I think the hubble was at best a partial success. If any private parties want to spring for the refueling and support bill, I have yet to hear from it.
Besides, we got a great picture of all the places we won't be able to go for the next hundred years. How many more pictures of that do we want.
"We have to protect Mars. Do we want to send astronauts with all their dead skin cells and bacteria? We don't want to contaminate the planet and replace possible extant life."
I suspect he is the world's expert on the way mars is now and doesnt want to go back to school to how it will be in 20 years.
Rather I think we should first terraform Mars. The atmosphere can easily now be turned to Methane which when frozen is a decent rocket fuel. The large gas planets also have a lot of methane and H2.