@futurebird @frank @jannem @dx I'm all in favour of NASA, ESA, JAXA, et al running a humans-on-board scientific expedition or even research base on Mars! Along the lines of the Antarctic research bases. (It'd solve huge numbers of problems created by today's reliance on robots.) They'd probably need to grow food and recycle waste, too. But a *colony* implies permanent autonomy and replication, and the bar for that is incredibly high.