Comment by bee_rider
1 day ago
Mars is just a big dead rock really. The “self-sustaining tin cans” are the way to go IMO. We can learn how to do that in orbit around Earth (where aborting the mission isn’t automatic death), and then go colonize the asteroid belt, where the resources are just sitting there floating in space.
Mars offers: gravity, but the wrong amount. Air, but not enough. Sand and dust, but not the kind that grows anything, just the kind that gets in your filters. Also it is toxic. Not much magnetic field.
While habitats are definitely the way to go long term (planets are just sooo inefficient!), Mars still has some useful features: - while the atmosphere/graviti combination is a bit annyoing, the atmosphere still enables some nice propelantless manuevers (aerobraking, aerocapture, plane changes, etc.) - the gravity should enable reusable single-stage-to-orbit rockets with current technology, unlike on Earth - day length & atmosphere reduce the insane temperature swings you get on the moon (and no 14 day nights) and also makes the dust particles less sharp & thus safer - powered atmopsheric flight is possible (already demonstrated) - a lot of elements up for grabs bound in rocks & the atmosphere (carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, chlorine, iron,...) - two ready to use asteroid moons already in low Mars orbit - another body that could host a space elevator built with current materials