Details, details, details... (The ISS is 495 short tons, for just 6 people.)

I know what I meant. Apparently I didn't do as good a job of explaining it as I thought I did.

It appears that you think I know that I meant something like "chemistry will be different on Mars".

This is the crucial sentence: Handwavium to convert chemical transformation formulas into actual non-laboratory processes.

Electrolysis systems for 6 people on the ISS are going to be radically different in scale than those for a bunch of colonists.

That's the key word: scale.

The Handwavium comes in the paragraphs in and around this sentence:

The equipment (and spare parts, and maintenance, and assembly and repair, etc) needed to do all that stuff will be much more complicated on Mars than you think.

On Earth, we can send out some geologists or a surveying crew, rent or buy heavy machinery, parts, drilling mud, explosives, etc of a variety of forms from a jillion different sources.

OTOH, every bit of every kind of stuff needed on Mars will have to be sent at the beginning (whether on one ship or multiple doesn't matter), and that will drive up the cost of the expedition to absurd heights.

National Pride and bureaucratic inertia are two factors which can keep some big project going well past it's Sell By date.

Why did Boeing cancel it's 2027 project? Why have there been no other SSTs (either European or American) since then?

Because they aren't economical.

This is the Handwavium:

A few shovel digs and up comes potable water?

In reality, it'll be akin to strip mining.

Yep, and now to the non sequiturs. And you think I am predictable?

You're saying that right now we can send 10 people to Mars?

Or that we need some advance in technology to simultaneously send 10 Curiosity rovers?

Or something else?

Predictably, you lied about having ever done that.

You're still refusing to ever provide any evidence to back up any of the claims you've ever made against me?

It's really cute how you resort to all manner of non sequitur to avoid defending your false claims. And then you pretend to think you actually made a point.

Adorable.

I'll disagree until you show me some evidence. Presumably you think the same way.

You agree with me, but seem to be fighting anyway.

Go back and read my original post on cost:
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4874589&cid=46442899

some problems' only solutions are sooo expensive that the problem isn't worth solving.

See, we agree!!

OTOH, technology marches on.

Now that Pratt & Whitney has developed a supercruise engine for the F-22, if Boeing demonstrates that the 787's carbon fiber body is durable, then combining those technologies with NASA's boom reduction research the concept of supersonic passenger aircraft could be brought out of mothballs (especially for long Asian and Pacific routes).

Really? No.

I'm not saying, "Don't explore Mars." Use robots -- multiple large and complicated ones, with the mass budget saved by not having to keep humans alive.

Please give examples, remembering that it will be made on Mars, not Earth.

More the landing phase.

Lots of things are easy in theory but hard in practice. We're getting better at it, but still some craft fail.

Is that like "5x less"?

Engineering is harder and more expensive than I think you think it is.

Which part of what I wrote gave you that impression?

Ditto.

Racism was not a good default position, but you can't deny that it was the default position.

And given your low 5-digit /. id, you must be old enough to remember that the vast majority of whites who lived near blacks did have to be convinced that racism is Wrong. (I won't comment on those whites from places like Minnesota where it's easy to not be racist because there aren't any blacks to be racist against.)

It's the getting the Martian water which I think is much more difficult than you do.

That's not my recollection.

Silly fly-over hayseeds not wanting their windows rattling multiple times per day!

That's a good thing, because otherwise society would be pulled hither and yon with every new idea, whether good, bad or indifferent.

For example, racism and the Electric Universe.

Once it was demonstrated that racism is Bad, most whites have switched -- slowly, over time -- to varying points along the spectrum from tolerance to acceptance.

Not so much on the Electric Universe theory, which is still fringe no matter how vociferous it's supporters are.

I don't understand that response.

This is the crux of the disagreement between us. You say it's hard but doable, whereas I think you're Mars mission relies on Handwavium to convert chemical transformation formulas into actual non-laboratory processes.

(This is similar to -- but on a much larger scale than -- why we don't have supersonic passenger aircraft: some problems' only solutions are sooo expensive that the problem isn't worth solving.)