With a mean surface temperature of minus 65C, you'll need more than a woolly took and gloves to stay warm outdoors on the Red Planet. What's more, the air pressure is so low that, outside, you'll need a pressurized suit to prevent your blood boiling despite the cold. Oh and don't forget about the cosmic radiation and the energetic solar particles that will fry your DNA if you spend too much time outside without something better than sunscreen for protection.
So why is it a near certainty that we will see people by the dozens, hundreds and almost certainly thousands taking a three-month journey in a barely furnished steel tube to reach Mars. Some will surely go at government expense, as scientists, diplomats, and spies. Others, rich and bored, will go as tourists for the thrill and the kudos. But most will go for the reason both men and women joined the Klondike gold rush: They will go in pursuit of a fortune.
As President Trump's uncle opened a hotel in Northern BC to provide accomodation to both the men in search of gold and the girls who entertained them, so a Trump of the next generation could well provide the same service on Mars, opening there the first Trump Interplanetary Hotel, Starbase Mars. But beside the hotel trade, there will be all kinds of other business opportunities from machine rental and construction services, to the provision of guided tours, medical treatment, facilities for banking and communication, and the local production of food in air-supported greenhouses: Anyone for radishes at a hundred dollars a piece? Mars Starbase will make the goldrush Yukon look cheap.
