• 0 Posts
  • 154 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: April 28th, 2024

help-circle


  • AppleTea@lemmy.ziptoLemmy Shitpost@lemmy.worldJust in time
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    5 days ago

    Life has a tendency to spread when new environments are available, yes.

    But beyond this planet, there are no other environments. You might say the rest of the universe is antivironment. There is a wide range of possible conditions, of radiation and tempurature, gravity and molecular composition. Life requires a very very narrow and specific set of those conditions to continue.

    Going from one continent to another, within the same atmosphere, with the same underlying set of conditions, is not all that much of a change. Actually leaving the planet? Permanently? And without just dying in the attempt? That would require a level of organization, long term planning (like, centuries long term), and resource management that we as a species have yet to demonstrate.


  • Settling mars is a centuries long undertaking. You basically have to nurture a whole ecosystem from scratch… that would be a brutally difficult and lengthy process in the best of conditions. But of course, these aren’t the best conditions. We aren’t doing particularly well with the ecosystem we’ve already got.

    If you want a historical project, then look to balancing modern industry within the planet’s biosphere. It’s a prerequisite to anything happening on mars.




  • I get these stories as a way of pointing out the inherant absurditity in a lot of every day things…

    …but also… life requires energy. Something’s gotta keep the metabolism going. Oxygen is both highly reactive and significantly more abundant than any of its heavier counterparts further down the column. If there is life out there with a metabolic rate anywhere approaching our own, it would be weird if it didn’t use oxygen.