In your own terms, almost 10% believed that no money should be spent on Mars at all - which is a remarkably high figure given the amount of unscientific hype the target has gotten from the TPS (amongst others)....

(Whatever way you cut it: the easiest space target for our technology to reach - the Moon - got two thirds of the popular support; which shows everyone except you that NASA's zero exploration budget for the target is probably a tad low... mind you: it does explain why every other major or potential space player from ESA outwards is either splitting resources between Luna & Mars or ignoring Mars as a mission irrelevancy)

Anyway: a cult - or to use my original terminology: a cargo cult - involves the unsustainable expenditure of resources on a symbol of activity; with predictably futile results. The cargo cult of Mars as a target for both little green viruses & as a near term target for manned missions is crippling the USAmerican program; & will generate more cutbacks & even less space achievment if it isn't reigned in quickly... you can't build an expensive research program on misrepresentation; & that's all the current Mars push is.

(ps. I consider Ed's Lunar observatory a cargo cult as well... my goal, as always, is simple, cost effective developmental space exploration; without wasteful big ideas & Apollonian visions)

Robert