Mars and Island One

Valens Agnitio wrote:

>The reason for this is simple: People assign a great deal more permanance to
>a building, house or home than they do to a motorhome, tent or trailer. The
>fact is, a space station, wherever its orbit, will be felt as temporary, and
>the inhabitants as such only doing a tour before coming home. A permanent
>installation, or even one that just provides the illusion of permanance, one
>that people live in and resides on martian-firma, or selene-firma, or what
>have you, will always be a beckoning sign of inhabitance. More importantly,
>
Some people live on boats (I've been to Amsterdam last month). I'd say
they consider it home just as anyone considers a flat in a regular
building his home. Some American and Australian homes are made in a way
that the house can be towed to another city.

And speaking from personal experience, while buses, trains and planes
have a feeling of being outside in a public place, my car is a place
where I feel at home, no matter where I'm driving. (Which IMHO is the
main reason cars are preferred over public transportation systems , even
if they are much cheaper.)

>It seems to be a very safe guess that the gravity provided by Mars or Moon,
>coupled with regular resistance training, would go a long, long way to
>reducing if not eliminating the problems associated with long term exposure
>to zero-G. In fact, I would readily stake my own health and fitness on that!
>
So would I. In fact I see lower gravity as the main improvement of
quality of live to be obtained in space. As far as I am concerned 1 g
areas may be useful for some industrial processes and some exercise
facilities, but when I come home I would like to turn down gravity to a
comfortable level. As for the exercise part, note that swimming is a
very healthy way of exercising mostly because it does avoid harmful
stress on joints that occur under 1 g.