Elon Musk should listen to Bill Nye and abandon the colonization of Mars – Quartz



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In a classic Sesame Street sketch, Ernie sings a song called "I do not want to live on the moon". "I would like to visit the moon," he sings, "but I do not think I would like to live there."

Bill Nye has the same feeling about Mars.

In an interview with USA Today, the famous Science Guy and director of The Planetary Society offers a very compelling list of why the colonization of Mars would be profoundly meaningless in quality of life.

"Nobody will settle on Mars to raise a family and have generations of Martians," Nye told the newspaper. "It's not reasonable because it's very cold. And there is almost no water. There is absolutely no food, and the big problem, I just remind these guys, that there is nothing to breathe.

It sounds badly wrong! And more: every time you go out on Mars, you have to put on an old, unusual combination. "When you leave your dome, you'll install another one, and I think it's going to age pretty quickly," Nye told USA Today. "Especially the smell in the spacesuit – all the Febreze you can carry, I think it will really help you up there."

Imagine that. You left your friends and family and your favorite burrito behind and traveled for nine months to get to Mars. Now you are cold, you are hungry and your daily life is just trundling in your old nauseating suit. the time, taking, taking. Most people do not even like to wear pants to leave the house.

Nye's practical saying offers a counterpoint to the more optimistic view of life on Mars adopted by people like SpaceX's founder and CEO, Elon Musk, who has often claimed that colonization on Mars is necessary to provide the world with the power to live. humanity a plan for safeguarding civilization in the event that this is really the case on Earth. hit the skates. Although Musk recognizes that living on Mars would present some challenges, he has also often tried to make it seem like a small adventure, even though parents might try to convince their children that, for example, they miss the pool party. from a friend to go to the dentist is going to be a riot of laughter.

"It would be great fun to be on Mars, because gravity would be about 37% of Earth's, so you can lift heavy objects and get around them," Musk writes in an article in the New Space newspaper. . last year. "Mars is about twice as far from the sun as the Earth, so it always has a decent solar light. It's a bit cold, but you can warm it up.

You are not fooling anyone, Elon! The red planet is a stupid place to live. Still, Nye is everything to visit him. "We would send people there to make discoveries. Exploring is the big idea, "he said. Then, the astronauts go home and look at Netflix and hug their dogs, which seems much more pleasant. Ernie may have said it best: "There are so many places I would like to be / but none of them permanently."

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