It sounds like one of their main arguments is that it would be a less difficult and/or dangerous way to get some experience with medium to long-term human habitats on other planets, partially in preparation for a Mars trip. Also, while robots can do any specific experiment we devise before the trip, it's much harder to make one that can support improvisation or hacking together a follow-up experiment if an interesting result is found. The pace of iteration for experiments would probably be much higher with a human present.
> It sounds like one of their main arguments is that it would be a less difficult and/or dangerous way to get some experience with medium to long-term human habitats on other planets, partially in preparation for a Mars trip.
I'm still not sure why we're interested in inhabiting Mars. Virtually no atmosphere and one-third of Earth's gravity means that humans will always have immense difficulty colonizing the planet. People who lived on Mars for any extended period of time, for example, would have huge difficulties in adjusting to Earth's gravity, if they could at all. People would always have to live in pressurized habitats.
Meanwhile Venus has a thick atmosphere and a much more Earthlike gravity. There's certainly huge problems with Venus (most obviously: it's very hot) but I can at least imagine with time and technological advances we could terraform the planet to be suitable for Earth life - all the raw material is there.
This is not to say, of course, that establishing some kind of manned scientific facility on Mars wouldn't be worthwhile. But long-term habitation? I just don't see it.
Yeah, I happen to agree about Mars, at least with our current state of technology. It may become feasible to establish something out there with some big advances in biotech though (engineering much more rugged species that would make the transition easier for us).
I have to admit that I'm excited by the prospect of exploring our solar system though, regardless of whether or not it makes economic sense. Having people up there in a semi-permanent arrangement seems like it would really put innovation in overdrive for the development of colony-building technology. There's something important about being there that just makes things move faster.
I would argue that you could get that experience by establishing a colony on the bottom of the ocean. Conditions there are also deadly to human life without protection, and getting there and back is also not easy. Not as hard as getting to a different planet, but if we want to learn how to sustain human life in artificial habitats, then a colony 10km under water sounds like a way to start.
