NASA Announces Discovery of Flowing Liquid Water on Mars

What do you mean by reverse panspermia? That we should colonize Mars?

On an unrelated note, I hope the success of all of these recent movies in what I call the "firm space sci-fi genre" (Gravity, Interstellar, The Martian) are also going to lead to renewed interest in space exploration.

I rather hope that Gravity leads to interest in space garbage collection

Heard a bit on NPR about how the cost to clear space junk is much more than just avoiding or fixing what it hits.

I understand space exploration, but why is there so much drive to colonize Mars?
It's a seemingly dead planet, comparable to the harshest zones on our Earth.

It is now, but it won't be forever. The cost of ignoring it too long could be the inability to reach space without unreasonable armor weight.

The drive for Mars seems more about just getting boots on it at this point rather than colonizing it.

Well, there is that group looking to do a one-way trip in the near future. As far as "Why Mars?" goes, I think it's the belief that there's more discovery potential there than any other place we could reasonably get humans to in the near future. The moon is old-hat, and I'm sure some billionaire will start a mining colony there soon enough. If you want to work on problems that stretch our abilities, you focus on Mars.

Well, there is that group looking to do a one-way trip in the near future.

Yea, but I didn't think anyone really took Mars One seriously. Honestly sounds like a scam to me.

Mars One definitely wreaks of scam.

I understand space exploration, but why is there so much drive to colonize Mars?

Why Mars? Because it has fuel. This finding of water only means one thing: that there is more of it under the surface crust.

Once they can obtain a source of water they can harvest hydrogen. You can't do that on the Moon, and Mars is the next closest thing. That's why.

And if they don't find more water, fuck it. We've developed the technology capable of getting to Mars which means we will be closer to other planetary travels than we were before.

That's why I follow and love what SpaceX is doing and seemingly is continuing to do. They state that they are pushing for these goals as an "insurance policy for humanity" to which I applaud.