you're forgetting about the shear amount of money required to do this, the only way it will get done, is by taking a step and doing it, and if that step requires essentially creating an truman show, well, it's a start.

the only possible other alternatives for generating the resources are either an extremely valuable/plentiful resource is discovered, and corporations want to mine it(such as Helium-3 on the moon), or over population/pollution forces us to leave or die, or lastly some really really rich people decide to say fuck it, let's go!.[/quote]

Any form of space exploration costs exorbitant sums of money.

If a colony existed on Mars, supplies and resources would have to be shuttled back and fourth from Earth to Mars on a regular basis. That being the case, there is no reason why a colonist should not be able to snag a ride on one of those shuttles to return to Earth.

Look at the positive sides: Not a single STD on the planet, everyone is as intelligent as you are, etc. We would become a colony of ultimate humans, each one in top physical and mental shape.
L. Spiro

Wow, that would be fun. Bunch of snobs on a desert planet

Seriously. No snow, no face to the wind or rain thing, no beer under the sun thing and all the other crap. I'd miss that.
Maybe I'm just an unterhuman but this world is too sci-fi to me already (that's why I moved to Finland once). Going some even more sci-fi place with smart people, I'd drown in the bullshit.

http://mars-one.com/en/faq-en/22-faq-mission-features/196-what-will-the-astronauts-do-on-mars
[quote name='Mars One FAQ']
Our astronauts will also find time to relax. They can do most of the indoor activities that people can do on Earth: read, play games, write, paint, work out in the gym, watch TV, use the Internet, contact friends at home and so on.
There will be some communication and media limitations, due to the distance between Earth and Mars, resulting in time delays: they will have to request the movies or news broadcasts they want to see in advance. If an astronaut would like to watch the Super Bowl, he or she can request it, and it would be uploaded to the server on Mars. There will always be a time delay of at least three minutes, so the people on Mars will know who won a few minutes after the people on Earth. Hopefully this slight delay will not spoil their enjoyment of our ‘Earth sports’.
Easy Internet access will be limited to their preferred sites that are constantly updated on the local Mars web server. Other websites will take between 6 and 45 minutes to appear on their screen - first 3-22 minutes for your click to reach Earth, and then another 3-22 minutes for the website data to reach Mars. Contacting friends at home is possible by video, voice or text message (e-mail, WhatsApp, sms), but real time dialogue is not possible, because of the time delay.
[/quote]

There are also private areas on the colony.
No laws, no government, no taxes.
Breaking away from the colony means death for at least the first 15-20 years or so.


L. Spiro

[quote name='rscomposer' timestamp='1354553715' post='5006670']If a colony existed on Mars, supplies and resources would have to be shuttled back and fourth from Earth to Mars on a regular basis. That being the case, there is no reason why a colonist should not be able to snag a ride on one of those shuttles to return to Earth.

It's several orders of magnitude cheaper to send unmanned one-way supply-ships then it is to send anything that can return.
You'd have to bring the fuel to return too, plus life-support and radiation-shielding to survive the couple-of-months travel time.
Plus have systems to go into orbit, have something that can launch to that orbit, etc...
Have the ship land? even more fuel, and a couple of magnitudes more expensive.
Not even the ship that would be built to take them there would be built to return, but be re-used to build the colony
[/quote]

I think, if and when the first humans land on Mars, they will be landing in a ship designed to return them to Earth. I don't believe that the body sending them on that mission (likely governments, not TV producers), will not task the first expedition to Mars with establishing a colony at their destination.

That means we will already have conquered the challenges of getting humans to and from Mars. Every little thing we do in a manned mission to Mars will be outrageously expensive, and even more so in building a colony.

In truth, there will likely be a space station orbiting Mars before a colony is built. The station would be equipped with Earth Return Vehicles which would carry people back to Earth. That negates having to worry about getting a larger ship intended to be inhabited for months at a time on and off the surface of the planet. It would never have to even enter the atmosphere.

Crew and supplies would be dropped from the station to the Martian surface, and it would only require a capsule capable of taking off in the thin Martian atmosphere to rendezvous with the orbital station.

NASA has some fascinating articles about colonization and travel to Mars: http://search.nasa.gov/search/search.jsp?nasaInclude=manned+mission+to+mars

There will only be 4 people at first and they will be carefully chosen based on their social dynamics. They will be put together for 3 months at a time in the desert every 2 years and undergo many other group tests for 10 years before ever leaving for Mars. So if they can’t get along they don’t go together.

I am already planning what will be in my application video/letter.
I am quite serious about wanting to go myself, and am about 90% sure I will apply as soon as possible. I look forward even to the training and exercise—it would be nice to get back into shape.


L. Spiro