Isn't part of the reasoning for doing the former enabling the latter? Isn't it completely essential to do this research before having any chance of sending peop

Isn't part of the reasoning for doing the former enabling the latter? Isn't it completely essential to do this research before having any chance of sending people to Mars? I don't know the answer by the way, perhaps it was 'pure science' without any pretence of knowledge transferring over, but seems extremely unlikely that's the case - a certain amount of transferable knowledge is guaranteed just in the mechanics of doing it.