Spaceception

It's on there. And there's water on a lot of these places (Drinking water, O2, fuel cells, etc), which solves most of your problems, you can also use nuclear for power (And by the time we're ready to put people on these places Fusion will likely be an option), Hydrophonics with artificial lighting, and there's probably metal on a few of these, or maybe we could mine some of the Asteroid moons for metal, and use 3-D printing when metal isn't an option.

Why a smaller population for the long term? Carbon Nanotubes are good idea btw. , It's a dome, the fish will sink to the sides, so no fish above your head.

Maybe people all over the world will beg their governments to provide funding for this mission after the first colonists are on Mars, maybe space agency's all over the world will help out with funding. Maybe people will give money to the project, not to go to Mars themselves, but to aid the most exciting mission in the history of mankind. Who knows? A quote from the wait but why article: "And then, something will start to happen. The hardest part will be over, and more people will want to go. The first return ships will come back with people, and it’ll remind everyone on Earth that it doesn’t have to be a one-way ticket—and more people will want to go. The people who come back to Earth will be commended for their courage, some of the people on Mars will write best-selling books about their experience, and others will film a little TV show about the early settlement and become household names on Earth—and more people will want to go. People on Earth will see gorgeous photos of Martians hiking around on Olympus Mons and in Valles Marinaris, a mountain and canyon far bigger than any on Earth—and more people will want to go. People will hear about being able to jump off a 20-foot cliff without hurting yourself and watch viral YouTube clips of new kinds of extreme sports that can only be played with Mars’ 38% gravity situation—and more people will want to go And in case you were wondering if this is going to be a vacation jaunt, Musk explains, “It’s not going to be a vacation jaunt. It’s going to be saving up all your money and selling all your stuff, like when people moved to the early American colonies.” But he also points to the excitement and novelty of getting to found a new land—an experience that stopped being possible on Earth centuries ago: “There will be lots of interesting opportunities for anyone who wants to create anything new—from the first pizza joint to the first iron ore refinery to the first of everything. This is going to be a real exciting thing for people who want to be part of creating a civilization.” End quote.

Revenue from satellite launches, $500k or (Much more likely) greater price tag per passenger, and rapid reusable rockets to lower costs. I don't know how else they'll get money though, generous investors maybe? Maybe NASA will give them a couple of contracts to get stuff to Mars for them.

I do agree with your first point, we don't have the materials that would help us deflect meteoroids on Mars, but the odds of something hitting a 3 km dome on a 3400 km planet is very tiny, and it's very unlikely that something considerably big would hit it. And because of that, it shouldn't stop us from building a domed colony on Mars. Plus, when we do have the ability to build domes on Mars, I'm quite sure there would be a tracking/deflection system from NMO's, since the population would likely be a few hundred thousand at that point.

Here, go wild with this, but keep it of this forum please. http://lifeboat.com/ex/ark_i

Each triangle would be reinforced, and separated from the other triangle, also, what about Ferrofluid? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrofluid

Something like this (Only on a moon and scaled up really big)?

Alright, triangles then, also, anything that holds a million or more people is going to be at risk, a dome will be better rather than underground, because it'd feel more open, and the colonists won't feel as confined, which is good on the psychology sides of things. And besides, I mentioned maintenance robots that would fix any problems on the dome, as they might arise.

My Idea for a dome habitat on Mars: Location: Crewe crater (Lets just assume it has water, which it probably does): Which is about 3 km across The dome will encase the entire crater, and will look something like this (Only it'd be a geodesic dome): Characteristics: The dome: The domes glass will be made of aluminum glass with interwoven Carbon Nanotubes (For strength) with a layer of liquid water underneath (For radiation protection) And a layer of Ferrofluid on top to keep the dome from collapsing in case of a breach (As well as giving time for the robots to fix it), and will have triangle rail grids for maintenance robots that will repair anything that breaks on the dome. The floor: Water will cover 1/3 of the surface, and will be for fish farming. Plant life will cover 1/4 of the surface The martian city will cover the remaining 42% of the surface and will hold up to 5,000,000 colonists The atmosphere: Atmospheric pressure will be 65% Pressure at sea level, and will have 75% N 22% O2 2.6% Ar .4% CO2 Power: Solar simply will not work on this scale, so Nuclear will be the only option, and it will be either a Thorium Breeder reactor or (more likely) A Fusion reactor. Cost: Seeing as how most of the resources will already be on Mars, cost wouldn't really matter, so that brings us to: Timescale: With constant construction, and lots of robotic helpers working day and night, it will likely take 8-15 years to build, and 2 years to finish (Liquid water, plants, breathable atmosphere, etc, etc). So what do you guys think? Are any changes needed?

Fusion might be closer than you think if Lockheed Martins Fusion reactor works. http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/products/compact-fusion.html

Thank you!

Yeah, but the gravity on Miranda is 0.079 m/s compared to the Moon, 1.62 m/s, waaaay too weak for our bones, but great for a possible mining colony/Vacation resort.

A little bit, I guess, but based on what Elon has done in the past, he's pretty consistent, if someone says it can't be done, he does something to prove them wrong, even if it's just on paper, he shows how it could be done (SpaceX, Tesla, Hyperloop ((Becoming closer to reality as we type)), Ultrafast internet, Electric jet ((Possibly)), and soon, a Mars colony). Like I said earlier: You never know the pages you haven't read yet.

I added it, although, if we were to colonize those worlds, we'd likely need a space elevator with a massive station on the end to provide gravity.

True, but again, we can fly!! 4 words: Long-term Big thinking. Yea!!! Saturn is cooler though, because... rings, and Titan. But Jupiter is better because is has more larger moons.

It doesn't have a thick atmosphere like TItan. No, but seriously, Callisto would be a really good colony choice for when we're ready to go to Jupiter.

Oh, all right.

Personally, I'd only use the methane/ethane for rocket fuel, it's high time we kick the bucket for fossil fueled electricity.

Oooooooh, I just found this AWESOME website: http://colonyworlds.com

Um... I'm not sure if you're joking or not, but Europa's atmosphere is way too thin for jet engines.

Supercritical CO2 oceans possibly?

Titan love!!! Titan is probably the coolest (Or at least one of the coolest) moons out there).

Plus, because of it's extremely thick atmosphere, and weak gravity, we could fly!

Like trash? Or terrorists? (jk) Also, I thought it'd just dissipate after awhile.