Settling the Gobi desert versus settling Mars:

[jeffreyab]

Bruce Sterling said:

"I'll believe in people settling Mars at about the same time I see people settling the Gobi Desert. The Gobi Desert is about a thousand times as hospitable as Mars and five hundred times cheaper and easier to reach. Nobody ever writes "Gobi Desert Opera" because, well, it's just kind of plonkingly obvious that there's no good reason to go there and live. It's ugly, it's inhospitable and there's no way to make it pay. Mars is just the same, really. We just romanticize it because it's so hard to reach."

Charles Stross used this in his essay "The High Frontier Redux" which examined the high economic costs and complex physical problems with moving out into space.

In this essay http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/007092.html Karl Schroeder explains how the Mars settlement models can be used to lessen our ecological impact on this planet Earth.

Think about one example that deserts are an obvious place to build cities with vertical farms because it leave more arable land for agriculture or rewilding http://www.worldchanging.com/local/canada/archives/006936.html.

Comments

[pompe.livejournal.com]

There are people in the Gobi Desert, though.

[theengineer.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the interesting links!

[jeffreyab.livejournal.com]

You are welcome!

[jeffreyab.livejournal.com]

True but the densities are fairly low.

[rbradakis.livejournal.com]

I've been saying this for years. Terraform the difficult spots on this planet, first. Like the Gobi, or that big dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico - let's see a few dozen Biodome-like habitats before we get too crazy. No gravity issues, easy rescue, fast resupply, etc..

[pompe.livejournal.com]

But locally there even are small towns. At least near the railroad.