Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/07/11/elon-musk-offers-sperm-to-seed-a-mars-colony.html
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Why not? His whole Mars colony fantasy is nothing more than a form of public wankery already.
“Colonizing Mars” is one of those things that only seems like a near-term possibility for people who are either ignorant of the fundamental challenges involved or just really really committed to self-delusion.
[ article posted by Allan Rose Hill ]
I’ll be impressed if we have a manned landing in twenty years.
Maybe he’s just going to send a vial and count each sperm as an individual person.
His ideas for earning a blue check keep getting weirder and weirder.
What a galactic wanker
Wow, we have gone all the way from having a Mars landing in twenty years to having a thriving extraterrestrial city in twenty years. Apparently there’s been a lot of progress, like not now but in the future.
The secret is having the right leadership in place.
That’s why we need to send Musk there first.
Maybe he’s confusing Mars with the Moon.
A million? In 20 years?
My very first thought is: how is he going to feed that many people? It will be cost prohibitive to send food to mars from earth on a regular basis, so he’ll have to grow it.
Where will he grow the food? Not enough atmosphere to till fields, and food for 1 million people will need a lot of land. In the ag programs I work on, a family of five can barely feed itself on 1/4 to 1/2 hectare land with efficient intercropping. Conservatively that means they’ll need at least 100,000 hectares of land, in a pressurized environment, sufficiently shielded from cosmic rays in order to grow sufficient plant food. Not including animal protein.
But wait; Martian soil is not suited to grow earth crops. (Or any earth plant.) So he’ll have to, somehow, habilitate 100,000 hectares of soil to bring it to a sufficient state to begin growing plants for human consumption.
And then, there’s the bees. 80% of the plants we eat require pollination. How will he get all those bees to Mars safely? Can you imagine sharing a spaceship full of bees for two years?! O_o
And don’t get me started on the water needs. Even if we assume a ludicrously low 5 liters of water per day per person, that’s 5 million liters of water that needs to be sourced, filtered and treated, and stored to enable minimum daily consumption needs. Not including the water the crops will need (though I am assuming a system of efficient drip irrigation, so much less water than used in typical surface agriculture).
Not to mention 1,000,000 beds. Plates, tableware (even 1 million pairs of chopsticks will weigh a literal ton), and other living amenities. How will he got the millions of tons of materials to Mars….?
20 years doesn’t sound…. Realistic….
I’m not sure how I feel with one of our greatest writers being put into context with a fascist.
Kelly and Zach Weinersmith (of SMBC webcomic fame) recently published a very thorough and well-researched book detailing the myriad technical, biological, economical, social, legal and ethical reasons that we aren’t going to have a colony on Mars (or anywhere else in space) any generation soon but I think your post may be the first time I heard anyone specifically cite the need for space bees.