If only Elon would go to Mars! Let’s fly around the galaxy like Star Trek! The common public belief is that “Technology will overcome every obstacle!”
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Then the astronauts came back with a different story. William Shatner:
Space travel is dangerous to the human body. Bones decalcify and fall apart. Connective tissue falls apart. Muscles atrophy. Sinuses get blocked. We lose our sense of taste. The microbiome freaks out and the immune system believes it is under constant attack. Cardiac rhythm, blood pressure, blood vessels and lymphatic drainage are screwed up in a zero G artificial environment for so long. Cosmic radiation causes irreversible genetic damage. Teleomeres shorten.
If Astronauts spend extended time in space, they will have to live on food that mutates when grown. It won’t be the same a food on earth. Psychologically, interpersonal relationships are stained beyond the breaking point year after year of living in the hostile existential frigid vacuum of space, mars or the moon. Ask Matt Damon. What is the point of living in a vacuum for the rest of your life, if you can’t go back to earth without serious consequences? Outer space travel is not the glorious adventure as we have imagined, but a sequel to Waiting for Godot.
Elon proclaims we must go to Mars to propagate the human race, because the earth is totally f$$$$ed (except for his bomb shelter on the south island of New Zealand.) Proponets claim, “To continue the human race, our consciousness, we must spread our seed.” Bad news is that astronauts develop serious ED after a year in space. When astronauts get back from a short flight of one year, they are given a hero’s welcome and a wheelchair.
All this Mars hoopla (which is turning into Moon hoopla) is meant to distract us from doing anything about climate change or stopping wars that are destroying our home. There are real political and financial consequences to this suicide fantasy that ends in the cold vacuum of endless space.
Send the drones, robots and helicopters to Mars! Yes, do that in the name of science! Why does a human body have to be aboard, when we can do science with robots with no cost to human life? Robots could be considered preferable to the human weaklings who can’t even walk after a short time in space.