[s_r_n]

The author is listing facts about Mars that are pretty basic and well-known in the first two paragraphs and proceeds to talk in generalized terms about how we will never get around these obstacles. These are all basic facts about Mars that the engineers working on these problems know very well. Simply listing these facts as proof that colonizing Mars will never work seems overly pessimistic.

[keiru]

Well, I agree there is not that much merit in the article for pointing out the obvious, but if the emperor has no clothes someone needs to say it.

The engineers working on these problems will never solve them in a cost-effective manner. Never. A lot of new cool tech will come out of the space race, but never will (current versions of) humans live in a self-sustained Mars. And I'm not counting exporting scientific research and souvenir rocks as being self-sustainable.

PS: I'm not rejecting the idea that eventually big actors like states might compete for automated resource extraction and production of war commodities, nuke tests, etc. It's just human habitability that I question.

[solveit]

I agree. This is basically every pessimistic article on every subject by a non-expert and almost all of them should be ignored.

[frabbit]

Absolutely: there is literally _nothing_ about blockchain in this article.