Maybe Humans Should Not Go to Mars Yet

We only get to do this once. we should learn from past mistakes and do it right.

[michaelfung]

I'm definitely reading too much into it but the seemingly unintentional metaphor of Cody talking about not contaminating a habitat while walking to a piece of debris he himself created only to pick it up is kind of beautiful.

[listix]

The thought of arriving, taking pictures, leaving and detonating a nuke sounds like an interesting idea for a book where aliens do that on earth and humans misunderstand that for an act of war.

[jonahmatteson]

I agree to some level. Honestly we should colonize our own moon before we try to go anywhere else. It’s closer and would be a good place to start and learn/test things.

[JoelsStuff]

Imagine seeing some litter in the distance and taking a 12 minute walk to go and pick it up. I need to get out of the city

[bourbonbear]

Still my favorite youtube channel. It has that old school yt vibe and is yer always entertaining and fresh. Fly high our glorious mine loving, desert dwelling, space man.

[imhal]

I recall a short story from a few decades ago about explorers on Mars. The one guy is out in his survey vehicle and picks up lifeform readings, he's excited and it gets closer. Once he's able to get a sample he finds it's contamination from one of our probes decades earlier, he ends up just getting drunk because his job doesn't matter anymore. It was titled something like "All the Beer on Mars". Most likely from Asimov Magazine of Fantast and Science Fiction magazine.

[theCodyReeder]

Reminder: the results of the Viking life detection experiments were positive. That doesn't prove that life is there, partly because NASA only sent half the experiment, but it is a strong indication for life. And somehow there hasn't been a follow up in 50 years.

[ooflames]

I like how you subtlety prove your point by retrieving trash that got away from you unknowingly.

[Nifilheimur]

No matter the logic we will go there for one simple reason. Its there and we cant help ourselfes to not go there. Just like we have been to every nook and cranny on earth.

[Bluegillbronco]

Cody proposing a Martian Fractional Orbital Bombardment System was not on my 2024 bingo card.

[LENZ]

Proper space agencies spend a huge amount of time and money to sterilize their landers/rovers -there are entire career profession/education paths at NASA/ESA/JAXA/etc. based around it....I'm not sure non gov entities would be willing to "waste" millions of dollars to do same.

[coreyms]

I’ve honestly never really thought about it from that aspect and have to say this video changed my mind on the subject unless I could hear a better argument against it. I’ve not put enough thought into this to consider it a strong opinion, but as someone who previously had the default position of going with humans, this will be my new default position until I hear something better. As Cody said in the video, the “eggs in multiple baskets” argument isn’t it. It’s never made sense at the level of technology we currently have.

[ytrew]

What I find most admirable is the ability to change when it involves a significant sacrifice: giving up a lucrative idea on which our dreams, faith, and social status are based, simply to care about something other than oneself, is an exceptional quality.

[iriomotejin]

> Gravity wells are for suckers
Cody is a wise man

[grempal]

There are 24 landers, probes, or rovers littered across the surface of Mars from 15 separate missions dating back to the 70s. These probes, even the most modern ones, were not decontaminated to the extent that would be desirable for a probe designed to look for extraterrestrial life. (That's actually part of the reason NASA didn't sent the any of its most recent probes to the areas of Mars that would be most likely to host post or present life.)

If contamination from a manned flight is a really threat to the entire potential global ecosystem of Mars, then unfortunately that threat was likely introduced 53 years ago and has had all that time to reproduce and spread. The benefit of having humans on the surface to look for like and try to rapidly identify it far outweighs the risk if additional contamination as we're already far more likely to find earth based life on Mars than true extraterrestrial life.

[xpndblhero]

I'm kind of disappointed he didn't find robo-Cody laying on the ground by that 😂😂

[tehjamerz]

Bro, have you not seen Mars? There are rocks there.we have to go

[og-nesley]

That’s a massive shift in perspective. Nothing wrong with changing your mind after reflection or in the light of new evidence.

[kebakent]

I like how Cody always gives off this friend vibe.

[alanwelch]

If life could be common enough to have x 2 Genesis in our own solar system, i don't think us contaminating or even out competing mars life would be that bad.

Whereas If life is so rare that our planet is a damn near one off in our galaxy / universe. Well damn let's spread this stuff out, I'm in favour of spreading extremophiles far and wide, so millennia from now, the diversity complexity amazement of life gets to keep being the most interesting thing in the universe.

I don't know if humanity have a few hundred or thousands of year's left around on earth, but it took billions of years for life to evolve to a point where spreading across the planets / cosmos is even a capability.... Let's not squander this maybe one shot of powerful intelligence we currently have, and not share life... This beautiful complex entropy fighting system that comes to make the universe know itself.

I love your channel your projects your smarts, I understand your reasoning, but I just disagree with this opinion.