New Member

From: victoriatangoman [mailto:tango_dancer@...]

"I'm totally serious. North Korea is a textbook example of autarky."

True, and even they have a certain amount of foreign trade, which is more
than could be said for any proposed Mars colony. Settlements on Mars would
be forced to become a *pure* autarky, possibly the first one in history.

"How do you think Mars will develop with a 2 year transport time for
shipments from Earth?"

Again, I have to agree. The NEO development I constantly promote pushes the
limit of this problem, and the launch windows and travel times only require
self-sufficiency for from several months to a little over a year. Certain
classes of U.S. Navy vessels (the nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and
submarines) are capable of unsupported cruises of nearly this length, if
need be. But, if we double the time required for logistical support, as
would be the case with a Mars settlement, it's just not practical, unless
there's something of *tremendous* value, that only Mars can offer. So far,
nobody can point to anything "that Mars has that Earth needs", much less
something that can pay for *that* level of logistical and financial support.

"Will a Mars billet be sought after by scientists? Absolutely, they can
go there for a 5-10 year fully funded term of employment and then come
back and have a career's worth of papers to write."

There seems to me to be a way to combine the orbital habitat scenario with a
scientific base on the surface of Mars. Using the material resources of
Deimos and Phobos, it should be possible to build a habitat (An O'Neill-type
`Island One', for instance), and use this to support a `Martian McMurdo'
site for long-term study of what Mars might eventually offer. But, this is a
long way from the sort of colonization most Mars advocates are talking
about. And, we're going to need some serious experience at building habitats
first, before we try something this far away from any support. At a guess,
I'd say we should table this idea for at least 50 years or so. And if we
tabled it for two hundred, we still wouldn't be able to scratch the surface
of the resources in the NEOs. Mars has been there for a long time; it's not
going anywhere. Let it wait until we can deal with it properly.

Dave
"Why get excited about anything that doesn't go straight up?" Arthur C.
Clarke, 1952