Elon Musk’s Mars Colonization Will Fail, But That Doesn’t Matter

Let us talk about the positive outcomes of a failed Mars colonization.

A lot of people like to take a big dump on Elon Musk’s plans to colonize Mars. There is no shortage of people ready to line up and tell us why the idea is not only stupid, but also entirely unworkable.

I have a slightly different perspective. I am cheering on Elon Musk, although I mainly agree with the criticism of his plans. Let me walk through the case for and against Mars colonization.

Musk is correct that being multi-planetary has long-term benefits. We cannot easily be wiped out as we will have backup planets. Unfortunately, many misunderstand this and think having colonized multiple planets is about giving up on preserving nature and humanity on Earth. That is to take a narrow view of all the calamities that humanity may face.

Global warming can undoubtedly cause massive destruction and kill lots of people. Yet even global warming has a very slim chance of entirely wiping out humanity. Temperatures cannot rise so rapidly that everybody gets killed in a short time frame before we have time to react. Humans would have no problems building climate-controlled domes for fairly large populations.