1) It now appears the first is that you are interested in an honest debate. Your repeated failures to answer key questions suggest that.

2) No I don't agree with your supposed "expert" source and I've explained why several times. A second home for humanity is not about high adventure. I also strongly disagree the the moon is any kind of great business opportunity and have explained why although without nearly as much detail as the other issue. Space solar power is like HE3 fusion a pipe dream with current technology. You keep ignoring launch costs. Space industry needs launch costs near 100$/lb for it to have any chance of competing with similar ground based industries and must have some big advantage even then.

3) The trillions of dollars lie. Where do you get this outrageously inflated number from? your "expert" source? It would cost about the same to reach Mars directly in inflation adjusted dollars (around 100 billion) as it took to reach the Moon. It doesn't even take much to verify that is a reasonable ball park number. Just look at shuttle launch costs and what would be needed to launch the masses required for the Mars Reference Missions or Mars Direct then add a few tens of bilions for development costs. It only costs trillions if you decide to go to Mars in the most innefficient path through the Moon. I didn't support Bush 1's 400 space billion dollar initiative in 90 and I wouldn't want to see NASA with a budget significantly in excess of 20 billion per year because unlike Bush 2 I want a balance budget and to pay down the national debt. I support going to Mars in a cost efficient manner not a budget busting one or one that wastes massive resources and time on the Moon.

It will take much more money to colonize Mars than to explore it, but that like commercializing the Moon should be left up to private individuals. Finally you seem utterly and stubbornly oblivious to the importance of natural resource availability for both colonization and commercial use. The Moon is resource poor and costs a huge premium to just build industry there let alone support it. If there was a commercial advantage to the Moon it would already be exploited.

A case in point is your SSP example (never mind that you keep promoting the questionable He3 motive). The "7 billion OPEC premium" sounds like a product of doubtful assumptions to me given that until recently oil prices have been steady for decades and dropping in inflation related costs. The current price jump is because production did not keep pace with the recent jump in demand due to low prices stifling additional investment. It's pretty hard to justify billion dollar space investments to replace industries where they aren't spending capital anyway. That's a big competitive disadvantage to enter a market where prices are dropping. There hasn't even been any field trial assessment of whether or not space solar power can be beamed to Earth or if such a process would be yet another assault on air quality. If space solar power does prove to be a boon It seems highly questionable to me that it should be lunar based rather than Earth or NEO based.

There are potential Martian resources and discoveries just as nebulous and doubtful as your lunar industry suggestions that I don't usually promote because those levels of conjecture are too high to use as justification IMO.

Deuterium (H2) should be in greater relative abundance on Mars than on Earth due to the selective loss of H1 to deep space. This is one of the raw materials for the type of fusion we are actually working on rather than the fictional He3 type.

Any life found on Mars could revolutionize biological science with great benefits to medical technology.

Terraforming Mars would revolutionize understanding of ecology and help us better preserve Earth's.

Mars could serve as a way station for exploitation of asteroids of both NEO and main belt type.

You deny a 0 value to a second home for humanity yet your words imply exactly that.

Regards,
Mark