Motivation

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Many people like to read and watch science fiction about space travel, especially to Mars, the most habitable planet in our solar system next to Earth. The public interest is growing. But what is the motivation to really get there, to make the dream come true? This page wants to collect reasons and shall help to find possibilities to encourage more people to spend part of their lives for the realization of a settlement on Mars. NASA has already introduced the motivation items "Human Evolution" , "Comparative Planetology", "International Cooperation", "Technological Advancement", "Inspiration" and "Investment".[1] But let's see if we can find more ...

Pioneering spirit

Mankind has always bred pioneers to face the challenge of new land. The human race has an inherent property to reach for new settlement space and build their houses on the edge and beyond. This impulse rules any financial concerns out.

Scientific

A manned mission may perform more scientific results compared with remote controlled rovers.

Survival of mankind

Currently mankind is living solely on Earth and is completely dependent on its fragile habitability. A number of possible events can bring mankind to the edge of extinction. A fatal epidemic plague of a virus with the combined characteristics of both ebola and influenza or the deep impact of a large asteroid may wipe the human race off the planet. But in such critical situation mankind would survive on other planets, because the occurrence of such events at the same time on two planets is extremely unlikely.

Stephen Hawking put is like that: "I believe that the long-term future of the human race must be in space. It will be difficult enough to avoid disaster on planet Earth in the next hundred years, let alone the next thousand, or million. The human race shouldn't have all its eggs in one basket, or on one planet. Let's hope we can avoid dropping the basket until we have spread the load." [2]

Ooooh, cool! I love the top piece by they are all, as always, so innrpiisg - I often think about you and wonder how fast you must complete projects! So impressed!Diana, is your illustration project something that would be appropriate for me? Or is it strictly for illustrators? Kristin xo

Profit-making

Tourism can be a mighty business. Rich people already spent several million dollars for a week in near-Earth orbit, which is thrilling enough to begin with. A trip to the Moon or even to Mars is even more exciting. A manned one-way mission to Mars might be a business model.

See also

References