to sociology.

Although it’s hard to predict the future, it seems to us that if we’re so good at robotics and ecology that we can build a permanent bubble world for 1 million people on a distant oceanless planet, well, surely we can clean some carbon dioxide out of the air on Earth.

Our impression talking to nongeeks is that while they realize space sucks, they have underestimated the scale of suckitude.

Did you know the first woman to step foot in a space station was “gifted” an apron and asked if she’d handle cooking and cleaning for the rest of her mission?

A quotation used in 99.9999 percent of all books about space settlement comes from rocketry founding father Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, who wrote in a 1911 article, “The earth is the cradle of humanity, but one cannot forever live in the cradle.” Perhaps. But we should remember that what emerges from a cradle is not a full-grown adult, but a toddler—lacking in knowledge, very excited, and prone to self-destruction. If we do plan to leave this place, better to do so as an adult. Let’s spend the awkward years learning and then strike out for new vistas.

Going to the stars will not make us wise. We have to become wise if we want to go to the stars.

They also had ceremonies in which immigrant workers would walk onto a stage wearing clothes from their homeland

A better way to think about human spacefaring may be as “costly signaling.

The hottest part of the Space Race coincides with worldwide decolonization

We found one story about Sidney A. Schwartz

Some behaviors apt to increase your relative radiation dose include eating Brazil nuts

Space is looking more promising every day. There’s no political corruption on Mars

Staying alive on Earth requires fire and a pointy stick.

the first woman to step foot in a space station was “gifted” an apron and asked if she’d handle cooking and cleaning for the rest of her mission?

No other species we’ve ever encountered has intentionally made its way to space,

Idyllic views of the future always seem to come with the hidden assumption that human nature will change. That somehow, the flaws of mankind will just melt away amongst the awesomeness of living among the stars. People will abandon mundane flaws like booze and drugs, and also everyone will be super-efficient like some kind of environmentalist’s dream. But that’s never been the case as we march forward, so I don’t see why it would happen in the future.—Andy Weir, world famous sci-fi author who also writes really insightful commentary in books about booze in space

In 2020, for example, SpaceX’s internet service provider, Starlink, released a Terms of Service agreement that declared that “no Earth-based government has authority or sovereignty over Martian activities.” This clause is like many statements about outer space settlement: it was promoted by a powerful advocate, widely shared and commented upon, and profoundly misleading. Earth-based governments do have authority over Mars activities—Mars is regulated by long-standing treaties and is an international commons. Admittedly, the treaties are weird and vague, but they do exist and can’t be de-existed via a Terms of Service agreement.

There’s no political corruption on Mars, no war on the Moon, no juvenile jokes on Uranus.

One fact of human psychology we found even in old polar exploration diaries was a deep concern with celebrations and with food. Crews on those monotonous trips often celebrated whatever holidays they could lay their hands on as an excuse to bring some novelty into the world.