Necessary for humans to go to Mars?

islander507

We need a good option at some point when Earth becomes too crowded or has other issues. Mars is a long term investment, we should do it

agsr

There is a space race to get to Mars, with Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Recently Trump (allocated significant funding).  It is difficult to debate that all 3 of them are wrong to try to do it

MayCaesar

As exciting as going to Mars would be, it is an investment with an incredibly low return. Simply put, aside from the "We did it!" factor, humans on Mars will not be able to accomplish much that the current scientific devices do. Of course, when it comes to building a permanent settlement on Mars, it will be different - but we are probably a long way from there; a couple of decades, at least.

From my recent survey of modern scientific fields, I would say that investing in nanotechnology and artificial intelligence are the two most promising venues in science. Both are incredibly sophisticated fields and both are at a very early stage of their development - but their potential is incredible. As soon as a breakthrough in either field is made and we obtain the first functional practically useful prototype, our quality of life will skyrocket quickly.

I would leave Mars for private companies and authoritarian governments, and focus on funding more practically promising fields.