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> How much value has America created since it was a colony?

The comparison to America is terrible, if you ask me. If the american continent was looking anything like Mars, people would have never settled there and the value you're talking about would be very close to zero.

If seems dishonest to me to compare mars with the American continent, especially considering that if we want to compare mars with the discovery of a whole continent, there is one that looks much more like mars : Antarctica. There is no record whatsoever of any long-term human occupation there. That has to prove that humans tend to dislike living in cold deserts.

By comparison, the american continent has been inhabited for thousands of years, and its discovery by Europeans has brought many extremely appreciated plants and animals.

What is there to bring from mars that there is not on Earth already? Apart from vast areas of rusted rocks and dust, not much, except perhaps for the possibility of fulfilling the fantasy of people who have read or watched too much science-fiction.

I mean, a settlement on mars can have value, but it will only be the value that you'll bring there. For instance if you build an hotel or casino there (as I personally believe tourism is one of the very few business models that make sense for mars), then the fact that it is on mars will not bring much more value than the intrinsic value of your hotel or casino itself.

> "I mean, a settlement on mars can have value, but it will only be the value that you'll bring there."

This is actually true for most countries. America's economic strength lies in the fact that it creates software, micro-chips, manufactured goods, entertainment, etc.

Tell me, where in the ground do you dig up a micro-processor? Or a hollywood blockbuster? Or a Tesla Model S? Or the source code for google's search engine?

Economic value is primarily created by human activity. Once there is human activity on Mars there is the potential for economic value there. And once human activity on Mars is relatively self-sustaining, which we can achieve through building up the local industry combined with certain technological innovations, then that human activity will indeed provide things of net positive value to the rest of human civilization.

It seems so hard now, but in fifty or a hundred years we'll look back and it'll just seem normal and possibly even natural.

We tend to discount the truly incredible and jaw dropping amount of labor and ingenuity that has gone into building the prosaic world we see out the window every day. Even something like providing water to New York City is itself a herculean effort beyond the capability of even the entire human race only a few centuries ago. What we've done to network the world together digitally, to build engines of mass trade of manufactured goods across and between continents, to travel across land/sea/air from point to point with minimal overhead beyond the raw requirements imposed by the laws of physics, all of these things are awe inspiring creations when you give yourself the opportunity to look at them in whole. And many of them are vastly more difficult and in some cases more questionably of long term value than colonizing Mars.

That is seriously hampered by the cost of trade, though. I don't think anyone quite knows how this will play out with regard to exports/imports to Mars. It seems like those on Mars will be handicapped by lots of "survival" overhead in what they are able to produce per capita. Even their Internet access will be 5-20 minutes delayed to/from Earth.

Musk knows the score on exports perfectly well: " Honestly, if you had like crack-cocaine on Mars, in like prepackaged pallets, it still wouldn't make sense to transport it back here." [1] A couple of years ago there was loose talk of SpaceX financing the Mars colony by building a space-based ISP (in low Earth orbit, mind you), but as far as I can see that's no longer on the table [2][3].

[1] http://shitelonsays.com/transcript/elon-musk-at-mits-aeroast...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OneWeb_satellite_constellation

[3] http://www.techinsider.io/elon-musks-spacex-is-backpedaling-...

America's economic strength lies in that fact NOW. What convinced Europeans to move to America was that there were people who found it within their means to move to America take unclaimed land (or, at least, unclaimed within their legal system), and build farms on it. Or hunt fur animals, or build mines. And the existence of those people created a market for those who wanted to say sell those people goods. And so forth.

There's nothing to start the process off on Mars. Mars is intractably expensive to get to in a way that America was not. It is expensive to live on in a way that America was not. It has no basic draw that can bring thousands of people there despite the cost.

Which is why the "activation energy" for colonizing Mars is different than it was for the Americas (either time). Yet still, that doesn't push colonizing Mars outside the realm of reasonable activities, it just means it requires more of a push.

People want to live on Mars, for lots of reasons. Mostly Mars colonization is about getting the activation energy lower than the latent resources available for doing it (which are substantial, make no mistake).

I sort of agree. If we imagined a world thousands of times more wealthy than the present one, I think you'd probably see a Martian colony kick off more or less "just because it's there."

But absent any return on investment, the available resources today are orders of magnitude too small to make a go of it.

In any foreseeable world, any kind of substantial off-Earth human presence (more than say 200 people) is going to require a substantial practical value to justify it. Pure science or "just because it's there" or fulfilling the childhood sci-fi dreams of various people are not going to cut it. Which bums me out too! I have childhood sci-fi dreams.

If there's a path to large-scale (or even medium-scale) human presence off Earth, it's something like solar power generation or asteroid mining.

I was objecting to the comparison between mars and the american continent. The value of the American for the Europeans was certainly higher than if it were completely desert. Europeans brought countless species[1], and discovered large areas of fertile lands.

You are talking about current american economy that happened literally centuries later.

> Economic value is primarily created by human activity.

Precisely. If economic value depends on human activity and not on the location it takes place, then why spend hundreds of billions to do it somewhere else? What exactly can you do on mars that you coud not do on Earth for much less money?

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbian_Exchange

To be fair, lets compare a colony on Mars with, say, a colony on top of Mt Everest. Little or no oxygen; massively inhospitable environment; staggeringly difficult to get there or get cargo there; radiation hazard due to thin atmosphere; negligible resources once you arrive.

Except, of course, that Mt Everest would be childs play compared to Mars.

But we don't have the technology for a self sufficient mars colony. We're not even close. Anything we put there is going to have to be expensively supported from Earth.

What will you do if you're on Mars and the company that supplies you food, spare parts, and medical supplies goes out of business?

The Americas worked as colonies because they could become self sufficient in a very short period of time and had enormous quantities of valuable resources. The trees alone were priceless to the parent countries where every tree was spoken for. Even then some of the colonies failed.

What does Mars have that you couldn't obtain more cheaply on Earth?

Yes, but who in their right mind would choose to leave beautiful California, to live in desolation on Mars? Sure it's important to explore new worlds, but expecting a family to pack up and leave this world for one with absolutely nothing sounds a bit far fetched.

Well, I for one am extremely excited to go! I live in beautiful California right now, and I'm soaking it all up while I'm here just in case I get the chance to move to Mars. And I'm sure that the percentage of the population who'd want to go is small - but it's big enough to start a colony, that's for sure.

You're crazy man! Also, while that percentage is extremely small, the percentage that actually will qualify has to be insanely small. I'm sure everyone headed there is going to be subjected to rigorous testing, they aren't just going to ship off anyone.

I wonder how long it would take for you to realize you really miss Earth?

Knowing you'll be confined to a closed space for years (assuming no return capabilities on the initial mission), even the awesome research you'd be doing will probably start to look very bleak.

Just send robots and control them from Earth...

I'm sure I will miss Earth before we even leave Earth orbit! But that won't make me want to go to Mars any less.

> Just send robots and control them from Earth...

This idea makes me feel isolated and sad. What a dystopian future that would be, with everybody sitting on a single planet at risk of disease, nuclear war, asteroid impacts, global-scale climate change, all without a care, while you look into your VR headset and see the realistic landscapes of other planets. So sad :(

I'll take Mars any day over that. And I'm also confident that return trips will be frequent if anyone wants to leave - that's the whole point of reusable rockets, afterall.

I cannot tell if you are serious, or seriously trolling.

>What a dystopian future that would be, with everybody sitting on a single planet at risk of disease, nuclear war, asteroid impacts, global-scale climate change, all without a care, while you look into your VR headset and see the realistic landscapes of other planets.

Have you done any reading on the habitability of Mars? I will guarantee that once you truly comprehend what life on Mars will entail, you will be BEGGING for the luxuries of disease, nuclear war, climate change, and all the other great things that life on Earth bring.

Mars is a brutal, senseless struggle against a guaranteed DEATH.

I recommend going to live in Antartica first, and see how long you can last there. Followed by building a capsule on top of Everest. Then by living in the ISS. Then by living on the Moon. ONLY THEN, would you have any idea of what Mars living will be like.

But alas, even then it will be far, FAR more challenging than living on the Moon. The transit time between the Earth and the Moon is childish compared to Earth and Mars. Once you're on Mars, there will be no coming back for a LONG time.

I'll take my VR tour of Mars any day, thank you.

How is living on Mars significantly harsher than the ISS?

You would get resupply missions once every 2 years [0] instead of 10 times a year, but in general they share most of the downsides but Mars has soil, gravity and an atmosphere.

[0] http://clowder.net/hop/railroad/EMa.htm

When things go south on the ISS, you are a four hour flight away from Kazakhstan.

When things go south on Mars, you die.

Supporting the survival of six people on the ISS also costs billions of dollars a year. Even if you cut launch costs by a factor of 10, it's still going to be north of a billion dollars. Supporting the survival of a viable colony on Mars would bankrupt the world twice over.

The initial investment would be significant yes, but Mars isn't anywhere near as space constrained as much as the ISS.

Once you've got enough people and supplies, you can build farms, which means less food needs to be shipped out, freeing capacity for other goods. Presumably a lot of the infrastructure will be shipped out long before people are, so all they need to do is collect things from the supply drops, then assemble and expand.

Get the Mars colony to self sufficiency and the cost to Earth will trend to zero.

> Life anywhere is a brutal, senseless struggle against a guaranteed DEATH.

Fixed that for you.

Real estate prices on an otherwise empty planet agree probably pretty cheap, and the lack of atmosphere would be an excellent crime deterrant.

Easier to dome a gated community on earth and pump the air out of it.

That is why the number he gave is a paltry 80,000 instead of millions. The assumption is a really tiny portion can afford it, and a really tiny portion of those again will want to move there or visit. But there's a lot of people in the world, and people have willingly settled in a lot of desolate, horrible places.

There is nothing as comparably desolate, and horrible on Earth. There is nothing to sustain life, at all. Even in the most punishing Earth environments, people find ways to survive for the simple fact that basic necessities still exist. Mars has none of them, namely air.

Deep ocean trenches are as bad or worse as the surface of mars.

Inside the core of the Earth seems as bad or worse.

I don't see humans volunteering to live in those places either. Deep ocean at least has some way to sustain life. Mars has NOTHING.

but Mars has something else: It's a different planet. It is unsettled. It has vast, empty spaces.

For some that desolation is part of the appeal. For others the challenges. For others the opportunity to be pioneers.

Finding volunteers for colonisation won't be a problem.

Well, families with children make things a bit less likely, but I 100% would be on a list to go if I was childless. Even knowing it was a one way trip. Life is already short and if you cannot do something truly meaningful (subject to personal interpretation), then what are you doing with your life? Meaningful to me happens to include space exploration. Having had kids that list also includes raising my part of the next generation to be good members of the human race.

I think cruising around space on the Enterprise is pretty meaningful life. But how would a more realistic living 20 years on Mars in a 100x100 foot dome do the same? The exploration part would wear off after maybe 2 weeks.

The thing is, when you get there you are essentially living in a small prison cell. At least until there is enough infrastructure to move around in. But your activities are still limited to about what you can do sitting in a little room in front of a computer.

Just thinking about some small things, such as going swimming, or riding a bicycle on a path through the woods. Or hiking / camping, or driving a sports car along a twisty mountain road.

> But your activities are still limited to about what you can do sitting in a little room in front of a computer.

Which sounds fine until you remember you'll have a ping in the realm of 4-24 minutes. And you thought you had trouble matchmaking in some games now...

>you are essentially living in a small prison cell. [...] But your activities are still limited to about what you can do sitting in a little room in front of a computer.

Honestly the VR scenario here isn't so bad and you get exercise from it too :)

What young rich kid wouldn't want to play video games and colonize a new planet?!

People like building new things. Maybe not all people, but there's a type.

Besides, Musk can offer free trips back trivially. [see WaitButWhy's extraordinarily long post about SpaceX]

>that a mid-to-upper class family in California might decide to move to Mars instead of buying a house on Earth

I don't know the details of what he suggested, but, when we talk about 'families' I think most parents would hesitate to subject their children to the rigors and risks of an early-stage Mars colony, even thought they might be keen themselves. Retirees, the childless, and people without plans to have kids soon would be a safer bet for early colonists

I'm not sure. If that was true, colonization of America by Europeans would not have succeeded. If they succeed to put up some bases and a workable, extensible agriculture (honestly I doubt I will see that within my life time), colonists will come - and bring in or have their children there.

This is kind of my line of thought. I wouldn't go today, but a couple decades from now once I've had kids and they're grown up? Sure, why not.

If you don't have children, then you don't have a colony. At best, you might have a pathfinding expedition intended to prepare for a future colony, but then there's a case to be made that the money and time might be better spent improving various supporting technologies.

You'd need to be able to raise that as cash; you're going to have trouble persuading a bank to give you a mortgage for a $500,000 stake in a mars expedition.

If the Portland real estate market is any indication, there are countless more people than you'd ever expect to be able to come up with $500k in cash.

Can you explain this? Are banks not lending in Portland? Or the down payment is $500K? (Like 10% on a $5M loan?)

The Portland real estate market is extremely hot right now, and you can't get a decent house in a decent (or even not decent but "up and coming" neighborhoods) without an all cash offer, or way over asking price. Every friend that has been through the market in the last year has been beaten out of multiple bidding wars by all cash, no inspection offers 10+ % over asking price. Lots of bay area money moving up to PDX, tons of satellite offices opening up for tech companies, it's a big cultural shift that's happening pretty fast.

What's the future earning potential of a mars settler?