It must be a woman who is first on Mars

Dear Orac,

You ask the question of whether there are wives on Mars, and of course you should be allowed to take your wife, if you have one. I would want to take my girlfriend if I went to Mars, and we might get married first, on Earth, or perhaps we would have a Martian ceremony.

Veronika Oleksychenko

I think the trouble with Veronika's Mar's marriage plan is that selection is likely to be very tight and they will be looking specifically for couples of men and women - to produce the next generation of martian colonists.

Life will be hard for the first 200 years or so. I doubt they would even have an internet

Elon Musk could transmit Interweb down from a cherry red Tesla Roadster once he has it in position.

Really ? Have you heard the lyrics ? lol 

Excuse me for breaking in, but do you have any idea why Men can be so cruel?

Dear see2,

You asked randomly "Excuse me for breaking in, but do you have any idea why Men can be so cruel?" I don't know what your meaning is with this question, but all of my personal relationships have been with women and girls, so I am not quite an expert on men.

My only real connection to a male person is my father. He is Ukrainian. And I have not seen him for years. I know that he prefers my sister Kseniya anyway. She is much more like him. I'm more like my mother, who is Swedish.

Veronika Oleksychenko

There is one recognised path to male cruelty which is difficult to explain in every situation.
Just curious, has your father fell out with your mother? 

Cruelty is born of fear, the same hormones that create serious likes and dislikes, along with anger and violence, they are all based upon fear. But it is unrecognized fear, a fear that is held in the sensory system and is unknown to the thinking rationalising part of the brain. The proof of this is in the fact that it is the non-thinking sensory system that determines the hormonal mix that exists at any one time, not the thinking logical part of the brain.

It would take too long to give you the full, in detail, explanation but I will give you a starter.

The human sensory system is designed to learn danger and potential danger and the main learning period is the very early years of childhood. Once dangers are learnt they are held in the sensory system for life where they maybe reinforced or reduced in seriousness. The sensory system does not do logic so it does make mistakes. 
BUT the relevant part in this is that males who at conception are no different to females have their development slowed down during the changes made by the 'Y' chromosome, this means that males spend more time in the very vulnerable early years of life, thus being open to learning a higher level of dangers making them more prone to hormonal changes for anger and or violence as they get older. 

An added problem here is that males require a higher level of reassurance of safety in these early years of development, yet research suggests it is the female who is held closer and spoken to in reassuring tones by the mother, more so than male children. 
Sorry for the delay, I've been away for a boozy weekend