Astronauts on Mars would be fun, but a dead end like Apollo and the Zheng He fleets: http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2006/10/how-to-succeed-or-fail-on-frontier.html … http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2009/04/polynesians-vs-adam-smith.html …
Other direction better (and will teach us skills we need to later mine the heavens): http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2011/02/some-speculations-on-frontier-below-our.html … http://szabo.best.vwh.net/miningthevastydeep.html …
