In my opinion the best reason to visit Mars with people is to search for evidence of life on Mars. Several missions have now confirmed that water once flowed on the surface of Mars and have seen many intriguing things but only a human has the dexterity and skill to locate fossils or analyze possibly currently living microbes.

The reason finding life is important is because right now we only have one example of life, our planet. Finding an independently evolved life form on Mars would teach us a great deal about biology and also bring us closer to figuring out if we are alone in the universe.

No one expects a Mars colony or mineral extraction operation on Mars any time soon. For the foreseeable future the purpose will be scientific research into the origin of life and our solar system.

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