No doubt, if we waited 50 years more, we could go for much less money and lesser risks, but why give the glory to our sons and grandsons?
Since our fathers and grandfathers left this opportunity, let's take it ourselves.
Well said.
The reason is the large number of materials and processes which must be tested, and then implemented, and then made safe and reliable on Mars, before people could possibly actually lived there.
The impediment is not technical or workforce related. It's political and fiscal. The minute someone shows there is real money to be made by sending people there it will be done. Most people are not big picture thinkers, it takes the Musks of the world to push in the direction we need to go but it takes those being pushed to get off their duffs and turn it into a new normal rather than an eccentric industrialist's pipe dream.