> >
> > How will Mars pay it own way? Why would people
> rather live there than
> > on Antarctica?
> >
> > TangoMan
>

Well, my dear TangoMan. This is a mistake. There are
people living in Antarctica. There is a non-permanent
population that is quite numerous, composed of
scientists and even tourists.

But there is also a chilean town there, called "Las
Estrellas" (stars city).

Take a look at this link.

http://www.antarcticaexpedition.cl/antartica/vivir/ninos.htm

There is a treaty that stop people for crowding the
Antarctic. Otherwise I am quite sure that lots of
people were living in there already.

I think that if some day the space is colonized by
space settlements, there will be a lot easier to
colonize Mars too.

What has Mars to offer? well, adventure travel!!!
Mars could become a vacation resort for space
settlers.

:)

Regards,

Omar Vega

> From: omar vega [mailto:oevega@...]
>
> What has Mars to offer? well, adventure travel!!!
> Mars could become a vacation resort for space settlers.

Looking at the travel times involved, I don't think so. From Earth orbit to
Mars will run anywhere from a year to a year and a half -- one way! I just
don't see a big demand for "vacations" that require 2-3 years for just the
round-trip travel time.

"Adventure travel" tourism to orbital habitats, and eventually on the Moon?
This will probably be a *big* industry. But Mars is just too far away.

Dave

"The Earth is just too small and fragile a basket for the human race
to keep all it's eggs in." Robert A. Heinlein, 20 July, 1976

On Thu, 11 Nov 2004 22:32:49 -0600, Dave Logsdon wrote:
(...)
> "Adventure travel" tourism to orbital habitats, and eventually on the Moon?
> This will probably be a *big* industry. But Mars is just too far away.
(...)

For a long time to come yes, Mars will be too far away. But it is
worth to remember that space settlements would make manned travels
across the Solar System much easier in the sense that, even if your
travel take years, you will be inside a whole city and will not feel
exactly "isolated" inside a "claustrophobic spaceship". So, it is
perfectly possible that someday there will be a swarm of space
habitats around Mars as the first one around Earth. (Indeed, Mars may
be a better host planet than Earth because Phobos and Deimos have
negligible gravity and are probably rich in volatiles.) And then I
think that many Spacers (or at least the rich ones :-) around Mars
will like to make tourism on the surface of the Red Planet. Perhaps
just to have the quaint feeling of how is to live in a planetary
surface. :-)

From: Lucio de Souza Coelho [mailto:lucioc@...]

"space settlements would make manned travels across the Solar System much
easier in the sense that, even if your travel take years, you will be
inside a whole city ..."

True, but the occupants would be the residents of the habitat itself. They
wouldn't be tourists from Earth, which was what I took the earlier post to
be referring to. So, tourists from habitats going planetside? Yeah, I can
see that. I can even see habitats in Mars orbit having `upper levels' that
would be at Mars-normal gravity, so people (tourists, or researchers being
stationed on the surface) can adapt before going groundside. The same idea
could be used with habitats in cislunar space, for those heading to the
Lunar surface.

Dave
"Destiny is not a matter of chance --
it is a matter of choice.
It is not a thing to be waited for --
it is a thing to be achieved."
William Jennings Bryan