[rogeryu]

Sending people to Mars, and then what?

Will it be a "simple" round trip? The real problem is what to when you're there. Is there a base station? I don't see that happen before 2025. Maybe on the moon, but not on Mars. Maybe a return trip to Mars by 2025 or 2030, but not staying there.

[alkonaut]

Any round trip to Mars would require making the return fuel on site, correct?

If that's the case then just making a couple of unmanned return flights to test that seems it would take a decade.

A one-way ticket to Mars is certainly doable with current tech but unless we're sending Donald Trump I fail to see how we as a planet could get behind that concept.