We should not spend dime one on sending men to Mars now.
Why should we? Not only have we not handled the impact hazard, Antartica has more resources than Mars and its a whole lot closer to home. How much oil is there on Mars, and is there any way to get it here?
You know, I've never done this before, but after reading Z's comment on the station going round in circles, the same stunt Tumlinson has pulled, I have decided that the only way to get the CAPS message out is to go into a full blown attack on manned Mars flight now. (Of course, that's not to say the manned flight to Mars might be good someday in the future, but for now, given you Mars nuts reactions' to the very idea of any money being spent on impact prevention, let's see how this works. This should be fun.)