I can't see a space program sending people to Mars in my lifetime. This is not the "Martian", a fiction novel were one man survives on potatoes and successfully rendezvous with a ship in orbit. There still need to be countless unmanned missions to the Red Planet. From my understanding the mission depends on the work of robots to prepare a safe environment for people. The planet is so inhospitable... that surveying and building suitable human shelters should be completed by robots. Terraforming is not an easy task. It isn't impossible, but I'm old and don't expect much in the next 60+ years. Remember there have been 45 Mars Missions and 23 have been failures. Maybe with international cooperation the future will look brighter, but diplomacy is slow and the U.S. has a shortage right now.
IF you think I'm an expert than you probably should read from another source.*
- https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mars/missions/index-past.html
- https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mars/main/index.html
- https://mars.nasa.gov/#
- https://mars.nasa.gov/mars-exploration/missions/historical-log/
