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Ok, but terraforming Mars takes what, 100 years minimum? Who's going to keep funding going for that for 100 years when it definitionally doesn't earn a return?
I guess there could be a structure such that running oil rigs in space requires taxes to fund a terraforming project. But whoever those taxes get paid to has every incentive to iron law of bureaucracy those taxes into conferences in the Bahamas about current thing in terraforming.
You could fund the terraforming of Mars by leveraging the equity of the total value of the theorized real estate.
In other words, a mortgage the size of a planet.
Except that, even after spending trillions in Terraforming Mars, you'd end up with land worth less than land than Earth due to extreme cold, proximity to amenities, ability to grow things, etc. No one but crazy rich people would want to live on Mars until Earth becomes largely uninhabitable.
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