No doubt our government will keep human space flight in Earth orbit alive largely because it would be foolish to lose the military capability in this area. However a human mission to Mars probably will not occur for another 50 to 100 years. The International Space Station was slated to cost around 6 billion dollars. The cost overuns are projected at 90 billion dollars. A manned mission is estimated to cost 20 billion dollars. In all likelihood a manned Mars mission would follow the cost overun patterns of the International Space Station probably getting up near 200 billion dollars. I don't think any country can afford this in the global economy we have today.

Besides all the above, the issue of life on Mars must be settled first. Here is why:

Human Mars Mission Contamination Issues

Lupisella, M. L. ,AA(NASA Goddard Space Flight Center) ,
Workshop on Science and the Human Exploration of Mars, p. 89 ,
01/2001

Abstract

A potential challenge for a human Mars mission is that while humans are by most measures the obvious best way to search for life on Mars, we may also be the most problematic in that we could unduly compromise the search for life by contaminating relevant environments and/or possibly adversely and irreversibly affecting indigenous life. Perhaps more problematic is the fundamental epistemic challenge of the "one data point" limitation which could decrease confidence in applying terrestrially based research to extraterrestrial life issues in general. An informal decision tree is presented as one way to begin thinking about contamination issues. There are many sub-questions and distinctions not shown such as biological vs. nonbiological (but biologically relevant) contamination, viable vs. dead organisms, masking indigenous organisms vs. merely making the search more difficult, and independent origin vs. panspermia distinctions. While it may be unlikely that terrestrial microbes could survive on Mars, let alone reproduce and unduly compromise the search for life, the unpredictable potential for microbial life to survive, grow exponentially, evolve and modify (and sometimes destroy) environments, warrants focusing carefully on biologically relevant contamination as we prepare to send humans to the first planet that may have indigenous life-forms.