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

[Bitmap Frogs]

highwaystar101 said:
If someone discovered that half of Mars was covered in gold and diamonds you could guarantee funding would increase exponentially and we would be there in a few years.

Unfortunately that is not the case.

 

Even if it was the case, the cost would make the whole ordeal prohibitive and they wouldn't be harvested unless we exhausted all gold on Earth and suddenly we needed gold to live.

Titan (one of Saturn's Moons) has hundreds of times the peak reserves of gas and hydrocarbons (oil) the Earth ever had. On top of it it's all laying in huge surface lakes so it isn't even necessary to drill. Have you seen Shell fund an expedition to Titan? I haven't...