Humans Must Eliminate Private Autos and Commercial Aviation

Way to go Bernie! Way to go America! When it comes to the issues, our man Bernie talks the right talk and walks the walk. If we are serious about walking that walk too, we need to put up, or shut up.

Our man Bernie is a champion of the environment. We need to be champions of the environment too! I want you to look at that picture. It is a massive Chinese traffic jam. This is a typical scene there, and in a lot of major cities world wide. This is the worst one that I know of. I know I sure wouldn't want to be stuck in the middle of it having to go to the restroom!

I sure do hope that when Mr. Sanders becomes President he will be able to work successfully with the Chinese to address, and take proactive measures to eliminate this type of scene from our planet. To work with all our human partners, our brothers and sisters world wide to eliminate this insanity.

Really, when one thinks of what they're doing, and why they're doing it and the way they are doing it, it becomes absurd. It's not just them either, it's all over the world. People living in a box, getting in a box, sitting in the box for hours so they can go to another box to do tasks in order to make a living. It is anti-social madness.

Think about it. Everyone sequestered inside their motorized box, usually alone in the box too. They see people around them all the time, but don't have the opportunity to meet, or interact with any of them. They are separated by the walls of their motorized box. Most of the boxes are built to be sound proof too so even if you yelled at the top of your lungs to another person in a motorized box, they would never hear you. So everyone keeps to themselves by unintended consequence of using these motorized boxed to go here and there.

Look at all the millions of tons of steel, glass, plastic and rubber. The billions of gallons of oil burning to keep it all going. A huge portion of it devoted to the pursuit of sitting in a motorized box to go from here to there. Seriously, pluck out all the motorized boxes in the picture with people in them who are working daily with the building or maintenance of motorized boxes.

There are other unintended consequences of everyone sitting alone in their motorized box. Everyone gets alienated from one another. No one gets to know anyone except for them inside their little circle. That little circle is regulated by the motorized box. When we wake up in the morning, we say good morning to our family all of which live in a box. Then we get into our motorized box, all alone, and go to work in another box. We say hello to the people we know who also work inside the same box as us. Besides those three boxes, the home, car and work, there are few others. The store, church, club or another thing perhaps.

When we are inside our motorized box going to where ever, we see a lot of people all around us. Sometimes like in the picture it can be many thousands of people all around, but no one has access to any other person. None of them interact with each other, other than a flashing light or the sound of a horn. While they are at all this, lots of them get the wrong idea about the other. I've got a good example.

Once I was driving a cement truck down the road when I seen a pickup truck pulling a trailer full of furniture. The guy driving the pickup truck didn't see the cushions and other stuff falling out all over the road. So I sped up to get beside him and tooted my horn and waved to warn him of all the stuff he was losing. The guy flipped me off! He had a total wrong idea about me. I guess he thought I was trying to be a prick, but nothing could of been further from the truth! We both were stuck inside our motorized boxes, unable to effectively communicate, me wanting to help my fellow, trying and failing. I bet when he got to his destination and seen what happened, he slapped his forehead in realization.

How many times have you seen a person standing on a street corner asking for help with a hand written cardboard sign. How many times is it that people see them and say "God damn bum. Get a job!" or "I'm not giving him anything. They'll only buy alcohol with it." or some other thing to justify inaction. They really don't know anything at all about their fellow standing there, but they come up with all kinds of made up stuff. As long as the one is inside their sound proof, motorized box and the other only has a pen and cardboard, things will never change. The person on the corner could of lost all due to tragedy beyond their control. Their depression could run so deep over loss, that life has little meaning for them any more. No one would never know it sitting inside their little motorized box. They can get away pretty quick and think of something else.

It really seems dehumanizing in a substantial way. It also seems that the separation of all these people and their non-interaction could play into the hands of despots. Look at how people like Fox News disparages the poor, all the while they never interact with the poor. They don't have to. They are separated from them while they stay inside their boxes. The next time you drive down the street in your personal motorized box, look around you. Look at the people around you and try to tell one of them anything. It is hard to do. Look at them all with their heads looking forward, or down texting while driving (shame), but the thing is, social separation of the masses.

This all came to me when I started using mass transit. Instead of getting inside a personal motorized box, I walked a block and entered a public motorized box. There were other people inside there too! People who I had never met. All kinds of people of every description. When I looked at them, some of them smiled and said "Good morning." and I could hear them! It was so cool!

I sat there talking to a new friend, only giving enough attention to the road so I didn't miss my exit. It was way better than sitting inside my personal motorized box. I really started meeting a lot of people while riding in public motorized boxes. I was no longer trapped inside a box all alone. I had broken free of the machine. Now the machine served me.

So here is something radical that no one will agree with. I think our species should do away with personal passenger autos (motorized boxes). Our civilization should use all the millions of tons of steel, glass, plastic, human resources, etc. to build public transportation and maintain it. All of the efforts to build roads and infrastructure for the movement of people and goods should be given over to transforming our entire motive system to public mass transit. If humanity wants to take seriously the dangers of global climate change, and do something about it. If humanity wants to become more humane towards one another doing this radical thing would cause positive results.

People would start communicating once again. People would make new friends instead of making up fantasy about people they can see, but not touch. Many trillions of tons of global warming causing gases would remain trapped underground where they belong. People would have many more hours of leisure time they could spend with new found friends and family, because they would be using fast efficient public transport instead of spending all that time in traffic jams, stuck all alone inside a little box.

I would like to see high speed rail going global. Our human civilization should construct what I like to call "The Super Rail". Envision the construction of a stepped up gauge, global, high-speed rail commuter system. Railroad and cars at least double the size of existing ones. Passenger and fright cars in the Boeing 747 size range. Construct a global rail system that would connect by a bridge over the Bering Strait, the Straits of Gibraltar and other places even going to South America and Australia. All of it powered by an inter-connected global solar power system. The power system would be global by means of installation of solar panels on every mile of track that it is practical.

All of the Super Rail system would make juncture with smaller local high speed, and low speed transit hubs.

The societal benefits would be even more than just in the realm of interpersonal relationships among the human populace, and the serious reduction of green house gases from the elimination of personal fossil fuels powered transport. The elimination of the ten thousand commercial and private aircraft from our skies would be transformative in a hugely positive way. I've got a clear example of that you may remember.

The day the tragic events of 9/11 happened, all air traffic over the continental United States was grounded. On a normal day there are 5000+ commercial aircraft in the skies over us at any given moment. All of them with 2 or more engines burning jet fuel faster than you could imagine! The next day, 9/12 I went to work at Dallas, Tx. Love Field. Normally you could hear the busy sounds of people working on aircraft, and the roar of jet engines from aircraft taking off and landing. Things weren't normal on 9/12. All was spooky quite. Then people started talking about something amazing.

The sky was so bright and clear! No one there had ever seen it like that. It was amazing, and a nation wide phenomenon. The sky was clear and bright, the way it is meant to be for a reason. The reason was the elimination of 5000+ commercial aircraft, with their accumulative 10,000+ jet engines from our skies. That's the reason for the clear skies after 9/11, and the reason I advocate the elimination of the commercial aviation industry in favor of a global solar powered Super Rail system.

I must add that even though the events of 9/11 were tragic to the extreme, and gave our nation "National STSD", we can do something to keep all of those human brothers and sisters from dying in vain. Remember the clear skies of 9/12 and the profound lesson of those clear skies and of the profound revelation of what that meant.

They show us that we can turn it all around if we really try. We can have clear skies again. Clean waters and abundant life. I think we have the strength of will, and character to get all this done now. We have reason and conviction to carry it through to the end. The reason is, all of the events leading up to the people saying "Enough is enough" about a lot of supremely important matters to human survival, advancement, freedom and liberty. Let us carry that momentum into the future for a better tomorrow.

Okay you guys. There you have my thoughts on some of the matters at hand. We need to do something drastic to avert global climate catastrophe, with the resulting unbearable human loss. This is my idea for some drastic action.

I met some homeless fellows yesterday. One was standing on a corner with a little sign. I gave him two rolls of pennies, and told him of Bernie Sanders. When I mentioned bringing jobs back from China he exploded, "That's why I'm on the street! They shut down and moved my job to Mexico."

I hear that over and again. People on the street telling me that they had a job until it got moved to some foreign land. Now Boeing wants to move more of our jobs away.

Boeing wants to build wide body aircraft in China. That is a losing proposition. It takes jobs that Americans need to China, and it helps teach them how to build wide body aircraft.

Boeing and Airbus are the two who stand at the head of the line when it comes to wide body passenger jets. Boeing leads the pack. Their decision to build aircraft in China transfers that technology to China as well. Then after a while they will be competing with Boeing and Airbus in the wide body market.

Boeing doesn't need China to help build aircraft. We have plenty of human resources and facilities right here in America for that. Our people are just as capable as any peoples across our planet, and are up to the task. Our country is bleeding jobs like a cut jugular, and the homeless I meet on the street are the proof of it.

So don't even give a homeless person a dirty look. How anyone could even dare? The GOP dares, and they help cause their suffering! Then to top it off, they blame the poor for it. For shame on Boeing and the people who make this happen. How f***ing dare they give a dirty look at a homeless person.

I want this job loss to stop and be reversed, damn them! I'm sick and tired of seeing my brothers and sisters suffer, while big fat pigs eat enough for a thousand. They make me want to puke.

That is all the more reason for me to support people like Bernie Sanders. We are going to change this messed up situation, so help me. So help you.

Nationalize All Mineral and Energy Resources in the United States

James E Parks Jr

10/11/2015

I am beginning to have a problem with the concept of privately owned mineral rights. Did you know that the mineral rights of the property you own could be owned by someone else? Did you know that such an owner, or mineral rights lease holder could come onto your property put an oil well 150 feet from your house, on your property, without asking you for permission? A lot of people are finding out about that now that fracking is wide spread. A lot of people are finding they can do nothing about it.

I think this whole thing is a problem we the people should address. I have on more than one occasion heard people like Mr. Sanders or Richard Wolff advocate the democratization of the work place. They say that would bring greater equality, and narrow the divide of income inequality. I think something more is needed. The democratization of the mineral and energy wealth of our nation.

The resources of minerals and energy in this nation belong to the people. The people should be able to dictate what resources may be extracted, where the resources may be extracted, what is done with the resources and lastly the people should derive the greatest benefit from those resources.

As things stand now, there is a mish-mash of mineral rights ownership. Some are private and not severed, some are private and severed, others (about 34%) are owned by the federal government. Ever since fracking became an undesirable norm, there has been a lot of homes being sold in our nation that the mineral rights have been severed without the knowledge of the buyer. There are some banks (like Wells Fargo) that will not offer home loans on property in which these mineral rights have been severed.

This present status of distribution of mineral rights ownership is one of the causes of income inequality. For instance, the oil company either owns outright the mineral rights, or they lease the rights from privately owned or government owned mineral resources. The status of the surface of the land means little or nothing.

They extract the resource, process it, then market and sell the finished product. The only real benefactor of those extracted resources are the mineral rights owner, and the lessor. Afterwards it is the general population that is left with the aftermath of the irresponsible use of the national assets of mineral resources. Problems like global warming, ground water pollution, air pollution, surface contamination, oil spills, mine retention pond failures and a host of other real threats to the well being of our citizens are left up to our citizens. With the present political environment, one that has been crafted and fine tuned into its present form for the last 100+ years, the capitalists (big money) forces are given a de facto free reign. This is intolerable.

I therefor postulate that all resources of minerals and energy are owned by the people, and should be nationalized. The people should have a say as to who, what, where and when those resources are extracted. The people should have a say as to what products are being produced from those resources. The people should be the prime benefactor of those resources.

There are people who would fight the nationalization of the nations resources tooth and nail. People like the Koch Brothers, who have been ripping off the American people for a long time, would hate such a proposal. That is to bad for them. If they had of performed their activities in good faith, we would have never come to this. People who produce energy for our nation has at every opportunity used our governmental processes to enrich themselves at the expense of the American citizenry. This intolerable situation must end.

In conclusion, I believe that the democratization of the work place, and the nationalization of the mineral wealth of our nation will go a long way in bringing equality to the masses.

"The billionaires can't have it all."

Proven Liquid Water on Mars Means Future Colonization

by James Parks

It seems like humanity has amnesia a lot of the time. Always repeating the same mistakes. I think one humongous mistake our nation made was canceling the Apollo program, and not intensifying the push for a permanent human presence off world. When Nixon canceled Apollo, it caused the United States to start regressing.

I read that now scientists have found real liquid water on mars. The rovers have found [metallic meteorites on the surface of Mars] that have been collecting for billions of years. There is [large quantities of water on the moon]. We know there are [asteroids with large quantities of platinum group metals] and other useful elements. [Google the words in brackets] for more information.

It is like it is beckoning us. When president Kennedy made his speech that led to the first human foot prints on the moon, human technology wasn't advanced enough to do it. So we created the technology. Now we do have the technology.

Please consider this my progressive brothers and sisters.

Humanity really needs to start exploiting and colonizing Mars soon. The $16 trillion the people used to bail out Wall Street could of provided 91 Apollo size projects, start to finish.

Do you think Apollo times 91 would equal Human Civilization on Mars, and 10's of millions of jobs for the people? What about setting us up for mining the asteroid belt? My rough estimate is 34 million jobs if it all went like Apollo. Apollo provided 400,000 at its peak. With 34 million we could farm jobs out to other countries who need it, and not effect our employment at all. During the height of the recession there were 12 million unemployed. We could be mining asteroids for platinum group metals, and other resources like water for hydrogen/oxygen fuel to refuel satellites and spacecraft.

In 2009, NASA held a symposium on project costs which presented an estimate of the Apollo program costs in 2005 dollars as roughly $170 billion. This included all research and development costs; the procurement of 15 Saturn V rockets, 16 Command/Service Modules, 12 Lunar Modules, plus program support and management costs; construction expenses for facilities and their upgrading, and costs for flight operations. This was based on a Congressional Budget Office report, A Budgetary Analysis of NASA's New Vision for Space, September 2004. The Space Review estimated in 2010 the cost of Apollo from 1959 to 1973 as $20.4 billion, or $109 billion in 2010 dollars.

So what do we do with it? How about 91 times the above effort to jump start our economy into the next century? Okay so it wouldn't be exactly like this, but this is merely an example. 1365 Saturn V rockets, 1456 Command/Service Modules, 1092 Lunar Modules, plus 91 times the program support and management costs; construction expenses for facilities and their upgrading, and costs for flight operations. But that isn't all.

Instead of what we got for $16 trillion bailing out billionaires, which was nothing, we would have full employment, a highly educated populous, accelerated technological advancement, a permanent human presence on the moon, Mars and in the asteroid belt. Most importantly, humanity would at last have the key to true equality, an economy built on unlimited resources instead of scarcity.

I think this may be the answer to an old question. Once progressives take control of the government, how do you cause equality? Once we have the reins of power, how best to steer a course for the future of human well being and fair distribution of the wealth? I don't think humanity will ever be able to do that in a closed system of resources.

Humanity has resources, but their distribution is uneven throughout human society because they are scarce. Because the resources are scarce, people tend to hoard the wealth. They go to war over the worlds wealth. It's a survival tactic. The only way to break that cycle is to have an open system of resources. Then we could have an economy based on abundance instead of scarcity. There would be no need to hoard food, energy, metals and other items, or to go to war over them.

The only way to have an open system economy is for humanity to spread their presence and culture throughout the solar system. To utilize the virtually inexhaustible abundance of our planetary neighborhood, including the resources of the asteroid belt, of course. Any person who keeps up with technology knows humanity has the technological skills to do this. I know we have the facilities to do this. I've seen them and worked in them in the military and commercial aircraft industry. I know this can be done now at long last. It would solve many problems, and assure the survival of the human species. Waiting another ten years or 15 years will not due.

If the United States of America and its people can commit $16 trillion to the bailing out of banks, and Wall Street billionaires, our civilization can commit the same effort to a real solution to our economic problems. It is great that we want to put $1 trillion into the rebuilding of the infrastructure. It desperately needs it, and that would provide for many jobs. I think there will come a time when our nation will get done playing catch up, and then not so many people will be needed for maintenance. If we go ahead and grit our teeth and expand civilization off world, that end of infrastructure building would never arrive. I think it could cause something like a golden era of human civilization.

If you think this is viable, please promote it.

New York Times:

Mars Shows Signs of Having Flowing Water, NASA Says

An Open Letter to Bernie Sanders About our Future

by James Parks

This is an open letter to our good leader, Bernie Sanders. May he find it.

Dear Mr. Sanders,

I'm writing this letter to you confident that you listen to the voters/citizens of this nation, and use reason and logic when you come to a decision to support something or not to lend support. I'm confident that you will come to a conclusion that is of interest to the common good.

As you say, unemployment among our youth of all races in this country is abysmal. While big corporations buy politicians with the end goal of sending our jobs overseas, our youth languish in poverty, and have no hope for the future! This situation causes them to lose hope, and become susceptible to drug abuse, gang initiation or even worse, to join terrorists groups and commit acts of violence.

I believe the idea of putting millions of Americans to work rebuilding our infrastructure is a worthy cause, and would go very far in relieving the unemployment burden we have today. Also the idea of making community college in this nation tuition free is an excellent way to reinvigorate our competitiveness in the world's market. Our youth would have hope because they could get a proper education, and then start out on their own with the tools to make America great, knowledge. They also would contribute mightily to the economy because they wouldn't be saddled with overbearing debt!

Given all of that, I think we need added variables into the equation. There will come a time when our people will have caught up with the rebuilding of the infrastructure. From that point in time, it will not take so many people to maintain the infrastructure, or build additions. What then?

I found this posted at http://feelthebern.org/bernie-sanders-on-science-and-technology/

“Space Exploration: Bernie supports NASA’s mission and is generally in favor of increasing funding for NASA, but only after the needs of Americans on Earth are first met. “

I ask you to reconsider your opinion given the following information.

During the banking crisis the treasury made $16 trillion in low interest loans to the very banks that caused the problem in the first place. It cost our nation $176 billion (2009 dollars) for the cost of Apollo and other space related things in the time frame of 1962 to 1972. $16 trillion could of supported 91 times the NASA effort had back during the 1962-1972 space effort.

At its peak, the Apollo program employed 400,000 Americans and required the support of over 20,000 industrial firms and universities. 400,000 X 91 = 36,400,000 jobs

12 million persons were unemployed in 2009 at the peak of the recession. I hope you see where I'm going with this. We were taken to the cleaners big time by corrupt politicians, and Wall Street criminals. Our nation spent all that money, fiat money, and got precious little in return.

Consider this, a report states that development of SLS through its first flight in 2017, the ground systems for that effort, and the first two Orion flights in 2017 and 2021 are estimated by NASA to cost between $19-22 billion as follows: SLS, $7.7-8.6 billion; ground systems, $2.8-3.1 billion; and Orion., $8.5-10.3 billion. http://www.spacepolicyonline.com/news/gao-slams-nasas-cost-estimating-for-orion-sls

US Government Bailout Guarantees $16.9 trillion Includes guarantees from US Treasury, Federal Reserve and other US government agencies.
http://www.usfederalbailout.com/

If I take the high number from NASA and use it to divide $16.9 trillion, I get 768 Orion projects. When I take that into consideration, and look back at what the Apollo program did for our nation. There is no arguing the point of if the Apollo Program did our nation any good. Of that there is no doubt! From my prospective, I see millions of jobs, accelerated advancement in technology, and a lot of sociological/economic problems solved.

 Just imagine the jobs that would create! All that stuff needs skilled hands to build it. Educated hands.

The financial institutions that were bailed out would have reaped the benefits too! All them people working in factories building the space infrastructure of the 21st century would be needing savings accounts and checking accounts. All them newly employed people would of been buying houses, instead of losing them to predatory lending practices.

When president Kennedy made his historic speech, we didn't have the technology to get to the Moon. Then before the decade was over as that visionary wished it to be, humans were walking on the moon. At the same time our economy was booming, and a golden era of technological progress commenced like the world has never known! Part of it was because of war, the other was because of the space program. Now we don't have a war, but we do have the technology to put giant space stations in orbit. To build huge rockets to lift heavy loads into orbit. To get back to the Moon, and start industry to exploit space resources. To mine asteroids to provide for that new industry. To go claim Mars, and use it for the good of all humanity. It is all there for us, and we have the means to accomplish this worthy task. We only need the political will, and a leader who will lead us into that future we thought we had coming, but lost.

You've read stories of World War II. You've seen video of the actual battles. All of that was built by people working long and hard in factories, and getting paid to do it. We had a terrible enemy to face down, and so we have an enemy today, greed and poverty. It will take the same dedication as it did back then. It will be hard too. Sacrifices will have to be made by us all. Tragedy will have to be endured! Still we can do it.

The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 was 7 years ago already. Could you imagine what things would be like if our nation had of put all that $16 trillion into 91 Apollo size programs, with the training, and people employed, etc. etc.?

It is time Humans do this. Time to industrialize and colonize our solar system. This is an open-ended project, with unlimited returns. It will solve problems both social, and economic.

The efforts we need to build a new society, whose industry is based on the unlimited potential of exploiting the cosmos, can still be had. We can avoid the further economic enslavement of humanity by greedy, self serving people if we take all of the actions you have promoted so energetically. With all your solutions, and the exploitation of the moon, Mars the asteroid belt, orbital solar generating stations and factories. All the quarters that the newly educated, and highly skilled citizens will need while off world. Supplies and all manner of products would be needed by our new colonies on the moon and Mars, so our economy would follow humanity and grow. It would be an economy based on unlimited abundance, instead of one based on scarcity. An economy based on scarcity breeds a lot of the trouble that face our world. Poverty, greed, avarice and worst of all, war.

Please reconsider your position concerning our efforts in space.

James E Parks Jr
Retired Aerospace Worker

Bernie Sanders and our Political Revolution is Only the Start

by James Parks

Our times will go down in history as pivotal. We can go one way or the other. We have a choice to make, and time is running out.

What's it going to be, the self centered, Plutocratic, hedonism that is the billionaire class, or will liberty and democracy reign supreme? Will our nation vote themselves into slavery, or will enlightened thought permeate our society and bring on a golden era?

So far, with our Man Bernie Sanders, I think we have a darn good chance to turn our civilization away from the brink. He is an integral part of a revolutionary surge. We the people are the fuel that powers that surge while Bernie is the rally point, and inspiration. As we have said before, we have got to take this revolution to city hall, county seat, governor's office and on and on to the top. It will not due to only win the presidency. We have got to take all levels of government, state and federal.

 Still not even that is enough! We the people have got to take measures to insure that corrupt politicians, greedy plutocrats and Wall Street criminals can never gain power or damage our civilization ever again. We also need to take measures to insure that corp-media broadcasting information is held to the highest standard of reliability and truth. No more of this allowing so-called news networks purposefully filling the public bandwidth with fabrications designed solely to influence the public's vote.

In addition to the aforementioned, we the people must endeavor to influence the people of other nations to also take power away from corrupt political groups and other criminal entities just like we are doing here in the United States. We have a world economy, and all of it is infected with criminal elements, and corruption. In order to make certain that our economy and nation is secure, we need to have a secure world.

Indeed we can not revolt against the status quo, and have revolutionary change without considering how to maintain the new world order. We must not win our cause only to allow our progeny to lose it over again through our shortsightedness. Surely we will not be able to foresee all things that may come up in the future, but we can through logic and reason strengthen our Constitution to disallow our present folly.

Some people may see the words "new world order" and object. I understand because that is the same as they do with the word "socialism". The corrupt political forces have done a good job of demonizing these two ideals. Mostly they've done it with lies, spreading propaganda not with the greater good in mind, but rather with seizing ever more power as the primary motive.

The ideas behind "democratic socialism" and a "new world order" are not evil. We really do need a new world order because the one we have now is driving our species into extinction. Our species, and all the other life forms on this planet, can not much longer endure human business as usual. We need drastic change,and we need it now!

I cheer the political revolution, and all the enlightened persons who are behind it. (y) I look forward to the future, and advanced human culture.

New Era Arriving: Mars Colonization at Hand

by James Parks 08/07/2015:

Do you remember this from last year? I'm bringing this up now because of the talk of putting massive amounts of money into the American infrastructure. Mars, and the moon should be a working part of that 21st Century infrastructure. So too should the asteroid belt and NEO asteroids. We need the jobs and territory. Everything we need is there. Minerals, metals and water are there in abundance. All we need is the political will, and public support to propel our nation to the greatest heights.

August 7, 2014 at 5:51pm "A study performed by Bland and Smith in 2000 estimated that there could be between 500 and 500,000 meteorites with a mass greater than 10 grams for every square kilometer of Mars." If I take the 500,000 number and the 10 gram figure, and use them, I get an extremely rough estimate of approximately 5.8 tons of meteoric material per sq. kilometer. The surface area of Mars is 144.8 million km². That gives me a possible 839,840,000 tons of mine-able, usable material like nickel-iron just laying on the surface waiting for us to do something with it."

Iron meteorite on Mars

That's a lot of material. Like raisins in a fruitcake waiting to be plucked. Just the estimate of meteoric material on the surface of Mars is enough to build 17,869 aircraft carrier size objects, like habitat. When platinum is mentioned in this article, the word is used collectively to include other metals of the platinum group, as iridium, rhodium, palladium, and perhaps others. Keep in mind that there are other sources of metals on Mars too. Just like Earth, there is ore deposits there that can be hard rock mined. Also with Mars's past history of being a water world, there must be placer deposits as well. Keep in mind that all the meteoric material on the surface isn't iron. A percentage of it undoubtedly must be platinum, and other metals like gold.

There was a time when people could strike out, find a place to call home, settle and no-one would demand payment for the land. We can't do that any more on Earth. We've run out of elbow room on this planet. Our species has been so successful at living, we have over reached the capacity of our planet to sustain us far into the future, thus becoming a danger to ourselves.

Some people say "We need to fix the problems here on Earth before we settle outer space". I'm here to tell you, we will not fix any of our Earthly Human problems without colonizing space. Also people worry about messing up the "pristine environment of Mars" by human settlements. People need to abandon that silly notion. For all intent and purposes, Mars is a barren desert. There may or may not be life there, but we know life is here. Our job is to preserve the Earth life, and especially human life. Any life (if any) on Mars will have to tolerate Human existence on Mars. The reason is simple. Human survival trumps all.

It is said that our nation loaned out $16 trillion to bail out crooked banks and Wall Street criminals who caused the mess in the first place in 2008. Did you know that same amount of money (2009 dollars) could of bought 91 Apollo size projects? I think that would of been enough to get a darn good start to off world colonization. If back in 2009 when our nation was in financial chaos, we had of put all that trillions of dollars into expansion, we would of started reaping the rewards by now. People would be working on the expansion, being educated for the work on the expansion, and putting money earned into bank accounts. Those people also would of been buying houses, cars and other products too, further stimulating the economy.

All them banks would of got more money into their system by deposits, but instead of just giving them a $16 trillion welfare check, they earn it through deposits made by people working on the new 21st century space based economy.

King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain had to go into dept to get Christopher Columbus the money and ships for his expedition. That debt paid off spectacularly. Beginning in 1531, Peruvian bullion shipped to Spain was something like 100 million pieces of gold, and twice as much in silver, over the following forty years. When Pizarro conquered Peru and murdered the Inca emperor in 1533, the ransom that Atahualpa paid in vain was worth 1,326,000 bezants (gold pieces), weighing more than 7000 kg. Even more than that was looted from the Inca capital of Cuzco by the victorious Spanish in 1533-­1534. The gold and silver "production" (loot, that is) from Peru in the early 1530s is estimated as follows: 17.3 tons of gold, 95.6 tons of silver. That translates into $1,020,146,400 of gold, and $76,248,648 in silver. That represents only the gold and silver looted from Peru between the years 1531 and 1535. That doesn't include the other looted places. That doesn't even include the mining of gold and silver which began after the looting, which produced many more tons of silver, gold and precious gem stones. Spain became the richest country on the face of the planet for many years.

We can do the same thing, except without all the slaves. Instead we'll use employed, educated citizens to build our new space based economy. All we have to do is want it bad enough. We have to have the political will, and the guts to take a risk. We Humans can have an economy built on abundance, instead of the current model, which is built on scarcity. Our economy of scarcity demands that some have much, and others have little. An economy built on abundance should afford all people to have plenty. We could have an end to poverty.