<i>> The main reason I can see for going to mars has little to do with industry but would allow for eventual industry. A mission to discover and catalogue potential life forms on mars assuming any are discovered initially. A base could build up around the site where potential microorganisms might be found.</i><br /><br />That's one of the beauties of a Phobos (or Deimios) base. There can be people on call 24.65/7 teleoperating research and other robots on Mars. In my thread on Phobos First I didn't describe much about the tele-ops going on, except to suggest that there would be a lot of real-time work. I think that some of the major early martian industries will involve farming native Mars and/or Earth-adapted life. We would garden Mars remotely. A few humans working a lot of robots is a perfectly valid economic unit, especially once it starts producing resources for export. <br /><br />Cis-Mars space (Mars, Phobos, Deimos) has the potential to fuel cis-lunar development. If we (private groups, NASA, other agencies) dared to reach further outward, we could develop the moon and LEO much faster, simply because volatiles should be much easier to access on Mars' moons than our Moon. And we know, baring a totally dry Phobos, that Mars has oceans of frozen water. So what if it's further away? <br /><br />Judging by some of the evidence of the MER rovers and Mars Express, I think we will encounter hostile, macroscopic life on Mars. Not charging 6-armed monkey-beasts, but warmth-seeking and other survival trended, plant-like symbiots. Mars may still live in the cold. If we ever terraform, the warming process may awaken interesting things. Then again, maybe it's just rocks.<br /><br />We have to go there, regardless of how. The rewards are simply to great not to do it.<br /><br />Josh <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div align="center"><em>We need a first generation of pioneers.</em><br /></div> </div>