The program is dead in its tracks, right now, because a group of human "probes" were killed.
The nice thing about robot probes is that they only cost money. Nobody's heart breaks if they fail and collapse. For what we spend providing rides, we could develop lots and lots of probes, most of which would fail. Then we'd need more and more probes. Every one would be better than the last. Probes don't need to breathe, and they don't have to come home.
And astronauts are not exactly perfect. I seem to recall a camera burnt to a crisp moments upon making a moon landing.
Think of the spinoffs, the technology that would be developed.
And, we'd actually get to see and hear Mars, for ourselves, not vicariously.