I'm familiar with this article.

First, "adventure" is a reason to go there, not to settle.

Second, I'm not buying the "drastically improve humanity's chance at survival" argument. There have been several mass extinction events in the past, so in order to survive one that might be coming, we should move to a place where there is likely no life at all? That does not make any sense to me.

If we can survive on mars, we can survive on Earth no matter what can plausibly happen to it.

Mankind will likely survive the next mass extinction[1], and we don't have to go to mars for that.

1. http://io9.gizmodo.com/why-humans-will-survive-the-next-worl...