ABSOLUTE AND UTTER G. D. EF'ING B.S.
Why don't you try asking people, and I mean ALL of the people, whether they want their government spending their money on flying a few of you space cases off to Mars, or whether they'd rather have NASA spend that money trying to find the next piece of space crud (asteroid or comet) before it hits the Earth?
Afraid of the answer? We already know that most of ALL the people don't want to pay for manned flight to Mars. In light of this result I suggest that if you want to go to Mars you buy your own ticket.
ep