I often think of this observation by Bruce Sterling:

> I'll believe in people settling Mars at about the same time I see people setting the Gobi Desert. The Gobi Desert is about a thousand times as hospitable as Mars and five hundred times cheaper and easier to reach. Nobody ever writes "Gobi Desert Opera" because, well, it's just kind of plonkingly obvious that there's no good reason to go there and live. It's ugly, it's inhospitable and there's no way to make it pay. Mars is just the same, really. We just romanticize it because it's so hard to reach.

https://boingboing.net/2004/01/08/sterling-ill-believe.html

Though both are probably apocryphal:

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers,"

and:

"640K ought to be enough for anybody."

We're really bad at predicting how things will change. Who would have thought that Tim Berners-Lee would be a link in a chain to Donald Trump's election?

Gobi desert doesn't have 1/3 earth gravity.

What are the economic benefits of low gravity? If so, would the moon be more economically valuable than Mars?

I’m genuinely curious about the economics of doing more in space than putting up satellites.

1/6th of Earth gravity is even better.

Short term: a wonderful tourist attraction. You can nearly fly.

Long term: people with muscular / bone disabilities who cannot withstand Earth gravity. An interesting retiring home (for a narrow wealthy set, of course).

Who is going to pay to fly these sickly retirees to the moon, and then continuous supply them with resources that are literally free on Earth (ie air)? Medicare?

Moreover, if they struggle with earth gravity, how will they survive launch and landing?

By using the space elevator, of course!

For a spacefaring civilization reliant upon chemical rockets, less gravity is better. Point being Mars is a better place for such a civilization, not earth.

I mean obviously you need less energy to move things around. We spend an enormous amount of energy to move things around on earth.

That doesn't really hold up though. California has a lot desert and was sparsely settled until the gold rush for example. Also, in situ resource utilization is an area where technology and innovation are certain to provide advantage.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_situ_resource_utilization

California has a nice climate, lots of free air, some freshwater, several easily navigable havens for bulk transport. The barrier of settling there near the shore is pretty low, even if you don't trade much and just self-sustain.

A more proper comparison would be Klondike. Inhospitable, barren Arctic land, rather hard to self-sustain, really easy to die. It was only interesting because of the rich gold deposits.

Compared to that, Moon is like 100x the hardships of Klondike, but without the gold, and a ship back to Earth is so expensive that any cargo costs more than gold by weight. Or, at least, so it is now.

There are no immediate economic incentives to settle on the Moon or Mars or even further away. But there are non-economic incentives, much like those which produced the Mayflower.