To the disappointment of most of us space buffs, REALITY BITES!
The reality is that we are nowhere near being able to terraform Mars. There will not be any space elevators in the next 50 years. Governments largely dominate the business of travelling to space. We need movement now, not later.
The large grandiose steps we would all like to take are likely not going to happen in our lifetime and are certainly not affordable.
With that in mind, we should put our best money, effort, and time toward growing, developing, and accelerating the things we can truly affect in the next 15 years.
We are talking BABY STEPS. When we fought for Pork Chop Hill it was one step at a time. When pioneers went West, it was one step at a time. When we went to the moon it was because we began one step at a time in the 1940s. One measurable, attainable gain at a time.
The soldiers on Pork Chop Hill may have dreamed of a new weapon that would end the confict quickly, but the reality was they had to take that hill with what they had. The pioneers going west probably wished for a high-speed train out West, but, alas, they had to use wagons and they went anyway. Going to the moon started with our first tests of the V-2 rocket and culminated nearly 30 years later with landing on the moon.
We need to focus on what is immediately attainable that can foster and grow the future. Mars is great. I would certainly love to go there. Will that happen anytime soon? Likely not. Even NASAs plans to go there on schedule are in doubt.
Let's first build a serious space port in orbit (not just a McDonalds Playground: sorry ISS) where we can build vessels truly worthy of the exploration we expect and quit throwing tin cans at the stars. Let's build a Long Duration Space Facility in our own back yard: The Moon. We can reduce the effects of bone loss there and stay for much longer and do more to prepare there. We need to build in-situ resource exploitation and industry IN SPACE before going farther.
Fabricating vessels on Earth is 1960's thinking. Gather, fabricate, and explore from space. We need to quit thinking that we have to launch everything we need from the bottom of a very deep gravity well. Before we can go to Mars we have to be self suficient FROM SPACE and not from Earth. The West was not built using trees, rocks and dirt from New York. When the pioneers wanted shelter, they looked around and gathered the materials from the land they were in.
We can build better sheilded, more robust, and more redundant systems FROM SPACE, IN SPACE, and faster. Mining and fabricating on the moon, assembly of multiple vehicles IN SPACE. Then perform launch, support, and rescue operations FROM SPACE. Time between launches needs to be measured in hours and days not months and years. This is the only way to accomplish that. Require less from Earth.
Bottom line: Establish a firm grip on the edge of space and don't let go. Think, Crawl, Stand, Walk, Run, Fly!
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