I think your position is extremely defensible. I'd suggest that we should be sending many robots to Mars in order to bootstrap an economy of sorts. Things like

I think your position is extremely defensible. I'd suggest that we should be sending many robots to Mars in order to bootstrap an economy of sorts. Things like food production, shelter etc could all be done by robots before the first human arrives. The first humans could arrive to crops ready to harvest, fully constructed compounds/shelters. IMO we should be sending robots and supplies now (just as big of payloads of fuel, tools, robots, food) as we can. Later we send people who can continue to build w/ what was previously sent. Sadly its not a popular exercise to say "We're spending billions to send a bunch of solar panels to mars, though no one will use them for decades..."