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In the 1990s, science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson wrote ) Mars
Trilogy – Humans Tried to Turn Mars into a Colony, Then A terraformed world that eventually becomes a chronicle of the beating heart of a system-wide utopia.
Humans set foot on Mars for the first time in 2020 and set off for the red planet in 2026 with a crew of one hundred, and over the next two centuries, humanity has witnessed industrialization, destruction and waves of destruction. As Mars becomes its own society and struggles over how to handle its independence.
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Through it all, despite the decline of Earth due to various environmental and political disasters, military conflicts with Terran armies, and political tensions stemming from waves of immigration from Earth, the series is truly hopeful and optimistic, not only for the future of humanity, but also for the future. A possible role for Mars is in it. So it might surprise some that Robinson seems to be condemning it all recently, declaring that Mars is irrelevant in 2022.
“Mars is not about us right now. We should of course focus on maintaining the habitability of Earth. My Mars Trilogy is a good novel, but not for this moment Plan. If we’re going to create a sustainable civilization on Earth where all life on Earth can thrive, then only then will Mars take the slightest interest in us,” Robinson said in a Foresight interview. “It will be a reward for our success – we can look at it like my novel, as an interesting place to explore more. But until we solve the problem here, Mars is just a fraction of some escapists Heart, is worse than useless.” On the surface, it seems a bit paradoxical to say this after writing a hopeful essay about colonizing Mars in three volumes Queer, but if you look closely, it’s consistent.
Mars Trilogy is not a triumphant saga begging us to colonize Mars, Rather, the story stems largely from the aftermath of the so-called 100th colonists, who fought over what to do with Mars and turned that struggle into a struggle that ensnared all of humanity.
) The drive to colonize, terraform and industrialize Mars produced scientific and technological advances (system-wide colonization, expeditions beyond the sun, longer lifespans, etc.) and a new socioeconomic system, but as Robinson himself pointed out , what we now know about Mars suggests that much of what underpins the series’ optimism is unrealistic.
In a 2015 talk, Robinson provided an example that focused on the discovery of perchlorate—a salt form of chlorine that is ubiquitous in Martian dust—in every part Toxic to humans. billion range. While there are ways to break it down with water and bacteria, Robinson concedes that this example dramatically changes the difficulty of terraforming as he imagines it, and raises the question of whether Earth’s civilization is currently grossly mismanaging its own home. Worth the effort. biosphere.
“I don’t think that’s the most important issue on the table,” Robinson said during the conversation. “Climate change, sustainable civilization, I think that’s the inevitable problem we face. Mars and all space programs, you’re asking: does this help us create sustainable civilization? If so, let’s go Do it. If not, let’s put it off the table until we become sustainable and we’ll deal with it in the 22nd century.”
This does not mean that we should abandon scientific endeavors related to space, just that we should seriously ask ourselves what their purpose is. Robinson went on to add in his presentation that studying space is important because it yields scientific insights that can be applied to Earth, where our ecological niche is collapsing because of climate change.
“Earth is a planet, you compare it to Venus and Mars, and you learn something. We are now in the business of planetary global stewardship – with the atmosphere, the biosphere, The whole thing was accidentally thrown into our lap,” Robinson said. “We have to deal with it as quickly as possible. I think we need to pursue many aspects of the space program right now, not because they are inherently interesting, but because they are important for studying Earth and It is useful to manage the earth.”
on Mars In the trilogy, there are technological advancements during the colonization of Mars, as the Martians focus on creating a sustainable civilization for themselves independent of Earth. However, if we are interested in creating a sustainable civilization on Earth, we should prioritize the planet over creating an efficient civilization. Equivalent to a poor penal colony.
Usually, we hear about public intellectuals, eccentric billionaires, and boisterous liberals – Robinson describes the kind in the second book of his trilogy Political movement, Green Mars, as “anarchy who want the police to protect their slaves altruists” – defending the colonization of Mars.
Some people insist that the destiny of mankind is to go to the stars. Others, like Amazon founder and chairman Jeff Bezos, argue that the same system that enriched them now threatens our civilization and must be reduced by transplanting the same system to colonize the entire system.
A smaller but still powerful group (including SpaceX’s Elon Musk) rebranded as an insincere one’s obsession with stars helps move the species, its technology and science forward, while lowering us risk of extinction. Musk, who said in 2012 that he would send someone to Mars by 2022, has not only proven time and time again to be a well-funded fabler, his efforts — like Starlink — are ruining the night sky , and Musk has been criticized by Robinson himself
“Mars will never be a one-person or one-company effort. It’s going to be multinational, it’s going to take a lot of money and a lot of years,” Robinson said in 2016 Bloomberg Interview. “Musk’s plan is a bit like a 1920s science fiction cliché of a boy building a rocket to the moon in his own backyard, plus Wernher von Braun’s plan described in a 1950s Disney TV show.”
However, if we eliminate monopolies and active capitalists, you might wonder: do these concerns have any merit as a reason to colonize Mars?
” This is the “retirement complex”, I call it the “retirement complex.” A guy who is great in a field retires and starts to brag about a field he doesn’t know anything about …There is no Planet B. There is only Earth. We cannot get anyone on this planet to help humanity in any useful way,” explained Robinson.
As Robinson goes on to add, humans have evolved to be closely related to Earth’s biosphere and to get sick (and then die) further they get from it. Fiction that ignores this fact is worth reading, but it encourages a kind of Nihilism We can afford to lose the prospect of Earth. we can not.
“When we went up, we were dying, but we weren’t on it long enough to actually die, and we’d come back in time to the circumstances that enabled us to survive, because we’re with It co-evolved. This includes gravity, the magnetic field, and the bacterial load in it. The old sci-fi dream… just a moral hazard that creates the illusion that we can destroy the planet and still be fine. It’s totally untrue.”
