There have been tremendous unforeseen benefits from the space program. The benefits have outweighed the costs many times over.

[spinoff.nasa.gov]

I think it would be one of the greatest of human achievement and a lot of useful technology would come from it just like the Apollo program did. I have heard talk about Terraforming Mars to make it habitable for humans to walk around. Personally I don’t think that would be possible because it doesn’t address the reason Mars is in the condition that it is in. The main reason is size matter in a planet. Mars is only about half the size of Earth so its iron core cooled faster and when it cooled enough the magnetic field wakened so the solar winds ate away that the atmosphere to where it is almost all gone. So I think it is logical to assume that you would have the same problem now. However you warm the planet and thicken the atmosphere you would have to do it continuously or you would lose it. I don’t know how you could make a planet bigger but if you could and restart the “engine” then there would produce enough of a magnetic field to protect your atmosphere to produce enough air-pressure so you could have liquid water and breathable air. With all that being said I still think we should go.

Responding in the only appropriate way I know how - with humor.

[sadmoment.com]

Elon, Elon he's our man.
If he can't do it... no one will try for another hundred years. ?

Why spend billions of dollars sending him to Mars, when there's a perfectly good American volcano we can throw his lying ass into? MAGA!!!!

There is no such thing as the greatest human being ever and we're not the greatest country in the world. That being said, we should colonize Mars and beyond - though before we do Mars we should put our attention towards the Moon as it's less expensive to go from the Moon to Mars than from Earth to Mars.

So long a there are homeless people struggling to survive here, the priority should be to spend the money on people first.

I can't wait for us to discover intelligent life somewhere else in the universe because I believe that is the only way to force all of mankind to unite and put aside their petty differences.

I think humans are a virus pretty much. Why find another planet to destroy? Why not try to "fix" this one that we have fucked up royally? I know we want to extend our bloodlines etc., but if we can't take care of what we have then maybe we shouldn't be trying to colonize anything else. I know I will take a hit for this, but I think anymore exploration is futile in a sense. Sure, maybe in a 1,000 years we will invent machines capable of traveling light years, but if we could do that, then why couldn't we transform our own Earth? By then, we will probably die off anyway the way we're going. Put a limit on reproduction and use renewable energy. Great things have come from space exploration, but what is really left? We have rovers on Mars and satellites that have gone past Pluto. What have they brought us? The nearest galaxy to us is 25,000 years away if we traveled at the speed of light. I think we've gone as far as we're going to go. What new technology is going to emerge in bringing us that much closer? We don't even really have the technology to colonize Mars, and even if we did, it would probably be a miserable existence as I have read.

Send Herr Trump to Mars by all means.

I think space travel and travel to the depths of the Earth are a lot better things to spend money on rather than war efforts..... just saying

As long as it’s a one-way trip.

With so much emphasis on the greatest you must be talking about trumpie.Please send him quick.