Humans to Mars or humans exploring Mars?

We should rethink how to send humans to Mars — a goal now getting much discussion. With proposed budgets and current technical difficulties in human spaceflight development making such a goal unrealistic, it may be time to change the focus from humans getting to Mars to sustainable exploration of Mars by humans. To that end, we need to deal with how unrealistic the human-to-Mars goal is. Only then can we put forward a new approach that’s more affordable, more achievable and ultimately more exciting for humans to explore Mars.