I know this is a lot of text all at once, but while i'm here, let me tell you that i think that it's important that there's a heavy investment in human spaceflight and especially in settling mars.

I'm not saying that for some delusional reasons of science fiction, but because of the very real and very heavy economic advantages that it has. A massive spaceflight program would create a lot of jobs (if you invest $1b in spaceflight, where does the money go? it goes towards companies that try to build the rockets and necessary machinery, and a large part of that money goes towards jobs and construction materials, so the money continues to circulate in the country.)

And jobs are one of the two very important things that people need to live: food and jobs. Let me illustrate this:

As time progresses forward, we have more resources available (because our production systems work better, as they get improved all the time). but at the same time, a lot of production systems get automated and that reduces the number of jobs. Since people need jobs, new parts of the market need to be developed continuously.

What i'm saying is that if there's a massive push towards spaceflight, somebody will have to build all of the necessary machinery, equipment, and such, and that would create a lot of jobs. It's especially important for american people to have jobs, because americans are typically biased towards enterpreneurship and such, and that's only possible when there's business to be done. i think that's a very important aspect of american society. also, martian human settlement would have the advantage that there's real progress (new lands being explored) and that would also have some positive consequences.