When they first announced about a mission to the moon I thought but we were like already there. Then I thought about it furhter as a pre-Mars mission where they test out living on the moon and if they can live there then they can live on Mars. So in a way going to the Moon is going to Mars as a goal.
Yes I agree we need to first go to moon and build on it. Once we can do that safely then we can head to mars. I would want to test out habitation pods on the moon where earth is closer to us than be stuck on mars with one that does not work well seven months away.
No one has gone to the moon for nearly 40 years, so having a human, not just a robot mission, to Mars is more than lofty, it is unconceivable until we have a human mission to the moon and build a fuel depot, and build a rocket launcher. Most of the gas consumption that the space shuttle has is at going out of the Earths gravitational pull. Since the moon has a third of the gravitational pull as the Earth then it would take much less gas to launch from the moon. Another problem is time, it takes roughly 4 or more months to go to Mars, the longest that anyone has been in space has been roughly a month. Until people can live in space long enough for a trip and back to Mars, we can't go to Mars. There have been several robot missions that have crashed and burned. Unless NASA can learn what has what went wrong, then I say there should be no man missions to Mars.
Very interesting topic. It is also one which I have thought about too, like the above people have said it would me more logical to colonise the moon and see if it works.
But I think they should go on to the moon to finally put to be the conspiracy of did they really land on the moon in 1969.
It would be amazing to think that one day it would be possible for people to emigrate to Mars and other planets, however if that will ever be possible I would think it would be hundreds of years away.