Lifewise on Mars

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Described in more detail below, here are the headlines.

Mars is absolutely nothing like Earth 

Mars propagandists create the impression that Mars is equivalent to Earth.

Transition to Sustainable Energy

Fixing Earth is the priority right now.

Money, Money, Money  

Billions of dollars will be wasted, that ought to be spent on pressing needs. 

Very Little Public Support 

Apart from scammy questionnaires, there is no evidence of substantial public support.

Cost of Rescue 

It will cost billions to put humans on Mars, assuming  everything goes right.  

Brain Drain 

Huge amounts of human talent are wasted on the dead planet. 

Stratospheric soot 

Some Mars rockets pose a huge global warming problem.

Plutonium and other radioactive materials 

Many Mars missions rely on plutonium.

Pollution in production, launch and debris re-entry 

Rockets have a huge environmental footprint.

Fake News about Mars is Rife

The public is largely ignorant about Mars because they are misinformed.

Mars Propaganda Death Spiral

The public is largely ignorant about Mars because they are misinformed.

Humans are Not Mature Enough 

Human race is not mature enough to embark on this mission

Spiritual Void 

Earth is our evolutionary and biological home in the Universe. 

We ought to settle the sea floor instead 

There is absolutely zero ecological benefit to going to Mars.

Enriching the 1%

It is worth asking where all that Mars money actually ends up. 

Mars will be dependent on Earth for centuries

It will take centuries, and hundreds of trillions of dollars, to make Mars self-sustaining. 

Mars will never be a model society

We will transport all of our petty grievances to Mars.

Mars Colonists will be sick all the time

Micro-gravity and misery will condemn Mars colonists to ill health.

Mars is absolutely nothing like Earth 

Mars propagandists create the impression that Mars is equivalent to Earth.

Mars  propagandists have created an impression that Mars is somehow like the  little brother of Earth, that the planet somehow deserves our help to  set things right – get the atmosphere back, help him out with that  missing magnetic field. They imply that Mars and Earth are somehow  equals, and this creates powerful misinformation about the right  relationship that we ought to have with Mars. Earth is not just a  convenient rock that we ended up on – we evolved here – and no other  planet is ‘Earth-like’ not even one with a breathable atmosphere. Mars  is as similar to Earth as a bee hive is to a similarly sized rock. 

Transition to Sustainable Energy

Fixing Earth is the priority right now.

If  we are to meet the Paris targets for climate change, we need to make  substantial changes to the world's energy supply. This is going to  require massive amounts of money, new technology, engineering expertise -  all the things that are being sucked up for the Mars Mission. Mars is a  major distraction from sustainability  and offers nothing in return. 

Money, Money, Money  

Billions of dollars will be wasted, that ought to be spent on pressing needs. 

To  date, a minimum of $20 billion has been spent investigating Mars, and  recently Trump okayed $450 billion over 30 years to get humans to Mars.  That's $450 billion US dollars. There is the opportunity cost for every  dollar spent on Mars. Just for a moment think of the good that nearly  half a trillion dollars could be spent on – health, education,  environment. Instead, how about we spend half a trillion dollars  educating young girls in developing countries how to create  entrepreneurial ventures planting trees, for example. That’s a much  better use of the money.  

Very Little Public Support 

Apart from scammy questionnaires, there is no evidence of substantial public support.

Apart  from the handful of people who say that they want to go and live on  Mars, there is very little public support for the idea. Sure, there are  some scammy questionnaires that guarantee the right answer. But very few  people who are informed of the details support the idea. 

Cost of Rescue 

It will cost billions to put humans on Mars, assuming  everything goes right. 

In  the movie The Martian, the Martianaut was left for dead on the planet.  Later, when it was discovered that he was still alive, a mad-cap rescue  mission was launched. If getting to Mars is going to cost at least $450  billion assuming that everything goes right, how much much extra will it  cost when something  goes wrong, and who will pay. Mars is a massive  blank-check.  

Brain Drain 

Huge amounts of human talent are wasted on the dead planet. 

Today,  there is a desperate need for innovation and technology development to  help protect the global environment - we need to renew our energy  supplies and move away from petroleum based-materials. The Mars program  is a huge brain drain, sucking talent away from where it is needed most.  Where we need the research effort is in  renewable energy technology  with a 1,000 to 1 energy return of energy invested (EREOI), super-powerful ecofriendly batteries, bio-plastics and sustainable  biofuels. There are thousands of fields of inquiry that actually benefit  humans and the natural living systems of the planet that we live on  that are not getting studied because so much talent is being squandered  on Mars. 

Stratospheric soot 

Some Mars rockets pose a huge global warming problem.

Rockets  burning methane or kerosene and liquid oxygen have a relatively benign  carbon footprint - equivalent to a long haul flight. However, solid  rocket boosters – such as the NASA SLS booster - produce huge amounts of  soot. When this soot enters the stratosphere, particles have a long  residence time (decades to centuries), and because soot has a massive  global warming potential, stratospheric soot from heavy launches  presents a potentially huge global warming problem. The fact that NASA  would even consider, let alone build such a device shows the depth of  psychopathy that has invaded this industry. It's time to put Understand  and Protect our Home Planet into the NASA Mission statement.

Plutonium and other radioactive materials 

Many Mars missions rely on plutonium.

Every  bit of plutonium send to Mars has to be mined and processed on Earth,  and that affixed to the top of a slow burning bomb (rocket) and blasted  through the atmosphere at thousands of miles an hour. The risk of an  accident that sees the launch fail and plutonium burn up in the  atmosphere is too high. This has already happened on at least three  occasions including Phobos-Grunt, Cosmos-954, Snap 9-A. So while the  space agencies, corporations and Mars aficionados get the benefit of the  money spent on Mars, it is the rest of the humans who suffer from the  radioactive contamination of the production and potential accidents of  these fuels. 

Pollution in production, launch and debris re-entry 

Rockets have a huge environmental footprint.

Rockets  and space craft are engineered structures that have a huge supply chain  that originates in a mine somewhere. There is huge amounts of energy  and minerals that need to be processed and at every stage, there is an  environmental footprint. From production of space vehicles. launch and  the re-entry debris the Mars program assaults the earth biosphere with  environmental pollution, and there is no budget allocation to clean up  the mess. 

Fake News about Mars is Rife

The public is largely ignorant about Mars because they are misinformed.

Propaganda  is already intense and pervasive… Check the dog in a space helmet by Musk, and the NASA Promotion: Mission to Mars.  Because of climate  change, Planet Earth is heading into an era of great trauma. Sea level  rise, intense storms, deeper droughts and floods. 

Mars Propaganda Death Spiral

The public is largely ignorant about Mars because they are misinformed.

Earth  is heading for collapse, and the worse it gets on this planet, the  easier it will be to make Mars seem rosy. This phenomena - the Mars  Propaganda Death Spiral - could trigger a panic among funding agencies,  who will then see Mars as the 'only hope for humanity', which will in  itself be the death knell for humanity.

Humans are Not Mature Enough 

Human race is not mature enough to embark on this mission.

When humans first visited the Moon and planted a flag, it  wasn't a flag that  represented all the humans on Earth, or all of life  on Earth, it was a  flag that represented a tiny subset of humanity:  American flag. At this stage of our cultural development, humanity is  simply not mature enough to embark on a venture, like this. 

Spiritual Void 

Earth is our evolutionary and biological home in the Universe. 

When we view the biosphere  simply a device that performs a  function - the way we view an electrical appliance - we lose our  spiritual connection to Earth, and we descend to the level of  high-tech-apes. We humans co-evolved with millions of other species over  billions of years in 1-G gravity, protected by a magnetic field and an  ozone layer. For humans to prosper, it is important that we retain the  spiritual bond between the humans and Mother Nature.  The Mars  colonization program breaks the spiritual bond between humans and mother  nature by suggesting that any-old planet will do for us humans. 

We ought to settle the sea floor instead 

There is absolutely zero ecological benefit to going to Mars. 

Settling  the seafloor is of equal an  engineering challenge as Mars; it just  involves high pressure, rather that low pressure. It is likewise dark  and hard to reach. The upside is that there is lots of seafood, and it  will actually do something good for humanity by fostering environmental  science. Plus, if  you want to avoid collapse and nuclear fallout, the  Abyssal Plain is as good a place as any. You don't need solar panels,  just capture the moving water for energy. If you get in trouble, just  ascent  three kilometers, and you’re back in the air again. A recent  NASA education series titled Ocean Worlds invites us to learn about the  oceans on other planets. If only we care so much about the oceans of  earth that are overheated, over fished, acidified and contaminated with  micro-plastics – some of which comes from the trash of the space  industry that is routinely dropped into the sea.

Enriching the 1%

It is worth asking where all that Mars money actually ends up. 

Ultimately,  the Mars program  draws wealth from the public and puts it into the  hands of the wealthiest people in society. The financial beneficiaries  of this wealth are the well-off Western engineers and the huge  transnational corporations (e.g. Lockheed Martin etc) that provide many  of the services. Mars is the biggest money tree in history and many  billionaires will be minted, funded by taxpayers money. This is occurring  at a time when the gulf between the rich and the poor, both between and  withing nations, is a major stress and risk in global security. 

Mars will be dependent on Earth for centuries

It will take centuries, and hundreds of trillions of dollars, to make Mars self-sustaining. 

These next few decades are crucial to life on Earth. Yet, at  exactly the same time, there is now a huge drain on resources to help  get humans to Mars. If people really want a sustainable Mars colony,  they need to do that from a healthy planet Earth. So it's a paradox - on  one hand the Marsophiles want to strip resources from Earth for their  mission at the time when the Earth needs them most, and on the other  hand they are completely dependent on Earth for their survival. Martian  Madness!

Mars will never be a model society

We will transport all of our petty grievances to Mars.

Recently,  a US Senator stated that he was opposed to funding any space program  that included gay astronauts. Clearly, his prejudices extended beyond  the surface of the Earth and into space. There is an idea that somehow a  Mars colony will not suffer the petty grievances that plague the humans  on the home planet. What a ridiculous idea.

Mars Colonists will be sick all the time

Micro-gravity and misery will condemn Mars colonists to ill health.

Mars Colonists will be permanently sick due to lack of direct  sunlight, poor food, radiation and misery. What's more, wanting to go to  Mars ought actually be defined as a mental illness, which is to say  that you'd be sick before you even left Earth. You have to be sick to go  to Mars. Also, the portable lavatory sized boxes called habitation  modules will be excellent breeding ground for air-borne transmissible  disease like Covid-19. The Mars colonists will die of COVID after having  bled Earth of resources.