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Elon Musk wants to build a colony on
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Mars whatever you think about the man at
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least he gives us something to talk
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about musk thinks colonizing mass is
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essential to guarantee a safe future for
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the human species but his plans are
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hugely controversial many scientists
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have said it's too dangerous and
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distracts from problems on our own
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planet and that's probably right but
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let's be honest dangerous distraction
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sounds very very interesting I found it
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hard to make up my mind about the merits
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of colonizing Mars and rather than
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sitting on it alone I thought we could
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look at both sides of the argument
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together first things first what does
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musk actually want he's planning to mass
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transport volunteers to Mars and build a
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city there with about 1 million
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inhabitants with his company SpaceX he
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wants to bring the costs of spaceships
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down so that the trip is Affordable to
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anyone such a m Colony mask s is
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necessary for the future of
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Consciousness just in case AR goes out
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of sty on Earth how many people do you
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need for a self-sustaining city is about
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a million and several million tons of
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cargo yeah which we can do and we can do
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this in 20 years at that point the
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future of Consciousness is assured if
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you do 10 launches a day at 200 tons per
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launch so roughly every 2 years
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thousands of ships would depart from
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Earth to Mars and we want to get we want
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to get the cost of going to Mars such
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that almost anyone could afford it like
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if somebody would to just work hard on
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Earth save off and that they'd be able
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to go to Mars so it's like anyone
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ideally almost anyone could go to Mars
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and I think you'll see a lot of
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governments also sponsor people so we're
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actually going to do this we're going to
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take Humanity to Mars and I'm confident
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you can do it Richard Dawkins is a fan
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I'm a great believer in human Ingenuity
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and I'm a great fan of Elon Musk who
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wants to colonize Mars and and I think
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that the The Greening of Mars is
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actually a a
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possibility a serious practical uh
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possibility but not everyone is
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enthusiastic about Elon musk's plans a
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lot of critics say that we should first
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sort out the problems on our own Planet
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like for example Martin
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Ree you mentioned musk uh he has
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indicated that humans could live in uh
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the moon or Mars
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but I think the point you made is that
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space travel will not sort out the
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problems that we have on Earth yes I
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mean I disagree with him on that I I
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think there might be a few crazy
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Pioneers living on Mars just like there
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are people living at the South Pole
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although it's far less Hospital in the
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South Pole um but the idea of mass
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migration to it avoid the Earth's
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problems which he and a few other space
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enthusiasts adopt that I think is a d
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dangerous illusion I don't think it's
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realistic and we've got to solve those
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problems here on Earth I like that term
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dangerous illusion it sounds like the
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name of a Vegas magic act next up the
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amazing Elon Musk who will make a
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trillion dollars disappear Neil the
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grass Tyson and Bill Mah also think that
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musk's mass plants are at best worth a
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laugh how soon could Elon Musk
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realistically send humans to Mars ah
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another good question I have strong
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views on that uh my read of the history
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of space exploration is such that we do
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big expensive things only when it's
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geopolitically expedient such as we feel
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threatened by an enemy and so for him to
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just say let's go to Mars because it's
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the next thing to do what is that
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venture capitalist meeting look like El
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what do you want to do I want to go to
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Mars how much will it cost a trillion
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dollars is it safe no people will
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probably die what's the return on the
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investment nothing that's a 5minute
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meeting and it doesn't happen so so we
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agree the point is you can't live on
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Mars I I've said this so many times how
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badly would we how badly would we have
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to rat Earth yeah before it was
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worse than a place that's 200 below zero
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yeah yeah with no air no water with with
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six months preach it preach
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it you but many scientists on Twitter
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were quite disappointed about this
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exchange especially about Neil's take on
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the idea of going to Mars it's
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depressing that our most famous science
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popularizer who also happens to be an
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astrophysicist cannot must excitement
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and enthusiasm over potentially going to
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mass writes Colin Wright and musk's own
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reply to the degrass Maha discussion was
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wow they really don't get it mass is
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critical to the long-term Survival Of
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Consciousness also I'm not going to ask
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any Venture capitalists for money I
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realize that it makes no sense as
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investment that's why I'm gathering
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resources okay I think you get the
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picture they can't agree on whether it's
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worth doing so let's have a look at the
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how and why starting with some
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background facts mass is our next
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neighbor planet and among the planets in
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our solar system the one that's most
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similar to Earth it's about 100 million
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kilometers farther away from the Sun
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than we are has about a tenth of the
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mass and a third of the gravitational
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pole Mass has an atmosphere but it's
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very thin and unbreathable for us it
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contains basically no oxygen and it's
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mostly carbon dioxide and nitrogen the
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larger distance from the Sun and lack of
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a warming atmosphere makes Mass very
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cold the average temperature is just
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about -60° C or - 80 F we know that
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there is water on mass a lot of it in
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the form of ice on the poles but still
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seeing the low temperatures lack of
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sunlight and atmosphere it's clear that
00:06:03
living on Mars would be very difficult
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not to mention unpleasant scientists
00:06:08
have put forward a lot of plans to
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terraform Mars to make it more earthlike
00:06:13
by giving it a breathable atmosphere and
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warming it up and growing plants there
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I've talked about this several times
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before and the brief summary is that
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these plants are unfeasible in the near
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future just because of the enormously
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large scale involved it would require
00:06:31
moving and handling enormous amounts of
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materials and is Way Beyond the economic
00:06:37
capacity that humans currently have on
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Earth let alone on another planet just
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to give you a sense of the problem the
00:06:44
reason Mass doesn't have an atmosphere
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is that it's been ripped away by solar
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wind that are charged particles which
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constantly blow out of the Sun the
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reason that this happened on Mars and
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not on Earth is that Mars doesn't have
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magnetic field this is also why the
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radiation dose on the surface of mass is
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rather unhealthy so really the first
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thing you'd need to do to terraform mass
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is to give it a magnetic field otherwise
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any new atmosphere will just drift off
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into space again the most realistic plan
00:07:19
I've seen for this if you can call it
00:07:21
that is to run electric currents through
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superconducting wires around Mass
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leaving aside the question of how to
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power them they may have to be more than
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3,000 kilm long I hope you see why I say
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this isn't going to happen anytime soon
00:07:37
basically this means that for at least
00:07:39
the next few hundred if not Thousand
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Years people on Mars would be living in
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enclosed shelters then of course there's
00:07:47
the danger of the flight to Mars itself
00:07:50
with current propulsion systems it would
00:07:52
take about 7 to9 months to get there
00:07:55
while people have been on the
00:07:56
International Space Station for longer
00:07:58
in an emergency a shuttle can be sent
00:08:01
there on a trip to Mars and during the
00:08:04
entire stay the new martians will be
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100% dependent on technology functioning
00:08:10
properly and it's almost guaranteed that
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some of them will die in novel ways okay
00:08:16
so now let's talk about the pros and
00:08:18
cons starting with the question of
00:08:20
whether it's scientifically interesting
00:08:23
if you want to study Mars for its
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geology or history or early traces of
00:08:28
life not only do you not need people
00:08:30
there you might actually not want them
00:08:32
there because they'll be trampling all
00:08:34
over the place for scientific purposes
00:08:37
it makes much more sense to send robots
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settling on Mars would be very
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interesting for social and psychological
00:08:45
studies but I can see why planetary
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astrophysicists may not be super excited
00:08:51
about the prospect of having Elon moving
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on Mars to be honest I think that
00:08:56
scientists might actually feel a bit
00:08:58
ignored or overlooked insulted even that
00:09:02
some rich guys trying to take what were
00:09:04
so far basically theirs if not legally
00:09:07
than practically what about economic
00:09:10
benefits well as musk himself admitted
00:09:13
there's no expected return on investment
00:09:15
it's arguably going to drive the
00:09:18
development of certain Technologies like
00:09:20
these habitats to begin with but in
00:09:22
terms of resources there isn't all that
00:09:25
much on mass that you could sell Neo the
00:09:27
grass Tyson to my understanding
00:09:30
basically thinks musk doesn't have
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enough money to pull it off he'll need
00:09:35
governmental support here's my point the
00:09:39
history of really expensive things ever
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happening in
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Civilization has in essentially every
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case been led geopolitically by Nations
00:09:50
how would Elon get to send his Rockets
00:09:52
to Mars from the the the Playbook of the
00:09:55
history of Geo of geopolitics what'll
00:09:58
happen the United States
00:10:00
decides we need to send astronauts to
00:10:02
Mars One Day
00:10:05
geopolitically by whatever forces
00:10:07
operating on us and then NASA looks
00:10:09
around say you know we don't have a
00:10:11
rocket to do that and then Elon says I
00:10:15
have a rocket and rolls out his rocket
00:10:17
to Mars then we ride an SpaceX rocket to
00:10:20
Mars I think that's probably right and
00:10:24
it's why Elon has been making friends in
00:10:27
the US government to alter Neil's point
00:10:31
I think Elon is way too optimistic about
00:10:33
the number of people who might volunteer
00:10:35
to move to Mars leaving aside some crazy
00:10:38
people who do anything for Elon you'd
00:10:41
have to offer a lot of money to get
00:10:44
someone to move to mass and most likely
00:10:47
they'd still only do it for a limited
00:10:49
amount of time I mean you can make
00:10:52
$15,000 by moving to the city of topa in
00:10:56
Kansas which maybe doesn't have much to
00:10:58
offer but at at least you don't
00:10:59
suffocate if you step in front of the
00:11:01
door and if you want to spend your days
00:11:04
wondering why am I here maybe cancas is
00:11:08
good enough so I tend to think that Neil
00:11:11
is right even the richest man in the
00:11:13
world doesn't have enough money to pull
00:11:15
this off then again elon's got friends
00:11:19
and just because I think it's not going
00:11:21
to work doesn't mean I think he
00:11:23
shouldn't try let's then talk a bit
00:11:25
about Elon musk's motivation for doing
00:11:27
this he seems to be very concerned with
00:11:30
the future of humanity and the future of
00:11:33
Consciousness indeed he set that his
00:11:36
plan is to make sure our civilization
00:11:38
lasts at least a million years I mean
00:11:41
I'd say like we should think of like how
00:11:43
do we make civilization last a million
00:11:45
years you know we often get caught up in
00:11:47
like the day-to-day things but we want
00:11:48
to have at least a million year
00:11:50
civilization if not a 100 million year
00:11:52
civilization or billion year
00:11:54
civilization absolutely crucial to that
00:11:56
goal is becoming a multi-planet species
00:11:58
one might argue that planning the future
00:12:00
of civilization for a million years
00:12:02
seems rather ambitious seeing that most
00:12:05
of us can't even make a house plant last
00:12:07
through the winter but maybe that's what
00:12:10
a trillion dollars do to your brain as I
00:12:12
discussed in an earlier video musk's
00:12:15
philosophy like that of many
00:12:17
billionaires seems to be closely aligned
00:12:20
with the long- termist movement
00:12:22
long-term ists think that we should be
00:12:25
more concerned with the really long-term
00:12:27
future of our species rather than the
00:12:30
present their logic is that if
00:12:32
everything goes according to their plan
00:12:34
then the human population will increase
00:12:37
exponentially therefore what happens in
00:12:40
the future matters much more than what
00:12:42
happens now this philosophy has a big
00:12:45
moral issue because it's discounting the
00:12:48
suffering of people in the present in
00:12:51
exchange for the very uncertain Prospect
00:12:53
of people flourishing in the future and
00:12:56
it's this moral tension I think that you
00:12:59
see in the arguments between musque and
00:13:01
people like Greece who think we'd be
00:13:03
better off focusing on the problems that
00:13:05
are in our face right now like climate
00:13:09
change that said I think musk has a
00:13:12
point we don't think about the long-term
00:13:14
future enough there are some existential
00:13:17
risks that could wipe out pretty much
00:13:19
all humans on this planet within a
00:13:21
decade or so this includes big asteroid
00:13:24
impacts and super volcano eruptions that
00:13:27
throw enough dust and Ash into into the
00:13:29
atmosphere to kill most plant life and
00:13:32
while we've made some progress with the
00:13:35
deflection of asteroids there's still a
00:13:37
long way to go there's nothing we could
00:13:40
do about a super volcano eruption and I
00:13:43
think my toaster is plotting against me
00:13:46
there's also the issue of risk
00:13:48
multipliers that several disasters in
00:13:51
short sequence can add up and lead to
00:13:54
Extinction this could be for example
00:13:56
economic stress from climate change to
00:13:59
together with microbial resistance a
00:14:01
nuclear war and a pandemic and then
00:14:04
imagine in those circumstances there's
00:14:06
an asteroid coming at us would we have
00:14:09
the resources left to deflect it I think
00:14:13
that's Highly Questionable I talked
00:14:15
about these existential risks in an
00:14:17
earlier episode and these are all
00:14:19
localized planetary problems so muscus
00:14:22
right that to mitigate existential risks
00:14:24
to the human species it makes sense to
00:14:27
put people on another planet we could
00:14:29
put some on the moon but making the moon
00:14:32
habitable is much harder than Mars
00:14:35
because it's just too small to keep an
00:14:37
atmosphere and also as musk points out
00:14:40
it isn't all that difficult to Nuke the
00:14:42
moon at least not if you're Russia let's
00:14:45
say there's a World War III Global
00:14:47
Therman nuclear warfare they'll probably
00:14:49
throw a few nukes at at the Moon I love
00:14:52
how casually he says this just your
00:14:54
average Tuesday coffee emails throwing a
00:14:57
few nukes at the Moon but yes populating
00:15:00
Mars is a really good plan to mitigate
00:15:03
existential risks it isn't the greatest
00:15:05
place to live but it's near enough and
00:15:07
similar enough to Earth to park some
00:15:10
people there as genetic backup basically
00:15:13
actually I wouldn't be surprised if MUSC
00:15:16
tried to get some of his kids to move
00:15:18
there okay so these are I think all the
00:15:20
major points to consider terraforming
00:15:23
mass is almost certainly not
00:15:26
economically feasible not within the
00:15:28
next several 100 years living in
00:15:31
habitats probably possible if Mosk
00:15:33
attracts governmental support they I
00:15:36
suspect they'll have a hard time finding
00:15:39
sufficiently many volunteers there are
00:15:41
no good economic reasons to do it for
00:15:44
scientific purposes it it make more
00:15:46
sense to send robots the major reason to
00:15:49
do it is mitigating existential risks
00:15:52
for Humanity and to evaluate the letter
00:15:55
we'll have to ask about the opportunity
00:15:58
costs what is it that we won't be able
00:16:00
to do if we pour so much resources money
00:16:03
people materials into Mass Colony
00:16:06
there'll be less left to develop
00:16:08
Technologies like nuclear fusion
00:16:10
artificial intelligence genetic
00:16:12
engineering or bionics all of which
00:16:15
would make life on Earth better and
00:16:17
would also make moving to Mars later
00:16:19
dramatically simpler and almost
00:16:22
certainly cheaper basically I arrive at
00:16:24
the conclusion that moving to Mars is a
00:16:27
good idea but it's too early I think we
00:16:30
should first develop better power
00:16:32
sources better propulsion systems
00:16:35
methods for faster adaptation to new
00:16:37
environments either genetic or
00:16:40
biotechnological and better ways of
00:16:42
managing large artificial ecosystems and
00:16:45
then go to Mars that said I strongly
00:16:49
doubt that Elon is going to give up on
00:16:51
his Mars plans what do you think about
00:16:54
this let me know in the comments
00:16:56
whatever you think about going to Mars I
00:16:59
think it's a good idea to take care of
00:17:01
this planet which is why I want to tell
00:17:04
you of an amazing bottom up Approach To
00:17:06
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00:17:09
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00:17:12
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00:17:20
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