> We're focusing everything on the easier planet that might not be livable after one year of bad politics. Nuked Earth that's also climate-changed so bad that

> We're focusing everything on the easier planet that might not be livable after one year of bad politics. Nuked Earth that's also climate-changed so bad that only the poles are temperate is still a whole lot better than Mars. Why is the solution for this "establish a colony somewhere already 100x worse than a multi-catastrophe-stricken Earth would be, and is also very-expensive to get back to Earth from" ? It makes no sense. Asteroid strike? There are (much) cheaper ways to guard against that—hardened, distributed bunkers with paid inhabitants, increasing asteroid-hunting programs and interception research. Orbital habs or even the Moon if you're worried about a whole-crust-liquifying event that you can't stop in time. And we're not doing those. Why would we do Mars? It's worse than those options in basically every way. It's a really really bad place. Most the other threats those measures couldn't guard against, would probably also take out Mars. Going to Mars is cool and romantic and I hope to see it, but I think people trying to pin some practical reason for colonization other than "because it was there" (romantic) are misguided.