Red Planet? Red Flag!

I really hope we never colonise Mars because if we do it will be for completely the wrong reasons. We will be doing so because incredibly rich men are intent on winning a competition that means nothing to anyone else. The Moon was only landed on so that one of the two super powers at the time could declare victory. Mars would not even have that flimsy justification.

If we look towards Mars it would only be self aggrandisement that drives it. The rich, in league with politicians, social media and the mainstream media, are destroying the environment on this planet and no doubt see Mars as Planet B, a get out of jail free card, to which they and their acolytes can escape. If they get there, they will no doubt try to make that planet more inhabitable, whilst not caring at all about making this planet less inhabitable. It reminds me of Hans Christian Andersen’s story of The Emperor’s New Clothes. We are the crowd being ordered to see how amazing the appallingly rich are, even if we know the truth.

Space travel has no purpose and no justification in our increasingly desperate times. Anyone who supports it is, almost certainly, doing so because they are actually looking at it as a measure of human progress. Superficially that is an appealing idea, but on closer examination it contains none of the idealism of the 1960s, merely the selfishness and cynicism of the 2020s. We are a worse species now than we were 60 years ago and a Mars trip, costing trillions that would be much better spent on saving this planet rather than exploring another dead one, would merely confirm that.