>>11248922>but to explain what I meant about sending humans to Mars. I meant that we should do it moreso as an expression of human superiority rather than needing to do it for the future of human survival.Mars is more habitable than Luna, and there’s a accumulating evidence life is already present. Robotic settlement at minimum would be an even greater display of human achievement, and pave the way for eventually transporting cyborgs or something within a few centuries. Launching stuff from Mars’ surface is a lot easier than doing the same on Earth, but still delta/v intensive enough that it’d be vastly more economical to use the relatively nearby asteroid belt as a metaphorical (and literal) goldmine.
> honestly, building lunar bases is probably a more feasible idea right now than building Mars colonies. I don't really know how they are going to get water from the moon thoughThe Moon might have genuine ice on it, but aside from that, there’s hydrate and hydroxide minerals from which water can be extracted. Water already in use can be recycled continually and all waste products can be reintroduced to the local biosphere via bacteria, archaea, fungi, plants, etc, forming a closed loop domesticated ecosystem that can increase in scale using only local minerals and the Sun. Whatever resources you may need, oxygen, carbon, silicon, etc, can be found inside of chemical compounds of local regolith and stone.
