<story><title>Elon Musk Wants to Put Man on Mars in &apos;12 to 15 Years&apos;</title><url>http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/elon-musk-put-man-mars-roughly-12-15/story?id=16940287</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Cushman</author><text>I hate to be that guy, again, but I still feel like I haven&apos;t seen a very clear explanation of why this is a good idea. It&apos;d be a great tourism experience, but what&apos;s the ultimate value to humanity?&lt;p&gt;Especially in light of Curiosity, why is it assumed that the logical next step after sending a robotic lab is to send a person, rather than sending a few dozen more robots? For a fraction of the cost of sustaining human life on another planet, we could construct a huge automated research complex capable of doing everything a human would want to do -- even golf -- and that would be valuable research toward developing the fully-autonomous robotic scientists which are definitely the only way we&apos;re going to have real long-term exploration of the outer solar system and beyond.&lt;p&gt;Basically, I can understand why someone might want to go to Mars, but I&apos;m not sure why someone else would want to send them.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Dn_Ab</author><text>Ah what is the value to humanity? What is the value to humanity of a stadium, of the Olympics, of a monument, of a great piece of art or a beautiful performance? What is the value to humanity of entertaining blockbuster movies, fun video games, comics and science fiction?&lt;p&gt;What is the value to humanity of inspiration?&lt;p&gt;Right now science is held almost in contempt, all its wonders are subtle - appreciable only to the trained mind. Such an accomplishment would be large and obvious. The peripheral effect in inspiring young minds cannot be overestimated. One of those may one day go on to develop powerful DNA repair mechanisms because their imagination was captured at a young age by space travel and wanted to do something useful to that. Let alone the boon to cancers.&lt;p&gt;They want to travel to and live on another planet with low gravity and scant atmosphere. How could they possibly do that without spurring the invention of a lot of amazing things as a side-effect?&lt;p&gt;I&apos;ve mentioned my hypothesis that it would have positive effects on geopolitics by making it possible to view Earth as a locality. But.&lt;p&gt;Most of all it would at once be an incredible piece of science and the greatest piece of art ever created. For what is art but a celebration of humanity and human ability?</text></comment>
<story><title>Elon Musk Wants to Put Man on Mars in &apos;12 to 15 Years&apos;</title><url>http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/elon-musk-put-man-mars-roughly-12-15/story?id=16940287</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Cushman</author><text>I hate to be that guy, again, but I still feel like I haven&apos;t seen a very clear explanation of why this is a good idea. It&apos;d be a great tourism experience, but what&apos;s the ultimate value to humanity?&lt;p&gt;Especially in light of Curiosity, why is it assumed that the logical next step after sending a robotic lab is to send a person, rather than sending a few dozen more robots? For a fraction of the cost of sustaining human life on another planet, we could construct a huge automated research complex capable of doing everything a human would want to do -- even golf -- and that would be valuable research toward developing the fully-autonomous robotic scientists which are definitely the only way we&apos;re going to have real long-term exploration of the outer solar system and beyond.&lt;p&gt;Basically, I can understand why someone might want to go to Mars, but I&apos;m not sure why someone else would want to send them.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>sktrdie</author><text>Consider the frailty of our planet. The speck of dust that it is compared to the depths of the universe. If we don&apos;t start colonizing other planets, and gain the &lt;i&gt;experience&lt;/i&gt; on how to do so, we&apos;ll essentially become extinct quite rapidly.&lt;p&gt;Forget the robots. We need the experience in sending actual humans there. This has to happen sooner or later if we want to ensure that our race lives on, after our planet becomes inhabitable.&lt;p&gt;With all this in mind, it&apos;s better to do this sooner rather than later. And why not start in 12-15 years? I hope you can see the value now.</text></comment>