It's not a question of starting or stopping; whether we start or stop seems irrelevant to me. The point is that humanity has been "coddled" by the Earth, because we were born and evolved here, but we won't be coddled by Mars, and thus the Mars project is doomed to failure, since we're already failing on Earth, in a vastly more favorable environment.

What's the point of a "backup plan" when the primary plan isn't even working?

> What's the point of a "backup plan" when the primary plan isn't even working?

The whole point of a having a backup plan is for when the primary plan isn't working :S

> The whole point of a having a backup plan is for when the primary plan isn't working

c/when/if

When your primary plan isn't working, you fix that first. Ideally, the backup plan is never needed.

If your house is on fire, you don't start building a second house, you put out the damn fire.

Also, it would be pretty dumb to put a backup in place more dangerous than the original. It would be like building your second home inside a volcano.