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[GreatWyrmGold]

Well, actually those millions were indians.

Not all of them. Colonizing a new, wild land is a lot safer than living in a land when germ-laden foreigners who view you as savage heathens, but not by all that much.

The problem is that there is nothing that warrant a Martian colony, we got plenty of water, iron and hydrocarbons on earth. Maybe automated asteroid mining, but that's it.

Once we start to run low on terrestrial minerals and hydrocarbons, extracting similar or the same substances from extraterrestrial sources will become quite profitable. And how do you make an asteroid mine 100% automated without making it a machine worthy of a science fiction B-movie plot?
Besides, there's a resource in various places in space which we're running dangerously low on on Earth...space.
Not intended to be a joke. We need more housing? We're out of space (to build houses). We need more power? We're out of space (to make a nice, sustainable power plant). We need more food? We're out of space (to grow crops). All of these can be mitigated with appropriate extraterrestrial habitats. Building on or in Luna makes sense to start--all the advantages of a planetary colony combined with most of those of being in Earth orbit.

*Look at Mars*

Well, humanity will be extinct long before it's worth settling Mars.

Disagree. Humans settled Australia, they can settle Mars. They just need to be a bit more desperate and technologically advanced than Europe was when they settled Australia. After all, if you get stuck without supplies on Mars or in the Outback--even a kilometer from civilization--you're dying either way if you can't make it that last kilometer or be rescued. The only difference is how and how fast, and thirst can be a swift killer in the outback...

I'm not saying we should not settle Mars. Just that you'd have to be foolish to think it's a worthwhile economic goal.

Doubtless John II thought the same thing, but Columbus went to America (albeit unintentionally) anyway. Doubtless the same question was raised for centuries. "The Conquistadores haven't found any gold; is it really worth it to keep sending them?" Despite all of this "wasted" money, America eventually became an economic powerhouse. Look at those early years of American colonialism, and compare that to a primitive Lunar or Martian base. Now imagine the latter advancing along a pathway similar to the US's, and see where it is no...in the Cold War-equivalent time.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I don't know what you're talking about. Spain's conquistadors made them the richest nation on Earth for a while, there was never really a period of doubting them.

Plus, a self-sufficient colony in the New World didn't have that many requirements, being that it was still on Earth. Extraterrestrial colonies are going to need to produce everything they need right from the start, with almost no contributions from the outside environment.

[GreatWyrmGold]

I don't know what you're talking about. Spain's conquistadors made them the richest nation on Earth for a while, there was never really a period of doubting them.

Well, replace that with a note about a country with a less-successful start.

Plus, a self-sufficient colony in the New World didn't have that many requirements, being that it was still on Earth. Extraterrestrial colonies are going to need to produce everything they need right from the start, with almost no contributions from the outside environment.

There's minerals, which isn't insignificant. Plus, as I mentioned earlier and elsewhere, there are prototypes of neat little greenhouses which provide air and food for people in nice compact packages; a model of one was on display at the Museum of Science and Industry for a while.

[mainiac]

The whole "eventually colonies will be profitable" argument is really condescending.  We understand that eventually economic activity will take place.  We aren't completely devoid of imagination.  What the naysayers are pointing out is that this isn't a very good way to make economic activity.  It's not even a very good way to make economic activity on the surface of mars, it would be far easier to do that by colonizing a smaller gravity well first.

Well, replace that with a note about a country with a less-successful start.

Well there was Scotland, they tried to make a colony linking the Atlantic and Pacific at Panama via land convoys.  Eventually (i.e. mid 19th century) that would be a very profitable idea.  But they tried to do it in the year 1700 about 150 years before railroads and new explosives would make this idea viable.  The result was a huge unmitigated failure that was soon followed by Scottish loss of independence to the English.

A couple other countries made smaller bids that failed; Bradenburg, Courland.  They gave up without investing too much in the idea though.

[GreatWyrmGold]

We'll never get to the profitable stage if we don't go through an unprofitable stage first, though. Besides, each dollar spent provides a much larger impact to the economy, so there would probably be short-term benefits as well.

[mainiac]

We'll never get to the profitable stage if we don't go through an unprofitable stage first, though. Besides, each dollar spent provides a much larger impact to the economy, so there would probably be short-term benefits as well.

1) We understand the concept of investing for the future.  That is not our issue.  Our issue is that it's a bad investment.
2) While it's true that space exploration leads to economic impacts we could more benefits from targets closer to earth.

Think about the Scottish colony at Panama.  It wasn't an inherently bad idea.  But they jumped the gun and tried to make a colony with woefully inadequate tools.  The result was that they expended a lot of effort and got none of the benefits that a more viable colony would have given them.  Mars will happen if we continue to develop our ability to explore space.  But sending a bunch of underequiped colonists to die won't help.  It will just set us back.

[Sheb]

As for American colonies, it was also a fad thing. The Spanish and Portugese were making a ton of money, so other countries were ready to invest.

As for minerals, well asteroids are easier than Mars. And robotic mine don't sound that hard. Remember, robotic doesn't mean entirely automated, once the asteroid is parked in orbit, you can remote-control the minebot. And since bots don't need stuff like air, food or vacations down on earth, they're much cheaper and effective.

As for land, I can't imagine a time when settling the Sahara would be harder than settling Mars. Having an athmosphere and protection from cosmic ray is pretty awesome. Or settling Siberia. We still got plenty of space on Earth when you think about it. And population is set to peak at 10 billions, so we're actually fine.

[andrea]

even on near Earth objects, you would still need a degree of automation in the robot. light speed delay, even if not big enough to make complex control impossible, would still make it very frustrating. and unable to react quickly to small unexpected changes ( which could be the hardest part to automate)

[Sheb]

Well, an asteroid on a geostationary orbit would have a delay of a few hundredth of a second. It's totally manageable, and frankly it's not like mining an asteroid is that hard than you need a powerful AI.

[10ebbor10]

Problem is, you hav to provide a ridiculous amount of spare parts for the machinery. Launch costs are tremendously high, so having to send repair bots every so often isn't really viable.

[MonkeyHead]

Mining might not be the right term. Blasting bits off fur processing at LEO or on the surface of earth might be a better term.

[10ebbor10]

Mining might not be the right term. Blasting bits off fur processing at LEO or on the surface of earth might be a better term.

Still problematic. Asteroid density strongly varies and you don't want to scatter half an asteroid through our sattelite network.

[andrea]

ah, you are going for the "capture and bring back" approach of asteroid mining, I see. I thought about objects at the distance of a moon orbit or 2
then I agree, light speed delay wouldn't be too much of a problem. a delay of roughly 1/10 of a second ( 35,000km high).

Still, as you said it wouldn't require a very powerful AI, so it might still be automated.
but I'll agree that asteroids are a better target for mineral extraction than mars. There is a reason if people are working on asteroid mining now, but nobody yet thinks about mars mining ( well, mars mining and export to earth at least).

edit: ebbor, I think we might use bags to avoid scattering of the asteroid bits. old technology, but still good.

[Sheb]

Also, having humans just make everything more complicated. You might send them up once in a while, to fix somthing, but why on earth would you want a fully functional space station?

[mainiac]

If we are going for asteroid mining the material we would want the most is water.  This is very simple indeed to mine, you just melt it down and filter it.