Why bother?

Terraforming another planet is going to be expensive, and its going to take a long time and a lot of work, and will never turn a profit. It may not even be possible. For example, in Mars’s low gravity, water will dissociate into H2 and O2 and the former will rapidly escape the planet, as well as much of the latter. Whatever we use for water will have to be continuously replaced, probably plundered from the outer solar system. So there’s not only the initial cost, but the maintenance costs as well. Similar issues will probably arise with soil, air, and other natural resources. Hell, last I heard, Martian soil was chemically toxic. Sure, I don’t doubt we can treat it, but why? Dirt is cheap on Earth.

I have no problem with colonies on Mars, or elsewhere in the solar system, especially if they are mostly self-supporting. There is energy and matter there, resources, and plenty of empty space to safely dump our toxic wastes and perform dangerous experiments. A thriving constellation of space settlements might provide us with products we can’t make cheaply here, as well as help pay for a robust program of basic research. And THAT will always pay for itself in the long run.

But do we really need oceans, forests, breathable outside air and shirt-sleeve atmosphere? We already have all that, right here on Earth, and no matter how bad we fuck it up its going to be a helluva lot easier to fix our own planet than try to rebuild another one from scratch. Or even better, for much less trouble, we could manage our own terrestrial environment so it doesn’t need to be replaced. We understand how it works much better and have much more experience with it. Reforestation of the Amazon will be child’s play compared to growing turnips on Mars.

Besides, the restoration of earth will provide employment and benefit to the people of earth, not just cushy jobs and adventure to a bunch of space groupies who will have to be supported and subsidized by the resources and taxpayers on the home world.

Terraforming is a bad idea. This isn’t the same situation as the European exploitation of the New World; when the Conquistadudes got here, there was already soil, water, air, life and cheap labor. And ocean transport was free, powered by the wind.

We are learning the hard way how our own local planetary engineering projects have a way of going south on us. I’m from Florida, remember? In less than a century we are transforming one of the most biologically productive biomes on Earth into a wasteland–we live in a swamp and we’re running out of water.

Terraforming is a cowboy pipe dream. The American Frontier Fantasy. Its dangerous, irresponsible thinking. After we ruin the local real estate, we can just move somewhere else and ruin THAT. That way we don’t have to feel guilty about what we’ve already spoiled.