Turns out the civilian shipping line woke up before I managed to plop some colonists on Mars. They managed to launch two freighters and one colony ship within 6 months.
I seem to be having another problem, unrelated to this one: the Increment Time is being rather rebellious. I tell it to jump days or hours and it chooses to skip 10-30 seconds instead, for no apparent reason. I've checked the Events, and nothing's happening to warrant such small hops.