Thomas James has an excellent summary of Elon Musk's talk on SpaceX at the Mars Society meeting.

The plan seems to be focused on eventual ability to do private Mars exploration, which is a noble goal, but I wonder if that goal isn't driving his current concepts to the detriment of nearer-term utility. We'll see how well he can hit his cost-per-flight target at such a low flight rate.

What I found even more interesting, however, was the second-hand report that Blue Origin is going for a vertical-takeoff vertical-landing vehicle.

What economic value has Mars exploitation offer to earth during the next couple of human generations ? I can think of _none_, thus its completely worthless, redundant, and even harmful to space developments with some realistic and useful goal.
Like providing clean energy or abundant precious minerals to earth, both having immense potential economical benefits, mainly not because of the sheer quantity, but beacause of qualitatively new concepts and paradigms.

I wonder why he only mentions Blue Origin as a potential competitor. There's another company that could pull the rug out from under him if he's not paying attention.

http://www.eprimeaerospace.com/about.html

It's always easier after the fact to see the 'obvious' economic benefits of a thing that were even easier to poo-pooh before the fact.

Some people make the analogy that going to Mars is like climbing a mountain peak, "because it is there." But that's the wrong analogy.

Nobody (generally speaking) climbs a mountain to live there, leaving a comfortable nest behind.

The correct analogy is the migration to the Americas, where returning involved hardships perhaps equal to struggling to survive off the land.

Mars has land, lot's of it, that we can learn to survive on. The end result is a new world and a stepping stone to using the amazing and vast resource orbiting this sun.

It's a vision thing... show me the economic sense of never leaving your house, barring the doors and windows and cutting the utility lines. Which, while extreme, seems to me a somewhat fitting analog to sitting on this rock when there is so much out there waiting for us... not just to explore and research, but to live and experience.

Why would anybody want to do something different from what I might? Because freedom is pursuit of dreams. That includes living on Mars, even if you can't write a justification for management!!!

It's not a zero sum game... we can have solar power satellites, mine the moon and asteroids and go to Mars. Probably doing all three cheaper than some government pork operation, which might attempting to do any one of them. The ISS would already have paid for a good start on it. In the process, we can generate wealth... then listen as others tell us how obvious it was from the first.

I wont live to see it... except for the fact that I can see it already.

"What economic value has Mars exploitation offer to earth during the next couple of human generations ?...mainly not because of the sheer quantity, but beacause of qualitatively new concepts and paradigms."

I think you answered your own question here. No, we won't be able to beam power back from Mars, nor would it be profitable to send minerals or precious metals back, but those intangible "concepts and paradigms" would make it worthwhile. The different environment would breed new technologies and new social forms which would feed back to and enrich Earth.

This is precisely the argument the Mars Society uses -- the real benefit of the frontier is its invigorating effects on the old world, any profits to be made are lagniappe by comparison.

A new society in space doesn't have to have access to minerals to become wealthy. If it has a government limited by a Constitution much like the one we used to have, and respects personal and economic freedom better than we do, it will end up succeeding and paying for itself many times over.

Besides, it's a stepping stone to the outer solar system, where several resource-rich gas giants dwell.

Well, yeah, freedom is essential, but so are resources. There are stages to the evolution of a prosperous economy, but in the absence of convenient trading partners it always begins with extractive industries.

A Mars colony would not have convenient trading partners.

I am not interested in going to the bottom of ANOTHER gravity well just yet, we still need to learn how to get out of THIS one cheaply first.

I want orbital power stations and L5 colonies first, then Mars will be a breeze (and exploring it for useful things MUCH cheaper by then).

And let's practice with a much closer (in case it gets in trouble) moom colony first, ok?

To steal a line from Marx, I am not interested in fantasy ideologies.

I put a hard push for Mars before we have gotten to orbit cheaply in that category.

Yeah, Mars is there. Andromeda is there too, and from a pure technology and ideological standpoint, we could colonize both right now. Its just too friggin expensive with no tangible payoff in sight.
Manned Mars effort ( done just for the kick of it ) right now would result in nothing but another try to leapfrog the natural evolution ( like Apollo ), creating another quagmire or gridlock for decades to come. Especially if done with public money.