<p><font color="#800080">Often a reason given for not going to mars is the risk involved. Why is this a major issue? Sending three people on a historic and important mission who may lose their lives in the process seems worthwhile to me. I have never seen any evidence that there would be a lack of qualified volunteers, and many days more than seven people die in wars, traffic, etc, etc. Risk is an important consideration, but it should not be a show-stopper. Posted by tampaDreamer</font></p><p>I agree that risk aversion is not a reason to keep from going to mars. However, risk aversion alone is not the reason we haven't gone to mars. The cost is the overwhelming reason for not going. Sometimes risks are brought up as a way of dodging the larger issue of cost.</p><p>We should go to mars, but we should have sound rational for going, and we should minimize the risks to the extent humanly possible. There are certainly plenty of volunteers, there are even people who believe the mars mission should be a one way mission. That those going are going to stay and eventually die...or start a colony on mars. All to avoid spending too much money in their view.</p><p>The cost of a human mars mission has been estimated at between $20 to 500 billion depending on the type of mission. $20B for a Zubrin Mars Direct no frills mission. $500B for a Von Braun type mission with all the bells and whistles.</p><p>The actual cost may well fall between those figures, or like ISS, could get well beyond estimates making the whole venture at risk for cancellation. But at say, $250B for a human mission from go ahead up to the first couple of missions. Most of the public and politicians will want to know why we are going to a planet that cannot readily support human life without artificial life support such as enclosed habs right on up to Terraforming.</p><p>For those of us in the space community, there are all sorts of reasons for going to mars. But the majority of the public wants their tax dollars to go to practical things such as education. Had mars been more like what Percival Lowell thought it was...a dying planet with aliens...we probably would have already been to mars.</p><p>The reality is mars is cold, inhospitable to human life and expensive to send humans to.</p><p>This leaves us with very few reasons for sending people when viewed from the taxpayers perspective. One of those reasons would be setting up a mars base for the study of life if life is discovered by robotic probe. Thats probably the only reason we would send anyone to mars nowadays.</p> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>