Well, thanks for coming to the point. I didn't understand that's what you were driving at before.
I completely agree with you about the need to grow our own food there. I'm pretty sure we've got the technology down pat to construct greenhouses with controlled environments sealed inside.
Seems to me, the biggest problem would be the simple logistics of shipping all of the components there. It would cost a tremendous amount of money, and take a very long time to get it all in place, given our slow propulsion technology. If I recall, it costs $10,000 a pound to get anything into space.
I'd almost prefer to slow down the Mars exploration timetable and concentrate efforts on building a better rocket ship. We need the capacity to lift greater payloads at a smaller cost. Secondly, we need to be able to move those payloads to their distant destinations at far greater speeds to make these projects more practical.
As to the extremophiles, why not? If that rock is dead, we may as well start seeding it as soon as we get there. It'll pay off in some long distant future.
“I didn’t understand that’s what you were driving at before.”
Well, that’s what happens when you reply to the last comment in a conversation without bothering to go back to see what the conversation was about.