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There's alot more problems with going to mars than there were when we sent people to the moon. For one thing we don't currently have a delivery vehicle capable of getting us into high earth orbit, let alone escaping the earth's gravitational pull all together. We will have the Orion in a couple of years, but it's still in the early stages of development. That's the least of our problems when it comes to sending people to mars. The trip itself is something like 4 months long the entire time of which the astronauts will be in micro gravity, which causes extreme muscular dystrophy. Even if we get there, the crew probably won't be able to move. Then we have the problem of where to live once we get there. Unlike the moon, the distance between it and the earth varies dramatically, so you have to stick around until your close enough to come back. All this time you have to be eating food that you brought with you, and drinking water that you brought with you. After all this you have to escape mars' gravitational pull as well, which means about 30% more fuel that you have to bring with you.
Going to mars is way harder than any kind of manned exploration we have ever attempted. You can't just wing it, the crew will die. It took thousands of years of boat and ship building before explorers traversed the Atlantic, we've had people in space for about 60 years. The fact that we're already thinking about going to MARS is nuts.
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