re: #2 Tiny Alien Kitties are Watching You
Lets see, a spacecraft capable of the 21-23 month round trip to Mars (including an approx. 3 month mandatory layover at Mars until the orbital mechanics were aligned to head back), and capable of carrying four people, that also included a lander to ferry four people to the surface of Mars and then return them to orbit should only cost what? $1.0 to 1.5 trillion? Tops maybe $2 trillion.
That should be a snap for a “privately financed Dutch company” to raise from bonds to produce a “reality” T.V. show…uhh…right?
Says “One-way trip”. Could drop the cost by an order of magnitude. (Most 16th cent. colonists and seafarers were on 1-way tickets.)