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1. Stratospheric Soot 2. Rocket Propellants
3. Martian Madness 4. Helium
5. Re-entry Debris 6. Suborbital Debris
7. Plutonium in Space 8. Cosmos 1818
9. Re-useable Rockets 10. Space Tourism
10. Launch Accidents 11. Ozone Depletion
13. Overview Effect 14. HAPS
12. Sustainable Space 13. Our Long Future

Martian Madness

Why trade a living planet for a dead one? Why would any sane person leave a living planet for a dead one? It simply makes no sense, and yet billions of dollars are being spent on developing the capacity to build a colony for humans on Mars.

From NASA to SpaceX, there is a rush to get off this warm, living planet and onto the cold, dead one.

We call this Martian Madness and a lot of people have got it.

Elon Musk (who ought to be thoroughly commended for his work with Tesla Motors and Solar City) has plans to put a million people on Mars. He says that to get them and all of their toys up there will require 100,000 big rocket launches from Earth, like the one pictured above. But what is the ecological impact of all of these rocket launches?

Consider the carbon emissions. Consider the warming emissions of the soot. Consider the environmental impact associated with mining all those minerals to build the fleet of space ships.

If Musk’s 100,000 rockets use kerosene and liquid oxygen for fuel as his rockets presently do, then the Martian Madness could end up baking the living systems of this planet as a result of all the soot entering the upper stratosphere.

The article below is Musk interviewed by Russia Today on his martian mission. Interesting title.

At the height of the Apollo Mission to put men on the moon, NASA was consuming 4.4% of the US Government Budget. Imagine what will fail to get funded if there is a similar fiscal effort for Mars in coming years.

Earth is the home for humans, not Mars. If there are people who would prefer to live on Mars, who are we to stop them as long as they don’t trash the Earth in the process of getting there. A martian colony is the last thing that humanity needs right now. We need our best and brightest to concentrate on rescuing planet Earth, rather than trying to figure out how to leave it. The Long Future Foundation intends to add some sanity and sustainability to the conversation about the proposed Mars colony in the hope that the plans are put on ice until such time as we have established a sustainable human economy on the home planet and sustainable rocket fuel.

We ought to go to Mars, but not for a billion years.

This is how it is going to end up…