"Mars for Nothing"?

[Andy44]

ISRU? Let's test it in Antarctica without supply drops first. If it can be demonstrated in a field of frozen water and breathable air, maybe we're ready to see if it works where these things are much scarcer.

 

[Belisarius]

What we need are a few missions to demonstrate insitu resources.

I foresee the need for 2 missions. First would be sample return where the return craft makes its own fuel. The second would be a small biodome full of gerbils or something, that would survive for a few months. (order not necessarily important)

Once its demonstrated that it CAN be done, people will go for it...maybe, well not many people would go if there's no guarantee that they can survive without supply drops.

First mission: 15 years to develop the spacecraft, then congressional cancellation of budget. Everything stops. Ten years later the mission is reborn as a bigger, more complicated and more expensive NASA boondoggle. Twenty years later the craft is launched. It smashes into the Martian surface because NASA forgot that the Korean contractor uses cubits to measure volume, horsepower to measure force and leagues to measure distance, so the guidance software floops out at the critical moment. "Sample Return In-Situ Robotics Resource Research Facility II" is launched ten years later and lands successfully.

Second mission: Development program similar to the above. Just as the spacecraft is about to launch, a media campaign protesting at the cruelty to the gerbils sweeps the world. SAVE THE GERBILS! is on every front page. The website savethespacegerbils.com gets a record number of hits. The flight is cancelled. Twenty years later a different flight containing spiders is launched after a $22.8 gazillion research project to demonstrate that spiders can feel no pain. Despite the efforts of saveourspacespiders.com, the flight gets under way. Unfortunately due to an error at NASA, the spiders are fed with high-protein spider-food pellets contaminated with Coca-Cola. They die of caffeine-induced heartshock on the way out. The gerbil/spider project is cancelled forever.

Meanwhile, you and I pass away peacefully in our respective nursing homes, muttering something about roads not taken and the final frontier.