Is Mars a Backup Planet?

With all the excitement about a someday trip to Mars, some are voicing caution that we should not be so eager to leave Earth behind.  Astronomer Lucianne Walkowicz from Chicago's Adler Planetarium in Chicago, who worked on NASA's Kepler mission, covered this idea in a recent TED talk titled Let's Not Use Mars as a Backup Planet.  In her March 2015 talk, posted in December, she noted we need to appreciate our home planet more than we do. 

Here is a quick summary of her talk:

Stellar astronomer and TED Senior Fellow Lucianne Walkowicz works on NASA's Kepler mission, searching for places in the universe that could support life. So it's worth a listen when she asks us to think carefully about Mars. In this short talk, she suggests that we stop dreaming of Mars as a place that we'll eventually move to when we've messed up Earth, and to start thinking of planetary exploration and preservation of the Earth as two sides of the same goal. As she says, "The more you look for planets like Earth, the more you appreciate our own planet."

You can get the transcript here.   

You can also learn more about Dr. Walkowicz and see her other talks here.