Mars has a compellingly high potential for colonization.  It's the only place in the solar System one can cheaply grow food, other than Earth.  Its lower gravity well gives it an insurmountable advantage in access to off-planet resources,  and it has water-driven geologic processes that have probably created exploitable ore deposits.<p>Mars will be to the 21st and 22nd centuries what  N. America was to the last four.  The short-sighted will ask why we'd ever want to go there.   It will take some form of "irrationality" to overcome the short-tern economic myopia.  If it's Chinese national pride that opens the door, so be it.  They're no worse than the Pilgrims.