A recurring problem with this are social issues, the way societies of colonists are organized, ruled and how their economies work. That might be material for some more coherent setting, so I've decided to dump whatever comes to mind here, so that people can look at it, offer input (or criticism) and maybe something good will come out of it.
Now, it's a bit of an excercise in futurism, but from a social standpoint more than a technological one, although of course technologies impact living, so...
Economics
So what drives people to set up an actual human presence on other worlds? Generally, it's either ideology or a search for resources, or sometimes a search for resources to support a given ideology. The difference between going out to America to set up your
It also doesn't fry you with deadly radiation, cause bone loss and such.
HOWEVER, that same issue could be a start of an orbital economy. So we have people going up in government-produced sardine cans to live in space so that they can do science on overpriced space stations ; These stations, wherever they are, require supplies and maintenance etc.
At the start, this is provided by the government which set these stations up, but as the number of stations and outposts grows, and space access becomes cheaper, it becomes economically sensible to set up things like fuel depots in orbit and sell the fuel. If, say, the Moon has a number of scientific facilities, some sort of centralized support/rescue station might be established eventually to aid with equipment failures, provide medical services et al.
So, I figure colonization is done in several steps: first, a government push for establishing manned bases ; Then, extremely wealthy enterpreneurs move in to make use of the limited infrastructure with government help ; Then you get an influx of people due to space tourism and/or ideology who take advantage of the services provided to accomplish their own goals ; Finally, the local economy takes off and begins to serve the needs of the populace using local materials ; Develop advanced industries (to avoid shipping things from Earth), which require specialists ; Thus, schools ; Thus, hospitals and social institutions and finally local government to take care of this mess.
But that's rambling and nothing really new or mind-blowing. The main and most interesting and challenging question was supposed to be, what sort of social structures will arise out of that colonization scheme?
The principal colonists will be astronauts (surely the heroes of the era) and technical specialists working to support their presence (servicing the fuel depots et al). Then I figure we could see an influx of ideologocially driven folks with money who want to get away from it all, but here's the question: how will they pay for the oxygen and water in order to support their little Martian utopia?
Why, the most obvious answer is that they'll do it by trade ; They can trade either skills or resources.
I must say the image of Martian water traders is pretty awesome. If ideologues set out to found colonies, you can also have dead towns, which failed to locate resources necessary for survival and died out, or people who resort to raids and theft to sustain themselves.
Water, oxygen and food are valuable commodities on such a world. Early-colonization Mars could have a very postapocalyptic vibe, except vastly more technological than usual, because technology=life.
I'll add more to this later, and maybe organize it a little better.