Will any of us live long enough to see a permanent settlement on Mars?

[Bitmap Frogs]

Ah, I could talk a lot about this.

Essentially, permanent settlements are a no-go because of economics. Minor settlements to accommodate scientific crews on two year missions is all we will see in our lifetime, I'm afraid. Current temptative schedules puts man on mars around 2030, give or take 10-20 years depending on politics.

We have a long, long, way to go before setting foot on Mars. If you wanna know our current standing, I suggest you peek NASA's advance of design reference 5.0 (since Mars is a moving goal, NASA keeps updating their reference design every few years to update it with latest technology).

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/leag2007/presentations/20071001.drake.pdf