re: #103 William Lewis

Exactly. As long as all the eggs are in a single basket, one accident can destroy them all. Self sustaining colonies in multiple places are necessary for the long term.

True in the long run, but the jump between landing humans on the moon and landing them on Mars is a really big one. Too big, IMHO — at this point it’s a suicide mission. We need to practice before we send anyone all that way. My own preference would be to plan an extended stay on the moon, to find out how to keep them going there for an long period.

While we’re doing that, we can work on the logistics of sending enough food, water and air to sustain our explorers for a couple of years moving out and another couple of years coming back, while protecting them (and their ship and supplies) from constant cosmic ray bombardment (they’ll need that on the moon too, so it’s good practice in another way). It’s not a trivial problem.