NASA has pledged to put an astronaut on Mars by the mid-2030s and landing humans on the Red Planet is also a major goal for SpaceX, China, Russia and India. However, there are many technical challenges to achieving this and estimates range from tens to hundreds of billions of dollars for a 40-year manned mission to Mars. It remains a tempting ambition and an unequivocal discovery of life by Perseverance or another current robotic rover would certainly provide strong motivation for a journey to the Red Planet.