The new NASA administrator was asked "why wasn't NASA committed to
sending humans to Mars in the reasonably near future?'
Sean O'Keefe replied with a rhetorical question: [not an exact quote] " To what ends?
If [NASA] were to send humans to Mars, what then?"

That was the gist of Mr. O'Keefe's reply.

I think Mr. O'Keefe was using the logic that history presented him, when NASA
send humans to the moon, and couldn't afford anything more ambitious to succeed it.
Mr. O'Keefe is [really] saying, we can send humans to Mars, but that's it...After that, there won't be any money available for anything more ambitious than that. Manned Mars missions will be
a financial DEAD-END. For instance: after a hypothetical manned trip to Mars, Martian colonies or manned trips to Jupiter or Pluto will break and bankrupt entire national budgets,
even America's.

Jacob