The whole Mars idea is just horrifying and sad.

If we kill the only biosphere we know of, we will not be able to flourish on the cold, dark, airless, arid, lifeless, poisonous, radioactive deserts of of Mars.

Some years ago, I tried to actually compute the cost of building a self-sustaining colony on Mars. I concluded that every single industrial process that humans use relies on unlimited free air and very very cheap water.

We would literally have to reinvent everything to operate in this grossly resource-poor environment. The cost would be in the quadrillions of 2023 dollars, if it is even possible, and for what? Even if you terraformed Mars, over centuries and costing tens of quadrillions of dollars, you would never get a place as hospitable as even Antarctica!

It is literal madness. Future generations will curse our names for the rest of history.