Consider everything that goes into manufacturing something like a space shuttle orbiter, or an ISS module...then imagine trying to duplicate that on the Moon. Are all the raw materials present? (The stuff of plastics, for example? Copper? Aluminum? Glass?) Are you going to create the infrastructure for everything…

"Seriously - we should be spending as much as we can afford on trying to get past two things: gravity and the speed of light. Once those are conquered the rest is easy."

"We could mine helium3 from the moon and have enough energy to provide all the needs of Earth for 10,000 years. "

"...and the drying of Mars probably has far more to do with it being a little planet than an unshielded one."

"We need a self-sufficient colony that isn't in Earth orbit or we risk either loosing all of the progress that we have made or just total extinction."

"We know it had life, "

Azures: People will ultimately do that too. Some people like gravity wells, and the relative stability of a planet, as opposed to a large man-made structure, and that's okay.

(shrug) It's not either/or, BeowulfRex...

Depends on how wide/deep you're trying to go, and in what sort of surface material. Ask professional drillers for water, oil, construction, etc. on Earth just how much their jobs lend themselves to automation, then throw speed of light delays into the mix. Even the Apollo 15 crew had trouble doing relatively shallow…

I'm all for creating a permanent human presence on Mars, I agree with much Zubrin has to say...but I don't consider it virtually the first, last, and only place to go. There are human-worthy things to do before Mars, there are human-worthy things to do beyond Mars. Zubirin is too Mars-centric for my tastes. I'm for…

The Bengal Finch may be the first non-human animal to demonstrate the use of syntax in the wild (and that's a pretty cool thing in itself, now mind you), but albeit a laboratory setting, they're not the first to display understanding of syntax at all...

"I really don't understand people's fear of such a thing. "

"...also anarchy depends too much on the assumed good of human nature "

"I've never understood what's so bad about a singular world government. Unless it was created by force, I can't see how it would be a bad thing. "

Well, it was either that, or Avatar...or Smurfs.

Most research, even space research, tends to be less exciting than in the movies...

Correct:

Because on Mars there isn't the need to reflect radiant heat coming directly from the Sun, and reflected from the surface (especially for a vehicle that has to be kept at human-comfortable temps), as there is on the Moon.

I can't help feeling thr same way. If it doesn't happen at a time that I'm working or sleeping, I'll be doing more than the usual nail biting waiting for an indication that a successful landing has occurred...and knowing that speed of light delays being what they are, whatever the result, it's already happened.

(sigh) Yeah, as if pulling off MSL is something that happens every day.