Alexander Blok, Russia, from Russian

As in the olden times again, Her primly virgin tones enchanting, Our hand-crafted wheels emmired, Midst a way untrodden. My poor Russian Mother, Your grayling shelter is mine, Your song in windy weather, The loving tears of time. Your sorrows to me unknown, Your torments borne alone... Sorceress, what do you wish? A savage, tender kiss. No snare or lure, Beguile or Depart thee, Nor sorrow blur, Eternal beauty. A battered stump's a forest, A tear's a rushing river, Forest and field, a conflux, Your brow's the wooden floor. Impossibility accomplished, A long road lightened, A flash in the distance, Her eyes lightened vision, Sadly cautious ringing, The deaf coachman's song.

WI: Mars is inhabitable

John, you've hit the nail on the head here -- "profit". You see, given conventional aerospace technology, which has actually changed astonishingly little in the last 50 years, it's virtually impossible to make traveling to other planetary bodies profitable. Too damned expensive and dangerous. Now, Elon Musk of SpaceX, of course, is somehow fantasizing that economies of scale, on their own, can change all that. Just have enough conventional rockets, and costs will drop proportionately. This of course assumes a limitless supply of fuel and materials for them, which is a minor problem. Also, not too many disastrous explosions, which, he is also having difficulties with. I think the point of having an inhabitable Mars, is that it would really provide some incentive to go there. After all, who wouldn't want a whole inhabitable planet, just to themselves? And, even with conventional technology, it probably would be just remotely possible to do it, if enough people were willing to die trying. Another aspect, is that we would have another planet at our disposal, if we made enough of a mess of this one. And, that might change some things a bit. As I've pointed out repeatedly to the members of this group, scientific and technological development more or less stopped dead in 1952, with the explosion of the first H-bomb. Because the H-bomb had the potential to destroy any, and all governments and large corporations on the planet. Totally. And, I strongly suspect that governments and large corporations didn't like that idea very much, at all. So, quite suddenly, the rapid rate of technological and scientific achievement ceased. It had become a threat. So maybe, just maybe, with another world at our disposal, this might make the governments and large corporations lighten up a bit, and let the scientists and engineers get back to work on real science and technology, and not just screw around, like they've been doing for the last 65 years. So, maybe we could colonize Mars easily and cheaply with way cool fusion flying saucers. And, then, onto the Stars!