There's a really good article by Paul Davies about his idea on cutting down costs to sending a manned mission on Mars: Make it a one-way trip.

The concept is you send an initial core team to colonize Mars; you send them resources and food every two years and get them to be self-sufficient. Once they are self-sufficient, you can expand on the colony and bring in more people.

I know that there are people out there that would die for this type of opportunity; to have the chance to go to Mars and become a trailblazer ... your name would be written in the annals of history ...

Of course, there is a high probability that you would die, but going into space itself is a huge risk that all astronauts are aware of and accept ...

But imagine if this *did* happen. Imagine how exciting it would be for everyone; for those political scientists who can try to set-up a new governmental system (democracy is probably *not* going to be effective in a place like that) ... and for those scientists who can do real-live experiments and can go explore Mars.

I'm just hoping that this plan will come to fruition and will happen within my lifetime. Those guys at NASA are so smart; they deserve more money to make things better for the human race ... not to be tied down by politics and economic incentives. It would truly be a great human accomplishment to pull off something like this ...

Humans are naturally curious, and understanding our role in the universe can help us become a better society. Wishful thinking, I suppose.