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

[mrstickball]

Bitmap Frogs said:

mrstickball said:
How long are you expecting to live?

As it stands, Mars is just too far away, and offers too little for it to happen soon/quickly. If you were going to live another.....65-70 years, permanent colonies may be near to reality. However, what's the romanticism about Mars? The moon is a much more viable and valuable destination that will see colonization sooner. It's a lot closer, and should see a research station by 2030, and a permanent settlement by 2050.

The Moon is way too harsh. Mars has some hope of eventually producing goods.

Really, lunar regolith is ultra-nasty stuff. And there ain't much else. At current prices interplanetary economy is a dellusion, but mars settlements could get a lot done with mars resources.

What makes the moon that much more harsh than Mars? I fully understand that Mars offers more resources, but the cost to project colonies on Mars is exponentially higher than the Moon. It'd be like trying to colonize Newfoundland from Europe, and totally avoiding an uncolonized Britian.

A few notes on the pros of moon habitation/colonization:

• Abundant! Helium 3. The moon has infintely more HE3 available than Earth, and the closest easily usable alternate HE3 sources are large asteroids in the belt, and Jupiter and Uranus....Far more costly than the moon for the next century. Just 15 tons of HE3 would power the United States' electricity demands for an entire year, given current efficency rates (could be as little as 7 tons with more efficent generation stations). Mars has no HE3, AFAIK. 
• Astronomy. Since the moon is a near-vaccum, and provides a better vaccum than any technology we have on Earth, it provides a lot of opportunities in the astronomy field, and other industries that require a vaccum.
  
• Surface buildings. Unlike Mars, surface buildings are much cheaper to build on the moon. The moon has no wind, which allows for building construction that only takes gravity and thermal loads into consideration...Given the moon's gravity, construction would be much less costly on the Moon than Mars. Martian wind storms gust up to 375MPH....Making it a bit more difficult for any surface construction on Mars.
  
• Lunar regolith. Despite your affinity against the stuff, it makes for decent construction & insulation materials.