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[mainiac]

What does mars actually give us that we can't get on earth?  The case for the moon is solar panels and O'Neil cylinders.  The case for mars?

[counting]

Asking the opposite questions. You can get most of the thing you can get on Earth at Mars too. So you only need to carry the cargo "during traveling". But you have to carry things like hundreds of tones of carbon compound to the Moon to begin the colonizing process. But each lunching costs are fairly equal in both case. And building orbital object as large as O'Neil cylinders are not what we master right now, but lunching and building colonies on a rather earth-like structure on Mars solid ground is very mature. So if we decide to build off-world colonies today, it's most likely to form a self sustain colony on Mars than on the Moon.

[mainiac]

But what's the benefit, the gain, the profit.  Why bankroll this?

[GlyphGryph]

The only thing mars really offers is real estate, and thats still plentiful and cheap enough on earth to not be worth the investment.

[Duuvian]

I think Mars is the way to go after Asteroid mining.

However, what counting has said makes good sense to me. I agree that from what I know Mars is the best bet for a colony.

EDIT: Mostly because I think that between the resources in space and on mars, having to ship water to the moon would not be very efficient in the long term.

[counting]

1. Heavy water. Deuterium ratio is way higher in Mars. (833 ppm compare 160 ppm on Earth). Which is important in Nuclear Fusion and Fission.

2. More minerals close to surface, since Mars has Volcano activity until recent. (astronomy scale). Unlike the Moon you need to dig deeper into the core. There are mineral vanes like those on Earth, no new technique needed to find minerals deposits.

3. Close to asteroid belt. Easy to launch mission to mining and integrated a local economy of mining small asteroids.

Got ninjaed 

[lordcooper]

Just skipped from the end of page 1 and now you're on about asteroid mining.  WTF guys?  How the hell did you manage to derail to there?

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Also, if we have stable human societies on Earth, the moon, and Mars, then our species will be less threatened by planet-ending catastrophe. Like the kind we can inflict upon ourselves with nuclear weapons. Like the kind of nuclear weapons we have. Right now.

[counting]

Once it is derailed, it can not be stopped and compromised. Like the debt ceiling debate.