"Everyone has to be perfect first."

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It's not as simple as you seem to think it is, nor do we have the resources to risk.

I don't think it's a simple matter whatsoever, but I think the rewards are worth the risks. Anything can be treated as an overly complex issue, from the simple act of making food which can be broken down into so many miniscule yet interdependent complexities in itself to, walking to one's car, starting the highly complex engine that is incredibly simple compared to even the simplest living creatures, traveling on roads risking death all throughout the time, heck even breathing's a risk. Who knows whether they might accidentally inhale phlegm or spittle and asphyxiate at any moment? Everything can be rhetorically drawn to be overly complex to the extreme, and so thereby make excuses as to why nothing should be done eternally. Such is just wasting time until it is too late for anything to be done. We do have the technology to go there, to send habitats, to send construction and processing materials and equipment, we do have the resources to do this and it's not as expensive or impossible as people seeking money and their own goals would make it seem to be. We will rot in the dust here if we continue as we have for the last few decades, doing nothing but sending junk into orbit. It's not just time to go now, it's been time to go and do this for decades.

Hi ruveyn,

There is always the most likely possibility of "perfect disaster".

Besides, The Grand Inquisitor demands it.

Tadzio

Where would the resources come from? Whats the point? ONE mistake and billions of dollars just... goes away. With no return whatsoever.

Too risky, not enough to gain, too expensive.

There's an entire world to gain, so it is worth the risks and the expense too - even if it were to cost as much as WWII, it would still be worth it.

No, not really. FAR too expensive for some minerals.

And frankly, minerals is all Mars has to offer.

And surface area for habitats and greenhouses, and an orbit closer to the asteroid belt, and a significantly lower cost of fuel to go just about anywhere else in the solar system, and essentially a new home for people to leave this stinking hellhole of a planet and its overpopulated cities and corrupt governments behind and start over. It is the new frontier, waiting to be pioneered.

The moon makes far more logical sense in that capacity which removes the need to go to Mars.

Actually not, since the moon has no atmosphere there's not usage of aerobraking for deceleration possible and so any lunar mission requires extra fuel to be sent in the payload. For that reason it's actually cheaper to send more usable payload to Mars even though the travel times for individual ships is greater than for traveling to the Earth's moon. Still though, send cargo on the minimum fuel Hohmann transfer and send personnel on the 6 month transfer on which they can still return to Earth should anything go wrong.

Also, the Moon has a 4 week "day" whereas Mars has a nearly identical day to Earth, so it would be better for agriculture since you wouldn't need to be as dependent upon electricity for growing food.

False. If it was cheaper to go to Mars than it is to go the moon, we would have gone by now. The extra time cruising through space isn't free.

You'll probably enjoy Gingrich's space policy speech. He wants a moon base by his "second term", road to Mars, innovation prizes, etc, etc.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/20 ... -the-moon/

I don't believe it would get serious attention, or survive Congress. We just saw a President try to force change in the space industry. Didnt go well.

Humans should never colonize space(if that will ever be possible) since we seem to be doing a fabulous job polluting our own planet.
We seem to be cutting the funds of the space program at the moment so it is likely impossible for the near future.

Given the abundance of uranium reserves on this planet, I cannot see an economic argument for going after it off-world. Gold's value is based, in part, on its relative scarcity, and bringing in new supplies will simply debase it, given the few industrial applications for it. Almost all of our current supply of He3 is manufactured, and there is no reason to believe that we cannot continue doing so. Obviouly there are fewer and fewer nuclear weapons to disarm for that purpose, but CANDU reactors are still pumping out plenty of it.

The only argument I can see is that extraction methods on the Moon or Mars can be environmentally crude--we can dig open pits as large and as deep as we like. But I am still not convinced that lax environmental standards will make up for the cost of establishment, logistics and transportation.



Can we do it? Of course we can-I've never suggested that we can't. But what I do believe is that we cannot do it efficiently. We will always spend more resources than we recover embarking on a project like this.

Romanticism is all well and good, but romantic ideals can only become reality if they have a practical basis.

Wouldn't it make more sense to extract minerals from asteroids? A insane amount of minerals and very weak gravity wells reducing greatly the need of fuel.