/sci/ - Science & Math

Oh look, it's THIS thread again. But seriously now, what's the point of Mars colonization? Elon says: "It's for a human civilization back-up". We all know that Mars colony won't be self-sufficient in over 100 years and terraforming Mars will take thousands of years. It's a gigantic, ultraexpensive project. "But we can build mines on Mars and transport rare raw materials to Earth". Robot space mining costs billion dollars, but it's still millions times cheaper that building mines on Mars, and the whole process is much less complicated. Why he can't he focus first on space mining, which would make him a fucking first trillionare in a history, but he pushes SpaceX to create a Mars colony which is a strictly scientific, that means non-profitable, project. If he would make billions on raw materials from space first, then he could build his fucking colony not only on Mars.