Doesn't matter where you want to go in the solar system or what you want to do once you get there the first step is having a 'critical mass' of activity in space and hence potential demand to justify the cost of getting there. And the first missions are always 'loss leaders' i.e. science missions that get paid for on the tax payers dime. That's not a bad thing but you won't get mass transit to location X until there's enough demand for whatever X has to make it profitable to go there. First step is always going to be getting lots of people into Earth Orbit 24/7. After that simple demand should generate venture capital to investigate retrieving and processing 'stuff' from the Moon and asteroid belt etc. The critical mass of people and capital equipment goes up again and the cycle repeats.
And it would be the same thing for Mars, science missions first but no large scale migrations until costs come way down & the potential benefits go way up! Even the colonization of North America only proceeded because simple demand/cost equations made it worthwhile (lots of demand, manageable if expensive costs/risks) .
The only other way to get it done would be for a certain command economy have its leaders say 'just do it'.
And it would be the same thing for Mars, science missions first but no large scale migrations until costs come way down & the potential benefits go way up! Even the colonization of North America only proceeded because simple demand/cost equations made it worthwhile (lots of demand, manageable if expensive costs/risks) .
The only other way to get it done would be for a certain command economy have its leaders say 'just do it'.
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