The Earth is not doing very well. Thanks to human-induced climate change, oceans are warming and rising, and land is in many places alternately suffocating in drought or inundated by floods. We humans are waging war on multiple continents, far-right movements are rampant around the world, and as of last month, pumpkin-scented ‘wet wipes’ were being released in the United States.
Meanwhile, the escape hatch into space opens with a creaking sound. Elon Musk’s company, SpaceX, has affordable, reusable rockets. In October, the booster stage of the giant rocket Starship was caught by the handle of a skyscraper as it was descending to Earth. It was an impressive feat. But Musk’s goals for these vehicles are much bolder. That means starting a self-sustaining city of one million people on Mars within the next 30 years.
Has anyone actually thought about this? Yes, unfortunately it wasn’t Musk. We are a wife-husband research team, a biologist and a cartoonist respectively, and we spent four years researching how humans might become space settlers for our latest book. city of mars. We set out to write the essential guide to a glorious extraterrestrial future. But what we’ve learned has made us skeptical of space settlement.
The problem is this: Mars sucks. When we dig into what life on the Red Planet might actually look like in terms of the squishy details of human existence, it becomes difficult to avoid uncomfortable conclusions. Moving to Mars to escape Earth would be like moving…
