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[Sowelu]

Or, say, the colonization of the Americas / the age of exploration.  Lots of those voyages took a LONG TIME, and with less strict recruitment and training and worse medicine.

To put it bluntly, don't be a pussy.  Most of us have ancestors SOMEwhere that lived through worse, wartime or no.

[PTTG??]

Let's try a different hypothetical. Let's say that in the near future, two breakthroughs are made. First, the cost to put 1 pound in orbit drops to $10. Second, H3-based fusion becomes an effective power source.

What happens?

Note that Helium-3 most likely more present on the Moon than Mars.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Corporations flock en mass to mine the Moon for insane profits is what happens.

[Sowelu]

Monopolizing H3 is cheap (lunar infrastructure is super hard to support and you need all new mining tech, why duplicate your efforts), profitable (you can gouge people, make huge profit, and smaller nations will still be grateful), and practical (coordinated one-party effort means less orbital junk).  Unlike oil, though, H3 production isn't based on geography but on economic strength...so it would end up rebuilding the concept of the superpower.

[Eagleon]

Count me in, unless I've started a family by then. I've wanted to do something like this since I was little. There's nothing left but space to pioneer, and by the time something like this would roll around, we'd be getting to the point with nanotechnology where it's questionable whether or not it's safer to stay on Earth. Actually, thinking about that, count me and my family in. Of course, I have no idea what kind of physical ailments might surface by then, but I'm pretty active despite the several stationary hobbies I have, so I'm not too worried.

[counting]

There might be a contradiction in the setting of $10 per pound and effective fusion techs. When it drops to that cheap, it means the infrastructures of energy conversion is becomes so abundant that either fusion has already got a reliable fuel source, or other means of energy conversion already to cheap to consider using fusion instead. (Which fusion haven't already be commercialized so needs to find cheap fuel)

[Flying Dice]

Quite apart from the absurd cost, this sounds like a setup for a real-life Space Station 13 situation...Although it would still be worth it to go to Mars.

[Bloxace]

I, simply put, would not. I do not have the mindset to go into space. I also doubt that someone who aspires to be architect would be of much use on mars, as an architect merely designs buildings. Also, such skills might be needed in years ahead on earth.

[Eagleon]

Actually that would be quite valuable, if you could adapt your knowledge enough. Someone needs to design the garages, living spaces, and laboratories that the colonists use, with materials requirements, comfort, and safety all working against each other. It could be quite challenging. On the other hand you could probably do it from Earth, but you'd miss out on some insight into people's reactions to your designs.

There might be a contradiction in the setting of $10 per pound and effective fusion techs. When it drops to that cheap, it means the infrastructures of energy conversion is becomes so abundant that either fusion has already got a reliable fuel source, or other means of energy conversion already to cheap to consider using fusion instead. (Which fusion haven't already be commercialized so needs to find cheap fuel)

If a Mars mission is being sent, we might already have developed infrastructure on the moon to produce the necessary fuel. That, in my mind, is the sanest option. A lunar space elevator would be considerably less risky to operate, require less advanced materials, and allow for larger payloads as well. Honestly, my prediction is that we'll see very large solar arrays constructed on the moon powering vasmir engines for the first sizable colony vehicles. They'll still take a long time to get there, but it gives you better failure options than fusion, since it's a much less complicated power source. You'd spend a lot of your transport costs on bringing your colonists to the lunar facility, and very little on the actual trip there. It would be a bulk payoff, because with larger ships you can send more construction materials to get the colony off to a good start.

As for the moon base itself, the costs for sending the fuel back down would be modest with even a minimal rail-launch system. Even with very low efficiency solar, you've got all the real-estate you could possibly want to set up an array to power it. You'd have to design an unmanned shipping container, cheap, disposable, probably made of ceramic composites with a small iron rail for the track. It wouldn't need to go very fast on the trip back, since you'd be sending the containers in a steady stream. Even if it was just something that had decent buoyancy and a very small chute - the capsules designed for splashdown needed to be more advanced because people can't really survive the sudden impact this would require, even against water, but maybe some kind of ablative system to transfer the energy away from the payload's weaker sections... There's a lot of things to consider, like getting enough metal production for pressurized He3 containers, but I don't think it's as troublesome or costly as politicians try to make it seem sometimes.

[AntiAntiMatter]

I would definitely not. While being a Martian colonist sounds cool, it is not worth spending two six-month periods trapped in such a claustrophobic environment.