Elon Musk’s plans of cultivating a second human civilization on Mars might be the farthest a person has dared to let their imagination fly, but those horizons still have to deal with the feasibility of the technology we currently possess. At least that’s according to Neil deGrasse Tyson, who recently disabused us of our sci-fi notions in a chat with journalist Vladimir Lyubovny in a new episode of his VladTV YouTube channel.
With the looming existential threat of global warming and other political crises casting a dubious shadow over the future of humankind on Earth, the idea of space colonization is growing more appealing than ever.Â
At the forefront of these efforts is an eccentric billionaire who’s always trying to bring about new technological innovations. When he isn’t busy dabbling in free speech politics by purchasing a major social media platform, that is. Whether we want to admit it or not, Elon Musk may yet turn into our ultimate savior.
Except, Tyson thinks the whole idea of going to Mars doesn’t make sense from a pragmatic standpoint. As he explained it, he sees “no laws of physics that prevent” such an endeavor, but that still doesn’t mean it’s a plausible venture.
“What I will say is, we’re still running away from hurricanes,” He continued. “‘Buy toilet paper! Buy water! Run!’ When the volcano erupts, we lose our cities. There’s stuff happening on Earth that we do not control. We’re victims of Earth being Earth. Now you want to completely control what’s going on in another planet?”
As the astrophysicist puts it, this requires a level of geo-engineering that we do not currently possess.
“If you have the power of geo-engineering to terraform another planet, then you have the power of geo-engineering to terraform Earth back into Earth.”
We can’t argue with that logic, so what is it that fuels Musk’s ambitions? Does he see this equation in a different light? Or has he lost so much faith in mankind that he’s now racing against a ticking clock to save a remnant of a remnant when the embers of the apocalypse have turned to ashes?
