But it's not clear why that author decided to talk about Mars. They didn't connect their comment to to the article at all.

Sorry about that, I was just throwing somewhere at the bottom of the comment section an off-topic ideea I've been toying with. Didn't expect it will raise such interest and be voted towards the top.

No need to apologize. We knew what we were doing when upvoting a comment by the great cornholio.