| Re: Martian soil appears able to support life
Quote:
Originally Posted by jfuh  That kinda boils down to "what's worth going to mars for"?
Sure given these resources colonization would be a higher probability but there needs to be a strong motive.
The original explorers that came to the "new world" came because of the desire to find a path to the far east that was not controlled by the Portuguese or Venetians. What is the strong motive to go to mars? Practically unless there is some resource or some scientific significance there's just simply not going to be any push to cross over 10 light minutes to get there. Hence why I don't really see this as any sort of major surprise. | There's no push NOW, because it's too expensive to send humans there. And rightfully so; robots can make all the scientific discoveries much more cheaply than humans can.
However, in a few decades the cost will have been reduced to the point where we can not only send humans, but we can actively begin the terraforming and colonization process. When that happens, the motive will be the same as the motives of people colonizing distant lands throughout history: because it's there.
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Last edited by Kandahar : 06-29-08 at 12:31 PM.
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