General Discussion

Colonizing Mars is absolutely the wrong move to try today. We have no idea whether Martian life still exists, and if so what it might do to us, or we might do to it before we can even study it. It’ll be at least a century before it makes sense to try a permanent settlement any further away than the moon. Like you, I think that subsidizing such a goal should be vigorously opposed, and furthermore, if someone wants to try it with private funding, the attempt should be made illegal.

I’m just saying that these issues may be a lot more resolved at some future time, like the year 2165 or thereabouts. By then it might make perfect sense to settle the Martian surface with a large population, because we’ll know what we’re doing. And it will be far from the first off-Earth settlement. Eventually humanity (or post-humanity) will fill the solar system, and then move outward from there, and I think that will be a positive step. I am in favor of this outcome... but it should take its time. Trying to hurry it will not be beneficial.