Hello Chris -

The problem with the radiation on Mars is that it is high enough that man will be unable to terra-form the planet.

You could immediately generate a significant atmosphere on Mars by steering an impactor into its surface,
(and this has happened before naturally) , but without a magnetic field, any life that is then established on the surface of Mars will immediately perish in the next major solar radiation event.

Under this circumstance, the most that could be done would be the construction of a sub-surface resarch station about the size of an Antartic base, or several of them.

But the desire for a new land has been one of the driving factors, if not THE driving factor, for manned space efforts from their very start. Given that Mars can not be turned into an Earth-like planet, this motivator for nearly all Mars research immediately disappears.

In other words, manned flight to Mars requires the funding of SOCIETIES as a whole. Given that LARGE NUMBERS of people will never go to Mars, the desire of any SOCIETY to fund those flights immediately disappears.

Complicating things further, some space advocates are now focusing on manned flight to Mars to the exclusion of all other manned uses of space. Since manned Mars is a dead end on the level of SOCIETIES, in effect they are walking the entire manned space program into a dead end.

EP