> Therefore after the few initial buildings built with materials shipped from Earth, there will need to be a great push to find new materials on Mars and perhap

> Therefore after the few initial buildings built with materials shipped from Earth, there will need to be a great push to find new materials on Mars and perhaps new construction techniques to grow the colony. I suspect that the development will occur before the initial buildings. The political/social/economic risk environment just doesn't include the option of sending mavericks up to see if they can figure out something that works. The rovers we have now and the rovers we are building/will build are pretty good at identifying what we have to work with, and it's comparatively easy to test a material process or construction technique on Earth before trying it while wearing a spacesuit. At the very least, I expect we'll have a viable base of initial buildings and a fuel/oxidizer depot set up before the first astronauts arrive.