It's true, it's possible a nation-state could colonize mars. But there is a problem for the US.
Presidents come to office, scrap the previous adminstration's space goals, create their own new goals and then their's are scrapped by the next admin before they come to fruition. It takes more than 8 years (the max a president can serve) to really follow through on an ambitious vision for space.
Yeh, that true. It's just hard to create a sustainable program. STS was retired. ISS will be probably be retired in 2025.
George HW Bush wanted to go Mars then scrapped it when he got the price tag.
In 04, George W Bush wanted to go to the moon by 2020.
Obama scrapped the moon 2020 plan and planned to go to Mars by 2030.
Trump is sending them back to the moon then Mars.
read "the case for mars" to get the story on the dysfunction at nasa and the presidents changing every 8 years. It's from the 90s and talks about how bush wanted to go to mars but the space station won out for the funding.
Presidents come to office, scrap the previous adminstration's space goals, create their own new goals and then their's are scrapped by the next admin before they come to fruition. It takes more than 8 years (the max a president can serve) to really follow through on an ambitious vision for space.
Billionaires can stick with it longer.