Why does this matter? The delta V requirements are so steep Starship can't return from the martian surface. It is a completely different game to go to Mars than to the moon unless you are planning on building a mars gateway in orbit and never landing anywhere.
Oh this opens a whole bunch of really interesting topics. One of the most interesting is ISRU - in situ resource utilization. Using what you have available to make further progress. The Sabatier Reaction [1] is one of the single most important factors in our future expansion. Basically, CO2 + Hydrogen => Methane + Water.
Mars has essentially infinite CO2 and hydrogen. So this means we can produce essentially infinite methane and water. In fact you can carry out electrolysis on some of the produced hydrogen and feed it back into the system. This leaves you with a final excess product of methane, oxygen, and water. The Starship's engines, uncoincidentally, run on oxygen + methane. So we can locally produce basically limitless amounts of water, oxygen, and rocket fuel on Mars.
Of course this begs the question of what we do initially. And like all long distance colonization efforts, you're not sending just a single ship, but rather a small group. Those other ships are carrying additional critical supplies, including fuel. Upon landing those ships can also be used as shelters until something more permanent can be constructed. And the extra fuel provides a means of getting back to Earth if necessary while giving you a big window of time to start establishing basic local infrastructure including energy and methane production.
more interestingly, the impact on human psyche is basically unknown. We have meh approximations but just like placebo you cannot fake some things, like 'you are not coming back' condition in an experiment.
The permanent dwellings and really whole infrastructure would be underground. Lack of atmo and magnetic field basically forces you to dig down. Limited resources - rudimentary food and water. More less bunker life
On top of that 0% prospect of return. Essentially you are doomed to penal colony for the rest of your life.
I find it hard to believe anyone would want to sign up to that. And the people who would are absolutely people who should not be sent there.
And what happens if earth decides supporting mars outpost is pointless, you want alex jones types create conspiracies that colony is fake and its a tax payer scam? What would that do to minds of those stuck on mars?
You're making a lot of assumptions without looking into anything. So for instance the ambient radiation on Mars is comparable to Ramsar, Iran. [1] It's the most naturally radioactive colonized location on Earth, yet people have been living there for generations with no concerning side effects whatsoever, and a number of seemingly positive effects. The bigger threat is actually quite similar to the issue with space - it's the intermittent major space weather events sending short extremely high intension bursts of radiation at you. Fortunately these can be detected and dealt with as necessary.
And the Mars program is not being publicly funded in any way, shape, or fashion. If it was - we would have likely colonized Mars decades ago. Werner von Braun - the man responsible for the success of the Apollo program already had workably viable plans drawn up for Mars before we even set foot on the Moon. The government's decision to defacto cancel the space program is what led to his very premature retirement. But I do think rapidly aiming for the basics of self sustainability will be important nonetheless. Fortunately Mars is almost set up like a video game in that most of everything we need to survive is somewhat serendipitously present.
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As for what people want to do. It's funny, because I feel the exact opposite. I simply cannot understand people who have no desire to adventurize, explore, and see all that this universe has to offer in what little time we have on this Earth. It's probably why I'm an American yet find myself living half way around the world. And I would be the first to sign up for a mission to Mars as well. It'd certainly be a rather difficult life, but what more could be more desirable than spending the rest of your years laying the foundation for our children and our childrens' children, so that one day people coming to Mars would simply be just a holiday. And perhaps they then will then be the ones laying the foundation on Europa, or perhaps destinations that we can't even realistically imagine today.
It's certainly the same mindset people leaving the luxuries of the Old World had when setting out for the New World. The Old World was richly developed and full of culture, life, and civilization. Going to the New World entailed a voyage, as long as 4 months, and one which was quite frequently deadly. All to get to a completely undeveloped chunk of land full of oft unfriendly natives, new diseases, and all sorts of great ways to die in the middle of nowhere. And that's if you survived the voyage across to begin with, which many didn't. In many ways, we have it easier.
