[who_would_fardels_bear]

1. Go to the moon
2. Develop a manufacturing base on the moon
3. Launch manufactured materials into orbit around the moon which is much easier since the moon has a much smaller gravitational well
4. Build huge well insulated ships from these manufactured materials.
5. Cruise easily and safely to Mars in these well insulated ships.

Or better yet, stop wasting huge amounts of money trying to launch fragile human beings into space and instead launch thousands of increasingly advanced probes throughout our solar system to gather much more information in much less time with much less money.

[rottndog]

Or better yet, stop wasting huge amounts of money trying to launch fragile human beings into space and instead launch thousands of increasingly advanced probes throughout our solar system to gather much more information in much less time with much less money.

Exactly correct. It is sheer emotionalism pushing manned space exploration. There is virtually nothing that can't be done with drones and automation, at far far less cost than sending people. This is where we should focus our resources now.

We are still in the infancy stages of space exploration...we should have faith and confidence in our ability to develop newer technologies that may eventually make manned space flight more realistic, but we are a long way from there now. Efficient allocation of limited resources...leave the emotionalism out of it.