Robert Zubrin figured out a plausible plan to put a colony on Mars, yet the article fails to mention Zubrin and his Mars (Semi-)Direct plans.
Colonizing Mars with a small team of experts is possible and within our technological and financial means to do so within a decade or so.
However, the interesting question to me is not "can/how can Mars be colonized" but rather why would people move to Mars in the first place.
"Freedom from Earthly oppression (perceived or imaginary)" cannot work as an argument: a Mars colony will basically have to be run like a prison with 1984-level surveillance. A single crazy person blowing up airlocks or sabotaging the water or food supply can deal a death blow to the whole colony, and the cost to rebuild/repopulate will be tremendous, therefore the entire investment will be watched very closely.
Secondly, the monetary cost of moving to Mars will be huge and will be even beyond the means of Earth multi-millionaires, reducing the number of possible colonists. Also, because of the extremely high cost of getting anything to Mars and a lack of native manufacturing, there can not be a co-operative ownership of Martian infrastructure, so in practise everything will be owned by some entity (corporation/government) operating from Earth.
These points might change and "freedom from Earthly oppression" might become a driver once the colonists become self-sufficient enough to build self-sustaining underground dwellings with locally produced tools.
Therefore I think a succesful colonization must have two things: firstly, some kind of business force to fuel the flow of colonists, and secondly colonists who are not idealists looking for a frontier world freedom utopia, since it will not be such, at least in the beginning.
As for the business force, I don't know what this could be, maybe mining or manufacturing or such.
So I don't think the colonization is gated by things like lack of gravity, surface radiation, or impossibility of terraforming, etc. The lack of a plausible business model which could profit from having people live on Mars is the main gating factor.
Like the thousand people in Antartica right now? I just wouldn't call it colonization.
>The lack of a plausible business model which could profit from having people live on Mars is the main gating factor.
Right on the money here. Save for space research, what could you possibly do on Mars that you couldn't do more cheaply and comfortably in the crowded Earth? Resource extraction only becomes cost-effective if its self-sufficient and automated enough, and which point human presence there would be more comparable to an oil rig than a colony.
About Antarctica and colonization, yes, I agree it is not colonization, but then again it cannot be, since no-one can live permanently in Antarctica because of the treaties (ATS).
"Oil rig workers" or not, if people on Mars would live there until their old age and death, I'd call them colonists. If they are there on a 3 year rotation, then nope, not colonists.
(As a side note Antarctica would be the perfect place to learn about eventual self-sufficient space colonies in an environment which is a softer version of Mars, without complexities around airlocks, suits, oxygen and the omnipresent sand etc.)
Earth has limited and dwindling resources but Mars is still completely untapped. Then again I have no idea what could be so rare or useful to actually drive the colonization of Mars. I mean maybe something like that exists already, but I just don't have an idea.
Colonizing Mars with a small team of experts is possible and within our technological and financial means to do so within a decade or so.
However, the interesting question to me is not "can/how can Mars be colonized" but rather why would people move to Mars in the first place.
"Freedom from Earthly oppression (perceived or imaginary)" cannot work as an argument: a Mars colony will basically have to be run like a prison with 1984-level surveillance. A single crazy person blowing up airlocks or sabotaging the water or food supply can deal a death blow to the whole colony, and the cost to rebuild/repopulate will be tremendous, therefore the entire investment will be watched very closely.
Secondly, the monetary cost of moving to Mars will be huge and will be even beyond the means of Earth multi-millionaires, reducing the number of possible colonists. Also, because of the extremely high cost of getting anything to Mars and a lack of native manufacturing, there can not be a co-operative ownership of Martian infrastructure, so in practise everything will be owned by some entity (corporation/government) operating from Earth.
These points might change and "freedom from Earthly oppression" might become a driver once the colonists become self-sufficient enough to build self-sustaining underground dwellings with locally produced tools.
Therefore I think a succesful colonization must have two things: firstly, some kind of business force to fuel the flow of colonists, and secondly colonists who are not idealists looking for a frontier world freedom utopia, since it will not be such, at least in the beginning.
As for the business force, I don't know what this could be, maybe mining or manufacturing or such.
So I don't think the colonization is gated by things like lack of gravity, surface radiation, or impossibility of terraforming, etc. The lack of a plausible business model which could profit from having people live on Mars is the main gating factor.