Comment 13 by Rawhard Dickins

Humanity has to be allowed to have a "sharp end" even if some are starving, unfortunately there will always be some on the fringes of survival, it's fundamental to how evolution works.

This isn't true. It absolutely is not a choice between funding Mars missions and leaving some on the fringes of survival, and that has got nothing whatsoever to do with evolution. The annual cost of this Mars mission is less than the annual budget of McDonalds for advertising Happy Meals. I don't see great moral anguish about humankind's choice between fast-food advertising and starvation.

If there really was a great desire to get rid of starvation in the world it could easily be done by halving defence budgets and putting taxes on the rich back to what they were only decades ago. The amount of money tucked away overseas in tax havens is trillions of dollars.