>>10979271>and perhaps we could accomplish this faster on VenusIrrelevant because you can't fix the fact that Venus has too much gravity to easily escape from. Which is the main thrust of my argument.
>prove that Mars actually does thisMars or Moon both allow for vehicles that are 50% payload by mass to act as reusable SSTO. That alone is a huge expansion in space capability. We can also do electromagnetic launch and even space elevator technology on the Moon, and while Mars lacks this capacity it also has two convenient quadrillion-ton lumps of rock in nice circular equatorial orbits for us to exploit as well, which given that Mars also has low gravity and a thin atmosphere for braking would be well within the capacity of SSTO vehicles using chemical fuels (methane or hydrogen).
>bullshitI already said that, and that they exist in very low concentrations, except for carbon and oxygen atoms. Good luck generating significant amounts of phosphorous from gasses at Venus. Also, iron, copper, zinc, calcium, sodium, chlorine, bromine, iodine, and more are all also just as vital as phosphorous and nitrogen and carbon, but you need to go to the ground and dig up minerals to get them. This is obviously challenging even if it's theoretically possible on Venus.
>transit time from Venus to the asteroid belt is faster than from Earth or Mars because phasing opportunities occur more oftenThe asteroid belt has launch opportunities constantly because it's a swarm of millions of objects. Mars is a better place to start from because you can just wait for targets to drift by and maneuver to them. Ceres is even better, since it's right in the belt. Lag between launch windows is no issue.
Overall, reread my comment because you missed 90% of what I actually said.