Elon Musk Wants Space Colonists, Not Just Tourists

An anonymous reader writes "Elon Musk, founder of PayPal and CEO of SpaceX, is not all that excited about space tourism: he wants to colonize Mars. 'I don't think it's a tragedy that people can't have fun in space. People should be able to go if they want to, but it's no great tragedy if they can't. But I do think it is a great tragedy if humanity can't establish itself on another planet. It's the single most important thing we can do to continue the human race.' SpaceX will launch Falcon I in mid to late January 2005."

Depends where the resources are

[Engineer-Poet]

Mars has all the elements required for life, including (if we can trust the evidence) water. It's difficult to get off Mars but you can do it with single-stage rockets. I don't know if you're going to be able to find an asteroid which yields everything you need for building materials, atmosphere, and the rest. Having to do a lot of scooting around to get those things from different rocks may increase your trouble and risk more than putting down on a little planet like Mars.