as carefully avoiding the point.

True: i have a strong interest in using existing technologies sustainably to stretch our technological envelope beyond LEO; & no strong interest in blithely saying that a couple of orders of magnitude increase in cost to go the Mars is a worthwhile goal just to indulge a personal whim. True: the science & technological goals of this kind of cut price asteroid exploration are of no more interest to the mainstream taxpayer than Mars exploration is; although if the economies of this approach were more widely known it might be. True: i view space primarily as a scientific target funded by political dealmaking; & as a result of this consider all arguments based on the idea of colonising Mars to be basically Star Trek-inspired bs - an opinion, i should add, which seems to be shared by most of the people who would actually have to ante up the couple of orders of magnitude increase in funding required to do this - especially as the idea of colonising Mars actually contradicts one of the reasons the MarsSoc advocates continuous parrot for going there: the search for indigenous life.

To repeat: when all of those people you claim are passionately supportive of Mars can be mobilised to bring new money into the program, then you'll attract the congratulation & support of the mainstream space community rather than a somewhat patronising skepticism. If you can't do that - & up until to now Mars (& the MarsSoc itself) has added little if anything to the pool of money required simply for robotic space exploration much less the orders of magnitude increases required for new jolly jaunts on the Red Planet - don't confuse mere publicity with usable interest.