> <i>The decision to terraform Mars would also exhibit hubris. Often understood as an “excessive pride before the gods,” hubris has ancient roots and is perhaps best epitomized by the fabled Icarus, whose wings of wax and feathers melted when he got too close to the sun in his attempt to reach heaven.</i><p>One man's hubris is another's whole <i>raison d'être</i> of humanity. I suppose the reference to Icarus is a good one here, because I wholeheartedly agree with Randall Munroe: "But I've never seen the Icarus story as a lesson about the limitations of humans. I see it as a lesson about the limitations of wax as an adhesive.".<p>I can understand appeals to aesthetics. I can understand pointing out generic irresponsibility of humans in aggregate. But <i>hubris</i>? The strong drive to adapt the world to what we see fit is literally what separates us from animals.
There are more practical reasons not to terraform Mars. Notably, the most valuable resources for human survival (oxygen and water) would eventually be lost to space. It is a slow process to be sure. In practical terms, it would probably outlast humanity as a species (either evolution or extinction, depending upon your outlook). Yet it does seem to go against the basic idea that many of proponents of manned space exploration tout: a second home to ensure our survival. Terraforming Mars would be, at best, temporary.<p>My take is that we should go out there, exploiting resources as needed, yet adapting to the environment through technological means. Even if we could terraform Mars, we would still have to adapt in order to go beyond that planet since there is nowhere else within reach that is remotely similar to either planet. Even if you could imagine a sci-fi future where the stars are within reach, chances are that a good portion of the habitable planets will have life of some form. That would raise more serious ethical issues than the subjectivity of beauty.
There are countless millions of lifeless beautiful giant rock worlds carved and shaped throughout the eons by the interaction of elements. And yet, there's only one of such rocks, that we know so far, has been graced by the beauty of life. Life spreads, grows, adapts, multiplies. It, just like all other elements in the universe that came before it, shapes its environment as it interacts with it. Life isn't any different from the wind and water that shapes the mountains, or the meteor that carves a valley deep into the earth.
I'd highly recommend reading the referenced Mars Trilogy. The debate has some more detail in the words of the characters (though the summary here gets the major points of the "Reds").
What's missing here but present in the series is the counterpoint. For purposes of profit and self preservation, terraforming is all but inevitable. A more useful debate is about how it should happen if you want to preserve some of the Martian natural beauty.
We as humans haven't yet learnt to co-exist with other animals and maintain the equilibrium on Earth. What makes us think we are going to treat Mars any better?
Please don't get me wrong, I am all for exploring the planets, in fact I am annoyed that we don't yet have the technology to visit a system like TRAPPIST-1.
But unless we learn to be considerate towards nature and other species which inhabit this planet we are not going to be good residents on other planets. Just my two cents.
On one side of the scales we have that Mars is pretty. On the other side, we have the continued existence of humans in the face of one random asteroid.<p>I care more about hedging against an asteroid strike than I do about the natural beauty of a planet that no one's even seen up close.
><i>Mars has many features of extraordinary natural beauty. It is home to the tallest known volcano on any planet, Olympus Mons, whose cap reaches 13.6 miles high—two and a half times the height of Mount Everest.</i><p>><i>The decision to terraform Mars would also exhibit hubris.</i><p>Speaking of hubris: if we terraform Mars, people are going to want to climb <i>Olympus Mons</i>. Perhaps the volcano would acquire a reputation and body count similar to Everest.<p>Obviously the future holds great potential for lifesaving technology, but at the same time there's always purists. After all, the people who have climbed Everest probably wouldn't have if there wasn't any danger involved.<p>I imagine much of the danger would depend upon the finer details of how the Mars was terraformed. Namely sea level, atmospheric composition, and anything else that affects weather at altitude.<p>Would reaching the summit even be possible without oxygen? It wouldn't be on Earth at that height, but I've no idea if that holds for a terraformed atmosphere on another planet.
The aesthetic argument is weak, because it doesn't make sense to talk about anyone but us having an aesthetic perspective. Mars is beautiful? Fill those canyons with life and make it even more beautiful.<p>The stronger argument is: look at what we've done to Earth, and it's obvious that we don't know yet how to make a planet better.
If we could terraform, we should do it right away, humanity is one meteorite strike away from extinction... the universe is a harsh place and we have to hedge our bets to survive and thrive...
The destruction-of-beauty argument is not without merit, but no-one makes that argument about Mt Rushmore. You can make something more beautiful, and that doesn't make the destruction of beauty argument moot but it does make it less convincing. The hubris, or "playing god", argument is utterly unconvincing for me. Our environment would be safer if we spent more time playing god with genetic manipulation and less time worrying that the wheat will grow beaks and murder the farmers in their sleep. One era's playing god is another era's everyday life.
What a beautiful piece of writing. I always saw terraforming Mars as a technological challenge, it's great to see someone consider the ethics of the project. The following paragraph stood out most for me.<p>'Another reason for believing that terraforming would involve hubris is to consider how we treat Earth, a place we might call our “proper place” or “home.” If we think of our home as a place which nurtures us and in which we grow to maturity, then a case could be made that until we learn to treat our own planet better, any attempt to reshape another planet and call it our “home” would be hubristic.'<p>Whenever we apply technology people talk progress. Intuitively I would say that progress implies a destination and that progress is about getting closer to it. But can we really say we're making progress if we do not know the destination: how should people live together? When we agree to terraform Mars we do so in the belief that it's a good idea. But 'good' implies an answer to the question. It's very interesting to try to find these implicit answers and see if we can turn them into an <i>explicit</i> answer. Maybe then we'll find that often technology looks like progress, while it's not getting us closer at all.
The counter from Sax Russell in Red Mars to this exact debate, straight from the book:<p>> <i>"The beauty of Mars exists in the human mind. Without the human presence it is just a collection of atoms, no different than any other random speck of matter in the universe. It’s we who understand it, and we who give it meaning. […] The lack of life here, and the lack of any finding in fifty years of the SETI program, indicates that life is rare, and intelligent life even rarer. And yet the whole meaning of the universe, its beauty, is contained in the consciousness of intelligent life. We are the consciousness of the universe, and our job is to spread that around, to go look at things, to live everywhere we can. […] If there are lakes, or forests, or glaciers, how does that diminish Mars’s beauty? I don’t think it does. I think it only enhances it. It adds life, the most beautiful system of all."</i> - Kim Stanley Robinson, Red Mars
Here's a better argument against Terraforming Mars.<p>Right now we can't.<p>If we start approaching a state where we can, other arguments become important. Until then it's similar to an argument against bringing people back from the dead.
If there are no humans around to appreciate the aesthetic value of mars as is, then what's the point? I think human survival trumps the ascetic of a dead planet.
I don't think most terraforming plans are remotely practical. One sort of compromise solution involves building an enormous ceiling and walls of glass over areas we want to inhabit. It could hold in heat and an atmosphere and would require much less effort to fill than the entire planet. Eventually the entire planet could be covered, but we could leave regions untouched as "nature" preserves.
Hmmm if we had the power to bring water to the Sahara Desert and make it bloom would we not do it for aesthetic reasons? The Sahara has been bountiful in the past. There are plenty of other bodies in the solar system to leave in their "natural state" whereas Mars' current condition is more a matter of coincidental timing than of it's being a timeless Platonic object.
This sounds like humans are born to be enemies of nature as they inevitably reshapes what nature looks like. But humans are part of nature, and the symbiosis of human and environments led to the co-existence of beauty and ugliness today.<p>However, I do think Terraforming Mars could be a bad idea. Technology-wise it is unclear it's easier than transforming human ourselves (say cybernetics).
These are indeed "arguments". There is an actual reason though. Mars cannot be terraformed because it has no magnetosphere. Which is also probably why it is like it is now in the first place. Creating a magnetosphere is not impossible theoretically but vastly unrealistic at this time.
Should we terraform Mars is well on its way to being an irrelevant question. Launch costs keep getting cheaper, and there are low-energy (if long) paths between Earth and Mars. The only question is how long before some person or small group decides Mars terraforming is getting started, _now_.
tl;dr Mars is pretty and if we terraform it then that will change its appearance. Good people don't break pretty things, and we want to be good people, so we shouldn't terraform Mars.
I don't understand why the same people who want to terraform mars claim climate change is soon to be irreversible (which they seem to have been saying since the 60's).
Mediocre People inventing fairy tales to not look as cowardly as they are besides ambitious people.<p>The problem is, that the writer of such a piece, after completing it- turns around to a humanity hungry for a next, risky, feet. So hungry in fact, it would vote for a mad man to axe the risk avoider caste.<p>So our writer turns around and exclaims "Sorry, no big feets available today, maybe you all should relax and come back for a nth-chance tomorrow."<p>Now, where else to turn too? Those claiming to be pro-risky steps?
Mostly company cronys, who marketing crowned with "bold moves High-Performers" but who got where they are, by constant small incremental steps, and putting up arbitrary expensive obsticles behind them, to keep a little privacy.<p>Imagine sheparding a asteroid with a tug-drone from the belt into moon-orbit, how much this price winning inbred hunting-dog-show would wail to avoid the chase, while those with nothing too lose and everything to gain, would be busy drilling in a high-rad, zero-g environment.<p>This is why we got Trump, and will get Trump again, Incarnation after Incarnation, because this species always voted pro-risk once the mamoth was eaten.