Dust, Mars, the Universe and scifi

 For the past week anytime I am outside, I end up with a fine layer of dust on my forehead. There's no mention of it in the media so I'm not sure but suspect it's from the wildfires and lack of rain to settle it on the ground.

I was thinking of Mars. I've always been for mining there. It's rich in iron, hence the red color many other metals and there is no unicellular life. It has been a goal of missions for decades. There is a race. Whichever country gets there first has the rights to the area. Big planet so I'm not too concerned.

We've never brought any dust back. Martian dust is called regolith and apparently finer than baby powder. Aaaaand the problems begin. It's electrostatic so clings to everything. On top of it it's toxic. Damn. Full of heavy metals and carcinogenic.

We have this on earth too but in that environment extraction will be even more difficult.

Terraforming is impossible. Not enough co2. No atmosphere and no magnetosphere to protect from solar radiation. At best thousands of years away. I don't know why a certain tech bro claimed otherwise. 

It'll be a good base to explore the rest of our solar system. The scientists who work in that field never had the ambition to terraform it because it's impossible. 

Anyone asking why bother? Why do anything? Invent cars? Invent planes?

It also made me think of a bad scifi movie. Brad pitt and Tommy Lee Jones in ad Astra. There are no aliens in the universe. Dumb. 

Interstellar was good but again the idea that there are no habitable planets (that we can reach), astronauts go nuts (unlikely) and the future is non corporeal.

I prefer star treks more positive outlook.

I love scifi. Bit I'm sick and tired of the constant dystopian view of our future and the excuse that otherwise the movie would be boring. It's an imbalanced view of the world. There are perfectly good movies and series that are thrillers with a positive outcome. I think it's lazy repetitive script writing.

Silo is very popular right now. No intention of watching the what if of humanity in a post apocalyptic bunker. Project hail mary was a hit not only because the story was good but because people needed a positive story.

All of this has a negative impact on the work that scientist actually do and accomplish. Blaming them for bad decisions politicians and corporations make and sowing mistrust about scientific research.