re: Colonizing Mars- really what’s the point?

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You do realize that these stars are trillions of miles away and that even the most optimistic outlook on space travel and physics would put the travel time at somewhere between 50,000 - 100,000 years.

Real life ain't like a science fiction movie.

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We will surely need spaceships that can support life indefinitely too. So what? There are lots of problems to solve, what's wrong with working on the ones we can right now? If no one gets started then it will never happen.

Maybe we will figure out suspended animation. Maybe we will just have to live life as normally as possible on a ship for many generations. Whatever the case, it seems likely that before the first ship we send arrives at its destination, we will have improved technology here on earth and later launches can catch up to the first. Or, pass it by and start terraforming the destination before they arrive.

Or maybe they will all go crazy and die. That happens to explorers sometimes.