Mars doesn't make a ton of sense as a backup earth because gravity there is too weak to carry a fetus to term. If we had the tech and the urgency to terraform mars, it would probably make more sense to put those resources into space stations where we could control the environment better (and less risk from losing any one station). Mars in this scenario is sort of like an offshore oil rig that people work on for some months at a time and then go back to their life in space (again provided we can't live on earth for some reason).
You know I took the wrong conclusions from frog/rat developmental studies in space. As far as I can tell low gravity isn't known to be a killer, just that the whole process hasn't been studied (no mammal recorded to give birth in space).
As to whether or not that makes Mars hard, I think it doesn't matter how well you can control the climate if you can't have a second generation of people to live there.
I literally can't imagine a realistic scenario where we are better off on Mars.
Earth would have to lose its orbit and be falling into the sun or spinning off into deep space for that to make sense. It would probably be easier to deflect a meteor the size of earth that is headed for earth than to terraform Mars.
If terraforming becomes unbelievably easy then that would change the calculus - but then Venus might seem like a better candidate at that point.
I always consider living on Mars or a space station to be much like living on a submarine, but without any time off. It seems likely that most people would go crazy, so even if you are not, others are. Your abiding question would be: what is the point?
Mars doesn't make a ton of sense as a backup earth because gravity there is too weak to carry a fetus to term. If we had the tech and the urgency to terraform mars, it would probably make more sense to put those resources into space stations where we could control the environment better (and less risk from losing any one station). Mars in this scenario is sort of like an offshore oil rig that people work on for some months at a time and then go back to their life in space (again provided we can't live on earth for some reason).
> gravity there is too weak to carry a fetus to term
This seems way down in the list of reasons Mars is hard. Possibly not on the list at all. Interested in your source on such a confident claim.
You know I took the wrong conclusions from frog/rat developmental studies in space. As far as I can tell low gravity isn't known to be a killer, just that the whole process hasn't been studied (no mammal recorded to give birth in space).
As to whether or not that makes Mars hard, I think it doesn't matter how well you can control the climate if you can't have a second generation of people to live there.
I literally can't imagine a realistic scenario where we are better off on Mars.
Earth would have to lose its orbit and be falling into the sun or spinning off into deep space for that to make sense. It would probably be easier to deflect a meteor the size of earth that is headed for earth than to terraform Mars.
If terraforming becomes unbelievably easy then that would change the calculus - but then Venus might seem like a better candidate at that point.
I always consider living on Mars or a space station to be much like living on a submarine, but without any time off. It seems likely that most people would go crazy, so even if you are not, others are. Your abiding question would be: what is the point?