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We have the technology to do it.

It would be very expensive and there is very little value in going. Its only value is in being a goal. What we should really be doing is building orbital spacecraft and getting really good at building things in space. Start mining the moon for materials, build orbital factories etc. Going to Mars gets us almost nothing until we have the technology base to exploit whatever is there. You make something up there profitable and our space tech will go through a boom similar to computers. We are very capable of making very good spaceships given a couple decades of real interest from big corps.

When you can make factories in space and gather materials from celestial bodies there is nowhere you can't go.

Its called mining, and we have been doing it for thousands of years on earth, I think we are pretty good at exploiting stuff here, and since its the same **** in a new town id feel confident in our ability to exploit stuff on mars as well. **** we can get robots to do most of it for us.

The biggest thing about mining, is what do we really need that would be worth the expense to go get it. Once in space itself, oxygen and water and other required elements for life support become valuable, but only insofar as to support out of space presence. The real draw for space mining would be the rare elements we lack, such as the Helium III on the moon, and theoretically easily accessable elements in the asteroid fields. A giant strike of platinum for example would do very bad things to the jewlry industry, but would be a huge benifit to the manufacturing and electrical industries. Helium III is theoretically ideal for use in a fusion reactor. If we had suitble large quantities of helium III at our disposal right now, combined with the new laser from the national ignition laboratory, we could most likely sustain a working fusion reaction. Building your reactor to work with the rarest isotope on the planet at the moment isn't really a viable solution.

Other than that, the really abundant iron, steel, titanium, etc, we can get on earth, or recycle easier than it would be to get them from space. Then if you do get them, you really have to ahve some way to at least partially refine whatever it is so you aren't shipping back huge piles of worthless materials. That means some form of space smelter, probably on the moon, which introduces temperature variables, material handling issues, scale issues, etc. Once we have one up and running, we can then start producing materials for construction in orbit. That won't happen though until there is an easy way to get material up out of our atmosphere. A space tower or sky hook, some sort of starwars style imposible repulsorlift shuttle, beaming, what have you. Right now it costs roughly (and there are alot of variables here so you can argue the numbers +/- considerably either way) about $3,000 to move 1 ton of material from new york to london. It costs the space program about $10,000,000 to move 1 ton of material about 900 miles into orbit. Until we can get costs down to where it is practical to move large volumes of material up the gravety well, we aren't going to see large scale mining in space unfortunatly.

My money is on the skyhook personally...

Unobtanium.

Ya know, in Avatar, did they ever mention what unobtanium was used for?

I guess I'd rather see the governments or international orgs exploring the cosmos, getting things charted and inventoried and what-not, before the corps go in and start staking claims and exploiting resources.

It's for making profits.

Just like Spain, Britain, and France pulled their resources to explore the new world! I'm sure we can do it!!
It'll be the New Age of Enlightenment; full of peace and harmony; just like the old Age of Enlightenment, right!?
lol

I'm just saying; the last century was actually the most enlightened, educated, technologically advanced time in history..
and it was also the BLOODIEST.

I am DONE with the delusion that human beings are suddenly going wake up and start singing about sunshine and lolipops. What reason does any truly rational person have to ever think that? I'll tell you the reason: DENIAL.

***** that. If we're going, I say we take the planet with us.

I'm with Kelvy. That's not to say it can't happen or won't, but it sure as hell won't be any time in our lifetime, or likely, our children's lifetime. Sure, nations may agree to work together, but when it comes time to rape the next planet and claim the spoils, they'll all go back to bickering. No, humanity is a ways off from being able to completely work together on this.

Even though this was tested and seemed to work, there is a difference between doing a test on earth where if something happens they have the added comfort knowing that they unlock the doors and they're standing in liveable breathable space. My concern is how will they fair knowing that there isn't a way out, that literally you will spend however long it takes to get there cramped up in a tiny *** shuttle.

Can you hear me Major Tom?

Who maintains the servers?

Ask Russia, they have had several Cosmonauts spend months aboard Mir.