There's a pretty substantial difference between "living on the other side of the ocean" and "living in a submarine", which is probably what life on Mars would be like given foreseeable technology. It's not just fear of the unknown. It's the sheer practical matter that life on Mars (if possible) will be extremely difficult, and the only obvious benefit is that you can say "hey look, I'm on Mars!"

Hell, you can simulate life on Mars by signing up for a career in deep sea diving. Actually, deep sea diving is probably a million times easier since you can pretty easily get parts from the surface.

I should have posted the full Bruce Sterling quote:

I'll believe in people settling Mars at about the same time I see people setting the Gobi Desert. The Gobi Desert is about a thousand times as hospitable as Mars and five hundred times cheaper and easier to reach. Nobody ever writes "Gobi Desert Opera" because, well, it's just kind of plonkingly obvious that there's no good reason to go there and live. It's ugly, it's inhospitable and there's no way to make it pay. Mars is just the same, really. We just romanticize it because it's so hard to reach.

On the other hand, there might really be some way to make living in the Gobi Desert pay. And if that were the case, and you really had communities making a nice cheerful go of daily life on arid, freezing, barren rock and sand, then a cultural transfer to Mars might make a certain sense.

If there were a society with enough technical power to terraform Mars, they would certainly do it. On the other hand. by the time they got around to messing with Mars, they would have been using all that power to transform _themselves_. So by the time they got there and started rebuilding the Martian atmosphere wholesale, they wouldn't look or act a whole lot like Hollywood extras.

I don't disagree, just like there is a substantial difference between living in a submarine and living in orbit. But we've gone from "impossible to live in a submarine" to living in orbit in less than 100 years."

There are a lot of indications that 'living under conditions that were true for the last 1500 years but may not be available again for a while' is also a good plan. A city on Mars is likely a 100% energy sufficient and materials sufficient city. Such a city could survive any global warming catastrophe as well.

Most of this discussion comes down to various belief systems. I believe that any civilization that can live on Mars will also be able to treat cancer effectively, as well as survive other threats like asteroid bombardment, climate change, or major volcanic events. I don't believe that a civilization that can "only" treat cancer can survive those other problems. Clearly others have a different set of beliefs and that guides their research investment priorities.