Quote
JamesJM
.. year that a 'permanent' settlement is established on Mars? .

Saw Elon Musk asked that question recently, might have been on Joe Rogan's pod cast. He brought up a good point that you won't have "permanent" settlement on mars until it can be self sustaining. Another words be able to produce it's own water, air and food and not have to rely on shipments from earth in case some disaster befalls earth, i.e. pandemic, meteor strike, carrington event, etc.

I won't even get into the long term effects of micro gravity on the human body that everyone seems skip over when talking about manned missions to mars or settlements on the moon or mars.