Tech barons dream of human colonies on Mars – but I can’t think of a worse place to die | Jordan Prosser

Humans love to do stupid things to reach far-off places – but even the wildest frontiers on Earth have at least the possibility of a return home Like hoverboards, teleportation or smart glasses that don’t make you look like an absolute twat, space colonisation is a technological advent long-promised but as yet undelivered. Before Neil Armstrong even set foot on the moon, the US military was envisaging a long-term lunar outpost. The cost proved prohibitive and the Apollo missions came and went, amid ever-decreasing television ratings. By the mid-1970s, the general consensus was that we’d been there, done that and bought the commemorative ashtray. Besides, why shoot for the moon when you can travel an extra 228m kilometres and colonise Mars instead? In 2012, against the backdrop of stagnating global space programs, one private not-for-profit in the Netherlands seemed poised to kickstart this new chapter of human civilisation. Mars One declared that by 2023, then 2024, then 2025, then 2027, it would send four astronauts on a one-way mission to the red planet, topping up the numbers every few years until it had established a long-term, self-sustaining, off-world settlement. How d