> As for any other reason to live on Mars aside from temporarily in the name of science—I'm not seeing it.
Why don't you see the human desire to move to new places? It's a simple matter of wanting to go. No other reason should be required to explain why humans will go live on Mars.
It's going to happen simply because people want it to happen.
> It's going to happen simply because people want it to happen.
This sounds a lot like the religious arguments for supernatural healing, just have to believe and try.
Human willpower is limited by the laws of physics. Barring some fundamental breakthroughs in resource utilization, like cold fusion, I don't see it happening--no matter the desire to do so. And if the cost is making Earth uninhabitable then it'd a be foolish to pursue blindly.
It's an incredibly difficult place to live? It's probably not much easier than living on the Moon, really. A little more gravity but that's about the only useful thing it's got that the Moon doesn't—not enough atmosphere to be much help. That for a months-long travel time, versus days.
It'd be like living on top of Everest, but a solid 100x worse in just about every way. It's wicked inhospitable. It's a romantic notion for some because we've got over a century of science fiction about Mars behind us, but it'd be a pretty miserable (and extremely expensive) existence.
People'll probably go there at some point. A long-term colony? I really doubt it. It'd be a colossal waste of money more or less doomed to failure.
That explains why humans want to live on Mars, certainly. But "we really want to" is not, on its own, a compelling reason to spend billions of dollars.
Why don't you see the human desire to move to new places? It's a simple matter of wanting to go. No other reason should be required to explain why humans will go live on Mars.
It's going to happen simply because people want it to happen.