Earth is not doing so great. Thanks to man-made climate change, the seas are warming and rising, while the earth – in many places – alternately suffocates the drought or overflowing the floods. As for us humans, we are fighting on multiple continents, far-right movements are on the rise around the world and, as of last month, pumpkin-scented “dude wipes” are available in the United States.
Meanwhile, the escape hatch to space is opening. Elon Musk’s company SpaceX has a growing fleet of cheap, reusable rockets. In October, the booster of his mega-rocket, Starship, got stuck in the hands of a skyscraper tower as it descended to Earth. It was an impressive feat. But Musk’s goal with these vehicles is even more daring: to start a self-sustaining city of millions of people. Mars in the next 30 years.
Has anyone really thought this through? Well, yes, as it happens, even if Musk isn’t. We are a husband and wife research team – biologist and cartoonist respectively – and have spent four years studying how humans will become space colonists for our latest book, A city on Mars. We set out to write the essential guide to a glorious off-world future. What we learned, however, made us skeptical of space settlements.
Here’s the thing: Mars makes it bad. When you consider what life on the Red Planet would actually be like, in terms of the nitty-gritty details of human existence, it’s hard to avoid an uncomfortable conclusion: that moving to Mars to escape Earth would be like moving…
