I would like someone to ask the ultra-rich exactly why...

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

6. If the Earth becomes uninhabitable,

SpaceX will be meaningless.

Actually getting to Mars or establishing some kind of colony there is decades away. Decades. It's not the kind of thing where the technology is in place and all they need is a bunch of billionaires to pay a whole lot of money and hooray! They're on their way to Mars.

Nope. Colonizing Mars will be vastly more difficult than colonizing the New World was. For one thing, once Europeans got to North America, killing animals to eat, harvesting fruits and vegetables, planting crops, all of these were relatively easy and very familiar to Europeans. Mars, we are extremely sure, does not have harvest-able plants or animals in place. Every single thing we will need to survive, will need to be brought with us. So it's not even remotely like, you want to move from (I'm making this up) North Carolina to Oregon. Or from Wisconsin to Florida. Those are somewhat extreme examples of the kinds of moves people make. They are all doable.

But from Earth to Mars? The essential problem is that people who blithely suggest we can easily colonize Mars just don't read enough science fiction. Those of us in the s-f world truly understand how weird and wonderful even Mars is, compared to Earth. No need to get more exotic than that. Just start actually making the kinds of things and infrastructure we will need off this planet.

The sad reality is that we humans will never be able to leave this planet. We're stuck here, and are sadly destroying it even as we speak.