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For there to be exploration you need something interesting to find, otherwise why send people to Mars? For them to fuck around and waste expensive to ship supplies?
The purpose of a frontier is settlement. The goal would be to create "self-sustaining" settlements on the Moon or Mars. ("Self-sustaining" here meaning economically, primarily, not literally able to exist forever with zero imports)
The incentive mechanism is straightforward: so long as settlers require economic subsidy, they are citizens of the colonizing nation, like regular astronauts, bound by its laws and duties. Once they are economically self-sufficient and can pay for their inputs on the open market, they gain political independence, ownership of the settlement passes to the settlement collectively, and they may choose to establish whatever form of government seems best to them.
Why would any government subsidize the creation of a colony with no expectation of ultimately realising the profits?
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Well, there are minerals in space. More land and this more space for people. We sent people to the New World on leaky boats on the promise of land for the taking and possibly minerals.
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