Good point and maybe they will soon I wanted to say hello ruff + 5

Mars is a long way away. We don't have the technology to send a spacecraft capable of sustaining people for the lenght of the journy. It would probably take about 8 months just to get there, and that would be when Mars is at its closest point from the earth. :)

Be patient, the moon is very close to earth. A Mars trip will have to be launched from space. A moon base would be helpful or a reliable space station.

It was very expensive and bottom line, it provided the scientific community with very little. The cost of transporting human beings was astronomic (sorry) and unnecessary, except, perhaps for PR, fund-raising, US pride, etc. Our public and private dollars can be better spent in the laboratory, clinic and via unmanned satellites & vehicles.

Well although they seem very closely related in technology, landing on Mars requires more technological development than on the Moon. The trips to the Moon were very short and in comparison with the rest of the Solar System not very far away. The gravity on the moon is also very low so the lander could be lighter (only needs to withstand impacts under moon gravity) and it needed less fuel to get it off the ground (again due to the weak gravitational pull), the command module needed only limited supplies of a around ten days food/oxygen/air as the trip was not that long. These were immense obstacles to overcome in getting something up that could do all that then come back again with live people onboard. Now for a trip to Mars you're talking about 6 months minimum one way. This is also heavily dependent on the propulsion used and the fuel you carry. It also needs the lander (if we say that the return craft stays in orbit to reduce take off weight when they return) which can survive entry into Mars atmosphere (not a problem with the Moon as there is no) and also it needs enough supplies/equipment to carry out a worthwhile expedition there and enough fuel to lift it back up into orbit. With Mars since help is so far away you need to make sure there are backup systems for such a long trip which again adds to cost and weights. You will also need entertainment and a reasonable amount of space for those astronauts to live in so they don't fight or feel uncomfortable (there is no turning back once they're off). When you factor that all of that needs to be lifted into space to begin with that amount of weight becomes very astronomical. Now if the estimated cost of going to the Moon was £138 billion (current money) then going to Mars is going to cost you that again minimum (it will be awfully higher than that probably by factors of 10). That is why the US is investigating a manned lunar base, this would mean that instead of one HUGE craft being lifted all at once from the earth (a rather unfeasible plan) you instead send small chunks up one at a time and assemble them on the moon. This means that when the craft leaves it doesn't need as much initial fuel to escape the moons gravity (when compare to the earths) and also it lowers the cost/unfeasibility immensely (this is dependent on moon running costs, assembly cost/time of course). The Moon may infact be able to supply some of the components of the Mars craft as well (water, fuel, maybe even some metals for components). So to put simply the Space Program took 8 years to do with almost unlimited government funding, or the Mars program it will take an awfully lot longer (the technologies need refining) as Government would be unwilling to throw that much money at it (there was a cold war for the Moon landing so they were trying to outdo Russia, that impulse doesn't exist currently for Mars).