This is still one of the most dumbass posts in the history of dumbassery. I just want to highlight it here as all that is wrong with current thinking about the why and how of doing difficult things. And that it’s absolute knobs like this clown who were saying 10 or 15 years ago that solar power was “impossible” and would never pencil out, etc.
If you listen to doofusy disphits like this dingbat you would never do anything.
The effort spent colonizing Mars would be better spent creating asteroid mining and refining systems and building space habitats from the output. This would be probably be easier than colonizing Mars and the resulting habitats could be maneuvered into locations closer to Earth or trailing Earths orbit, making them more accessible than Mars, which is more than twice as far from the sun as Earth is. Considering all that has been achieved with space probes and robotics in less than 70 years space habitat construction (which would also be necessary on Mars, and which we are ALL READY DOING (the ISS)) is the most obvious mode of humanity continuing its expansion beyond Earth.
I agree with this. Colonizing Mars is not plausible long term. However, sending humans there to have a permanent-ish “outpost” presence is, and we should do that ASAP.
Space habitat construction is the way forward. Reminds me of some sf (Banks?) where people think it’s odd if you live on the dangerous, mercurial surface of a planet rather than in an orbital habitat.