Humanity has been interested in exploring space and looking for life on other planets in
recent decades. They gradually changed their focus from the moon to Mars, which is the
most similar planet to Earth in the solar system. Although advocates of manned missions to
Mars claim that exploring Mars will help us to obtain information about the universe, and
benefit humanity, it is not the right time to spend our taxes on these missions. This
exploration will bring negative consequences, including worthless cost during the global
economic downturn. Additionally, safety concerns, health risks, and lack of advanced
technologies are significant challenges for manned space missions. Therefore, Mars
exploration by manned spaceflight is an inappropriate idea and should be stopped right
away.
First of all, costs of manned missions to Mars are expensive. According to Guterl & Heger
(2009), a Mars expedition might cost approximately $500 billion adjusted for inflation.
Moreover, Easterbrook (2004) demonstrated that for the same amount of money to send
humans to Mars, we can build almost 1,000 new Hoover Dams, which are more tangible
and useful. As a consequence, if we did not have to invest large amounts of money on this
mission, we could improve health-care, education, and some other issues that are more
urgent on Earth. For example, rather than spending trillions of dollars toward the Mars
exploration, researching the treatment for diseases here on Earth can improve humans’
lives also. It is very probable that these missions will be the most costly expenditure in
U.S. history during no wartime. Indeed, the economy around the world has collapsed for
