>SpaceX is the transport company. Starlink is going to get spun off/cashed out if it ever gets profitable.

Is that supposed to counter my point? Transport companies make profit too.

Elon has said that, yes, but he's also willing to spend HIS money if necessary. We'll have to see how the market reacts once the railroad (Starship) is built. You're claiming it will obviously fail, I disagree, we'll see.

>that's never really been clearly stated

yes, it was very clearly stated: Elon has clearly stated that they'll use starlink revenue to fund spacex's objectives (which is enabling the colonization of mars).

>So the implication is that some govt at some point is going to pony up the trillions of dollars in perpetuity

The government is not the only entity which can pay for stuff, other than spacex. There's a whole market out there. Again, we'll see how the market reacts once taking 100 tons to the surface of mars costs $50M. And spacex, so far, is well on its way to that.

Not a single counter argument given. Just "nah your wrong".

We produce less waste per loaf of bread made, per book fabricated, per pipe installed. It's just that we make more bread, more books, more pipes.

It's not that hard to understand lol.

yes, because a tesla does not necessarily consume hundreds of barrels of oil during its lifetime.

>Elon has never really stated where all the Mars money is going to come from.

Yes, he totally has: SpaceX and Starlink. Why were you so confident about the opposite? The starship program is well funded, and starlink hasn't even started to produce profits yet (expected at 30B/y).

>some govt is going to foot the vast, vast majority of the bill

Not the case, given the clarification above.

>or delayed on an ongoing basis indefinitely

Musk has said exactly the same: we have a window, but we don't know how long is it going to be open for, so he's got a sense of hurry for that reason.

> Whether we like that unfortunate reality or not.

No, precisely the opposite is happening: whether you like it or not, some people is spending their own efforts into visiting, or even colonizing, the planet Mars. But even then, 99.99% of the world's efforts are focused on helping the world. And it even is arguable that some of the efforts towards Mars, help our planet aswell.

By saying it's going to be hard to get money for it, you're admitting that most of our efforts are going towards other things, so you have nothing to worry about.

> I think you kind of have to lean on the ego end of it to want to spend all the energy and resources to get someone to Mars

...not at all? what makes you think that? The clickbait, ill-informed, misinformative articles hating on elon musk or jeff bezos?

> only 7 countries have reduced waste over the last 10 years with the United States leading the way

That's according to what I said. You are talking in absolute terms, I'm talking in relative terms. It's weird you didn't understand, please read with more care my previous comment.

My point is that we've become better at producing useful things, not at producing waste. Waste is a byproduct that we're getting better at avoiding, for a given amount of production.

A planet made of waste would actually be full of useful industrial resources.

Humanity is becoming more efficient, not less. We produce far less waste per product than in the past. It's just that we produce more (edit for clarity: more products).

It doesnt have to be an egoistic backup. Some people just like exploration, challenge, science, even tourism.