The Moon though is 4 days away at any time. Bailout/emergency evac is much easier. And there are resources on the moon that may be viable for next gen tech(ie:

The Moon though is 4 days away at any time. Bailout/emergency evac is much easier. And there are resources on the moon that may be viable for next gen tech(ie: Helium-3) Mars is like 7-9 months away on the best pork chop plot. And even if you have something like an Aldrin cycler that may be able to cut that down at certain point to a few months, theres still a lot that can go wrong in that time. The average time to communicate to mars is something like 15 minutes as well. Its a totally different ballgame of "they are on their own". Even if you compare that to say....Christopher Columbus or others (that did similar for the time, but also knew there was a good chance they had the resources needed to survive) Mars has some water and basic elements (O2, N2, H2O) but not much else otherwise. ANy food, probably drinks, shielding, and technology to make long term viability possible will have to be towed along. Mars does seem like an option for expansion at some point. I am just not sure it will be in any of our lifetimes though.