You&#x27;re looking at the costs vs benefits in isolation.  We&#x27;d get far more than just a trip to mars.<p>Many of the technologies and research in to a wide range of medical fields (including long term isolation&#x2F;social pressures) that are developed as a result of that endeavor would continue to pay dividends for generations after the trip.<p>However I am very much in favor of sending robots up first; build a place to actually go to and live in, then stock it with a lower order ecosystem, and THEN send anything we forgot with the human payload.