And as I went on to say, to do it, if/when we attain the necessary technical and scientific expertise (which we are nowhere near having yet), would require putting an entire european nation’s worth of people on mars, just to have the bare minimum economic foundation needed to be able to build and repair the machines needed to keep them alive. Which is ridiculous, insane.
Think about how much investment and effort would be required to make Little America in Antartica not require any importation of goods, services, or labour going forward. Think about how difficult to impossible it would be to find the number of people with the needed skills who would willingly go there to live and work full time to expand the existing base in Antartica to full self sufficiency. Now imagine you have to hire thousands of times as many people to go to Mars, to live and work there full time there, under even worse conditions than in Antartica, in order to get your self sufficient mars base off the ground.
Think about the brain drain problem experienced by small communities on earth. Then think about how much bigger a brain drain you will have of workers on your not yet self sustaining mars colony, as you struggle to build it up past the tipping point, with workers deciding they would rather they and their children not spend their entire lives inside a pressurized underground warren.
Very simply, i don’t think it can be done without using slavery. And slaves have a tendency to revolt and/or run away. Again, I say, if an insurance policy is what we’re after, it’s going to be far easier and less problematical to fireproof our current home than to build a new one just in case this one burns down.
