New Member

Steve, Rick & Tango,

Pleased to see the tone cooling down, I've been reading the posts
and thinking that you all seemed to be missing the arguments of the
others. Having been a member of this group from the start or within
a few days of it (even if I don't post much, my first message was
number 5, wow has it been that long?) I have seen this very
discussion played out many times and I think Tango has as well and
in his defence I have to say that nobody has ever come up with a way
that a large scale population could make a living on Mars.

Does that mean we should abandon all Mars exploration? Not for a
second and I think that Tango would agree with me (You're welcome to
tell me to pull my head in if you don't Tango).

In the short term (next few decades) the focus will no doubt be on
Mars, NASA, ESA and others will send probes and maybe even people,
I'll be standing there cheering.

But this will not result in a big push to found a colony, not from a
large part of the population, no doubt, some of us will call for
more to be done in space, I will but not on Mars.

A few stories will make it into the news and, no doubt, Zubrin and
his cult following (and before you get cut about me calling them a
cult, I am NOT referring to everybody in the Mar Society, just a
hard core group that will not listen to anything that don't result
in them and the Great Leader going to Mars NOW!) will beat their
chests and demand that we stop funding every other bit of science to
put them on Mars and keep suppling them for the foreseeable future
(because they have near zero chance of becoming self sufficient in
the less than a few centuries). The drain on the worlds resources
will be considerable, with a return that consists mostly of
information (that cheap rovers could obtain for the most part). How
long before the people paying the bills say, "Home now, this tits
dry", and what will that mean to the next fellow who stands up and
says, "Hey, I have this great idea, first we get a rocket".

On the other side of the coin, what if Bigelow manages to build his
orbital hotel and Branson makes money taking tourists to it, how
long before others get in on the act? From there it isn't a long way
to go to get to a small habitat, somebody going to an NEO to supply
water to the hotels rather than bringing it up and recycling it all
(never 100%). From there the rest of the high frontier is just a
logical progression.

At first, Mars will be a money drain, no way around it and from a
science point of view it may be worth it but the huge cost of large
scale colonisation or terraforming would doom it, of course, rick is
correct, during exploration, something may turn up that is so
valuable that it would make terraforming pay but what are the odds?.

Orbital habitats are also expensive but have the advantage of being
able to start small and hold out the promise of a return on
investment, even if it is a long time off (which it might not be).
Also it might be able to piggyback on the orbital tourism, if it
really happens, mind you, in its favour is the fact that serious
people, with the kind of resources needed are signing contracts and
spending cash, serious cash.

I am firmly in the orbital habitat camp but am enough of a space
cadet to cheer every Mars mission (or any other space mission for
that matter) but I think that Mar will never be anything other than
a remote research base until there enough habitats doing the
Earth/Mars orbital roundabout that a group living in a Mars Orbital
habitat can make a living from tourists (from the Habs). One big
problem any future Martians are going to face is the same as people
wanting to live in Antarctica. Good chance Mars will be under a
treaty to maintain it in its pristine state (and yes I know it's
already too late) for study.

Wow, feels like I've just finished War and Peace.

Darren Brown
Canberra Australia