[Skybird]

I think since longer time now that wanting to live on Mars is just the daydreaming of some unreflecting romanticists indeed. Even if technology would enable the human body to survive the many challenges - whats the point in physically surviving if there is nothing to feed the needs of your soul? The stamina to survive even extremiest, harsh living conditions and threatful environments and deadly circumstances and situations, may they be man-made or nature-made, comes from the inner side of a man, while his intellect and ratio can get him only so and so far, and not further. And personally I think we humans simply are not made and our soul has not what it takes to confront and live in the eye of that empty abyss that deep space is. As a youngster, I found it fascinating, and I still like Science Ficton. But as the adult I now am, I admit that the perspective of being all around surrounded by just nothing and then nothing in reach, just scares the hell out of me. Floating in space around Earth might be a spiritual, transforming experience for some, maybe it would even be for me - but floating in the middle of a Nowhere bigger than human mind can ever hope to understand, or standing on a dead rock somewhere and being forever outside reach of the home I knew and left behind - this perspective holds absolutely no excitement or attraction for me anymore. None.

Man is a master of deceiving himself. We talk a lot about sustajnable economy, and living with reduced CO2 footprint, and we start eat vegan and we do not dare to fart anymore, and so forth. We think this helps to battle down climate warming and will allow us to survive on this planet. But it is just pointless strawman arguments we want to believe so that we must not realise how deep in the mess we are and how radically we would need to make things totally, completely different if we meant it serious about sustainable resouce management and protecting the environment and defending the basis of our biological existence. And i think that the scenarios they form to send man, by whatever kind of mission and technology, via spaceships to other planets, is the same kind of self-deceiving illusion. Its an escape attempt from reality. At best we learn to start ressource mining on Moon, that scenario might hold some realistic perspective. But Mars as an alternative Earth for Earth One dying? Nobody talks of colonizing the deep sea on earth just because we occasionally manage to send a robot down there, or even a manned specialised submarine that can stand the high pressure. Ask the divers whether they want to spend the rest of their lives in an environment like that boat - and then on another planet out of reach of Earth. Or in the middle of the abyss.

So far we only test-tried swimming very close to the rim of the bassin, one hand holding contact to the rim, a safety line around the chest, and guardians walking beside us with long bars we could grab. Crossing an open ocean by swimming and diving down to its bottom - it just does not compare, even less so, since the ocean is finite. Space is (practically) not.

We deceive ourselves there.

I do not want this to be understood as a talk against technology or against continuing space programs. i just want to see them focussing on realistic goals: Orbit, Moon, robot-led exploration beyond that. Maybe even sending humanoid experimental rabbits to mars for some time. But "coloniztion" on a scale justifying using that big word? Dont make me laugh.

Lets be realistic, even dream a bit. Dreams may motivate us daring a certain next small step that without a vision leaving the context of what we know we would not dare to take. But be realistic. Spac eis not waiting for humans. Nor for life. Almost everything in the cosmos is dead, and uninterested. Life beyond Earth so far is just an idea, is just a theory, totally unproven. We collect hints and traces that we interpret, but evidence for life outside Earth we still have NONE. Cosmos takes no note of us being here, it does not care, and nothing we do makes a difference.

Comfort and solace lies in the beauty that life holds for us here on our good old and beautiful planet earth. Its here were our hearts rest and find peace, and confidence. And it is this place that the kit of our senses and physical traits and abilities was made for and tailored for and adapted to. Not "there" - but "here".

We better start meaning serious business with our messes here at home before throwing our life's time away at escapistic evasion manouvers of our imagination. We could as well take LSD.