Nasa can't send humans to Mars until it gets the food right

[Drashner1]

Bear in mind that for many the ideas of living in space or going to Mars are not intended to be rational or to produce a profit. They want to go there because they want to go there. No logical counterarguments are going to change that desire. As best I can tell, that includes Elon Musk and his plans. Whether or not that'll result in long term colonization has yet to be determined.

Oh, I completely agree - I'm one of those people who would love to go there. But I want to see humanity go there and keep coming back and ultimately staying (not just on Mars but the Solar System - and beyond - in general).

My concern with the present focus on Mars is that it will end up like the Apollo program, which did its thing for a bit and then petered out for various reasons. IMHO a 'stepped' program of ever increasing development and capability, in which earlier steps help build the foundation for later steps, is a superior option over a massive 'leap' approach that maybe gets us that first mission to Mars a bit faster - but then doesn't do much else, at least for a long while.

As far as making a profit - getting a significant number of our eggs out of this particular basket would be good enough for me - but I suspect that kind of 'meta-goal' isn't going to be the only option and that people will figure out ways to make money off of space one way or another. Humans have a demonstrated track record of being rather good at that in most of the areas of endeavor they've taken on throughout history

Todd