As Dr. Zubrin once said "I think societies are like individuals, we grow when we challenge ourselves, we stagnate when we do not." - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2Mu8qfVb5I
I truly believe the whole point of going to Mars is to challenge ourselves. New skills will be required; new passions will be planted in future generations. The benefits will dwarf the cost of the program.
But above everything, humans are wired to explore. Obviously we're exploring things in many other fields, but "exploring other planets" is a different kind of exploration.
I agree with this, but I don't understand people who look at Earth and see no interesting challenges of this class.
Climate change? Widespread torture of thousands and thousands of marginalized classes of humans all over the world? Healthcare? Those are vastly more challenging than Mars.
I think the appeal of Mars is that it's somewhat challenging, but it's not messy at all. It appeals to people who can't stomach chaotic systems. They need a clear goal and they need "dumb" opponents, i.e. the laws of physics, materials science, etc. In the face of an intelligent opponent, the challenge becomes too high and they lose interest.
The idea of putting together a solution to a problem with known constraints, and then finding out those constraints changed, or worse yet there was active interference from another human is soul crushing to these people, so they retreat to difficult engineering problems where they will be challenged but not surprised.
> The benefits will dwarf the cost of the program.
There will be no benefit if nobody can pay the costs.
> I truly believe the whole point of going to Mars is to challenge ourselves.
SpaceX does not just want to go to mars, they want to have people permanently live there.
> But above everything, humans are wired to explore.
The point of exploration is to discover new places and what they look like. We know what mars is and what it looks like. We're currently exploring it. Sure, bringing humans there will make us know a bit more about it, and in that sense that's still exploration, but that's very marginal an improvement over what's currently done.
Also, exploration is a scientific endeavor, and as I said SpaceX's goals are clearly not just scientific. It's that non-scientific part I find insane.
I truly believe the whole point of going to Mars is to challenge ourselves. New skills will be required; new passions will be planted in future generations. The benefits will dwarf the cost of the program.
But above everything, humans are wired to explore. Obviously we're exploring things in many other fields, but "exploring other planets" is a different kind of exploration.