Talk:Motives to sell the colonization of Mars

Two groups of Mars colony supporters of uncertain value

Some people are motivated to get an American (or Chinese or Frenchman) to Mars as the first man on Mars. After that is done, they will have as much motivation to colonize Mars as they now show for colonizing Luna. If we want an independent colony on Mars, we must not compromise by accepting a flag and footprints mission to Mars. Once such a mission is accomplished, we lose the support of people who only want to see the first human being reach Mars as a stunt. Such people generally do not believe that colonizing Mars is possible anyway, and only go along with the colonize Mars spiel as far as they think it will draw some naive enthusiasts to support their grand stunt program.

Some people are true believers in Mars colonization. They do not look at difficult problems that must be solved to colonize Mars because bringing up such problems would discourage support for the colonization program. They truly believe that such problems will be solved when the time comes if we just put some men in a rocket and send them to Mars. They divide problems into two types: the easy ones which we should work on now in order to have some organizational momentum, and the hard ones which we should ignore. When the easy tasks are done and only hard tasks remain, they quit.

How can these two groups be distinguished from one another? Observing their behavior shows little difference between them. There is a third group that lacks the technical understanding to appreciate difficult problems in colonizing Mars. People in the third group are needed because technical problems are not the only thing we need to tackle to get a Mars colony. The third group can be distinguished because when a hard problem is explained to them, they become concerned and want to know how it can be managed, how long it will take and how much it will cost. --Farred 03:06, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Commonality between a human exploration of Mars mission and colonization

For both exploration and colonization we need to start with robot missions and scout out the resources of Mars and see what can be done with them. Energy supply will be needed on Mars. Industrial processes need to be developed to convert raw material into drinkable water and rocket fuel. Differences crop up in the planning for the final stage of the effort.

With colonization as a goal, planning must proceed to the point of economic self sufficiency. With a mission to Mars goal planning can stop with people surviving on Mars a short time by massive subsidy from Earth, after which they return to Earth. Does the mission to Mars goal support the colonization goal? There are those who say it does. They suggest that people can explore Mars as no robots can and that this should be done before attempting a colony. What do they expect to find on Mars that a robot cannot find? Will the things that human explorers find be worth a thousand times more than what robots discover in a similar time to justify their thousand times increased cost per day on Mars? It is a question worth spending some effort on before committing to a human exploration program for Mars.

A nation should understand its motives for a space program. The elements of a rational plan depend upon the final goal. --Farred 19:39, 30 July 2010 (UTC)