I see a bunch of confusion about Mercury in this thread so let me correct the record. First, as to why colonize Mercury, there are some really good reasons: 1

I see a bunch of confusion about Mercury in this thread so let me correct the record. First, as to why colonize Mercury, there are some really good reasons: 1. Cheap, abundant energy (ie solar); 2. Access to tons of raw materials, particularly metals; 3. Relatively low gravity means getting into orbit is relatively low cost. A few people have stated we'd hide in a crater as a negative. We'd live underground probably in submerged habitats that spin to produce Earth-like gravity, just as we would have to on Mars and the Moon. For Mars in particular, people have this romantic notion of living on the surface. We wouldn't. There's essentially no atmosphere. Worse than no atmosphere actually there's just enough to cover all your gear in dust and do little else for you. You still have to worry about radiation. Terraforming is a monstrously massive project that would take millenia. The biggest negative to Mercury is how hard it is to reach from Earth. Fun fact: the delta-V required to reach Mercury from Earth is more than that to escape the Solar System (eg like New Horizons). There's a reason this probe is taking 7 years to get there and doing multiple gravity brakes along the way (watch the ESA animation [1]). If you're going to bootstrap a Dyson Swarm, Mercury is almost the perfect place to do it from. [1]: https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Videos/2017/07/Animation_visualising_BepiColombo_s_journey_to_Mercury https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Videos/2017/07/Animation_...