You jest, but it's worth referencing the "Why explore space?"[1] letter. Penned back during the Space Race, as a response to a nun concerned with apparently wasteful spending, contrasted to poverty suffered by the people she was working with.
On a lighter note: we've put people on the Moon before we've put wheels on the luggage[2]. Exploration before comforts.
The pessimistic response to articles like that is that making Mars habitable is a more realistic goal than preventing humans from making earth uninhabitable.