I'm a fan of Antarctica myself, for similar reasons. Also a much bigger space that fewer people (though, not "nobody") will get offended about colonizing. Pers

I'm a fan of Antarctica myself, for similar reasons. Also a much bigger space that fewer people (though, not "nobody") will get offended about colonizing. Personally, I think that if they were serious about this, it is something they should be doing right now. I don't see a reason not to do it. It is simply insane from an engineering perspective to think you can just "design" an entire off-world colony without working your way up. The knowledge you would gain is incredibly cheap compared to its value. But it's not happening, which leads me to believe, they're not serious. Heck, even just a "colony" in some California mountains would be a good start. You shouldn't even try to work up to full Biodome in one shot, especially given how those were generally "meh" at best. Much faster iteration cycles if you're close to infrastructure. Do something so you're not betting multiple expensive lives on "we can design an off-planet colony correctly on a computer in one shot".