America&#x27;s economic strength lies in that fact NOW.  What convinced Europeans to move to America was that there were people who found it within their means to move to America take unclaimed land (or, at least, unclaimed within their legal system), and build farms on it.  Or hunt fur animals, or build mines.  And the existence of those people created a market for those who wanted to say sell those people goods.  And so forth.<p>There&#x27;s nothing to start the process off on Mars.  Mars is intractably expensive to get to in a way that America was not.  It is expensive to live on in a way that America was not.  It has no basic draw that can bring thousands of people there despite the cost.