Should NASA Go to Mars?

Why go to Mars and beyond. There will be some 100 million kids in U.S. schools over the next 10 years. If a Mars program were to inspire just an additional 1% of them to pursue scientific educations the net result would be 1 million more scientists, engineers, doctors ect.
Between 1961 and 1973, with the impetus of the moon race, NASA produced technological innovations at a rate several orders of magnitude greater then that it has shown since.
Director James Cameron said
"We're really at a turning point: We either go forward or we go back. By stopping and stagnating, we actually go back. I look around at the turn of the millennium and I see a prosperous, powerful, technologically unparalleled society, which collectively has no purpose but to feather its own nest. It's a goal-less, rudderless society dedicated to increasing security and creature comforts. Our children are raised in a world without heroes. They are led to believe that heroism consists of throwing a football the furthest, getting the most hang time during a slam dunk, or selling the most movie tickets with your looks and your boyish charm.
This is not heroism, and these are not the valid tests of our mettle as an intelligent race. Young kids need something to dream about, something to measure their value system again. They live in a sea of mind numbing affluence, a point-and-shoot video game world where it's hip not to care, where death and violence have no meaning, where leaders are morally bankrupt, and where the scientific quest for understanding is so not cool. Going to Mars is not a luxury we can't afford. It's a necessity we can't afford to be without. We need this.
We need this, or some kind of challenge like it, to bring us together to all feel a part of something and to have heroes again. The problem is there's no challenge on our horizon like Mars. If we rise to a challenge, we're gonna redefine ourselves, and we're gonna ratchet ourselves up another notch in the evolutionary ladder. In return, Mars will reward us with answers to profound questions and with a renewed sense of self-worth as a species."
http://www.space.com/sciencefiction/cameron_why_mars_825.html