Manned space travel makes for a nice show. However, until we exhaust the capabilities of remote probes, there’s no reason to continue manned.
Unless private companies think they can make a buck with it.
I’m not sure how the exploration of Mars is a part of NASA’s mission of Islamic relations, and brainwashing the American people into tolerating Islam. I get the commercialization of space, but once the West is destroyed, will the imams get it. Won’t humanity be heading back to the stone age, with the possible exception of China.
Once space exploration is commercialized, government will shut it down due to environmental concerns. I remember reading about the impact of shuttle launches on the ozone layer. The greenies are waiting anxiously for corporations to take this over so they can pounce.
Sounds like the title to a new Star Wars movie, but it must be the "Hope" that Hussein promised back in '08, because there sure in hell hasn't been any Hope back here on earth!
We explore Mars most because of all the planets in the solar system Mars is, right now, the easiest for us to tackle - distance from the sun (consider Mercury), distance from earth, and atmospheric conditions on the planet.
It will, in history, be seen as the science laboratory of humans’ development of the engineering tools capable of inter-planetary and eventually galactic space exploration.
That’s why Mars.
However, our moon, before Mars, will be the human science laboratory for manned “exploration stations” on the surface of other planets.