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You know... I don't really see the purpose in going to Mars. I don't see the benefit. That's why business isn't able to do it. There is no marketable benefit or profit. It satisfies the imagination of some, and that is the extent of the benefit.

The Italians said pretty much the same thing when that nutball Christopher Columbus proposed his western passage to India.

You know... I don't really see the purpose in going to Mars. I don't see the benefit. That's why business isn't able to do it. There is no marketable benefit or profit. It satisfies the imagination of some, and that is the extent of the benefit.

I used to be a huge Trekker, and interplanetary space exploration always seemed an imperative destiny to me that had to be reached as soon as possible. Then I was exposed to some facts and began viewing this idea in a more practical matter. Mars doesn't have our gravity. It doesn't have our atmosphere. Then there's the radiation shielding, fuel requirements, and life support systems that not only have to survive Mars, but have to survive the trip. It'll be one thick slow submarine.

But why go anyway?

Mining? We're better off going to the asteroid belt or the moon. Much less fuel is required to ship the mined materials since we don't have to deal with escaping planetary gravity.

Colonization? There's barely an atmosphere and the gravity is not the same. You'll be living in an armored submarine and develop an interesting bone structure to say the least. We're better off going to the asteroid belt or creating orbital space stations. Much less fuel is required, and we could create an artifical gravity in a space station.

If we get to an advanced enough scientific stage where terraforming is a reality, maybe we should rethink a manned Mars trip. We're not at that stage, nor will we be for quite an extended time, at which point the technology would have made a trip safer, more efficient, and faster anyway.

The way we're visiting Mars now, with remote robots, is the best way to explore Mars.