More like stay and die there. How are you going to refuel on mars? You aren't going to build an entire pipeline of industries in just a couple years to get off Mars, and shipping that much fuel to Mars would be ridiculous. They better start sending fuel now if they expect to have enough to make it back.
The only reasonable method of shipping rocket fuel to Mars or anywhere else in the solar system is to mine and refine it off the moon or an asteroid, which means a moon base or mostly self-sustained asteroid colony would need to exist first.
And where is that raw methane going to come from? Its not like there is a lake of methane you can just suck up on Mars. What about the oxygen needed to burn that methane?
You are going to need to produce 10,000x more energy than your fuel contains to make the fuel, and that energy has to come from somewhere.
> And where is that raw methane going to come from? Its not like there is a lake of methane you can just suck up on Mars. What about the oxygen needed to burn that methane?
Are you even attempting to Google these questions before posting them here with such an aggressive tone? Manufacturing oxygen on Mars is demonstrated engineering [1]. Manufacturing methane, theoretically sound and demonstrated in the lab [2].
This is what I meant by the aggressive strain of ignorance having overtaken the science with popular astronautics [3]. Some folks read a hot take on Musk and what Hawthorne hasn't done, ignore the thousands of scientists demonstrating actual technology a hundred million miles away, and then assume they're vindicated when the rest of us get tired of arguing with willful denseness.
Even your sources are giving multiple years of 24/7 operation under ideal conditions to produce what is necessary for a single launch, that doesn't seem very reasonable to me. How much energy are we able to actually generate on Mars? From what I understand solar panels are not that great in the Mars environment. And any sort of material processing is going to take a whole lot of energy.
I just don't see a Mars colony as a reasonable goal without sending potentially thousands of rockets full of tools and materials, which is too expensive to do without an already existent space mining and processing industry.
> > and not on say crypto or ad serving or military pursuits, is still a net win
We are not in the 1960s anymore, the US should do better than just an Apollo program 2.0, going into crazy Mars expenditures without a plan would guarantee you just that.
The inspiration should be the Manhattan Project and the Marshall Plan.
In both instances the super-geniuses with type-A personality got you to the Promised Land, but then what happens? They move on the next shiny thing. Nonetheless The Manhattan Project and the Marshall Plan were able to continue because once the super-geniuses got the US to the Promised Land there were operators who got to keep the project going.
Generals, admirals, ambassadors were more than willing to dedicate their lives as operators to make sure that the U.S. Govt and its citizens would actually get a ROI on the 2 endeavours. You can say it's patriotism, status-seeking, the thrill to have authority over powerful weapons, borders and huge economic resources. Whatever the reason there were operators at the helm once the super-geniuses got out of the picutre.
The Apollo Program had the same amount of super-geniuses but no operators to take the helm to secure ROI, that's the reason why the U.S. Govt. had to pull the plug on the whole program.
Operators are not interested in writing their name in history books, they need enemies and competition to beat and take resources away from them. Said resources would then be paraded around and shown to citizens in order to both show the competence of said operators and improve the quality of life of American citizens.
What resources can be extracted from Mars and given to citizens in order to propel their quality of life?
If you think the infamous "We are there for the oil!" was bad then I guarantee you that "We don't know why we are there at all!" is much worse.
The former people will understand the rationale and even accept it, while being openly critic about it in public they'd be at peace with it while in the privacy of their homes with the curtain closed. The latter, not so much.
Until they are asked to go AND stay for say 5 years, then all of a sudden it's a completely different answer they'll give you.