Two false statements. The technology to put a living being on Mars and return in NOT there. "We" are only in low orbit, and for what? Just what added value is having people in orbit that is achieved that offsets the cost? Lat I heard NASA was trolling the elementary schools to look for things to do to justify the contiuned expense.
The mission is already being planned BTW so it's a bit late to ask who pays I think.
Two things. First it's not too late to kill it. budgets can always get cut or not approved. Budgets are approved on a year by year basis, and Two, why does this make it irrelevant as to who pays?
We need to be there so that people like the chicoms don't claim the darn planet first off. S
So what if they do? How does that aid them or harm us? It is easy to see how it could harm the country getting there because of the vast waste of resources consumed in the process, but suppose we get a man to mars then what good does it do? WE had several men on the moon nearly 40 years ago and what benefit has come to us from the moon? What exotic materials? What natural resources? ANswer none and none. If the moon had lumps of solid gold strewn over the surface (which it does not) then it would not be worth the cost of getting it. How much did the apollo program cost? In 1994 dollars about $100 billion. They returned 382 kg of lunar material total. That works out to about $262,000,000 per kg. What possible value can the rocks have that makes them worth that much? And by the way they're mostly anorthosite. If you want anorthosite you can drive to the adirondacs and pick some up, since the central mountains in the adirondacs are anorthosite. Now let's look at Mars. The moon is approximately 100 time closer than mars, so it will cost roughly 100 times as much to get to mars as to the moon. Actually this is a lowball because of the extra shielding needed to protect the crew. But even in the best scenario, Mars material will cost about $26 billion per kg, and as we've seen from the rovers it's just rocks and dirt.
Thirdly, I think we just should. Expand, explore, learn that is. :)
The us treasury accepts voluntary donations. I suggest you and a few like minded friends (you can find them here on FR)donate the trillion or so dollars that it will take.