Here's How Bill Nye Really Feels About Humans Moving To Mars

Whether we like it or not, Earth faces a variety of threats, some from space and some from impending domestic catastrophes, including climate change and the major impact it will have on Earth in the future. So grave is the threat posed by global warming that several of the world's most prominent thinkers and experts have delivered grim predictions about the future of our planet.

What are we going to do when Earth becomes a giant fireball (which may happen sooner than you think)? We're all going to set off for Mars, apparently. It might seem like a hostile and barren wasteland — mostly because it is — but it's also the most explored planet in our solar system besides Earth. As it turns out, Mars has quite a lot in common with Earth, and is even thought to have hosted life long ago. What's more, a 2024 NASA study, published in Communications Earth and Environment, suggested there may be an exciting secret held within Martian ice in the form of microbes lingering beneath the planet's surface. The other benefit of Mars as a potential site for an off-world colony is the fact that it has a surface. If we were to try to stand on the surface of gas giants such as Jupiter or Neptune we'd simply fall through their mass until we were crushed by atmospheric pressure. All of which makes our neighbor one of the more attractive locations when it comes to thinking about establishing an off-world colony.

Today, the idea of a colony on Mars feels less like it belongs in the realm of sci-fi and more in the realm of, well, sci. But as exciting as all this is, one prominent voice is being a bit of a wet blanket. Bill Nye evidently feels we've all got a bit ahead of ourselves with the whole Martian colony idea. In fact, he thinks anyone who believes we'll be terraforming the fourth planet from the sun any time soon is nothing short of delusional.

In a USA Today interview, Nye was asked about the idea of colonizing Mars, and he was incredulous to say the least. "This whole idea of terraforming Mars, as respectful as I can be, are you guys high?" Nye said. "We can't even take care of this planet where we live, and we're perfectly suited for it, let alone another planet." Our long term prospects on the red planet aren't looking too good either, according to Nye, who dismissed the idea of people living on Mars outright. "People disagree with me on this," he said, "and the reason they disagree is because they're wrong" — quite a remarkable thing to say for a man whose entire life has been dedicated to stoking curiosity in his followers, but there you go.

During his USA Today interview, Nye also pointed to Antarctica as an Earth-based analogue for Mars, highlighting how scientists might visit for brief periods but don't live there permanently. "Nobody goes to Antarctica to raise a family," he said (though you might do if the rest of the planet was on fire). "You don't go there and build a park, there's just no such thing." In fairness, Nye is correct that Mars can get unthinkably cold, with temperatures ranging from a balmy 70 degrees Fahrenheit to a frigid minus 225 degrees Fahrenheit. What's more, the planet has an extremely thin atmosphere which means any heat from the sun that does make it to the barren surface is almost immediately lost. Oh, and the amount of carbon dioxide in the air (95%) would mean you would suffocate to death in minutes if you didn't first perish from the low atmospheric pressure causing your blood to boil. In that sense, perhaps Nye has a point. But he also seems to be missing an important one as well.

According to Bill Nye nobody will be settling on Mars for the long-term mainly because "it's so cold. And there is hardly any water." The science educator also pointed to a complete lack of food and the fact "there's nothing to breathe." All of which are factual statements about Mars, but it also seems to be missing the point of colonizing the planet in the first place — we might soon have no choice. Nye's fellow Mars colonization skeptic Neil deGrasse Tyson has also made some disturbing predictions about the fate of planet Earth, even while he denies the viability of Mars as a backup planet for our species.

Meanwhile SpaceX and NASA are all working towards colonization and if such a thing were as impossible as Nye and Tyson claim, you would have thought someone within these organizations would have pointed that out by now. Clearly, then, the idea isn't to simply move us all to Mars and set us free upon the toxic surface to perish in unspeakable ways. There are plans in place to deal with the harsh environs of the red planet and it seems like we're far too early in that process to say outright that it simply won't work or even that people won't want to try it. Nye clearly knows this but his comments sound as if nobody serious is working on potential solutions for the atmospheric and climate issues.

At least Nye isn't against sending humans to Mars for exploration. "We would send people there to make discoveries," he told USA Today. "To explore, that's the big idea. So when we go to Mars, you don't know what you're gonna find, it'll be new. I guarantee it will be amazing."