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With no next gen propulsion system and no self-sustaining colony, humans on Mars are a resource sink with no added benefits.

Lest you forget it took 300 years for North America to generate self-sustaining colonies from the first Europeans. And those didn’t require life support for oxygen and water for every second of survival.

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North America had self sustaining human populations for thousands of years before they ever saw a European.

The point is the challenge that was involved sending a small group on the same planet out to be self sufficient, not commentary about the habitability of the americas. If anything that underlines their point.

Agreed. It just irritates a little that an analogy was proposed between a lifeless planet and a continent with millions of people already living there.

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