Using such a station you could work and do scientific work for potentially weeks at a time if you had a base to recover in. It's not just the low gravity of Mars, or even the radiation exposure that is the real problem. The dust gets into everything and sticks to everything. The dust is corrosive and toxic beyond a certain point. It's also true that if humans lived long term on the surface of the planet that we may inadvertently drive extinct any microbial life that may exist on the surface or subsurface of the planet.

We know that life on Earth can exist miles under the crust. There are microbes that consume hard radiation that we have found at Chernobyl. It's even been shown that it's possible to grow Lichen on the surface of the planet, which Im not opposed to in principle if we do find out that life went extinct on Mars, or never existed in the first place.

I think that the surface could be mined for the raw mass needed to build a miles long, and miles wide facility. Think O'Neil cylinder but made from glass made in orbit using milimeter wave lasers to melt the ores. The rocket fuel could be harvested from Venus which has an absolute abundance of co2 compared to the thin atmosphere of Mars. You could have sister stations on Venus floating in the clouds that could export goods like rocket fuel, or even sulfuric acid which is the basis of so much of our industry.

https://youtu.be/0vB_fE0CbE4?si=-eYt_FZ8TBXr8B_5

If your not familiar with Chemthug check out his channel. He's a working chemist with a degree that's very good at explaining things in an entertaining way. He doesn't do flashy chemistry experiments or anything he just walks you through what he knows about it.