[CydeWeys]

I don't see much purpose in the Wright brothers' airplane either, but it was a necessary intermediate step between not being able to fly and today's modern commercial jetliners.

In space travel as in software engineering, you need incremental progress.

[gorkonsine]

Very soon after the Wrights demonstrated their warped-wing technology worked, they were already trying to sell planes to the military. It didn't take long at all for people to figure out they could use airplanes for surveillance and bombing.

There's no such obvious commercial use to going to Mars. If you want resources, they're much more easily available in nearby asteroids.