re: Re Gary and Buck.
You have a couple of good points, leaving aside the "despoilers" crap. I'm not sure what incentive there is, at least at this point, to colonize Mars (again, in terms of settling and raising families and such, not research bases and the like). How many colonists live in Antarctica? Why not?
On the other hand, if you want to colonize Mars someday, when the technology is up to it, getting the supplies there won't be a showstopper. Imagine what Captain James Cook would have thought of today's Honolulu, a modern city which, essentially, had to be brought over by boat.