This idea of sending humans just for the hell of it for no real logical purpose other than to pump money into a manned program is counterproductive even to manned flight. Before we send humans somewhere, we should already have prospected resources robotically, and be prepared to create permament settlements. We desperately need to use moneys to accelerate finding the resources rather than one at a time extraordinarily expensive human missions. Its all about return on investment, and right now we need to do things in space as cost effectively as possible so the day that we can bootstrap human presence in space is sooner and not later.

The only way I could become convinced to having such a mission prematurely would be if somebody could reduce the cost of such a mission with marketing to a "reality" TV operation, imax movies, astronaut toys, etc. NASA hasn't shown that kind of creativity or even has the legal power to do such marketing however. It will take private spaceflight and creative marketeers before I ever think a human mission could be reasonabling funded/costed.