As for the solution, we have no good solution this election year. Only more of the same failed policies, or a Republican who is moderate in all the wrong ways, and who privately believes in a religion with comical “evidence.” Golden plates that appeared and disappeared, and had a version of Egyptian that hasn’t appeared anywhere else? A monolingual, racist astrologist with the auspicious name Joseph Smith somehow understood that quasi-Egyptian via a “seer stone”? Yes, someone who believes that… that’s the kind of person we need as POTUS. That, or a confirmed failure like Obama… How is “none of the above” a worse choice, pray tell?

Mars’ gravity is higher than Moon’s, so microgravity effects would be smaller on Mars. As for oxygen, or water, or other life support materials, Mars has everything you need in its environment; on the Moon, we could potentially manufacture materials like fuel or construction materials, and there’s a possibility of extracting oxygen from moon rocks, but there ain’t much water on the Moon; tons of it on Mars. Making air and water, growing food; all of that is easier on Mars.

You’re right, Mars carries bigger implications for failure. But when I say ROI, I mean as a colony outpost, as a place where we could actually send more and more people in the long run. In that regard, we need self-sufficiency more than anything.

The Moon-first advocates aren’t stupid or wrong, they’re absolutely right in the relative safe bet that the Moon offers. It’s just that a Moon base couldn’t beat the self-sufficiency potential of a Mars base.

Of course, Mars will always be a hard sell when it comes to securing funds, private or not, for the reasons pointed out on this thread.

However, Moon-Mars implies Earth-Moon, and not just Earth-Moon, but Earth-Moon-then build massive infrastructure. We’re talking about spending trillions on a hop.

This is a growth opportunity, and the home
folks will reap tremendous benefits, society will reap and technology will be a
given, literally.

That
would be tens of millions of gallons of water, recycle it and you have the first
real need for colonization. Colonization makes traveling to other planets
“cheap” compared to an earth launch.

Now
we go to Mars, another planet with water, then to Titan, one of Saturn’s Moons,
colonization. The economics of society change we are now in it to stay in it. The
earth gets replenished of what we have robbed.

No Titan will not mind, nor will the moon, nor
will the tides change to a point of ruining the sand castles.

Water sustains life,
mining takes a lot of time and a lot of humans that need water to drink, grow
food and well mine.

The moon will be
mined, heavily at that. Rae earth minerals will be the first goal and the most profitable.
Initial investment will start out slow, profit as well, but as soon as the
“mother lode” is hit, all hands will be on whom goes to the moon for
a very handsome paycheck. No lines for the jobs, these will be highly capable
individuals, excellent physical condition and education, at first.

Once the mining is
second nature 10-15 years after first profits, it will become grunt work for
anyone in good shape, pay wise, still nice but not as nice as those who made it
easy work.

This will all start in less than ten years, first land
equipment, so 25 years from now you may have a real “Moon Diamond”
the rarest on…the moon.

A micron is 0.00004 inches. Is this a very shallow crater or did they measure with impossibly precise resolution? Please explain what the depth of 1 micron refers to and how it’s relevant to the story.

Disposable writing. The convergence of journalism and Twitter.

Too bad those 100,000 Americans are only a fraction of the millions looking for jobs.

Vote “none of the above” in 2012.