(Image Credit: NASA)
The Humans to Mars Summit
People interested in gaining an operational and in depth perspective about how humanity can build up a presence on MARS and in CISLUNAR space, should visit the above website. It will guide you to a livestream event with plenty of videotaped debates and video resources regarding the exploration of MARS.
Some sessions are closed to the public but a lot of resources are open and freely accessible for the public and remain accessible after the end of the conference.
For example, the session: “The day Mars stood still: How Purdue Students Would Start Settlements on Mars” by Sarag Saika, Purdue University, visiting assistant professor, Advanced Astrodynamics, features on timeline required in building out a base capable of supporting 50 people permanently using a flat NASA budget. More importantly it comes to the conclusion that this would be perfectly possible within that same budget. The session can be accessed via the following link: https://livestream.com/viewnow/HumansToMars2017/videos/156069143

This annual conference, organised by “Explore Mars. inc” and focused on the exploration of Mars, takes place at The George Washington University, Washington D.C., May 9-11, 2017 with experts, scientists, stakeholders and captains of industry.
The subject is of course the exploration of MARS but the debate is set in the wider framework of humans setting up a presence in the CISLUNAR (Moon-Earth) system as a learning step towards sending crews out for very long duration mission to Mars.
The many panelists go into the technical, organisational, geopolitical and human challenges in setting the development and exploration of space with crewed systems as an international objective.
It would be nice if we could organise a conference like this in Europe.