To give the counter-argument, some of the topography is awesome, primarily Olympus Mons and the Valles Marineris, but we can't even send rovers there, let alone humans. Landing is too difficult. It'll be a nice flat safe bit that'll become boring really quickly.

Unless you can bring your own nuclear powered SUV with unlimited range to hoon around in. Land safe and then drive to the canyons.

MRO's Hirise has spotted a few underground chambers that might protect against radiation too.

Two points about the validity of analogies with prior human exploration:

1. In the golden era of exploration (16th - 18th centuries), humans didn't have cameras on probes to do their seeing for them. They had to go there personally to see. Now we can send instruments far more sensitive than the human eye to capture every aspect of the place. In principle we can fly through the Valles Marineris at home anytime using HFR 3D 8K once we've scanned it. There's no scientific reason for humans to be there.

2. Whatever realms humans explored on Earth in the past - they could breathe the air. Gravity remained constant. Radiation was low. There was fresh water. Once you're about 20km off Earth's surface, you'll die in 1-2 minutes (at the most) anywhere in the solar system. Your equipment has to be 100% failure-proof with multiple levels of redundancies. Which is heavy. Which is expensive. Which needs greater justification than 'it'd be cool'.

For the record, I think the eventual destruction of the Earth, natural or otherwise, is a valid scientific reason for space exploration.

Why Mars? Sex in low gravity. Possibly with aliens.

Fucking liberals! Cold, dead hands, Teague!

This is what comes from seeing Space Cowboys at a formative age.

However, there is something to be said for being the first human to die on another planet.   That person would be almost as famous as Neil Armstrong - they just wouldn't get to enjoy any perks from it.

Prior voyages of exploration had to worry about navigation and food longevity. But they didn't have to worry about maintaining the correct Nitrogen - Oxygen mix, nor radiation hazards, or the physiological effects of zero gravity for a year or two.

Voyagers of the past could drink water on distant lands. Trade food with natives. Cut down timbers to repair ships. Eat fish from the ocean. Their fuel was the wind.
With Mars, you need to take EVERYTHING with you, including your own food and atmosphere for as long as you want to stay. And even then, you've still got the radiation and low gravity problems.
We've been sailing since ancient times e.g. the Phoenicians. If going to Mars was so technologically simple, we'd have done it by now.

Sure, it'd be cool. But at a budget in the hundreds of billions... with sickness and premature death an almost certainty, to see something we can see anyway with our probes.

That's a weak argument. Why go anywhere then, not just in terms of travel but venturing outside or away from a screen? Why eat food when you can get nourishment intravenously? Why do anything when an easier or cheaper substitute is available?

It took several thousand years before humans could travel across oceans, and it's only been 100 years or so since we can do it reasonable safety and certainty. Sickness and premature death were just as likely for our water-faring forebears as it is today with astronauts - actually, arguable more since technology is rigorously tested before any human is allowed near it.

As Brian has said, you're rather grossly underestimating the difficulties faced with ocean travel. There's a reason why humans mostly travel by air for long distances now.

Not everyone is content to view the world through the eyes of others and travel does occur - a lot in fact - and those that do like to travel and go to places themselves get great satisfaction from it. Can you understand that a person would want to see the Grand Canyon and not be satisfied with a photograph of it? Is it entirely possible that seeing something in person is a completely different experience? And that's really the rub here, it's so much more than just about seeing . The fact many places on our planet survive almost soley on tourism proves the validity of the idea that being there is more valuable than mere imagery of it. That no human can possibly see everything is irrelevant.

And I really do pity anyone who has the mindset that they've experienced the pyramids having only seen them on TV.

We've talked about this before. You're making a lot of assumptions about costs here, what's more, this far-reaching robotic exploration isn't happening now in the absence of a manned mission to Mars, so it's unlikely to happen in the future. Further, a rover mission is always going to be a rover mission, and an orbiter is always going to be an orbiter. A manned mission to Mars would be a multi-purpose mission, and practically equivalent to 10 robot missions...

Yes, of course. I prefer to see things in person too, all things being equal. But, if you're honest, you don't go to EVERY place that you'd like to see because there's an expense, an administrative hassle, gotta take time off, plan, etc. We've seen many more things in pictures/documentaries than we can ever visit in person. I'd like to stand on top of Everest, but not so much that I'm prepared to spend $100,000 in an expedition to get up there. If I could simply teleport, sure. And I don't pretend it's the same. Far from it. All I'm saying is that we're making compromises all the time about authentic personal experiences versus travelling costs. And I don't believe seeing Earth from Mars in person is worth $100 billion versus sending a camera there for $300 million. That's just my personal preference. If that trade-off was affordable/practical, sure.

I wish NASA had 5% of government funding instead of 0.5% - then it could afford to flood the solar system with probes AND send humans to Mars. That'd be great. But at the moment, many scientists are pissed off because their probe missions are being cancelled. Hence the advocacy of the Planetary Society.

As we also talked about in another thread way back when, it's about a lot more than just a handful of people physically being able to visit Mars and the cool factor. I think we're all at risk of only seeing the short-term picture here, as are folks like Krauss. The process of a manned mission to Mars is probably the best way of developing better technologies and improving all space exploration. It's by overcoming the obstacles of getting men further out than the moon and to other celestial bodies that we increase our learning of doing so. Practice, practice and trial and error.

We've been doing robotic missions for around 40 years now and haven't really made any significant advances. The robots might be more complicated and do various functions better, but the means of getting them around haven't changed at all. And that's the problem. The two main problems with space travel are weight (for getting off Earth) and speed; robotic missions challenge neither.

"We do these things not because they're easy but because they're hard." And by doing the hard stuff, it'll become easier, and cheaper too as advances produce greater efficiency.