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From: Richard [mailto:rabrooks@...]

> Quite right. But people who use words like all and none annoy me.
>
> I'm not a Mars enthusiast.
>
> I merely have been opposing absolutist statements.

It's true that absolutist statements should be avoided because they are
almost always wrong. It rankles us O'Neillians when we hear dogmatic
statements like "nobody will ever settle HEO", but we shouldn't respond
in kind. For myself, I try to never say that nobody will ever live on
Mars. If it ever gets cheap enough, some may choose to live there for
no other reason than a personal love of the planet. To me, it's enough
to say that the markets for Mars are presently unidentified, or to list
reasons why a settlement on Mars might have difficulty competing
economically with one in orbit.

Regards,

Mike Combs