Musk, Mars and x-risk

Kawoomba

Elon Musk, the billionaire founder and CEO of the private spaceflight company SpaceX, wants to help establish a Mars colony of up to 80,000 people by ferrying explorers to the Red Planet for perhaps $500,000 a trip.

Relevant Sagan quote:

(...) we've put all our eggs in one basket. If we were on many worlds and were to mess up down here, there's a way for the human species to continue. I don't for a moment propose that the Earth is a disposable planet, and we have to put enormous efforts into making sure we don't muss up down here. But there is a chance.

This should also at least somewhat reduce the x-risk stemming from uFAI (a subset of uFAI's may not concern themselves with space travel), and may significantly reduce the x-risk posed by many other x-risk categories (bioengineered threats, catastrophic climate change, global nuclear catastrophe, grey goo scenarios, etcetera).

For total x-risk reduction, prima facie it's unclear to me how supporting an endeavor such as Musk's stacks up against the SI's effectiveness, measured by total x-risk reduction per donated currency unit.

What's your take?

Article on space.com

Elon Musk, the billionaire founder and CEO of the private spaceflight company SpaceX, wants to help establish a Mars colony of up to 80,000 people by ferrying explorers to the Red Planet for perhaps $500,000 a trip.

Relevant Sagan quote:

(...) we've put all our eggs in one basket. If we were on many worlds and were to mess up down here, there's a way for the human species to continue. I don't for a moment propose that the Earth is a disposable planet, and we have to put enormous efforts into making sure we don't muss up down here. But there is a chance.

What's your take?

may significantly reduce the x-risk posed by many other x-risk categories (bioengineered threats, catastrophic climate change, global nuclear catastrophe, grey goo scenarios, etcetera)

Wouldn't Earth after catastrophic climate change or global nuclear war be still more livable than Mars? If we are OK with living in shielded colonies with artificial atmosphere and controlled climate, why not build them on Earth? We wouldn't suffer from low gravity here.

If we consider malicious actions (like a big war), such colonies on Earth are just too convenient for military installations to be left untouched.

Mars colony is too far away to be able to deal a sneak attack; so wiping it is not as urgent, and after 3 hours there are no rockets anywhere on Earth for next 5 years.

Also, I am not sure that the cheapest way to "filter CO2 and CO, boost O2" is more expensive than "filter all possible chemical weapons and kill all designer bacteria".

Whether a war that realy destroys every human (maybe not ... (read more)

3JoshuaZ14y

Radiation levels immediately following a nuclear war might be much worse than Martian radiation levels. Moreover, even if is Earth more habitable after the war, if everyone on Earth is dead, this won't matter very much.