Yes, I assume they'll be so dedicated to future generations they'll just
grin and bear it.
And this proves what exactly?
Why is it? Ten years after landing and setting up a colony, they get sixteen more people and and some materials to expand the infrastructure a bit more. Yay, an occasion! Maybe we'll even have a slight rations increase to celebrate!
No, that's not how it'll work. They'll move in very large batches to Mars, not in small, NASA-style capsules. It won't work any other way.
The truth is, until the colony's population growth comes more from native births than Earthling immigrants, you're never going to actually see the civilization you're dedicating your life to. That could easily be a century or two. The actual day-to-day living would probably be like prison.
This doesn't follow at all. You'll be building the first cities, block by block; setting up the first power grids, farms and transportation networks, communication infrastructure, etc etc. You'll see all of this being built every single day of your life from the moment you arrive to the day you die. Because setting up a colony is hard work and takes an awful lot of construction. So you'll absolutely see the changes, you'll be a part of those changes. And as I said, since the population will be small (relative to Earth norms), you as an individual will have an outsized impact on how that civilization is set up.
I assumed the majority were (and still are). There was also religious persecution.
You assumed wrong. Immigration was and is very expensive in many cases. If people show up poor at their destination, it's often the case (particularly wrt North America and Australia) that they're poor because they've spent all their money getting there. It's easier for the poor to cross land borders (so North Africans to Europe, Mexicans to the US), and as ocean travel costs have fallen (and it's gotten safer) many poor do immigrate. But when the 13 colonies were being set up, most of those that weren't slaves were pretty well off and they had to pay a lot of money (often times, everything they had) to get across the ocean. Even those that fled religious prosecution. And even in modern times, if you can't easily cross a land border, then you have to be well off to immigrate across an ocean.
Heck, even immigrating for things like education prefers the rich. Most of the Arab, Chinese and Indian students in the US are from wealthy families.
Traveling across water is inherently cheap.
Not really. Particularly when you are setting up the infrastructure to move people and goods across new routes. A ton of money goes into ship building (a really absurd amount, it's common for cargo ships to cost upwards of a billion dollars I think) and setting up ports at both ends of the destination. After the infrastructure is there, the marginal costs go down, but it's never really
cheap to move
a lot of people and goods, which is what colonization is all about. And it was proportionally more expensive when the early American settlements were being developed and populated.
It's always been that way, even in antiquity. Traveling across space is never going to be in the same league as Earth travel of any sort.
Of course not. Now what's your broader point?
I don't know much about the colonization of the New World, but weren't a lot of people enticed there with lies? You know, that it was overflowing with gold?
Oh sure, that happened. Though most of that kind of lying *I think* happened more after people were already in the US, to entice them to go West.
Asteroid mining isn't more than a half-century away. We'll know what kind of potential Mars has long before we start full-scale settlements.
You're right, asteroid mining is coming soon and we'll see if it works out economically. But Mars has nothing really to offer commercially to Earth. It's just not economical to move goods back to Earth, excepting novelties ('Made on Mars') that sell for absurd amounts and of course scientific/economic discoveries that people come up with to cope with life on Mars. The latter will be a massive source of economic growth - just as American industrialization and automation to cope with chronic labor shortages helped pushed the US to the top of the economic ladder. Those innovations didn't just stay in the US either, the entire world moved forward and the same thing will happen on Mars as people come up with new ideas, techniques and inventions to cope with very spartan, austere circumstances.
Do you think there will be racial separation or conflict of some sort on Mars? It does seem like the right place for it to thrive.
Yes, unfortunately I do. Particularly if countries begin setting up national colonies. Really, I'd worry about India and China doing this and they'd of course preferentially send Indians and Chinese (probably exclusively). In the West, corporations will probably do most of the settling which means the ethnic mix will be a *bit* better but will likely still till heavily towards the demographics of the nations the corporations are based in. But perhaps not, perhaps they'll cater mostly to the rich who can afford a ticket regardless of their nationality.
Regardless, I think early Martian settlements will wind up racially stratified. It will be a while be they blend together, which will happen faster on Mars than on Earth because their won't (hopefully) be national borders and such to tie people down. But I don't think the kind of entrenched, bitter, and never-ending racial strife that exists on the Earth will ever really work on Mars.
