Editing Earth Is Our Womb, Not Our Home (section)


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|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1849216441725198590
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=I should say that this formulation is inspired by @elonmusk. I myself never focused on Mars. I have never thought much about making our Moon or Mars habitable via Rockets. It seems marginally possible and I have very little to contribute on that issue.

But if I am focused only on the stars, then there is no known engineering problem to solve. And if Elon is focused solely on engineering problems, then we aren't going to the stars without a breakthrough in science. They are simply too far away.

The question then really revolves around the fact that Mars seems BARELY doable...but POSSIBLY doable...with modern engineering alone. A scientific advance might change everything (e.g. economics, degrees of freedom). Or it might prove to us that in every successor theory to Einstein the Speed of Light problem will remain the practical barrer to the stars if it persists to the ultimate Lagrangian. It can't be said until the next theory is proposed, discussed and accepted.

No one knows the answer to the question posed above. I certainly do not and I do not believe Musk does either. But it explains why I believe we need a portfolio of options to get to interplanetary civilization. Even the search for UFOs which may be totally pointless.

But if we don't try, I fear that we perish here with all we have accomplised. '''Earth is not our home. It is our womb and eventually our tomb.''' It cannot be otherwise with the world we have built. 

Per aspera (and perhaps Mars), ad astra.
|timestamp=10:28 PM · Oct 23, 2024
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