Mars?

So, I am a total Star Trek fanatic and I whole-heartily agree in the philosophy of "To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly going where no man has gone before." But I read this the other day: "Conquer Cancer Before Mars." I have to say that got me thinking. In fact I haven't stopped thinking about it. I always thought that we should be trying to advance, not only in technology but in our civilization. But I have had so many people close to me die of cancer and I will probably die of cancer as well and I wonder wht is more important: human life now or human life in the future?

I decided to look up how much the government spends on Mars. On this site I found out that in 1994 when the government was funding its first Mars mission it was 980 billion dollars over 10 years. It worked out to be about $4.70 per person. That doesn't seem like much.

But on this site they compared it to other things (and it is more current):

Manned Mars Mission - $1 Trillion
Iraq War and Reconstruction - $150 Billion
To Alleviate Global Poverty - $50 Billion
Mars Rovers - $820 Billion

I also read that we have a national debt of Half a Trillion Dollars. (New Yorker, Sept 19, 2008)

So, economically, it seems that while it isn't very much per person, there are much better things to do with our money - pay off the national debt, end poverty, invest in education. But those are just some thoughts.

However, there is the argument that Mars is the only planet that "possesses all the raw materials required to support not only life, but a new branch of human civilization." (click here to read more).

But when it comes right down to it, I would rather pay $4.70 a year on curing cancer, AIDS, fighting poverty, eliminating debt, creating jobs, and improving education than on space exploration. How can we even think to colonize another planet when ours is in such dissaray? If the government does try to colonize Mars in the future, will we be leaving earth to destroy another planet? To kill each other on another planet? To hate on another planet? Is it worth it? No, I don't think so.