In all likely hood you would build your colony as a mine.

I disagree. The most important resource on Mars will be water, and you don't have to be a
Starcraft fanatic to know you build your base near the resources. Nobody will be living in
a mine where there is no or little water to be found. Just because our ancestors lived in caves,
doesn't mean we have to. It's the 21th century. We don't have to live like rats anymore.

While it is a very important resource, other materials are equally important if you plan to build colonies. And nothing says the whole thing has to be within a small area. There will be a primary colony, where the bulk of people make their permanent home, and then feeder sites where resources are collected and shipped back to the main site.

Oil is often considered the most important resource of our current age, yet all my friends who work on oil fields live hear in Atlantic Canada, and fly out to their job site for extended shift work on set rotations.

It reads amazingly interesting. However, my current family life restricts long trips (beautiful wife and 3 amazing children).
If asked more than ten years ago, i would have applied.

Side note - does the colony discussion remind any one else of the game Dunem

I just realized that, while we are all talking about whether or not we would go to live on Mars, there's no way to apply. Where can I apply for this amazing journey? Also, anyone can go or only the smartest and healthiest? Spiro, did you applied already for the trip?

There is no way to apply right now. Selection will begin early this year.

“Anyone” can apply but only the healthiest and smartest will end up going. If you are not in the best shape physically (as I am not) you have to at least show potential during the 10-year training period.

I have not signed up but I have subscribed to their mailing list.

That is how you will know when it is time to apply.

L. Spiro

http://mars-one.com/en/faq-en/21-faq-selection/241-can-i-apply-to-become-an-astronaut

Can I apply to become an astronaut?
We are currently getting many emails from people who would like to be one of the astronauts to land on Mars in 2023.

While we are very glad to see that so many people are eager to apply for the positions, we are not yet looking for candidates and can therefore not accept applications at this moment.
read more on the qualifications of the astronauts and be sure to subscribe to the newsletter and follow us on Twitter, Facebook and / or Google+. That way, when we start the search for our astronauts, you will be the first to know!

A very interesting article about what a trip to Mars could mean for astronauts: http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2013/01/mars-mission-could-turn-astronau.html based on the Mars500 mission simulation in Moscow, which ended in November 2011. Six crewmen (an international mix of astronaut trainers, engineers, and doctors between 27 and 38 years old) stayed in a series of tunnellike chambers and played out the 520-day mission to Mars.

Just for the record, I would would jump at the chance to live on mars. Even if it's a one-way trip (which, at my age, is the likely scenario).

Yes, there will be challenges, but none are beyond our capabilities to meet. I remember watching the first moon landing That took about 10 years from start to finish -- and we've discovered a lot more about materials and techniques since then.

I would go not because it would be easy but because it would be hard. Just as a man's reach should always exceed his grasp, so should mankind's (and I mean in the inclusive sense, because it's poetic allusion). I am aware of the dangers. Bring them on.

Let's do this. Now.

Seems like you would end up a couch potato with memory loss.

That aside, I certainly wouldn't want to live on Mars. Any kind of terraforming project intended to make it habitable would be such a resource-intensive hog that there is no way it would ever be fully funded. The days of seemingly unlimited economic growth are pretty much at an end, now that the free energy of fossil fuels is running out. Going forward, it's only going to get more and more expensive to just keep the economy going, much less provide any excess to fund a massive terraforming project on a relatively resource-lean planet. My worry would be that I'd get stuck on Mars when the funding ran out, and I'd get to look at that godawful ugly red landscape for the rest of my tragically short life. F that noise.

I'd get stuck on Mars

Isn't that the whole point of the colonization exercise?