Are there any metals or other resources on Mars that would make it viable economically?

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We've moved on since the 60's somewhat. I was about to write fusion too lol. Let's face it Fission on a spacecraft is asking for trouble.

I don't see us any closer to a fusion powered space craft. Fission powered was doable in the 60's.

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.

Helium 3 is nice, but it's useless until we develop fusion. It's a loooong way - for starters, we haven't even achieved ignition. We're talking 2030-2050. If it happens.

By the way, surface buildings on the moon are a not without issues/compromises. There's no atmosphere, peanut sized asteroids could easily break through buildings. Making buildings resilient to meteorites makes them way more expensive and bulky, which means longer construction time, etc. Additionally, radiation. Radiation insulation isn't easy nor cheap nor light.

Now, the regolith. Lunar regolith looks like dust, but every particule of it is sharp like a knife. It tears your lungs if you breathe it (we're talking asbestos-like toxicity), it breaks apart moving parts and you can't avoid having some leak into the buildings. Basically, anyone taking a walk comes back coated in poison.

Mars has a tiny atmosphere: some meteorites get burned, regolith has eroded (so it isn't sharp like lunar) and in-situ resource utilization is way, way more promising.

Of course there are some interesting points about a moon base, but the moon will be 100% dependant on earth supplies. Mars is much more interesting. It could be actually possible to settle there.

 And even then, I'm sure it would be far cheaper to manufacture HE3 on Earth.

Of course it would require a huge radioactive farm to grow the HE3 since it's a product of radioactive decay.

Yeah. Also I'm no fusion expert but if I recall there are several possible fusion reactions and HE3 is used in a harder to achieve reaction. But I'm not that sure about it.

I believe NASA is planning a manned mission to Mars in the 2030's. They won't be permenant, but I'm going into aerospace engineering, and I hope that I'll be working on this. Maybe I can help us get there. ^_^

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.

No one is thinking about this question hard enough.

IT says a permanent settlement. None of us are going to live long enough to see a permanent settlement on mars. No human is going to live long enough to see a permanent settlement on mars. Mars won't be around forever. Even if we do make a long lasting settlement, it will be destroyed one day.

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