I’m all for space tourism, and definitely (as I suspect most of us here) down for a manned Mars mission, but not this one.

For the same price, ($500 million) I’d rather see the (unmanned) SpaceX-NASA Red Dragon mission.

As for Tito’s “Mission for America”, he wasn’t waving the flag back when he and the Russians “backdoor’d” the ISS and NASA, in what amounted to space mutiny.

Would a manned Mars drive-by be cool anyway?

Well,…sure, for about 15 minutes, but I’m afraid it would suck up all the venture capitol and good will better spent on an open ended series of missions built around (future) SpaceX hardware, and domestic and international contribution.