Well to be fair, building an O'Neill cylinder is well beyond our current capabilities, and simply flying a craft to Mars and blowing up an inflatable dome is mu

Well to be fair, building an O'Neill cylinder is well beyond our current capabilities, and simply flying a craft to Mars and blowing up an inflatable dome is much easier and more practical given our current technology. However, I do agree that this colonize-Mars idea seems a little silly. We have a large body (the Moon) that's only a few days away, instead of 6-18 months; why not start there? Once we get pretty good at mining on the Moon and nearby asteroids, we should get better at building some rotating space stations.