Preaching to the choir, or in other words, talking to yourself
Sorry to once again interrupt the usual circle jerk that the Mars Nuts here try to get started into, but the general populace does not find searching for life on Mars to be a compeling reason for sending men there. It is likely that no more than 1 in 7 of them do.
You Mars Nuts have only one chance of keeping the manned space infrastructure intact until such a time as those numbers change: that is by supporting the construction of man tended NEO detection facilities on the Moon, after ISS completion.
That project can be sold, as it satisfies the general populace's concerns.
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