[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.