[panick21_]

Colony yes, but that's very long term. The general idea of having a big ship that can land on Mars and is resonably cheap is possible and a good thing to do. And useful for many other things. Its the right step to move human space flight forward.

[Zigurd]

I can see some scientific and mostly engineering spinoffs from a space station and maybe a moon colony, but sending humans to Mars only raises the downside risk of manned space flight.

If the expansion of human knowledge and science is the goal, the only thing putting a human on board does is raise the cost 10X.