We currently pay to search for exoplanets with over
Mars is habitable now. It doesn't require terraforming. Terraform venus and leave mars alone. Let the martians decide for themselves any issues regarding their world (and it should be their world rather than some entity not living there.) Mars terraforming can be thought of as something that happens naturally as martians expand their habitable space (using heavy equipment just like we do here on earth.)
It has challenges of course, but all the resources required for living ('in style' as Jerry Pournelle would put it... See 'A Step Farther Out' written in the early 70s and still applicable) are there. Current reports tend to show mars as more hospitable than we first thought.
It has the diverse mineral resources, water easily retrievable, abundant energy potential and we can grow more than enough food there to meet a growing colonies requirements. It has everything required for industry that makes modern life possible. It has night and day and seasons similar to earth. It has an atmosphere that mitigates most of the radiation dangers to a level that can be easily dealt with (we deal with it on earth using sun block.) The only thing preventing living in luxury on mars is how the society is structured, not the other challenges they face.
We don't know what 38% of earth gravity means for life but it certainly isn't going to be what the scaremongers using zero G as a reference point would have you believe. Low gravity may prove to be a blessing for some if not all.
Mars is hard to get to and isolated. That's a good thing for breaking out of the box. It's not militarily important. It can be ignored politically. This provides an opportunity found nowhere here on earth.
Why mars? Because the really high cost to get there and the cost to live there can be overcome so that anybody that wants to go, can; and have a life with the wealth and other resources necessary to pursue their own happiness.
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