"what did we learn by going to the South Pole?" We learned what was there. In 1911 there was no other way to find out except to go there. Thats not true of Mar

"what did we learn by going to the South Pole?" We learned what was there. In 1911 there was no other way to find out except to go there. Thats not true of Mars, where we have high-resolution mapping data on most of the planet available to everyone [1] and a couple of active rovers on the surface. I'd like to see humans go there to land, explore, and do science. Something like robomartin describes [2]. You mention adventure. Apollo 8 was a real adventure: new hardware, the second crewed US flight, the first to leave orbit, and they took it around the moon when comparatively little was know about it. Titos's proposal is not the same thing. The crew will apparently have little to do during the 500+ days of the flight except for during a single brief swing around Mars. They won't even orbit. I suspect there is a good chance that the crew will come back psychologically damaged for no real gain. Am I a killjoy for saying that? [1] http://www.google.co.uk/mars/ http://www.google.co.uk/mars/ [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5324850 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5324850