One difference: Sewards Folly was ON THE LAND and not 42 million miles away in space.
Mining and transportation of ores was not a major problem and only took a few weeks at most to processing mills and/or assay offices.
The ores didn’t have to go through reentry in hugh metal capsules or ships.
Only if the ore ship could reach the ground would it be financially feasible to mine Mars, but what would be the valuable ores up there that we don’t have down here?
We don’t need iron ores, nickel, etc. from Mars as we have nice supplies out in New Mexico, Arizona and Minnesota.
That is the point, we do not know what is up there but we should find out.
Lots of things that were once impossible quickly have become possible. If we found something valuable up there you can believe that the advances in space tech would happen fast and furiously. Need drives innovation sometimes.
NASA’s budget is something like .5% of the budget. Let’s give them 2 times as much money and not make 3 fighter jets. Heck we have pissed away 400 Billion on a jet that cannot keep pace with the jet it is supposed to replace. I am only talking 36 Billion.
This is not unreasonable ...