When I was in high school I was invited to a youth science symposium. After a fancy dinner after a day-long event I asked the speaker, a woman from NASA, if a non-returning mission to Mars was on NASA's list of possibilities ( as the difficulty of the return trip is the primary prohibitive part of a manned mission to Mars ). She took this opportunity to try to humiliate me for even thinking such a crazy plan was worth considering, stating that "we would never send anyone to Mars if we could not return them home" as if it was some kind of militaristic "leave no man behind" moral code. I was very disappointed that she didn't even take the time to consider it and argue against it from a reasoned position. I am happy to see that others are not so closed minded these days and that space and planetary exploration will most likely continue with more open-minded people finding ways to reach out push on the edge of our envelope.