Most of the research to be made on extraterrestrial colonization can be done in the Moon for much cheaper. The terraforming of Mars is also controversial at th

Most of the research to be made on extraterrestrial colonization can be done in the Moon for much cheaper. The terraforming of Mars is also controversial at this point, while we still want to make sure about possible past (or present) life in Mars, so we won't export bacteria to Mars any time soon. We are pretty sure the Moon is devoid of biological life so the first colonies would be placed there. Honestly the only point of sending people to Mars now would be to say "first!" pretty much as it happened when we first landed in the Moon to not come back in many decades.