Should NASA Go to Mars?

Citizen in 15th century europe : Why do we have to spend all this money going to the New World? We have things to pay for here in Europe.

In a thousand years, no one is going to care about your religion, your hippie culture, your gun culture, your football team, the wars of the day. What they will know is who landed on the moon, who went to Mars, and beyond. These are achievements for the entire human race. We have to explore and understand. Its what we do. If anything ever wasnt pointless, its this.

I really do not understand people that dont see the benefits that exploration and science discovery has brought to our lives. As you sit there arguing against it, using the internet, watching your satellite televisions, vaccinated from diseases, taking medication developed from rare hard to find plants, taking trips in vehicles developed and made better by space exploration research...

99.999999999repeating% of the universe as we know it will kill a human being instantly. The only place we know that allows us to live is our one planet. What happens if and when something happens to it? How can developing the science and tech for long manned spaceflight and survival in inhospitable conditions be considered unimportant? Eventually, if we make it that far, itll be the only important thing.